With President Donald Trump once again threatening to withdraw the US from NATO, European leaders are being forced to consider whether the alliance could survive without American involvement.
Since the alliance’s creation at the end of the Second World War, the US has been the dominant partner—a trend that has accelerated since the end of the Cold War, when European nations cashed in on the so-called “peace dividend”. Believing the era of major state-on-state conflict to be at an end following the collapse of the Soviet Union, European nations drastically cut defence spending in favour of increased funding for welfare and health care.
This meant that, while there was a significant decline in their military capabilities, the US—which continued to maintain defence spending at levels similar to those during the Cold War—became the dominant force in the alliance, as Europe opted to outsource its security requirements to the US.
While, in some respects, it suited US policymakers to enjoy military dominance, as it helped to boost the lucrative transatlantic trade alliance, in recent years, there has been growing discontent in Washington over Europe's failure to take its own defence needs seriously.
The issue, moreover, has increasingly become a bone of contention between the US and its European allies since Trump first took office, and he has publicly lambasted European leaders for not paying what he considers their fair share towards NATO's upkeep.
And after Europe’s lukewarm response to Trump’s decision to wage war on Iran—with a number of European countries, such as the UK, Spain and Italy, refusing to allow the US military to conduct offensive operations against Iran from their bases—these tensions have only escalated. European leaders have expressed dismay at not being consulted by the US before launching the war and have been reluctant to respond to Trump’s call for Europe to help open the Strait of Hormuz after Iran effectively closed it in response to being attacked by Washington.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Trump said that he is considering pulling the US out of NATO in response to Europe's refusal to join the war on Iran. Asked if he would reconsider US membership in NATO, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say that it's beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew it was a paper tiger, and Putin knows that too, by the way.”
