Episode
US expected to shrink troops available to NATO for wars and crises
- Podcast
- Radio National Breakfast
- Published
- May 21, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 376
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/radio-national-breakfast-572135/episodes/us-expected-to-shrink-troops-available-to-nato-for-wars-and-crises/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/radio-national-breakfast-572135/us-expected-to-shrink-troops-available-to-nato-for-wars-and-crises.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
The Trump administration is expected to cut the number of troops available to NATO for fighting wars and responding to major crises - known as the NATO force model. The announcement is expected to be made at a meeting of NATO defence policy chiefs in Brussels later today - according to the news agency Reuters. It comes after the Pentagon abruptly cancelled the deployment of 4,000 soldiers to Poland earlier this week - reportedly blindsiding officials in Warsaw. The Trump administration also ordered the withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Germany earlier this month. So what does it mean for the NATO alliance - and will the US eventually abandon it altogether? GUEST: Douglas Lute, former US ambassador to NATO from 2013-2017 PRODUCER: Pip Cook