BRUSSELS — Deputy Pentagon chief Elbridge Colby on Thursday urged Europe to continue boosting defense spending in a conciliatory speech that did not mention Donald Trump’s earlier efforts to annex Greenland.

“The turning of the tide has happened and we should take pride and confidence in that,” Colby told the alliance’s defense ministers in a closed-door meeting in Brussels.

In an attempt to mollify the U.S. president, NATO on Wednesday proposed a new Arctic mission meant to respond to Trump’s criticism that the island’s security has been neglected.

Colby, the architect of the recent U.S. defense strategy and seen as a hardliner on Europe, said Washington would “continue to provide the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent” but told allies America wanted “partnership, not dependency.”

He added the U.S. would also “in a more limited and focused fashion” supply key capabilities that European allies lack, and underlined that the administration remains committed to NATO’s common defense under Article 5 of the alliance’s founding treaty.

Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary-general who has devoted most of his energy to stopping Trump from demolishing the alliance, praised Colby’s “excellent speech.”

He also brushed off concern over U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s snubbing the gathering. “We were very fortunate to have Bridge Colby,” he told reporters, calling him “a leading thinker on the role of the U.S. in NATO.”

“He has been a consistent force over the years for Europe and Canada to really step up, when it comes to defense spending,” Rutte said.

However, Colby also underlined that NATO will have to change as the U.S. under Trump shifts to focus more on “the defense of the U.S. homeland and interests in the Western Hemisphere, as well as reinforcing deterrence by denial in the Western Pacific.”

That means a “NATO 3.0,” he said, where Europeans pay more for their own defense and slim NATO’s activities down to its core task of defending alliance territory.

The term won immediate praise from some allies. NATO 3.0 is “a good way to explain his point, which we totally agree on,” Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik told POLITICO.

“We know the Americans, they need to be more present in the Pacific — and that is changing NATO as well,” he said. “We in Europe haven’t done enough.”

More broadly, Colby’s remarks prompted relief from European allies, some of whom had privately worried the U.S. envoy would use the opportunity to lash out at them.

The comments mark a stark contrast to recent NATO summits, where American officials like Hegseth admonished Europe for not paying their fair share for defense and for trying to limit purchases of U.S. weapons.

Colby’s address was “relatively positive and tempered,” said one NATO diplomat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. It felt like “the calm after the storm,” a second NATO diplomat added. 

For his part, Rutte downplayed criticism that the row over Greenland had damaged the alliance. “You will always have debates and discussions within NATO,” he said. “I can assure you, it will be very boring if it wasn’t the case.”