Is NATO still a fighting power, or has it become a monument? The flags still fly in Brussels, and the committees still convene regularly, but amongst officers and staff, the air is thick with a sense of quiet discomfort. The communiqués continue to promise the defence of every inch of allied territory, yet the reality on the ground — particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean — suggests a more fragile truth.
An alliance that exists on paper but hesitates in practice is not a real deterrent, is it? It sounds more like a ghost. And in a world that no longer fears ghosts, Europe is finding itself dangerously exposed. The current friction with Washington is not simply a personality clash. While President Trump’s language has become venomously blunt, his posturing reflects a fundamental recalculation of US return on investment in European security.
For decades, the North Atlantic pact has been a “sacred cow”, a postwar certainty that won the Cold War and then allowed Europe to prioritise social spending over defence expense. Now, as the conflict with Iran tests the very foundations of the West’s unity and resolve, that certainty is no more there. When the leader of the alliance’s primary guarantor questions the raison d’être of the pact, the cornerstone of Article 5 crumbles.
The most damning evidence of this credibility crisis was the Cyprus silence earlier this month. When drones breached the airspace of British sovereign soil at Akrotiri, one would have expected a unified roar from the alliance — a robust declaration of solidarity, if not an immediate scramble for mutual defence. Instead, what we got was a bureaucratic whispering.
It fell to Greece — a regional power with real military capability — to scramble the frigates and the jets. The Hellenic shield proved to be more effective than the Atlantic one. So if NATO cannot, or will not, react when a founding member’s territory is under fire, what is left of its primary mission? This brings us to the core of the 21st-century security crisis that we are now faced with: The transition from a protected Europe to a vulnerable one.
Of course, NATO is being asked to survive in a multipolar storm for which it was never designed. But the results remain failures. Failed to tackle the Ukraine issue, failed to secure its own southern flank against asymmetric threats, failed to present a united front against the regime in Tehran, which the US deems as a global security threat. Still, it is not Trump’s presidency that is killing NATO. He is simply exposing the fact that the alliance has lost its unified soul.
How safe will Europe be in a world where NATO is no longer a credible organisation? The answer is bleak. For generations, we have hidden behind a security guarantee that we refused to fund fully or politically support. Now, that guarantee is being recalculated on a cold, trade-minded basis.
If European capitals refuse to stand with Washington in the Strait of Hormuz — the world’s most vital energy artery — they should not be surprised when Washington no longer stands with them in the Baltic. At the same time, how can Trump ask for Europe’s support in the Middle East, when he recently threatened to invade Greenland? Things have turned sour, interests no longer coincide, American protection is receding, and the European continent is not ready to stand on its own feet.
We are moving toward a world where security lies not in vague treaties, but in “coalitions of the willing” and regional anchors. Nations which share clear, existential interests, are becoming the new centres of gravity. As for the strategic interests of the West’s powers, they are now better served through direct partnerships that prioritise results over consensus. Ceremonial alliances are becoming a thing of the past.
Trump’s latest rhetoric may seem shocking to some, but it is the harsh wake-up call that Brussels has been trying to ignore for years. The POTUS is merely the most vocal observer of a decay that has been decades in the making. The bitter truth is that even if NATO officially survives this era of changes and continues to exist as a zombie organisation, it will become irrelevant if its word is no longer supported by the weight of its canons.
As for the EU, if it wants to be a player on the global stage, it must stop relying on a shield that looks increasingly fictional. The choice for Europe is straight forward: Either build a real, autonomous defence capability and be determined really to use it, or prepare to live in a world no longer protected by the privileges of a bygone age.
The Cyprus anomaly: Why is EU soil still under British occupation?