Washington/Brussels/Paris: The NATO alliance, battered by Ukraine’s war and Donald Trump’s earlier salvos questioning its purpose — including threats to grab Greenland — now faces its gravest peril yet from a distant US-Israeli air campaign against Iran that began February 28.
Analysts and diplomats warn this Middle East conflict has plunged the 76-year-old bloc into its feeblest condition since inception, with Trump mulling withdrawal after Europeans rebuffed calls to dispatch navies and clear the Strait of Hormuz for world trade.
“Wouldn’t you if you were me?” Trump told Reuters in a Wednesday interview.
That evening’s speech skewered US partners but sidestepped outright NATO rebuke, though his barbs have sparked panic that America might ditch Europe in peril, formal split or not.
“This is the worst place (NATO) has been in since it was founded,” said Max Bergmann, former State Department official and director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s really hard to think of anything that even comes close.”
The shockwave hits Europeans banking on NATO versus assertive Russia. Just last February, Secretary-General Mark Rutte scoffed at US-free defence as a “silly thought.” Today, it’s orthodoxy.
“NATO remains necessary, but we must be capable of thinking of NATO without the Americans,” said Gen. Francois Lecointre, France’s armed
forces chief from 2017 to 2021. “Whether it should even continue to be called NATO – North Atlantic Treaty Organization – is a valid question.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly responded: “President Trump has made his disappointment with NATO and other allies clear, and as the President emphasized, ‘the United States will remember.’” NATO offered no immediate comment.
Trump’s prior presidency (2017-2021) strained ties similarly, yet flattery once worked. Dozens of U.S. and European officials now doubt it, amid gripes over NATO’s Hormuz inaction and restricted bases. “NATO cannot be a ‘one-way street,’” US officials insist. Europeans cite absent formal asks and US flip-flops on timing.
“It’s a terrible situation for NATO to be in,” said Jamie Shea, ex-senior NATO hand and Friends of Europe senior fellow. “It is a blow to the allies who, since Trump returned to the White House, have worked hard to show that they are willing and able to take more responsibility (for their own defence).”
January’s Greenland push, US quiet on Russia’s purported Iran targeting intel, dropped Russian oil sanctions amid price surges. Last week’s G7 clash near Paris saw Secretary of State Marco Rubio irk EU’s Kaja Kallas on Ukraine, per five sources.
A 2023 law demands two-thirds Senate nod for exit, but Trump could starve defence as commander-in-chief. A French diplomat deems it tantrum; Trump has pivoted — from 2024 Putin bait to 2025 summit praise. Rutte visits Washington next week.
US edge like satellites binds Europe. Yet change looms. “I do think we’re turning the page of 80 years of working together,” said Julianne Smith, Biden-era US NATO envoy. “I don’t think it means the end of the transatlantic relationship, but we’re on the cusp of something that’s going to have a different look and feel to it.”