“The American troop levels on the continent are important,” he said, alongside his Polish counterpart, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz.

“What happens five, 10, 15 years from now is part of a larger discussion that reflects the threat level, America’s posture, our needs around the globe, but most importantly the capability of European countries to step up,” he added.

“That’s why our message is so stark to our European allies — now is the time to invest because you can’t make an assumption that America’s presence will last forever,” he continued.

Hegseth’s comments come on the heels of a two-day meeting at NATO’s Brussels headquarters that marked his debut on the European stage. He had already hinted then that Europeans would eventually have to provide most of the conventional deterrence against Russia.

The US is currently reviewing its global military presence, but no decision has been made yet on changing force deployments.

Hegseth’s visit to Poland was his first bilateral meeting since he was confirmed by the US Senate. There was a lot of love in the air between him and Kosiniak-Kamysz.

Poland is historically one of America’s closest European allies, seeing the US as a bulwark protecting it against Russia. Poland, which spent centuries under Russian domination, is the top spender in NATO as a percentage of economic output; this year’s defense budget will be 4.7 percent of GDP. That makes it the closest ally to reaching US President Donald Trump’s call for military spending to hit 5 percent of GDP.

“Poland is a country that understands threats. It sees, it feels, because it has its own history, where these threats often resulted in war in our territory, in our beloved homeland,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said, adding, “Freedom needs strength; peace needs strength. There is no such strength without spending.”

Warsaw has also been a big buyer of US weapons, from M1 Abrams tanks to General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II jet fighters.

After years of pressure, Poland has succeeded in getting 8,000 US troops permanently stationed in the country.

That got Hegseth to again call Poland a “model ally.”

He said the “level of partnership is unmatched in Europe, the common bond is unlike others in Europe.” He also praised Poland for investing in local infrastructure for US troops.

“The invitation we receive here, if anything, would make me want to have more troops to Poland — that’s not a policy statement, that’s just how I feel,” Hegseth told reporters.

The two defense chiefs pledged to enhance cooperation.

Poland and the US will set up joint ventures to boost “capacity to produce ammunition, armament,” stated Kosiniak-Kamysz. Poland “wants to be a service hub for the American equipment used on NATO’s eastern border,” he added.

In a testament to the special bond between Warsaw and Washington, Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that the Polish armed forces would be exempt from Trump’s recent freeze of the US State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program, which enables eligible partner nations to purchase American gear.

Speaking to European political leaders, military officers and diplomats at the Munich Security Conference, Vance surprised the audience by dismissing the risk of Russian political interference in Europe, taking a similar stance to US President Donald Trump, who has railed against claims by US intelligence agencies that Russia had interfered on his behalf in the 2016 election.

Vance adopted a confrontational tone, accusing European politicians of what he said was a fear of their own people and warned them that the real threat against their democracy was not from Russia or China.

“The threat I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States of America,” Vance added.

The future of Ukraine was at the top of the agenda in Munich after a phone call between Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin this week where they pledged to work together to end the conflict, but Vance did not bring it up.

Instead, he stated Brussels had shut down social media over hateful content, and criticized Germany for what he described as raids against its own citizens for posting anti-feminist comments, Sweden for convicting a Christian activist, and United Kingdom for backsliding on religious rights.

A Reuters reporter in one of the side rooms where more delegates could listen to Vance said people appeared stunned and did not applaud.

Vance specifically targeted the December cancellation of Romania’s elections, which were annulled by the country’s top court after accusations of Russian meddling, dismissing worries of disinformation as “ugly Soviet-era words”.

“If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you,” Vance said.

Romania’s Nov. 24 vote was annulled after declassified security documents said Romania had been a target of “aggressive hybrid Russian attacks” during the election period.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has dismissed allegations of Moscow’s involvement in the Romanian presidential election as “absolutely groundless.”

Vance questioned Washington’s support and funding of what was billed as a defense of democracy and support of Ukraine in the name of shared values.

“But when we see European courts canceling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard,” he added.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stressed on Friday that a speech by Vance at the Munich Security conference felt as if the United States was ‘trying to pick a fight’ with Europe.

“Listening to that speech, they try to pick a fight with us and we don’t want to a pick a fight with our friends,” Kallas said at the Munich event.

Kallas added that allies should be focusing on bigger threats like Russia’s war on Ukraine.