The Pentagon’s newly released defense strategy treats Russia much as it had done earlier, Oidsalu went on, speaking to “Esimene stuudio” Wednesday.
Host Johannes Tralla noted that the 2026 defense strategy essentially states that Russia is Europe’s concern and that the U.S. should not be actively dealing with Russia-related threats in the future.
“I may not be quite so dramatic about the events of recent times and about the past year in general. We also read all kinds of papers coming out of Washington perhaps more anxiously and with more paranoia than we perhaps should,” Oidsalu said.
“If you look at this new U.S. defense strategy, it actually talks about Russia in much the same way as it did during the Barack Obama era 10 to 15 years ago. That it is a type of regional problem and that the main adversary (of America – ed.) is still China, which all capabilities should be concentrated on, while Europe, with limited American support, can essentially handle this challenge on its own. It’s just that this new formulation now comes against a slightly different backdrop: There is a major conventional war underway in Europe, which was not the case during Barack Obama’s time,” Oidsalu said.
The new strategy states that U.S. forces will be moved elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and that there will no longer be as many troops left in Europe. According to Oidsalu, however, it is difficult to predict how and whether troops will be withdrawn from Europe. What is certain is that nothing major will change before the end of the year.
“In 2012, [Obama] also began withdrawing forces, reducing the European contingent by nearly 20,000. That was a grim headline for us, yet it was proudly noted that the last American tank had left Europe. We survived that in a somewhat calmer scenario, but our own capabilities, including the defense capabilities of the Baltic states, were multiple times lower back then,” Oidsalu said. In the current case, however, everything is much more public and clearer, Oidsalu added, continuing by saying that the Trump administration is in the hands of “rabble-rousers”. Since several convinced extremists have gained much more of a say, their ambitions in the U.S. have also grown, and the belligerence has risen in line with that.
The host then asked what, in a hypothetical situation where NATO Article 5 is triggered in the Baltic states, would the U.S. do in the first 72 hours, compared with the previous strategy.
“The new strategy document does not say anything that would allow us to claim that the 72 hours you mentioned would be somehow different from before,” was Oidsalu’s answer.
To the host’s request for clarification on whether things would remain the same as they had done, the expert said: “It depends on how… basically there are two options for reducing forces in Europe or tying them less closely to Europe. One is to reduce permanent presence. At present, the Baltic states each also have a U.S. battalion. The other option is to reduce reinforcements. We do not yet know which component will be reduced.”
“As for the 72 hours, that may be a somewhat too small a unit of time when talking about the U.S. Before the aggression against Ukraine, we saw that months and weeks in advance the U.S. provided early warning. We hope that in the future as well – and most likely in the future – the U.S.’ keen eye and lengthy reach will certainly be of help to us and will be highly useful. Among other things, to provide reinforcements if necessary, which do not always come by land, but sometimes also by sea and air and much faster than a ground brigade crossing the ocean,” Oidsalu continued.
Meelis Oidsalu. Source: Priit Mürk/ERR
The new U.S. defense strategy is primarily driven by concern over a war on two fronts, in the Indo-Pacific relating to Taiwan, and another in Europe. “It was acknowledged [in the report] that there is not enough capacity for both, and this choice has now also been made in the strategy document. If such a scenario were to arise, then it is said – when talking about a deterrence and denial war, which we previously assumed that in Europe the U.S. would in any case be present immediately in the first phase – that this would be done in Asia, not in Europe. Elsewhere, assistance would be provided with strategic bombers and other capabilities, which are real capabilities and which also help us. Also, we must not forget that there are still American nuclear weapons in Europe, and as long as there are nuclear weapons here, conventional forces cannot simply leave either,” Oidsalu explained.
Europe must augment its force structure, Oidsalu noted, since at present NATO as a whole is able to field fewer boots on the ground than are currently actually engaged fighting in the Ukrainian army.
“We need manpower, and we also need to deal, among other things, with the reserve. The reserve army concept, which has long been characteristic for us here and also for the Finns, is something that Germany and France are only now cautiously testing to see whether it might work in some way. The need for it exists. The economic superiority, which is also mentioned in the American strategy document, is very large in Europe. We simply have not converted it into military power, and that needs to be done anyway, regardless of what Trump does.”
“Putin also knows that if it were to turn into a long war, there is the capacity to buy additional material resources from somewhere. Europe’s budget is very large and it will not disappear or be depleted any time soon. This kind of financial depth should not be written off in terms of deterrence, because it is certainly a factor. In that sense, Donald Trump has also, without wanting to praise him at all, actually spoken about the right things – namely the numbers that Europe has relatively stubbornly ignored when it comes to defense spending,” Oidsalu concluded.
Background:
The U.S. Department of War issued the 34-page 2026 National Defense Strategy late last Friday. This report, issued once per presidential term, is overseen by U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
The strategy emphasizes maintaining balance in the Indo-Pacific region, with China as the primary concern, while avoiding a costly war. Although the Pacific falls outside NATO’s remit, a conflict there could escalate into a third world war, especially given ongoing supply chain dependencies between NATO’s 32 member states. The U.S. aims to avoid leaving Europe vulnerable on its eastern flank and stresses the need for strong European defense.
The report also recapitulates the 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine, which seeks to repel foreign influence in the Western Hemisphere. While recent events in Venezuela and Greenland are relevant here, this stance remains largely consistent with the last administration under Joe Biden. More notably, under Donald Trump, there was a stronger focus on U.S. border security.
Ahead of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, U.S. intelligence was more certain about the coming war than European counterparts. Western military supplies sent to Ukraine’s western region may have helped defend the eastern front, but at the risk of losing significant amounts of materiel to Russian forces. The Pentagon also reported a loss of US$7 billion in equipment during the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan in August 2021.
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