[…] Rubio went out of his way to insist that NATO remains central to US security strategy, repeatedly describing Article 5 as “the bedrock” of collective defense.
But that reassurance was paired with a sharper escalation of demands that many allies privately describe as destabilizing.
The secretary pressed NATO members to move well beyond the alliance’s longstanding two percent defense-spending benchmark, floating figures closer to five percent of GDP – a level even the US does not consistently meet.
That framing has landed uneasily in Brussels, Berlin, and Paris.
“Washington isn’t abandoning NATO,” one European ambassador told Kyiv Post privately, adding, “But what Rubio now describes as commitment increasingly feels like a contract – with penalties for non-compliance.”
European officials say the concern is not merely financial, but conceptual. Rubio’s language suggests a shift away from NATO as a political and security community, toward a performance-based arrangement – one in which US guarantees are reaffirmed rhetorically but narrowed operationally. Läs artikel