U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's message this week to his Baltic counterparts about a potential reduction of American forces in Europe was not, in itself, anything new. According to security expert Rainer Saks, this has been discussed for the past 15 to 20 years and troop levels have already been reduced over time.

"The most important thing for Estonia, as well as for any other European country, is everything related to the U.S. nuclear deterrent. That is NATO's most vital and powerful form of deterrence and as long as it remains unquestioned and is accepted as effective, it provides the most reliable guarantee of Europe's defense. This deterrence is primarily tied to operations in the Atlantic Ocean," Saks said.

In Saks' view, any reductions would most likely target those components that are costly to maintain due to personnel expenses and that are not of major strategic significance.

"In fact, this might not be harmful to Europe at all, because Europe needs to significantly strengthen its own defense capabilities, and in a situation where the U.S. does not scale back its assets, the motivation to do so would probably be much weaker," Saks said.

This sentiment is echoed by retired Brig. Gen. Alar Laneman (Reform), a member of the Riigikogu National Defense Committee. He believes it would also benefit Europe if the U.S. were to focus more on containing China, which supports Russia's war of aggression either directly or indirectly.

"I don't think many people genuinely believe that the shells coming from North Korea are actually produced there. The label might say North Korea, but I don't think anyone would be surprised to learn they came from somewhere else — a different and much larger country," Laneman said.

It is currently unclear to what extent the cuts would affect the U.S. troop presence in Estonia and the other Baltic states.

Chair of the National Defense Committee Kalev Stoicescu (Eesti 200) expressed hope that the United States would not withdraw its forces from the Baltic countries.

"The worst-case scenario for us would be if the Pentagon said, 'There are about 600 to 700 troops in Estonia and similar numbers in Latvia and Lithuania — that's so few, we might as well pull them out.' That would be a very bad scenario. We might not be much weaker militarily, but politically it would be a major setback," Stoicescu said.

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