MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Since the beginning of the war with Iran, the president has had harsh words for NATO. Eight months in, the situation may be settling down as NATO allies look for ways to take on a greater role. Steve Walsh with WHRO in Norfolk has the story.
STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: It may not sound like it, but this could be the sound of relations thawing.
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WALSH: On board the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in early October, the U.S. Navy turned over control of NATO Joint Forces (ph) Command Norfolk to a non-American for the first time. British general Nick Perry was diplomatic.
NICK PERRY: What a privilege to take command. What an honor for the United States to allow NATO's Joint Force Command to be based here, and we'll continue to deter, continue to be vigilant and continue to show that we're ready to war fight if necessary.
WALSH: Norfolk, Virginia, is the home of the only NATO commands in North America. Having Europeans take over the day to day role of monitoring the Atlantic, Arctic and the High North was part of the effort to make the alliance more palatable to a Trump administration that openly questions the value of the alliance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on Fox News in April to express the Trump administration's frustration during the early months of the war with Iran.
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MARCO RUBIO: Unfortunately, we are going to have to reexamine whether or not this alliance, that has served this country well for a while, is still serving that purpose, or is it now become a one-way street.
WALSH: When Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the idea to build a new base inside the U.S., he said some of the troops would come from overseas bases that the U.S. pulled back to the western hemisphere.
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PETE HEGSETH: Under this commander in chief's leadership, we are bringing tens of thousands of our finest warriors home from overseas.
WALSH: The U.S. has already begun replacing troops permanently based in Europe, along with their families, with shorter rotations. The worry is this could send the wrong message to Europeans who are already skeptical of the U.S.'s long term intentions says Bryan Clark, a former Navy captain who is now with the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
BRYAN CLARK: The countries have to decide if the transaction, if allowing U.S. operations to happen from their soil, is worth the benefit, because if there's not a U.S. ground troop presence that would be there to defend their territory from Russia, for example, then maybe the trade-off isn't worth it.
WALSH: Since the early months of the war, the U.S. military has increasingly relied on NATO bases in Europe as Iran attacks U.S. bases in the Middle East. Navy ships are being stocked and repaired in Europe. Until recently, the Air Force parked bombers in the U.K. The U.S. sends wounded troops through Germany, Clark says.
CLARK: It cannot fight in the Middle East without having those bases in Europe. The jumping off point for most Middle Eastern operations is Central Europe or even, in the case of the U.K., Western Europe.
WALSH: The recent agreement between Trump and Denmark over Greenland helped cool tensions after Trump threatened to take the territory by force, Clark says.
CLARK: So the U.S. has always had pretty free access to all those installations. What this new agreement does is codifies that access, but it doesn't really change what was allowed for U.S. forces.
WALSH: At the same time, JFC Norfolk has been expanding from just 47 military and civilian personnel in 2024 to more than 500 troops from 26 NATO countries, as more European countries rush to send troops to show the U.S. they are still ready to help with the NATO mission here.
For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh in Norfolk, Virginia.
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