Majda Ruge and Nevada Joan Lee / Jun 2026
Photo: Shutterstock
The Iran War is now a European security problem. It has intensified affordability pressures on American voters, drained US military resources for Ukraine and Europe, and accelerated a more erratic and reactionary form of burden-shifting. Europeans should assume that the recent manner of US retrenchment from Europe will continue. Europeans’ best option now is to shape that process before Washington imposes it in a strategically incoherent manner.
Burden shifting itself is not the biggest challenge for Europe, but the manner in how it is executed. An orderly transition could help Europe stand more independently, but a chaotic one could weaken deterrence, disrupt planning, and damage alliance cohesion before European forces and industries can fill the gaps.
Trump’s Iran war has made the second scenario more likely. To be sure, an orderly scenario was never fully on the books, given President Trump’s propensity to weaponise the US troop presence in Europe, using it as a bargaining chip on other issues or simply to retaliate against what he perceived as unfriendly statements by European leaders.
But a chaotic withdrawal is even more likely now because the domestic politics of the war have intensified the appetite for burden-shifting leading Trump’s Pentagon planners to prioritise speed over strategy.
Political and military costs of Iran war
The war in Iran has become a liability for President Trump and the Republican Party less than six months before the midterm elections. It has damaged one of Trump’s core political promises to end forever wars and avoid costly foreign entanglements.
It has worsened an ongoing domestic affordability shock; the closure of the Strait of Hormuz led to a sharp rise in costs across the board. Gas prices have risen above $4 per gallon in all the states, the national average has increased by 53 per cent since the invasion began, and the inflationary shock is also moving through supply chains, with general inflation accelerating to 3.8%.
The political consequences are already visible, with Trump’s overall approval rating falling to a second-term low of 37 per cent. These domestic pressures have worsened Republican prospects for the midterms. April polls suggest that Democrats lead Republicans by 50 per cent to 39 per cent on the generic congressional ballot.
Now, Trump needs to show voters that he is limiting American exposure and forcing allies to carry more of the burden.
This has translated directly into a burden shifting characterised by vindication, speed, and incoherence. The United States already warned some European allies that their weapon purchases will face delivery delays because the Iran war has drawn down US stockpiles. Trump also decided to withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany after Chancellor Merz’s diplomatic gaffe. The White House cancelled the deployment of rotational brigades to Poland, one of America’s most reliable allies and announced reductions to the US contribution to NATO crisis plans in case of an Article 5 crisis.
Such improvisation combined with the shortage of air-defence systems and other munitions, creates uncertainty, which widens deterrence gaps that European forces and defence industries cannot fill fast enough.
However, just because time is scarce and pressure is mounting, does not mean that Europeans are helpless in this moment.
Europe’s best shot at a successful strategy: keep quiet and hurry up
Changes in the US force posture will take time to agree and implement, perhaps more time than an Administration that may lose its control of Congress will have. This should colour Europe’s strategy. However, that does not mean that Europeans should “keep calm and carry on”. As one senior European official recently suggested: Europeans should instead follow the principle “keep quiet and hurry up”. They should avoid a public confrontation with Trump and move quickly, practically, and with discipline to shape the transition already under way.
Europeans should start from three assumptions.
First, US retrenchment from Europe will continue. The Iran war accelerated the resource and bandwidth pressures behind that trend, but it did not create them. Europe should stop treating every American signal as a discrete crisis and accept that they are part of a structural shift.
Second, Europeans should keep in mind that what burden shifting looks like in practice is not entirely outside of their control. A coordinated shift would allow NATO to plan capability handovers, reinforce vulnerable areas, and align European defence-industrial investment with the gaps US retrenchment will create. A rushed withdrawal would weaken deterrence and create planning chaos. Europe’s goal should be to make the first version more likely by making the second more costly for Washington.
Third, Europe should shape the burden-shifting process before the United States imposes its own chaotic choices. That means identifying officials in the Trump administration who still want an orderly transition, offering concrete European capability plans, and prioritising investment in European weapons systems that reduce dependence on US stocks.
Europeans should also prepare specific proposals for NATO force posture and what Europeans can bring to the table. Arctic defence and securing the Straits of Hormuz once opened should be prioritised policy areas. Those discussions will illuminate the Trump administration’s rationale for its policies on these and broader European issues. On capabilities, Europeans should identify which US capabilities they can realistically replace, which they can partially replace, and which will require negotiated transition periods.
A European plan will not control Trump, but it can give US officials who favour order something to work with. Washington has less attention, fewer available resources, and a president who often treats alliance management as personal leverage. Europe cannot wait for a coherent American strategy. It needs to build one for itself, quietly, quickly, and in close coordination with those in the US who still understand the value of an orderly transition.
