Europe's frustration overTrump's digs at NATO laid bare

Europe's frustration over Donald Trump's digs at NATO was laid bare this week when French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at the US leader with some of his strongest language to date.

During a visit to Seoul, Macron -- who has maintained a good working relationship with Trump -- accused the US president of harming NATO by speaking too much.

"Alliances like NATO derive their value from what is left unsaid, namely the trust that underpins them," he said on Thursday.

"If you sow doubt about your commitment every day, you drain it of its substance."

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was founded by liberal democracies in 1949 in response to the threat posed by the Soviet Union.

Analysts say Trump's multiple attacks on NATO are eroding the alliance's foundations and credibility, pushing Europeans to form ad hoc coalitions to manage crises, amid growing doubts about the reliability of their longstanding ally.

Olivier Schmitt, a researcher at the Royal Danish Defence College, pointed to the "exceptional character" of NATO compared with other historic alliances.

"It is the only alliance that, until now, had a major player behaving like a benevolent hegemon, one that did not impose its actions on others by force," he told AFP.

- 'The rift is too deep' -

By contrast, the Warsaw Pact, conceived as the Soviet Union's answer to NATO, effectively provided Moscow with a pretext to intervene in the domestic and military affairs of allied states in Central and Eastern Europe, said Schmitt.

Trump has ripped up the rulebook, launching strikes against Iran without consulting or even informing his European allies, and then accusing them of "cowardice" for declining his request to help secure the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure by Iran has rattled the global economy.

"He simply 'demanded' that they do what he said. Trump doesn't want allies -- he wants vassals," said neoconservative scholar Robert Kagan, a proponent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"As a result, friends and allies will be ever less willing to cooperate with the United States," he wrote this week in The Atlantic.

Mistrust is increasingly taking hold.

In January, Europeans were stunned when Trump threatened to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, a founding member of NATO.

Last week, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned the damage inflicted on the transatlantic relationship since Trump's return to the White House last year was so deep that even a future US administration might be unable to repair it.

"The rift is too deep, and the trust that has been lost in American great-power politics is too great," Steinmeier said.

Analysts say that Europeans might be deluding themselves if they expect the United States to return to business as usual post-Trump.

"Why should America be the one to pay for European defence?" said Celia Belin, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

"This questioning runs very deep and exists within the Democratic camp as well, and I believe there will be no turning back on this."

While the US nuclear umbrella has not been formally called into question by the United States, Washington's commitment to the security of NATO members has been cast into doubt following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

"American indifference to the European struggle against Russian aggression constitutes a profound geopolitical revolution -- perhaps the final disintegration of the alliance relationships established after World War II," said Kagan.

- 'Eastern flank of the US' -

Kristina Kausch, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund, said it would be an exaggeration to speak of the end of the alliance.

But, she said, it is clear that the fundamental idea that the United States and Europe have a common interest in defence is "now beginning to crumble."

"At least within Trump's inner circle," she added.

Observers say Trump's transactional approach runs counter to NATO's core principle of mutual support, and that for deterrence to function, an adversary must believe he will face 32 countries committed to defending one another.

"The signal sent by Trump is catastrophic for NATO's credibility," said Schmitt.

But Paul Wyatt, director general for security policy at the UK defence ministry, said Europe and the United States needed each other.

"Europe is the eastern flank of the United States," he told a defence forum in Paris last week.

"We are a fundamental part of US security just as much as the US is a fundamental part of ours."

Washington has more than 76,000 military personnel stationed across Europe and uses its European bases as a staging ground for operations around the world.

As NATO members ramp up defence spending amid the looming threat of conflict with Russia and seek to keep the United States on board, they are searching for ways to fill the emerging strategic gap with initiatives such as a "coalition of the willing" to back Ukraine.

"The question now is whether America's allies -- in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia -- have the political will, the strategic imagination, and the time to adapt to this new reality," said Mick Ryan, a former major general in the Australian army and geopolitical analyst.