The credibility of a military alliance like NATO rests on an article in its founding treaty signed in 1949: Article 5, which states that an armed attack against a member state will be considered an attack against all parties. It is the trust in this solidarity among the 32 member states – two in North America, the United States and Canada, and the others in Europe – that has been its strength. It explains why all the former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe wanted to join at the end of the Cold War.
Donald Trump seriously weakened this credibility in recent days with some off-the-cuff, scathing remarks in response to Europeans’ refusal to engage militarily in the Strait of Hormuz against Iran. During an Easter lunch with supporters on Wednesday, the president delivered a speech so harsh that the White House preferred to remove the video.
In his remarks, aside from making personal attacks against Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Trump criticized the “cowardice” of his European allies, once again mentioning the temptation to leave NATO, which he called a “paper tiger” costing the United States “tens of billions of dollars”.
This is not the first time he has raised the threat of leaving NATO. He had done so during his first term, arguing that Europeans were not paying enough for their security. Trump seems to believe this money is either for NATO or the United States, rather than national defense budgets.
To ease Trump’s concerns and in the face of more serious threats, NATO countries decided last year to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP, a figure artificially inflated with infrastructure spending that could be linked to security needs, in order to satisfy the U.S. president.
The Europeans are not ready to see NATO disappear and will do everything to keep the United States on board. But they know that NATO, in its historical conception, is effectively dead: Donald Trump killed it. They have no choice but to imagine a NATO where the European pillar takes precedence. This is a cultural revolution to be carried out, vital and urgent.
Trump either does not understand, or pretends not to understand, that Europeans have no desire to participate in a war they were not consulted on, informed about, or asked to join – and will be called upon when things go wrong. A war outside the bounds of international law, with goals differing depending on whether you listen to Israel or the United States, and changing every day.
The issue is broader. In the same speech, Trump once again targeted Ukraine, regretting the weapons and ammunition delivered to them that would be useful against Iran. This is part of the problem: Ukraine is Joe Biden’s legacy, an obstacle to his rapprochement with Vladimir Putin; Iran is HIS war.
