U.S. De­fense Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth lashed out at NA­TO al­lies on Thurs­day as he an­nounced a six-month Pen­ta­gon re­view of Amer­i­can forces in Eu­rope whose out­come will de­pend on how fast the Eu­ro­peans take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their own se­cu­ri­ty.

The re­view was yet an­oth­er sur­prise for Eu­ro­pean al­lies and Cana­da as they learn to deal with an in­creas­ing­ly un­pre­dictable al­ly. U.S. of­fi­cials and se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cers had promised to co­or­di­nate close­ly with the Eu­ro­peans as Amer­i­ca draws down.

In re­cent months, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and the Pen­ta­gon have sent con­flict­ing sig­nals about whether Amer­i­ca is re­duc­ing or in­creas­ing its mil­i­tary foot­print in Eu­rope, as well as threat­en­ing to an­nex Green­land, a semi­au­tonomous is­land that is part of al­ly Den­mark. Just weeks ago, the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion said that it would no longer pro­vide as much mil­i­tary sup­port should any NA­TO mem­ber come un­der at­tack.