WASHINGTON, October 1. /TASS/. The Pentagon excluded a number of European countries, including the United Kingdom, France and the Baltic states, from a meeting of a working group of North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, Politico reported, citing diplomats.

The newspaper’s sources said the meeting will focus on discussing NATO’s future, but representatives of many countries were not invited. "We’re doing everything that is being asked of us," an official from an excluded ally nation stated. "We’re trying to understand what the criteria is and what the purpose of these meetings are. Not much has been passed on to us yet."

Diplomatic circles fear that Washington’s selectivity could lead to a transformation of the alliance as a whole, while acknowledging that US actions have disappointed its allies, many of which have reached the defense spending targets set by US President Donald Trump’s administration. "If they try splitting NATO into the good ones and the bad ones, it is dangerous for the US," another diplomat told Politico. "But for Europe, this is existential."