Trump Might Finally Force NATO To Radically Reform

Never before has the US had the dual incentive for radically reforming NATO after the bloc refused its request to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US now officially prioritizes restoring its dominance in the Western Hemisphere and containing China over containing Russia.

Trump raged against NATO last week after it refused his request to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which was analyzed here as throwing the bloc into a double dilemma. He thundered at a recent Cabinet meeting that “NATO has done absolutely nothing…I said 25 years ago that NATO’s a paper tiger, but more importantly, that we’ll come to their rescue, but they will never come to ours.” At that same meeting, he also ominously declared that “This was a test for NATO. It was a test of whether you would help us.”

“You didn’t have to, but if you didn’t, we’re going to remember that. Just remember this – number of months from now. Remember my words. There’s an expression: ‘Never forget.’ You can never forget.” Other comments included him telling everyone that “I heard the head of Germany say, ‘This is not our war’ for Iran. I said, well, Ukraine is not our war—we helped. I thought it was a very inappropriate statement to make, but he made it, and he can’t erase it.”

He also said that “We are there to protect Europe from Russia; in theory, it doesn’t affect us—we have a big, fat, beautiful ocean.” The next day, The Telegraph cited unnamed “sources close to the president” to report that “Trump weighs new ‘pay to play’ Nato” wherein “US president considers blocking members of military alliance from decision-making unless 5 per cent spending target hit”. They also claimed that “he was also considering pulling US troops out of Germany”.

The month prior, Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby spoke about something that he called “NATO 3.0”, which Politico described in late February as a “return to factory settings”. This concept was recently analyzed here. It was assessed that “The guiding vision is for NATO to shoulder more of the so-called burden of defending itself vis-à-vis Russia so that the US can refocus its military-strategic efforts on the Western Hemisphere and the Western Pacific.”

NATO’s refusal to help the US reopen the Strait of Hormuz upon which its members depend much more than the US does, the rage that this provoked from Trump, and The Telegraph’s report right after his Cabinet meeting in which he lambasted the bloc combine to raise the chances of this happening. Even if Trump doesn’t authorize the full withdrawal of US forces from Germany, which is difficult to do since it both EUCOM and AFRICOM are headquartered there, he can begin by announcing some sort of pullback.

This could coincide with or precede other pullbacks modelled off of the decision late last year to halve its troop presence in Romania, which hosts NATO’s largest base, but the US might retain and even expand its troops presence in Poland. Trump promised his counterpart last September that he won’t withdraw any and might even send more. That’s because “Poland Will Play A Central Role In Advancing The US’ National Security Strategy In Europe” for the reasons explained in the preceding hyperlinked analysis.

Never before has the US had the dual incentive for radically reforming NATO after the bloc refused its request to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US now officially prioritizes restoring its dominance in the Western Hemisphere and containing China over containing Russia. Even better, Trump could also spin this to Putin as conforming with the latter’s requested reform of the European security architecture to incentivize more compromises on Ukraine, thus possibly breaking the deadlock on their stalled talks.