President Trump has made a habit of publicly shaming, if not outright insulting, European leaders. The usual response has been a polite smile, coupled with acquiescence to American demands: higher defense spending (read: buying more American weapons), acceptance of unilateral tariffs, and tolerance of limited EU regulation of major “Big Tech” platforms. During Trump’s first term, the EU was much more persuasive vis-à-vis the United States. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left Europe painfully dependent on American security guarantees, reinforcing the perceived need to tolerate what some observers describe as Trump’s almost sultanic behavior. European leaders have also taken note of his ruthless treatment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who “dared” to speak his mind in the Oval Office a year ago.
Over time, however, efforts to flatter and appease Trump have seemed increasingly futile — if not counterproductive. He has continued to berate European leaders, threaten new tariffs and question the viability of NATO and its security guarantees. When the US president threatened to annex Greenland “the hard way”, the Europeans finally began to back down. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement defending Greenland’s sovereignty as a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump eventually backed down and retracted his threat — likely because he was already preparing a much more important international move: Operation Epic Fury in Iran.
The military operation in Iran was not coordinated with the European allies, although it directly affected them in many negative ways. Recently, President Trump has called for European military support as the conflict moved from the stage of “epic fury” to a difficult stalemate – especially after Iran blocked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil choke point through which a significant portion of the world’s offshore oil passes each year.
At that point, several European capitals decided to stand their ground. Spain closed its airspace to US warplanes after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the operation as illegal, reckless and unjust. Other leaders avoided such harsh rhetoric against their American ally but adopted similarly restrictive positions. France denied using its bases for offensive operations against Iran and refused airspace permits for war-related flights. Even Italy – led by Trump’s European protectedPrime Minister Giorgia Meloni – denied permission for US military aircraft to land at the Sicilian airbase, reportedly saying Washington had not sought prior authorization from Rome.
Subscribe to the New Statesman today and save 75%
Other European capitals have taken a different stance. Most importantly, Germany and Poland have not imposed restrictions on US military access (although there are reports that Poland rejected a request to redeploy one of its Patriot systems to the Middle East). The UK has adopted a more nuanced – or, one might say, more ambivalent – position. After some initial hesitation, the British government authorized the US to use bases on its territory to launch strikes on Iranian missile sites targeting ships in the Strait of Hormuz, framing it as a defensive measure. At the same time, Downing Street has insisted that Britain will not be drawn into a wider war with Iran and has called for urgent de-escalation and a quick resolution.
European leaders rightly argue that NATO is a defensive alliance and should not be used to support offensive operations against Iran. Indeed, Article 1 of the NATO Treaty obliges its members to settle disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or use of force in ways inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. However, this has not stopped President Trump from questioning the very rationale of the Alliance: “You have to start learning how to fight for yourself; the US will no longer be there to help you, just as you were not there for us.”
The stakes are high. European militaries will remain dependent on American weapons and intelligence for years to come. At the same time, Ukraine’s ability to maintain its resistance against Russia is unlikely to survive without continued US military support – support that is currently largely funded by European taxpayers.
Historians are right when they point out that the Atlantic alliance has survived for decades despite frequent clashes. Three decades ago, for example, William Wallace and I protested in the pages of Foreign Affairs against a euro-burst wave in the United States. Then, as now, American triumphalism went hand in hand with laments about Europe’s lack of strategic direction and general weakness. “Europe has resigned itself to being a quasi-autonomous protectorate of the USA,” argued Irving Kristol, while Senator Jesse Helms famously declared that “the European Union could not fight its way out of a wet paper bag.”
Make no mistake, though: this time is different. The rift between Europe and the United States is now more fundamental, threatening the very existence of Europe as a continent that has enjoyed prosperity and peace for eight decades.
In the past, the United States largely wanted the Europeans to shoulder a greater share of the costs of their security leadership. Now, President Trump is fraternizing with Vladimir Putin, who has openly declared war on Europe. Previously, Washington encouraged European integration to avoid involvement in costly intra-European conflicts. Today, Trump and his allies seem to be encouraging parties such as the Alternative for Germany, the Lega, Fidesz and Law and Justice to undermine the integration project. Liberalism once formed the ideological foundation of the Atlantic alliance; today, it – and its core pillars, such as the rule of law, free trade and multilateral diplomacy – is under constant pressure from the Trump administration.
Most European leaders now seem to understand that Trump intends to turn them into “vassals” of America, to use the term used by some prominent European politicians. However, they still lack a credible and unified strategy to respond to this challenge. Europe remains a mosaic of states of different sizes and capabilities, shaped by different histories and memories, and embedded in different levels of institutional integration. Some countries fear Russia and the consequences of its military actions in Eastern Europe; others are more concerned about the instability emanating from the Middle East. Some are governed by liberal leaders who oppose Trump’s anti-liberal agenda, while others are led by his admirers.
The United States has long tried—often unsuccessfully—to bring these disparate European states into a coherent strategic line, which helps explain why Washington has consistently pushed for deeper European integration. The European Union itself was designed to make war between its members impossible through trade, democracy, the rule of law and diplomacy. However, it remains inadequate to address the security challenges posed by external powers that rely on force rather than norms and laws.
As François Heisbourg has said, traditional power politics – grandfather’s geopolitics – was largely delegated to NATO, and Washington had long been reluctant to see a distinct European group emerge within the Alliance. Now that the United States is leaving NATO, Europe’s security architecture may have to be rebuilt from scratch. Even admirers of Donald Trump must admit that the transatlantic alliance now rests on quicksand and that Europe needs a “Plan B”. The crucial question is whether such a plan can provide security and prosperity without the rule of law and democracy — let alone the environmentally responsible economy and multilateral diplomacy that Trump so openly despises.
A European “Plan B” will not emerge overnight – a serious problem given the mounting pressures. However, some points are clear. First, Europe’s power lies in its economic, regulatory and normative power. Its approach to international relations has long reflected the ideas of Hugo Grotius and Immanuel Kant rather than Niccolò Machiavelli or Thomas Hobbes. These assets helped stabilize Europe after the Cold War and should not be abandoned lightly. Second, Europe’s neglect of defense integration has been a mistake. However, a full-fledged European army can be neither feasible nor desirable. More flexible arrangements – coalitions of willing and able states, including non-EU countries such as the UK and Norway – could offer more realistic solutions.
And thirdly, Europe cannot be secured without British cooperation. This creates an opportunity to repair the ties damaged by Brexit. However, small group formats such as E3 (France, Germany and the UK) cannot replace a wider European coordination, which should include frontline states such as Finland, Poland and Lithuania, as well as southern countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain – not to mention dynamic international actors such as Sweden and the Netherlands.
Finally, the European Union and the United States remain deeply interdependent. While the EU is the junior partner, it remains one of the world’s major powers – comparable in many respects to China and well ahead of Russia, India and Japan. The idea that Europe will intervene to “clean up” the consequences of US actions in the Middle East reflects a profound misreading of European capabilities and political will.
The transatlantic alliance is not what it once was. What began as a dispute over burden sharing has evolved into a deeper conflict over strategy, values and global order. Europe is starting to pull back – but it has yet to develop a coherent alternative. Whether such an alternative can preserve Europe’s security and its normative foundations remains an open question. What is clear, however, is that the old assumptions of the Atlantic partnership no longer hold. At best, what remains is a partnership stripped of illusions, for better or for worse.
(Further reading: How would a US ground attack on Iran play out?)
Content from our partners
