Take him seriously – but don’t take him literally” was the advice offered to the world by Anthony Scaramucci, who was once – comically briefly – Donald Trump’s director of communications. It seems as good a way as any to consider the erratic president’s threat to pull the US out of Nato.
But it is not entirely comforting, because, even if this latest alarming proposal doesn’t come to fruition, it implies a continuing and escalating hostility towards what used to be America’s closest (and mostly reliable) allies on the other side of the Atlantic. Even if the US president was speaking in a moment of stress and frustration, his words are indeed serious.
President Trump is annoyed because his Nato partners declined to take part in the war on Iran launched by the US and Israel a little over a month ago. Or, rather, they didn’t fall over themselves to join in an unlawful and aimless attack that they didn’t know for certain was going to go ahead. In particular, Mr Trump resents the way in which Britain initially refused to allow US planes to fly from its bases.
He doesn’t think it right that, when things began to go wrong (though he can’t admit it in those terms), other countries’ navies weren’t hurriedly dispatched to help free the Strait of Hormuz, which had only been closed because of the war. This was a mission that, mysteriously, the vast and invincible United States Navy was unable to undertake on its own, or indeed at all. Hence the president’s anger – and hence his customarily childish desire for revenge.
There is obviously no justification for his sense of grievance, mainly because Nato is a defensive alliance, and its members are only obliged to help each other when they are attacked; they are not expected to get involved in wars instigated by other member states.
Did the US send an armada to the Falklands when Argentina invaded the territory of a Nato member in 1982? No – even though US intelligence later helped with the campaign. On the other hand, did Nato members come to the aid of the US after 9/11, sending a multilateral force to Afghanistan as part of George W Bush’s “war on terror”? President Trump seems to have forgotten all about that.
He argues that the US helped in Ukraine, but much of that assistance was withdrawn as soon as he took office last year. Since then, he has been appeasing Vladimir Putin – even as Russia has reputedly been supplying Tehran with the locations of US targets.
Allies – as Mr Trump seems not to understand – are not servants who can be ordered around at will, or have no say in the use of their own forces. Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that an attack against one is an attack against all, Nato members accept their obligation to offer mutual aid of the kind Mr Trump demands – but that does not, and cannot, automatically extend to wars of aggression or choice. That requires a closer degree of cooperation and collaboration, as was seen in the support that some member states, notably the UK, gave in Iraq.
Allies are partners who deserve to be consulted and treated with respect. Instead, Mr Trump bullies and insults everyone the US is supposed to be able to rely on in a crisis – most recently, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and the prime ministers of Japan and Britain.
Such arguments have no bearing on Mr Trump, who only ever sees international relations as a zero-sum game, be that in matters of trade or security. Indeed, the lesson of the Iran war is that the US really does need its allies in order to be fully successful.
Although the president’s Nato scepticism has grown exceptionally virulent in recent days, it isn’t new. Even in his time as a private citizen, and in his first presidential term, he was, in his own words, “never swayed by Nato”. He claims that he “always knew [it was] a paper tiger”. He thinks – rightly – that most of his allies don’t spend enough on their own defence; and wrongly, that Europe is in danger of “civilisational erasure”.
In any case, the disengagement of the US from Nato was clearly presaged by members of the Trump administration at last year’s Munich Security Conference, and again in the latest US National Security Strategy (NSS). Nato was there to stop Russia; now the US, according to the NSS, doesn’t consider Russia to be a threat. President Trump’s latest words are shocking, but they should come as no surprise.
In literal terms, it would be near-impossible for the president to pull America out of Nato. Sensing the danger in 2023, Congress passed the National Defence Authorisation Act, which requires specific approval by a supermajority of the Senate. That, however, would not prevent the US from “quiet quitting” – moving the nuclear warheads out, withdrawing troops from Germany, or just ignoring Article 5 duties to defend, for example, Estonia.
Dramatic as the headlines are, Europe is precisely where it was before the Iran war started – contemplating how it is going to defend itself. The tragedy is that, with likeminded allies such as Canada, South Korea, Australia and Japan, an even wider global alliance of free medium-sized and smaller powers – one that was even more powerful, both economically and technologically – could be forged.
What has been equally clear for too long is that these disparate states, even within the relatively small expanse of the European continent, have lacked the political will to share sovereignty and spend the money required to achieve collective security. Depressingly, an effective European Defence Community – a kind of Euro-Nato – feels as far away as ever.
Without the US, can Nato deter Putin and keep Gulf oil flowing? We may soon find out…
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