For most of the time since the foundation of NATO, it has been US policy to encourage its NATO allies to be dependent on it. The US view was that non-US NATO members should focus on local operations & specific capabilities in the interest of efficiency, e.g. the Belgian navy should focus on MCM, & their forces should be under NATO command. The USA discouraged its NATO allies from building independent capabilities.
The UK & France were just about the only countries which had some ability to act independently.
So what you're saying is that the USA doesn't like doing what it's spent decades trying to get its allies not to do, & expects them to do without it, even though the forces they have to do it with operate under a multinational command structure in which the USA is the biggest member.
European NATO members have been moving away from that in recent years, but there's often been US resistance to that move, saying that it's wasteful for them to duplicate US capabilities or those which are joint with the USA.
Right. Well they're asked now and been asked for over a decade do make a change. Bringing up what happened decades ago is not a good excuse.
I can understand encouraging NATO allies to avoid duplicity and focus more on land power in nations closer to Russia and naval and air power in nation farther from it, or to avoid duplicity in capabilities built for the alliance and not for one nation. But the general structure of an armed force that is sufficient for independent or cooperative defense with a minimized alliance, is not something I'd logically consider discouraging.
In the end, the UK also has something of a ground army. And Poland has naval and air branches.
NATO is a large group of skeletons, who have been strongly encouraged to spend more on their defense. The US isn't going to tell any NATO member not to buy tanks, planes, or ships, nor is it going to tell anyone not to build factories or recruit more soldiers.
What I seeing now is a US encouraging Europe to rearm. That I've seen for at least a decade. I am seeing a US shifting gradually to the Pacific but regional allies seemingly make no meaningful steps to prepare.
Israel is often criticized for being a security burden on the US, despite probably being the least burdensome ally of all US allies. And Europe for some reason is pissy about being asked to pay the bill.
