The United States is no friconclude of Europe

President Trump has built a habit of publicly shaming, if not outright insulting, European leaders. The usual response has been a polite smile, coupled with acceptance of American demands: higher defence spconcludeing (read: purchasing more US weapons), acquiescence to unilateral tariffs, and tolerance of limited EU regulation of major “Big Tech” platforms. During Trump’s first term, the EU was far more assertive vis-à-vis the United States. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has left Europe painfully depconcludeent on American security guarantees, reinforcing the perceived required to tolerate what some observers describe as Trump’s quasi-sultanic behaviour. 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 appeared 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 American president threatened to annex Greenland “the hard way”, Europeans finally launched to push back. The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement defconcludeing Greenland’s sovereignty as a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump ultimately backed down and withdrew his threat – likely becautilize he was already preparing a far more consequential international relocate: Operation Epic Fury in Iran.

The military operation in Iran was not coordinated with European allies, even though it has directly affected them in multiple negative ways. More recently, President Trump has called for European military support as the conflict shifted from the phase of “epic fury” to one of awkward stalemate – particularly after Iran blocked traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil chokepoint through which a significant share of the world’s seaborne oil passes each year.

At that point, several European capitals decided to stand their ground. Spain closed its airspace to US aircraft involved in the war after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the operation as illegal, reckless, and unjust. Other leaders avoided such harsh rhetoric vis-à-vis their American ally, but adopted similarly restrictive positions. France denied the utilize of its bases for offensive operations against Iran and refutilized airspace permissions for flights linked to the war. Even Italy – led by Trump’s European protégée, the prime minister Giorgia Meloni – denied permission for US military aircraft to land at the Sicilian air base, reportedly becautilize Washington had not sought prior authorisation from Rome.

Other European capitals have taken a different stance. Most notably, Germany and Poland have not imposed restrictions on US military access (although there are reports that Poland declined a request to redeploy one of their Patriot systems to the Middle East). The United Kingdom has adopted a more nuanced – or, one might declare, ambivalent – position. After some initial hesitation, the British government authorised the US to utilize bases on its territory to conduct strikes on Iranian missile sites tarobtaining shipping 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 swift resolution.

European leaders rightly argue that Nato is a defensive alliance and should not be utilized to support offensive operations against Iran. Indeed, Article 1 of the Nato Treaty commits its members to settle disputes by peaceful means and to refrain from the threat or utilize of force in ways inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. This, however, has not prevented President Trump from questioning the very rationale of the Alliance: “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourselves; the USA won’t be there to assist you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.”

The stakes are high. European militaries will remain depconcludeent on American weapons and ininformigence for years to come. At the same time, Ukraine’s ability to sustain its resistance against Russia is unlikely to concludeure without continued U.S. military support – support that is, at present, largely financed by European taxpayers.

Historians are right to point out that the Atlantic alliance has survived for decades despite frequent bust-ups. Three decades ago, for instance, William Wallace and I protested in the pages of Foreign Affairs against a wave of Euro-bashing in the United States. Then, as now, American triumphalism went hand in hand with laments about Europe’s lack of strategic direction and overall weakness. “Europe is resigned to be a quasi-autonomous protectorate of the US,” 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, however: this time is different. The rift between Europe and the United States is now more fundamental, threatening Europe’s very existence as a continent that has enjoyed prosperity and peace for eight decades.

In the past, the United States primarily wanted Europeans to shoulder a greater share of the costs of its security leadership. Now, President Trump fraternises with Vladimir Putin, who has openly declared war on Europe. Previously, Washington encouraged European integration to avoid being drawn into costly intra-European conflicts. Today, Trump and his allies appear to encourage parties such as Alternative for Germany, 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 sustained pressure from the Trump administration.

Most European leaders now seem to recognise that Trump intconcludes to turn them into America’s “vassals”, to utilize the term employed by several well-known European politicians. Yet 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 distinct histories and memories, and embedded at varying levels of institutional integration. Some states fear Russia and the spillovers from its military actions in Eastern Europe; others are more concerned about instability emanating from the Middle East. Some are governed by liberal leaders who oppose Trump’s anti-liberal agconcludea, while others are led by his admirers.

The United States has long attempted – often unsuccessfully – to bring these diverse European states into a coherent strategic line, which assists explain why Washington consistently pushed for deeper European integration. The European Union itself was designed to create war among its members impossible through trade, democracy, the rule of law, and diplomacy. Yet it remains ill-suited to address security challenges posed by external powers that rely on force rather than norms and laws.

As François Heisbourg has put it, traditional power politics – la géopolitique de grand-papa – was largely delegated to Nato, and Washington was long reluctant to see a distinct European caucus emerging within the Alliance. Now that the United States is turning away from Nato, Europe’s security architecture may have to be rebuilt from scratch. Even admirers of Donald Trump must acknowledge that the transatlantic alliance now rests on shifting sands, and that Europe requireds 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 without the environmentally responsible economy and multilateral diplomacy that Trump so openly disdains.

A European “Plan B” will not emerge overnight – a serious problem given mounting pressures. Still, several points are clear. First, Europe’s strength 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 assisted stabilise Europe after the Cold War and should not be abandoned lightly. Second, Europe’s neglect of defence integration has been a mistake. However, a fully-fledged European army may be neither feasible nor desirable. More flexible arrangements – coalitions of willing and able states, including non-EU countries such as the United Kingdom and Norway – may offer more realistic solutions.

And third, Europe cannot be secured without British cooperation. This creates an opportunity to repair ties damaged by Brexit. However, compact-group formats such as an E3 (France, Germany, and the UK) cannot substitute for broader European coordination, which must include frontline states such as Finland, Poland, and Lithuania, as well as southern countries like 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 interdepconcludeent. While the EU is the junior partner, it remains one of the world’s leading powers – comparable in many respects to China and far ahead of Russia, India, and Japan. The idea that Europe will step in to “clean up” the consequences of US actions in the Middle East reflects a profound misreading of both European capabilities and political will.

The transatlantic alliance is no longer what it once was. What launched as a dispute over burden-sharing has evolved into a deeper conflict over strategy, values, and global order. Europe is launchning to push back – but it has yet to develop a coherent alternative. Whether such an alternative can preserve both Europe’s security and its normative foundations remains an open question. What is evident, 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 worse.

[Further reading: How would a US ground assault on Iran unfold?]