# U.S. Excludes UK, France and Baltics From NATO Future Group, Exposing Alliance Rifts

*Thursday, October 1, 2026 at 6:17 AM UTC — Hamer Intelligence Services Desk*

**Published**: 2026-10-01T06:17:00.079Z (1h ago)
**Category**: geopolitics | **Region**: Europe
**Importance**: 9/10
**Sources**: OSINT
**Permalink**: https://hamerintel.com/data/articles/19309.md
**Source**: https://hamerintel.com/summaries

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**Deck**: Washington has barred the UK, France and the Baltic states from a Pentagon‑led working group on NATO’s future, even as President Trump reportedly says those allies can’t attend next month’s summit in Poland. The decision concentrates planning in a smaller ‘Bergen Group’ and raises pointed questions about who gets to shape the alliance’s next phase.

NATO’s unity is being tested not on a battlefield but around a planning table that some of its most exposed members are no longer allowed to approach. The United States has excluded the United Kingdom, France and the Baltic states from a Pentagon‑led working group on the alliance’s future, while President Donald Trump has said those same countries will not be welcome at next month’s NATO summit in Poland, according to recent statements.

The smaller forum, known as the “Bergen Group,” currently brings together the U.S., Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby has described it as a space to develop ideas that could later strengthen the wider alliance. But the absence of the UK and France—NATO’s two European nuclear powers—and frontline states like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania signals a sharp shift in who Washington sees as its primary partners for shaping the alliance’s next doctrine.

For citizens in the Baltic countries, who live within artillery range of Russian forces, the optics are stark. Their governments have been some of NATO’s most vocal advocates for robust deterrence, higher defense spending and sustained support to Ukraine. Being shut out of a core working group on NATO’s future, and reportedly from the upcoming summit itself, could feed fears that their security is being negotiated without them.

The snub to London and Paris is just as consequential. The UK hosts key American bases and intelligence assets, while France has pushed hard for a larger European role in defense planning, sometimes in tension with Washington. Excluding these two capitals from a U.S.‑convened forum suggests that Trump’s administration wants a tighter circle of states it views as more aligned with its current thinking on burden‑sharing, Russia and China.

Operationally, the Bergen Group’s composition tilts toward northern and northeastern Europe. Norway, Sweden and Finland focus largely on Arctic and Baltic security; Poland sits at NATO’s eastern flank; Germany and the Netherlands anchor the central European rear. That mix could produce a new emphasis on defending the Baltic‑Nordic corridor, reinforcing Arctic bases and building logistics networks tailored to a conflict with Russia.

Yet trying to redesign NATO’s posture without its leading maritime, nuclear and expeditionary powers risks fragmented planning. British and French forces have played central roles in the alliance’s operations from the Balkans to Libya and the Sahel. Their exclusion from early‑stage discussions could lead to strategies that look good on paper but are harder to implement if the militaries expected to execute them were not part of the blueprinting.

Diplomatically, the move may encourage European governments to push harder on defense initiatives outside NATO’s structures, whether under the European Union or ad‑hoc coalitions. It could also deepen mistrust between Washington and those allies already uneasy about Trump’s public questioning of alliance obligations, especially Article 5 mutual defense guarantees.

One sentence captures the risk: when the countries most directly in the line of fire are not in the room where war plans are shaped, it is harder to persuade them that the plans will hold under stress. The next indicators to watch are whether other excluded allies form their own informal caucus, whether the Bergen Group’s proposals are embraced or resisted at the wider NATO level, and whether the reported summit exclusions in Poland stand or are quietly walked back under pressure.