Pete Hegseth considers NATO joining Ukraine unrealistic

Long before the US election in November 2024, the worry grew in Ukraine and in Europe that a new US government under Donald Trump could screw the help for the country. These fears are now confirmed by announcements by US Defense Minister Pete Hegseth.

At the meeting of the Ukraine contact group in Brussels, he said that Europe would have to handle the majority of military aid for Ukraine in the future. On the grounds, the new Pentagon boss said that the United States was exposed to its own threats at its limits and by China in the Indopazacific. Therefore, US security policy will focus on the indopacific space in the future. The European NATO countries would have to guarantee security in Europe itself.

With regard to European defense ability, Hegseth said that military spending of five percent of economic output was justified. “This is a down payment for the future.” The United States remained committed to NATO and also the defense community. However, Europe has to take responsibility for its security itself, said Hegseth.

Trump had demanded that NATO countries should spend five percent for defense instead of the two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP). This is also an investment in the own future of NATO members, said Hegseth.

It is the first time that Hegseth has been there at a meeting of the Ukraine contact group since taking office. He also took the opportunity to show Ukraine red lines to a peace mediated by Washington with Russia. Hegseth described a return to the borders of Ukraine before 2014-before the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula by Russia. A NATO membership of Ukraine is also not a “realistic result of a negotiating solution” from a US perspective.

The minister also made it clear that the United States did not plan to send troops to Ukraine to secure a peace solution. “A permanent peace for Ukraine must contain solid security guarantees to ensure that the war is not flaring up again,” he said. European and other troops would have to be used for such security guarantees. “No US troops are sent to Ukraine,” emphasized Hegseth. He excluded a NATO mission.

Trump wanted to bring about a ceasefire with diplomatic means, said Hegseth and emphasized: “The war has to end.”

With his statements, Hegseth fueled the fear that the United States could force a peace solution from Europeans and Ukrainians that the United States could actually emerge from Russia as the winner.

Ukraine has been defending itself against the Russian invasion for almost three years. The Ukrainian Black Sea Peninsula Crimean had already annexed Russia in 2014. The country is currently undergoing a fifth of the Ukrainian state area.

Last year, NATO of Ukraine had guaranteed that it could no longer be stopped on its way to the defense alliance. In the text for the final declaration of a summit in Washington, the path was described as irreversible.