The Parallel Arsenal

The United States did not quietly drift away from its allies this year. It announced the departure, and the room started building around it. At Shangri-La on May 30, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a hall full of defense ministers what many already suspected:

The era of the United States subsidising the defence of wealthy nations is over. — Pete Hegseth

That was not a budget plea. It was a doctrinal declaration, and it came with hardware behind it. The Pentagon notified NATO allies on June 3 that it will cut its NATO Force Model contributions by a third of its fighter jets and half its Reaper drones, with fewer destroyers and submarines ^[1]. The U.S. is pulling 5,000 troops from Germany and cutting deep-strike capabilities by 50 percent ^[2]. European trust in the U.S. as a reliable ally has collapsed to 11 percent across 15 countries, down from 22 percent in November 2024 ^[3]. Ursula von der Leyen named the consequence plainly:

created a window for Europe’s leaders to go further and faster — Paweł Zerka

The second force compounds the first. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte proposed that alliance members allocate 0.25 percent of GDP — roughly $143 billion a year — to Ukraine aid. Five members blocked it, including the UK, France, and Canada. Only seven backed it ^[4]. The alliance could not deliver a funding floor for the country it was built to protect. That failure sends every frontline state the same message: a collective guarantee is only as reliable as its most reluctant member, and the most reluctant member can always say no. The response is visible in every theater at once. This is not coincidence. It is a pattern. **Europe: layering parallel guarantees.** Poland now has bilateral mutual defense treaties with both the UK — the Northolt Treaty, including co-production of next-generation air defense missiles ^[5] — and France, plus a practical defense pact with Germany covering cyber, mobility, and new technologies ^[6]. The Germany-Poland pact notably lacks a formal mutual defense guarantee, blocked by WWII reparations politics, but was partly driven by Donald Tusk's frustration at Poland's exclusion from high-level security talks in London ^[6]. France is building a separate nuclear deterrence umbrella: Norway became the ninth country to join via the Narvik Agreement in May, following Poland and Lithuania, covering air defense, space, Arctic security, and cyber ^[7]. France also signed a Status of Forces Agreement with non-NATO Cyprus for Eastern Mediterranean basing ^[8]. Belgium and Turkey, both NATO members, signed nine defense agreements in May — armored vehicle co-production, electronics partnerships, and Belgian advocacy for Turkish access to the EU's €150 billion SAFE initiative ^[9]. The bilateral channel, not NATO's procurement framework, is where the industrial deals are happening. The EU is building the scaffolding beneath all of it. The Defence Readiness Omnibus, provisionally agreed June 10, compresses defense project permitting to a maximum 102 days — down from up to four years — and creates general transfer licenses for defense products between member states ^[10]. It is part of ReArm Europe's up to €800 billion over four years, with Poland as the first SAFE recipient for its Eastern Shield. The EU framework structurally enables the bilateral deals happening everywhere else. **Indo-Pacific: bypassing the U.S. option.** Canada chose Australian radar technology over U.S. alternatives for its $2.5 billion Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar system — the largest defense export in Australian history — and the two countries are pursuing a status of forces agreement ^[11]. South Korea offered Canada a $2.2-to-3.1 billion hydrogen industry investment package contingent on winning Canada's $100 billion-plus submarine contract for 12 diesel-electric vessels, deploying a KSS-III submarine to Victoria as an operational showcase ^[12]. India is exporting BrahMos missiles to Vietnam ($629 million) and the Philippines, with negotiations underway with Indonesia, targeting 50,000 crore rupees in annual defense exports by 2030 ^[13][14]. India and Australia concluded a Joint Maritime Security Collaboration Roadmap at their 10th Defence Policy Talks ^[15]. None of these deals flows through an alliance procurement structure. India's BrahMos program carries its own strategic logic — China containment — independent of the U.S. drawdown, but it fits the same pattern of middle powers building industrial ties through bilateral channels.

The security guarantee layer stays NATO-anchored. The defense-industrial layer — who builds what, who transfers technology to whom, who co-produces with whom — is migrating to bilateral, national, and EU frameworks that can function independently of NATO if the umbrella narrows further. ^[5][10][1]

**The Ukraine inversion.** The most striking development is that Ukraine is no longer just a recipient. Ukraine and Germany are co-developing the Freyja ballistic missile defense system, with Ukraine's Fire Point as prime contractor and Germany's Hensoldt integrating radar ^[16]. Germany is financing production of Ukrainian-designed Termit unmanned ground vehicles — to be manufactured in Germany. As German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius framed it:

By this winter, we should already be seeing concrete results from our joint work on anti-ballistic defense. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Ukraine and Canada launched the Airlogix-Sentinel drone joint venture, producing reconnaissance drones in Canada and giving Canadian engineers real-world electronic warfare data ^[17]. Ukrainian drone firms are pursuing partnerships with Japanese and Taiwanese companies, with Zelenskyy offering sea drone technology to Japan and a delegation to Taichung seeking Taiwanese component suppliers to reduce reliance on Chinese parts ^[18]. The donor-recipient dynamic has flipped: the frontline state is the technology originator, and the middle power is the industrial partner. **Middle East and beyond.** France and the UK co-lead a 15-nation ad hoc coalition to clear naval mines from the Strait of Hormuz — not through NATO, not through the UN ^[19]. When the umbrella holder stepped back, the middle powers organized their own operational coalition. The pattern even extends beyond the Western orbit: Bangladesh and Pakistan signed a 10-year security pact in May, their first structured intelligence cooperation in 15 years ^[20]. Azerbaijan ratified a defense cooperation agreement with Ethiopia covering military education, training, joint exercises, and military-technical cooperation ^[21]. No alliance framework connects either pair.

Then. NATO's collective framework was the primary channel for European defense cooperation, procurement, and mutual assurance ^[4].

Now. Bilateral treaties, EU instruments (SAFE, Readiness Omnibus), and ad hoc coalitions carry the defense-industrial layer, while NATO retains the guarantee function ^[5][10][19].

None of this is abandonment. The B9 Summit in May endorsed a "NATO 3.0" strategy to strengthen the European pillar within the alliance ^[22]. Poland simultaneously built its bilateral treaty network and invited the U.S. to establish a permanent military base of 11,000 to 15,000 troops ^[23]. Japan dispatched SDF personnel to NATO's Ukraine training headquarters in Germany, its first such deployment ^[24]. These countries are not walking away from the alliance. They are hedging — deepening alliance ties while building bilateral supplements to a guarantee they no longer fully trust. The distinction that sharpens the whole picture: Poland wants the U.S. base and the UK treaty. It is building the industrial ties because it cannot be sure the base will still mean what it meant. The parallel network does not require the alliance to dissolve. It is designed to function if the guarantee degrades. And the guarantee is degrading — not by accident, but by announcement. Hegseth said "partners, not protectorates." The partners heard him. They are partnering with each other.