Two back‑to‑back NATO exercises launched in early February — one on Greenland and the other spanning central and eastern Europe — were billed as a test of alliance readiness from the Arctic to the continent’s interior. But the shape and conduct of “Arctic Endurance‑2026” and “Steadfast Dart‑2026” have prompted sober questions about whether Europe can shoulder collective defence without Washington’s weight.
Organisers emphasised a novel, Europe‑led choreography: Denmark initiated the high‑latitude drills on Greenland with small, specialised detachments from Germany and France, while Germany took command of a follow‑up operation that mobilised eleven countries across the Baltic and eastern flank. NATO officials say the two exercises were linked intentionally to rehearse a continuous defence chain from the high north to the European heartland, and planners have floated the idea of merging them into a single, full‑spectrum trial of cross‑border warfare response.
The most striking signal was political as much as military: the United States was absent and Britain played a reduced, secondary role. Denmark and Germany stepped into the leadership vacuum, and Germany used its own “Red Storm‑2025” scenario as a planning template for the larger manoeuvre. That departure from the long‑standing US‑centric operational model is the clearest marker yet of a European drive to prove that it can “mind its own backyard” without American direct command.
Yet the exercises were hobbled by haste and shallow participation. Arctic Endurance was put together in roughly two weeks amid a diplomatic row over Greenland; participant lists shifted repeatedly, the original anti‑submarine and special‑forces syllabus was revised on the fly to focus on island defence, and some nations reportedly sent token single‑person delegations. Steadfast Dart, though larger on paper — roughly 10,000 personnel and 1,500 pieces of equipment — still fell far short of NATO wartime assumptions, which envisage mobilisation scales on the order of 800,000 troops and tens of thousands of platforms.
Operational frictions were conspicuous. Planners had to rewrite cross‑domain deployment plans because of incompatible equipment, ports suffered scheduling failures on the first day, and several Central and Eastern European countries withdrew because they could not muster personnel or cover fuel costs. Key NATO regional commands in Finland and Norway remained on the sidelines, underscoring how symbolic some of the public spectacle was compared with a genuine, alliance‑wide capability test.
The immediate interpretation in foreign media and among defence analysts was that the drills were as much a political theatre as a rehearsal. European capitals sought to signal strategic autonomy to domestic audiences and to partners in Washington and Moscow alike. But even sympathetic observers see a gap between rhetoric and reach: political will for deeper defence cooperation is rising, yet national rivalries, budgetary constraints and lingering interoperability problems persist.
Those divisions are structural. Since 2025 Brussels has advanced documents such as a European Defence White Paper and a “Defence Readiness Roadmap 2030” that envisage a more assertive, less US‑dependent Europe, including proposals for a so‑called military Schengen to ease cross‑border troop movement. Yet France, Germany and the United Kingdom all harbour competing visions of regional leadership; Greece and Turkey are locked in bilateral tensions that complicate southern and eastern security; and inflation and slow post‑pandemic recoveries have pushed publics against large defence budget increases.
The larger strategic implication is a paradox: Europe wants to reduce military dependence on the United States even as the operational gap with a credible large‑scale deterrent remains wide. That creates three risks. First, a premature scaling back of reliance on American forces could weaken deterrence if European capabilities and logistics cannot be rapidly expanded. Second, repeated symbolic exercises without follow‑through investment could hollow out alliance credibility. Third, rivalry among European powers for influence may slow the coherent pooling of resources that true autonomy demands.
For NATO’s transatlantic relationship, the episode should be a warning rather than a rupture. The United States has long been the alliance’s indispensable logistical and high‑end combat power, but Washington’s intermittent political attention and differing threat priorities have nudged Europeans toward greater responsibility. A practical compromise is likely to be hybrid: more European leadership in peacetime planning and regional contingencies, paired with continued strategic dependence on US expeditionary and high‑intensity capabilities until industrial, logistical and political hurdles are overcome.
If Europe intends to translate policy papers into practical independence, it must do more than stage joint exercises. Sustained investment in interoperable platforms, pre‑positioned stocks, fuel and transport financing mechanisms, and dispute resolution among member states will be needed. Otherwise, the drive to “de‑Americanise” NATO will remain a political posture with limited military teeth — visible on parade grounds and press releases, but fragile in a real crisis.