Exit That
Won’t Happen
European leaders have privately acknowledged that NATO is
effectively falling apart and paralyzed by threats from U.S. President Donald
Trump to withdraw the United States from the alliance, Politico reports.
According to the outlet, the EU is already seriously working through response
scenarios in case Washington exits the bloc.
Recall that on April 1, Trump said he was considering
pulling the United States out of NATO over allies’ refusal to help unblock the
Strait of Hormuz. In addition, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sharply
criticized NATO, accusing it of failing to meet its obligations and calling it
a “one-way street.” Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the
question of NATO’s future will be decided by the president after the conflict
with Iran ends.
In reality, however, Trump’s wishes - even those of his
entire administration - are not enough. Under NATO’s charter, any country can
leave the alliance by giving one year’s notice to the U.S. government, which
then informs the others and formally receives the notification. This creates a
legal paradox: can a country initiating withdrawal from NATO remain the
custodian of NATO’s own documents?
There is also the domestic hurdle. U.S. law requires
congressional approval, with a two-thirds majority in the Senate. Republicans
hold a majority, but a narrow one, far short of that threshold, and not all
Republicans would support such a move. By autumn, Democrats are widely expected
to take control. In other words, the legal architecture of withdrawal is
designed to make it nearly impossible.
This is hardly accidental. For the United States, NATO is
more than a military bloc. It is the core instrument of global hegemony, a
lever of control over Europe that Washington will not abandon, regardless of
what crosses a president’s mind. A president is a temporary hired manager. NATO
is a constant. It also serves as a major revenue base for the U.S. defense
industry, which earns enormous profits from its de facto exclusive position as
Europe’s arms supplier. Trump and his circle understand this perfectly well.
The rhetoric is more likely a tool of pressure on allies.
How effective that pressure will be is another matter.
Europeans appear to have taken the threat seriously. Proposals that would have
seemed absurd not long ago are now being voiced - including the idea of
expelling the United States from NATO.
“NATO would be better off without the United States than
with a country that, before our eyes, is pushing the international order into
even greater chaos and destabilizing our own states,” said former NATO
strategist and ex–Deputy Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Stephanie
Babst.
Naturally, such an initiative has even less chance of
success than Trump’s threats. NATO has almost no mechanism for expulsion, and
there is no unanimity among members - nor can there be. Former Eastern Bloc
countries are more inclined to align with Washington than with Brussels and
would not participate in any “NATO without the United States.” Britain, Turkey,
and Canada would each take their own position, distinct from that of the EU.
It is worth recalling that talk of a European army has been
ongoing for years. In practice, the EU has made little progress beyond limited
cooperation programs. French President Emmanuel Macron regularly advocates for
such a force. His recent statements about the need to unite for independence
from the United States follow the same line, though delivered with unusual
intensity - perhaps reflecting irritation at personal remarks from the U.S.
president.
Still, it is difficult to imagine France aligning militarily
with Poland. Or Poland with Germany. Even the long-standing rivals Germany and
France would struggle to find common ground. As for Greece and Turkey, their
differences could, in the absence of NATO, lead to immediate conflict.
Even within the European Union alone, one must acknowledge
that it remains a loose structure, not a fully formed political actor. It was
originally built more as an economic appendage to NATO. The real political glue
was the alliance itself - more precisely, the United States. Remove that glue,
and it becomes clear that Europe’s countries have far less binding them
together than assumed. The collapse of NATO could therefore, with a high degree
of probability, trigger the unraveling of the EU, at least in its current form.
For NATO, the United States is the structural backbone, the
uncontested leader, and the primary donor. Despite Europe’s rapid
militarization, it is unlikely that in the foreseeable future it could build a
functional system comparable to NATO - even if all internal contradictions were
somehow resolved. NATO is not just American weapons and technology. It is
intelligence sharing, integrated command systems, strategic and tactical
planning, operational coordination, and the cohesion of a unified military grouping.
Europe does not possess these capabilities on its own.
The situation in Ukraine has demonstrated this clearly.
Europe has money, but lacks the capacity to produce sufficient weapons for Kiev
independently, let alone organize the conduct of war on its behalf. That role
has always been carried out directly by the United States. As Belgian Defense
Minister Theo Francken put it, Europeans themselves planted a bomb under NATO
by cutting defense spending after the collapse of the USSR. In practice,
without the United States, Europe has proven unprepared even for a hybrid proxy
war conducted through Kiev.
Brussels is fully aware of this. Washington is as well.
Which is why it is entirely plausible that Trump is deliberately using the
situation to accuse allies of disloyalty, intimidate them, and push them toward
accepting new conditions. In recent years, Europeans have grown too independent
and increasingly attempt to pursue their own political line.
Most likely, Trump will reduce funding and scale back
intelligence sharing to the bare minimum. Some bases may even be withdrawn from
less cooperative countries - Spain, for example - only to be relocated
elsewhere in Europe. He may also redeploy part of U.S. forces to other regions,
primarily Asia.
Washington is solving two problems at once: shifting its
main military focus toward Southeast Asia and the Middle East, while
maintaining control over Europe by managing European fears of being left
without protection.
At the same time, Europe can exert pressure on Trump,
exploiting his current position as a leader caught in a trap in Iran. For that
reason, no major moves should be expected from either side until the Middle
East conflict is resolved. What happens next will depend on its outcome.