US has power, Europe does not: NATO is never going to recover from this

The Iran War has now entered its second month. While it remains unclear how the war will end, one thing is certain: The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation will never be the same.

Europe was not entirely excited about the Iran War, to say the least. Though some leaders, such as Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, initially expressed support for the United States, they have since mostly flipped their positions, with Merz in particular doing an entire 180 on the subject. Others, such as Europe’s foreign policy “chief” Kaja Kallas, insisted that “This is not Europe’s war.”

Kallas in particular has badly served her continent and badly misread the situation. Her relationship with Secretary of State Marco Rubio was already weak to non-existent, but her commentary in a recent G7 meeting was particularly damaging. There, she reportedly sniped at Rubio, asking him when the US would increase pressure on Moscow to end the war. Rubio angrily replied, “If you think you can do it better, go ahead. We will step aside.”

Rubio’s retort underscores why the Trump administration is so frustrated with Brussels, and Kallas in particular. European leaders understand that they cannot do it better; if the United States were to step aside entirely and just walk away from the Russo-Ukrainian War, Europe would likely not be able to do anything to stop Russia from continuing to prosecute the war. Brussels frequently speaks as if it has the unearned might of right on its side – although right does not and has never won wars.

Power does. The United States has it, and Europe does not.

This is not the say that the United States wishes to use its power everywhere, constantly. America no longer wants the hegemony that it had in the post-Cold War era (or at least it acknowledges that the days of unipolarity are long over). As Secretary Rubio acknowledged early last year, the world is now multipolar, with China and Russia both acting as poles within that system (albeit weaker poles than the United States). That does not mean that the United States has given up pretensions to acting outside of the Americas, however, as demonstrated by the Trump administration’s seeming desire to block British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Chagos Islands deal, the launching of the Iran War, and other activities.

Europe has a smaller goal: They wish to keep Russia at bay. At least, Brussels officially wants this goal; in various capitals, particularly Paris and Madrid – and perhaps, even Berlin – they likely understand that Russia does not have the capability to threaten all of the continent. But due to how the European Union is constructed, they must play along.

Europe is not capable of keeping Russia away without the United States. If they were actually rearming, they could perhaps do so in a decade or two. But Europe’s supposed rearmament is fraudulent. While their East, particularly Poland and the Baltics, is arming itself to the teeth, much of the rest of the continent is moving at a snail’s pace.

Therefore, Europe would – logically – consider ways to keep America happy at minimal cost to themselves. The Iran War is an easy solution: Allowing overflight rights or the use of military bases would be a good way to ingratiate themselves with an already sceptical Trump administration.

But perhaps due to their aforementioned belief that right being on their side is akin to might, many European nations have demurred. This has exasperated the United States; speaking recently, Rubio said, “If we’ve reached a point where the NATO alliance means that we can’t use those bases to defend our interests, then it’s a one-way street,” adding that Washington would “re-examine” its relationship with NATO.

Europe, in the post-Cold War world, has sold itself to the United States by arguing that it could use bases. That, after all, is how NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was able to begin negotiations over Greenland: The United States already had access to bases there, so why bother seeking to annex the island? But Europe’s reaction to the Iran War has proven Washington’s concerns to be correct: The basing rights can be restricted at any time.

For the Trump administration and much of the American conservative movement, the NATO alliance is useful because America can use bases there and, more importantly, keep the Atlantic Ocean an American lake. It is not, as former President Joe Biden often said, “sacred,” nor does the United States feel a post-World War II call to keep things under control on the continent. 

For Europe, without the United States, the Balkans would likely re-erupt. Russia would be much more curious about the potential to recoup its lost near-abroad, and long-simmering geopolitical differences between European states – covered by tens of thousands of American troops – would boil once more.

This should have been an extremely easy deal for Europe to make: Allow basing rights and send a few minesweepers in exchange for the United States’ continued protection. But they have, bafflingly, not taken it. Brussels will argue that it was not their war and that they had no need to take it.

But if their sales pitch to the United States for NATO’s importance is going to be that America gets to have troops in the continent to defend it from Russia, Brussels will soon find that Washington is no longer buying it.