President Donald Trump has linked his desire to own Greenland with the development of his nascent missile defense shield, Golden Dome. Except that he doesn’t need to seize the Danish territory to accomplish his goal. Golden Dome, Trump’s pricey vision to protect the U.S., is a multi-layered defense shield intended to block projectiles heading toward the country. The president announced a $175 billion, three-year plan last year, although gave few details about how the administration would fund it. “The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security,” Trump said Wednesday in a Truth Social post. “It is vital for the Golden Dome we are building.” But the country already has the access it needs in Greenland to host interceptors that could knock down enemy missiles. And the U.S. has other locations it could place similar defense systems — think New York or Canada — if many of the interceptors are even based on land, instead of space as envisioned. “The right way for the U.S. to engage with an ally to improve our homeland defense — whether through additional radars, communication antennas or even interceptor sites — is to engage collaboratively with that ally,” said a former defense official. “If strengthening homeland defense is the actual goal, this administration is off to a truly terrible start.” Here are three reasons why Golden Dome has little to do with Trump’s desire to take Greenland: HE COULD HAVE JUST ASKED DENMARK The U.S. military’s presence in Greenland centers on Pituffik Space Base, which operates under a 1951 defense agreement with Denmark that grants the U.S. regular access to the island. The base is a key outpost for detecting threats from the Arctic, although it doesn’t host any interceptor systems. If the Pentagon wanted to station interceptors or more sensors on the island, the U.S. could simply work with Denmark to do so, according to the former official and a defense expert. Greenland has been part of the U.S. homeland missile defense and space surveillance network for decades and it would continue that role under Golden Dome, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “We already have unfettered access to what we need for Golden Dome in Greenland, but the president talks as if he’s not aware of that,” Harrison said. “His statements about Greenland are detached from reality.” The White House, when asked for comment, pointed to Trump’s post. HE COULD CHOOSE SOMEWHERE ELSE — THAT THE U.S. OWNS Greenland could prove a good location for ground-based interceptors that block missiles launching from Russia and the Middle East towards the U.S. But the U.S. has other options for interceptor locations, and none would necessitate taking another country (a seizure that could threaten to destroy the NATO alliance). The Pentagon has examined potential locations for interceptor sites and Fort Drum, an Army base in upstate New York, has routinely survived deep dive analysis by the Missile Defense Agency, said the former defense official, who, like others interviewed, was granted anonymity to speak about internal discussions. “Compared to Fort Drum, Greenland does not appear to be a better location for such interceptors,” the person said. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Ala.) has also said his state could play a “critical role” in housing interceptors. MUCH OF THE DEFENSE SHIELD IS SUPPOSED TO BE BASED IN SPACE Trump’s assertion about needing Greenland for Golden Dome also raises questions about what the multibillion-dollar architecture will actually look like. The Pentagon has largely avoided discussing the price tag publicly. And officials originally envisioned most of it located above the Earth. A key part of Golden Dome is space-based interceptors — weapons orbiting the planet that can shoot down incoming missiles. But moving missile defense systems to space would require fewer ground-based systems, negating the importance of acquiring more land for the effort. “If Golden Dome’s sensor network and defenses are primarily space-based — as per the current plan — Greenland might still be of value,” said a former defense official. “But less so than it would be for terrestrial architecture.”

The U.S. has ordered the evacuation of some personnel from its largest base in the Middle East as President Donald Trump weighs strikes against the Islamist regime in Iran. The move echoes similar actions last year in the run-up to the joint U.S.-Israeli air and missile strikes on Iranian nuclear program sites. But a U.S. defense official cautioned this evacuation was a precautionary step as Tehran struggles with mass anti-government protests with security officials killing numerous protesters. The shift of some forces from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar comes after Trump told Iranians on Tuesday that “help is on its way,” and warned Americans in Iran they should think about evacuating the country. A former U.S. official familiar with the situation said aircraft had also been moved. The current and former officials were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive national security issue. Reuters first reported the evacuation. The Qatari government said in a statement Wednesday that the evacuations from Al Udeid “are being undertaken in response to the current regional tensions.” The Pentagon stations about 10,000 U.S. troops at the sprawling Al Udeid, along with smaller bases in the region in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. The base has its own air defenses, which were put to the test in June when Iran attacked it with ballistic missiles. But one Patriot missile interceptor that was sent there before the attack has since been shipped back to South Korea.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared he would ask Congress for a $1.5 trillion defense budget in 2027, a massive $500 billion increase from this year’s Pentagon budget. The huge boost likely reflects how expensive some of Trump’s military ambitions are, from the Golden Dome air defense effort to his call for a new battleship design. Neither of those programs could be fully funded under current spending levels. The president provided few details in his post on Truth Social, other than to say the money would pay for his “Dream Military.” Trump did suggest that tariff revenues could cover the increase, but even if he managed to circumvent Congress’ constitutionally mandated power over spending, existing tariff collections would still be several hundred billion short of what the president plans to ask for. While finding half-a-trillion dollars in new spending would prove difficult, Trump and some congressional Republicans appeared confident they could do so. The budget reached $1 trillion this year thanks to $150 billion in new money Congress voted to pour into Pentagon coffers via a reconciliation bill, although much of that will be spread out over the next five years on various long-term projects. Lawmakers have yet to complete a defense spending bill for this fiscal year, although a final agreement is expected to increase Trump’s budget request by several billion dollars. Some Republicans have long argued for significant annual increases in Pentagon funding, with a topline total of around 5 percent of GDP, up from the current 3.5 percent. Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) called Trump’s aspirations “a good news story” after his administration proposed budgets defense hawks on Capitol Hill saw as lacking. “We think we need a permanent 4 percent [of GDP] or better,” Bacon said. “That’s what it’s gonna take to build our Navy, our Air Force, our ICBMs, our bombers, and take care of our troops.” The 2026 budget only reached $1 trillion due to the $150 billion added on by Congress. That one-time infusion gave a boost to Golden Dome as well as new initiatives to build more precision-guided munitions and air defense weapons. But the funding will need to be included in year-on-year spending legislation, something Trump’s new proposal appears to take into account. Trump’s surprise budget announcement came just hours after he sent defense stocks plunging by railing against the performance of major defense companies. In another social media post, Trump said he would not allow defense companies to buy back their own stocks, offer executives large salaries and issue dividends to shareholders. He also slammed the companies for moving too slowly, and charging too much, for weapons. “A lot of us are saying we want a commitment to a sustained spending [increase], not just a one-year,” Bacon said. The White House and Republicans have left open the possibility of another party-line megabill that could be used to increase defense spending again this year. It is unclear if GOP leaders are willing to pursue the procedurally and politically arduous approach again while they still maintain control of both chambers of Congress. Republicans would need to use that process again to accommodate even a portion of Trump’s request because Democrats are likely to balk at any move that slashes healthcare benefits, education and foreign aid in the ways Republicans have sought, said one defense lobbyist. “Golden Dome and Golden Fleet are completely unaffordable without budgets of this size, so the administration would need to come up with the numbers to back it up,” said the lobbyist, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive spending dynamics. “But my guess is that the extra money will have to be in reconciliation.” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said overall defense spending “needs to go up,” but wouldn’t say if the massive increase pitched by Trump is realistic. “I’ll take any request the president makes seriously, and we’ll see,” Cole said. Another senior House appropriator, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), hailed Trump as “absolutely right” in his own post. “For too long, we have underfunded our defense apparatus—undermining our national security and benefiting our foreign adversaries,” Womack said. “A strong national defense is critical to our long‑term prosperity and to protecting our country against every emerging threat. I commend President Trump for his leadership and look forward to working to advance a $1.5 trillion defense bill.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth got an unexpected Christmas gift from President Donald Trump this year: Hegseth’s embattled chief of staff — who’d been doing the job in an acting capacity for eight months — will take the role permanently, according to two people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel issues. Hegseth reportedly tried to make Ricky Buria his official chief of staff beginning in the spring but was blocked by the White House presidential personnel office. Buria was a former junior military aide for Biden-era Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and donated to a Democrat in 2023, according to FEC records. Pinch hitter: Buria replaced former Hegseth chief of staff Joe Kasper who left in the spring shortly after a wave of firings of Hegseth senior aides that Pentagon officials attributed to a leak investigation. Several of the aides contested the investigation and their subsequent dismissals. Besides being very close to Hegseth, Buria has also reportedly won over Hegseth’s wife Jennifer. Buria updated his LinkedIn profile on Friday to note the change to chief of staff from “senior adviser.” The retired Marine has clashed repeatedly with other Pentagon Trump appointees. He recently tried unsuccessfully to oust fellow Hegseth senior aide Patrick Weaver, POLITICO reported. Buria also tried to fire Matt McNitt, White House liaison to the Pentagon, but McNitt kept his job and is now also temporarily dual-hatted to a role in the White House. In the late summer, the White House reupped its search for a new Hegseth chief of staff, following the Buria dustup with McNitt, who had told him he would never be chief of staff. Early retirement: After twenty years in the Marines, Buria retired from the military as a colonel after getting a waiver from Trump even though he had only held the rank for a brief amount of time. “Secretary Hegseth has put together an all-star team, and we are proud of our historic accomplishments,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. A spokesperson for the White House had no immediate comment.

Two U.S. Army soldiers and one U.S. civilian interpreter were killed while three service members were left wounded in an ambush attack on Saturday in Palmyra, Syria, U.S. officials confirmed. Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesperson, confirmed the news on X Saturday morning, saying the two soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” and that their mission in the city was “in support of on-going counter-ISIS / counter-terrorism operations in the region. In a press release, U.S. Central Command said the attack was carried out by a “lone ISIS gunman” who was “engaged and killed.” President Donald Trump on Saturday said that in light of the attack, which he framed as an assault on both the U.S. and Syria, there will be “serious retaliation.” The president also said the soldiers were killed “in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them.” A Pentagon official said that Saturday’s attack took place in an area where current Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa does not have control. As of April, the U.S. had about 2,000 troops stationed in Syria involved in advisory, training, and counter-ISIS missions. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed that the person who perpetrated the attack had been killed. “Let it be known, if you target Americans — anywhere in the world — you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you, and ruthlessly kill you,” Hegseth added in his post on X. The Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces also weighed in on X, saying, “We express our regret for the injury of a number of public security personnel and U.S. soldiers following their exposure to gunfire in the Syrian Badia while performing their duties,” according to a translation of the post from Arabic. The U.S. first deployed to Syria during the Obama administration as part of the Operation Inherent Resolve coalition to fight ISIS. After ISIS lost almost all territorial control by 2019, the U.S. did not fully withdraw but kept a smaller contingent of troops in the Middle Eastern nation to prevent the group’s resurgence. In 2024, the longstanding government of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell, and a new transitional Syrian government formed with U.S. encouragement. Parnell, in his statement, said the soldiers’ names, as well as identifying information about their units, are being withheld for 24 hours after the next of kin notification. He also said an active investigation is underway.

BRUSSELS — The EU’s top defense official issued an unusually sharp warning on Wednesday, arguing that the new U.S. National Security Strategy “surprises by its clear antagonism towards the European Union” and amounts to a geopolitical play to prevent Europe from ever becoming a unified power. In a strongly worded blog post published just days after Washington released its 2025 NSS, EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius argued that Washington’s framing of Europe’s supposed “civilizational erasure” is not rooted in genuine concerns about values or democracy, but in hard-edged U.S. geopolitical calculations.  “EU unity is against USA interests,” Kubilius wrote, summarizing the logic he said underpins the Trump administration’s document. He pointed to passages in the strategy urging Washington to “cultivate resistance” inside European countries and to work with nationalist parties opposed to deeper integration, language he interpreted as evidence the U.S. is ready “to fight against the European Union, against our strength through unity.” Trump’s view on Europe was underlined in an interview with POLITICO where he denounced European leaders as “weak” and that he would endorse candidates in European elections, even at the risk of offending local sensitivities. Kubilius wrote that the U.S. now sees a more cohesive EU as a potential challenger to American influence. “The US National Security Strategy’s antagonistic language on the European Union comes not from American sentimental emotions about ‘good old Europe,’ but from deep strategic considerations,” he wrote. Kubilius linked the strategy’s worldview to the ideas of Elbridge Colby — now a senior Pentagon official — whose book “The Strategy of Denial” argues that the U.S. must prevent any region from forming a dominant power capable of constraining American access to markets.  Kubilius noted that Colby identifies “the European Union or a more cohesive entity emerging from it” as being “capable of establishing regional hegemony and unduly burdening or even excluding US trade and engagement.” Kubilius argued that this strategic perspective, rather than ideological disagreements, explain the NSS’s unusually hostile tone toward Brussels. “Let’s hope,” he concluded, there “will be enough prudence on American soil not to fight against the emerging power of European unity.”

Sprawling defense legislation set for a vote as soon as this week would place new restrictions on reducing troop levels in Europe, a bipartisan rebuke of Trump administration moves that lawmakers fear would limit U.S. commitments on the continent. A just-released compromise version of the National Defense Authorization Act — which puts Congress’ stamp on Pentagon programs and policy each year — has been in the works for months. The measure stands in stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, which sharply criticizes European allies and suggests the continent is in cultural decline. Lawmakers also endorsed a slight increase in the Pentagon budget with a price tag that is $8 billion more than Trump requested. And it would repeal decades-old Middle East war powers, a small win for lawmakers who’ve been fighting to reclaim a sliver of Congress’ war-declaring prerogatives. The final bill is the result of weeks of negotiations between House and Senate leadership in both parties, heads of the Armed Services panels and the White House. The measure had been slowed in recent days by talks on issues unrelated to defense, including a major Senate-backed housing package and greater scrutiny of U.S. investment in China. The defense bill typically passes with broad bipartisan support. Speaker Mike Johnson will likely need to win back some Democrats who opposed the House GOP’s hard-right initial bill in September. And the speaker will have to contend with fellow Republicans upset that their priorities weren’t included. But both House and Senate-passed defense bills reflected bipartisan concerns that the Trump administration would seek to significantly reduce the U.S. military footprint in Europe. Both measures included language that imposes requirements the Pentagon must meet before trimming military personnel levels on the continent below certain thresholds. Republicans, led by Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and House Armed Services Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), broke with the Trump administration, arguing that troop reductions — such as a recent decision to remove a rotational Army brigade from Romania — would invite aggression from Russia. The final bill blocks the Pentagon from reducing the number of troops permanently stationed or deployed to Europe below 76,000 for longer than 45 days until Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the head of U.S. European Command certify to Congress that doing so is in U.S. national security interests and that NATO allies were consulted. They would also need to provide assessments of that decision’s impact. The legislation applies the same conditions to restrict the U.S. from vacating the role of NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, a role that the U.S. officer who leads European Command chief has held simultaneously for decades. Negotiators included similar limitations on reducing the number of troops on the Korean Peninsula below 28,500, a provision originally approved by the Senate. Lawmakers agreed to a slight increase to the bill’s budget topline, reflecting some momentum on Capitol Hill for more military spending. The final agreement recommends an $8 billion hike to Trump’s $893 billion flat national defense budget, for a total of roughly $901 billion for the Pentagon, nuclear weapons development and other national security programs. The House-passed defense bill matched Trump’s budget request while the Senate bill proposed a $32 billion boost. Republicans separately approved a $150 billion multi-year boost for the Pentagon through their party-line tax cut and spending megabill earlier this year. Regardless of the signal the topline budget agreement sends, the defense policy bill does not allocate any money to the Pentagon. Lawmakers must still pass annual defense spending legislation to fund Pentagon programs. House Armed Services ranking member Adam Smith (D-Wash.) described the agreement as a “placeholder” that would allow lawmakers to finish the NDAA, while congressional appropriators continue their talks on a separate full-year Pentagon funding measure. A House Republican leadership aide who, like others, was granted anonymity to discuss details of the bill ahead of its release, said the revised topline is a “fiscally responsible increase that meets our defense needs.” The bill also would repeal a pair of old laws that authorize military action in the Middle East, including 2002 legislation that preceded the invasion of Iraq and the 1991 Gulf War. Those repeals were included in both the House and Senate defense bills as bipartisan support for scrubbing the old laws — which critics contend could be abused by a president — overcame opposition from some top Republicans. Repealing those decades-old measures is a win for critics of expansive presidential war powers, who argued the measures aren’t needed anymore. They point to the potential for abuses — citing Trump’s use of the 2002 Iraq authorization to partly justify a strike that killed Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in 2020. A second House GOP leadership aide said the repeal of the two Iraq authorizations won’t impact Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief. But the repeal is ultimately a minor win for lawmakers seeking to reclaim congressional power. The 2001 post-9/11 authorization that undergirds much of the U.S. counterterrorism operations around the world remains on the books. And the bill is silent on Trump’s ongoing campaign against alleged drug smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. Many lawmakers — including some Republicans — have questioned the administration’s legal justification for the lethal strikes. The final bill also doesn’t include an expansion of coverage for in-vitro fertilization and other fertility services for military families under the Tricare health system. The provision, backed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) and others, was included in both Senate and House bills before it was dropped. Johnson reportedly was seeking to remove the provision, which similarly was left out of last year’s bill.

A pair of documents laying out the Trump administration’s global security strategy have been delayed for weeks due in part to changes that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted on concerning China, according to three people familiar with the discussions on the strategies. The documents — the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy — were initially expected to be released earlier this fall. Both are now almost done and will likely be released this month, one of the people said. The second person confirmed the imminent release of the National Security Strategy, and the third confirmed that the National Defense Strategy was coming very soon. All were granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The strategies went through multiple rounds of revisions after Bessent wanted more work done on the language used to discuss China, given sensitivity over ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing and the elevation of the Western Hemisphere as a higher priority than it had been in previous administrations, the people said. The National Security Strategy has been used by successive administrations to outline their overall strategic priorities from the economic sphere to dealing with allies and adversaries and military posture. The drafting goes through a series of readthroughs and comment periods from Cabinet officials in an attempt to capture the breadth of an administrations’ vision and ensure the entire administration is marching in the same direction on the president’s top issues. The administration has been involved in sensitive trade talks with Beijing for months over tariffs and a variety of trade issues, but the Pentagon has maintained its position that China remains the top military rival to the United States. The extent of the changes after Bessent’s requests remains unclear, but two of the people said that Bessent wanted to soften some of the language concerning Chinese activities while declining to provide more details. Any changes to one document would require similar changes to the other, as they must be in sync to express a unified front. It is common for the Treasury secretary and other Cabinet officials to weigh in during the drafting and debate process of crafting a new strategy, as most administrations will only release one National Security Strategy per term. In a statement, the Treasury Department said that Bessent “is 100 percent aligned with President Trump, as is everyone else in this administration, as to how to best manage the relationship with China.” The White House referred to the Treasury Department. Trump administration officials have alternately decried the threat from China and looked for ways to improve relations with Beijing. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to deliver a speech on Friday at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California, on Pentagon efforts to build weapons more quickly to meet the China challenge. At the same time, Hegseth is working with his Chinese counterpart, Adm. Dong Jun, to set up a U.S.-China military communication system aimed to prevent disagreements or misunderstandings from spiraling into unintended conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Bessent told the New ‍York Times Dealbook summit on Wednesday that China was on schedule to meet the pledges it made under a ‌U.S.-China trade agreement, including purchasing 12 million metric tons of soybeans by February 2026. “China is on track to ‍keep every ⁠part of the deal,” ⁠he said. Those moves by administration officials are set against the massive Chinese military buildup in the Indo-Pacific region and tensions over Beijing’s belligerent attitude toward the Philippines, where Beijing and Manila have been facing off over claims of land masses and reefs in the South China Sea. The U.S. has been supplying the Philippines with more sophisticated weaponry in recent years in part to ward off the Chinese threat. China has also consistently flown fighter planes and bombers and sailed warships close to Taiwan’s shores despite the Taiwan Relations Act, an American law that pledges the U.S. to keep close ties with the independent island. The National Security Strategy, which is put out by every administration, hasn’t been updated since 2022 under the Biden administration. That document highlighted three core themes: strategic competition with China and Russia; renewed investment and focus on domestic industrial policy; and the recognition that climate change is a central challenge that touches all aspects of national security. The strategy is expected to place more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere than previous strategies, which focused on the Middle East, counterterrorism, China and Russia. The new strategy will include those topics but also focus on topics such as migration, drug cartels and relations with Latin America — all under the umbrella of protecting the U.S. homeland. That new National Defense Strategy similarly places more emphasis on protecting the U.S. homeland and the Western Hemisphere, as POLITICO first reported, a choice that has caused some concern among military commanders. Both documents are expected to be followed by the “global posture review,” a look at how U.S. military assets are positioned across the globe, and which is being eagerly anticipated by allies from Germany to South Korea, both of which are home to tens of thousands of U.S. troops who might be moved elsewhere.

The publisher of children’s book series Franklin the Turtle hit out at “unauthorized” depictions of its main character after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted a mock cover of Franklin shooting at drug traffickers. Hegseth shared Sunday an image of a children’s book, titled Franklin Targets Narco Terrorists, showing the eponymous turtle dressed in military gear, standing in a helicopter and firing a weapon at boats loaded with cargo and men with guns. “For your Christmas wish list,” Hegseth captioned the picture. His post was a reference to the Trump administration’s deadly strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific in recent months, which have killed more than 80 people, according to the Pentagon, and raised concerns among lawmakers and others about the limits of executive power and the strikes’ compliance with international law. “Franklin the Turtle is a beloved Canadian icon who has inspired generations of children and stands for kindness, empathy, and inclusivity,” the publisher Kids Can Press wrote in a statement on X. “We strongly condemn any denigrating, violent, or unauthorized use of Franklin’s name or image, which directly contradicts these values,” the publishing house added. The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth directed the U.S. military to kill any survivors in a Sept. 2 strike on a boat off the Trinidad coast that initially left two people clinging to the smoking wreckage. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting. The White House on Monday confirmed a second strike in September had killed injured civilians after the first effort failed — but top officials in the Trump administration have stated pointedly it was U.S. Special Operations Command head Adm. Frank Bradley’s call, not Hegseth’s. Bradley was “within his authority and the law” in conducting the second strike, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. Hegseth himself called Bradley “an American hero” and pledged his “100% support” in a post on X that placed responsibility for the Sept. 2 strike on the admiral. “I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since,” Hegseth wrote. The Franklin books see the young turtle dealing with life’s everyday challenges, such as Franklin Goes to the Hospital and Franklin Rides a Bike, and teach about themes such as courage and empathy.

BUCHAREST — Washington should scrap its plan to withdraw hundreds of troops from Romania, the country’s deputy defense minister told POLITICO, arguing the decision could fuel Russian propaganda around NATO disunity. “I believe this decision can be overturned … and it should be overturned,” said Romanian State Secretary for Defense Sorin Moldovan. Last week, the Pentagon said it would redeploy an infantry brigade of around 800 troops back to Kentucky from Romania, as the U.S. military reorients its focus to domestic priorities like border protection and the Indo-Pacific region. “I understand the current administration plans — that they want to review [their] posture in Europe,” said Moldovan.  But “it’s not a good sign in our bilateral relationship,” he said, adding: “We need to have a stronger bilateral talk with the U.S. to make the current administration understand that the threat is here on the eastern flank.” The U.S. Department of Defense did not respond to a request for comment by POLITICO. The withdrawal comes at a sensitive time for NATO, which is scrambling to address gaps in its aerial defense systems and is dealing with escalating suspected airspace incursions from Russia — including in Romania. Publicly, European and NATO officials have played down the significance of the drawdown, even as U.S. lawmakers have cried foul over the move. On Wednesday, NATO chief Mark Rutte and Romanian President Nicușor Dan said the U.S. decision would not create gaps in the country’s defenses. Other allies like the U.K. and Norway also dismissed suggestions the move showed Washington was no longer committed to NATO. “If we speak on operational levels, nothing has changed since the withdrawal,” Moldovan agreed. “But the … political symbolism is a bit weird to have right now,” he added, arguing it risks feeding into Russian “propaganda” about a lack of unity within NATO. And while Washington seeks to pivot toward Asia, he argued it must take into account how globalized Moscow’s all-out war in Ukraine has become. Russia has increasingly benefitted from support from China, Iran and North Korea in its war effort.  “We are talking not only about Russia … keep in mind that North Korea sent troops in Ukraine … Iran helped Russia with its capabilities as well,” he said. “We need to see the big picture.” “Our security is built on trusting our allies as well, and we are very much counting on U.S. support in the eastern flank,” Moldovan added. “NATO is stronger only when all allies are present there.”