Häkkänen’s comments echo those of German Defense Boris Pistorius, who last month asked his U.S. counterpart Pete Hegseth to “develop a roadmap to avoid gaps in capabilities, organize burden sharing progressively, to know who does what” in case the U.S shifts forces from Europe to the Indo-Pacific.
Pistorius said he got no answer from either the White House or the Pentagon.
European countries are scrambling to recalibrate the continent’s defenses as the administration of Donald Trump wages economic war against the EU, warms ties with Russia, warns it may not defend NATO allies it feels underspend on defense, and threatens to invade Greenland.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers — dismissed worries about America’s commitment to the alliance as “hysteria.”
At the same meeting, NATO chief Mark Rutte argued there are “no surprises” within the alliance and that any U.S. pivot toward Asia would be done “in a very coordinated manner.”
The Finnish minister was sympathetic to U.S. arguments about the need to shift to Asia. “The message I get from the Americans, and from the Pentagon side, is that we need to understand their pressure [from] China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific area.”
