Europe was anxious after World War I. To fortify their defenses against Germany, the French built the Maginot Line—a vast system of fortifications, obstacles, and weapon installations along France’s borders with Germany—in the 1930s. In 1940, Germany circumvented the Maginot Line by invading through Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg to the north, ultimately defeating France within six weeks.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]The French elite’s almost mystical belief in the invulnerability of the Maginot Line was one of the reasons for the country’s strange defeat in 1940, argued the historian William L. Shirer in his acclaimed book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. “The French placed all their faith in the line of fortification that, in the end, became more of a psychological crutch than a strategic asset,” he wrote.
Today, we are witnessing the unraveling of the post–Cold War European order and the real risk of a rupture in the transatlantic alliance as a result of President Donald Trump’s attacks on Europe and his determination to buy or annex Greenland. This state of affairs compels one to ask whether future historians will argue that European confidence in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was Europe’s Maginot Line of the mind—a psychological crutch that created a false sense of security and prevented Europe from preparing to meet its existential challenges.
How NATO shaped Europe
Could it be that Europe’s current sense of vulnerability is above all a failure of the European imagination? Most European policymakers agree in private that Americans can no longer be trusted to defend their allies. Yet publicly they insist that NATO remains vital for the defense of Europe. European publics are less diplomatic. A recent study conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations reveals that only 16% of Europeans view the United States as an ally. Perhaps, more striking, a fifth of the respondents described it as an adversary or a rival.
In the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO was Europe’s last religion. It was more than simply a defense alliance; it was the Holy Spirit that ruled the world at the end of history. Europeans were mesmerized by American military power, and they found little reason to doubt Washington’s commitment to the security of the Old Continent. The existence of NATO made it possible for the majority of Europeans to fantasize that a major war in Europe was unthinkable in the 21st century. European fealty to NATO prevented them from recognizing that in the post-Cold War environment, particularly in Eastern Europe, demilitarizing Europe rather than building its defense capabilities had become the alliance’s central task.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the expansion of NATO to Central Europe in 1999 came not as a response to some eternal Russian threat, but out of fear of the return of nationalism and wars inspired by nationalism. NATO was expanded to Eastern Europe in the wake of the Yugoslav wars, and it saw itself as protecting Europe from the demons of its past. “European peace today is not merely the absence of war but the marginalization of war-making from national life—a profound cultural and institutional shift,” James J. Sheehan, wrote in his 2008 history of post-War Europe, “Where Have All the Soldiers Gone.”
The treatment of national minorities, rather than defense capabilities, became a key reason for joining the Atlantic alliance. For decades, European forces weren’t trained for autonomous defense but to fight together with the Americans and invariably under American command. The paradoxical role of NATO as an instrument of disarmament rather than of building capable militaries finds its clearest illustration in an unlikely pair: Sweden and Finland, which resisted membership for decades, joined NATO only after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and now stand as the alliance’s most combat-ready members.
Around 15 years ago, Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense in the Obama Administration articulated American impatience with European complacency over international security and gaps in defense funding for NATO. “If the current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future U.S. political leaders—those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me—may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost,” Gates warned.
Europeans were not ready to believe him.
And then Donald Trump emerged on the political stage. After accepting the Republican nomination for president in July 2016, he spoke about conditioning American defense of NATO allies under attack to their contributions to the alliance. After his election, Trump privately threatened to withdraw from the alliance during a summit in Brussels. Europeans read it as bluster and waited for him to leave office. In Jan. 2025, Trump returned to the White House. And it was too late for Europeans to confect alternatives.
Trump and the future of NATO
What is the future of NATO in a Trumpian world in which Europe has lost its centrality for the United States? And what of the emerging calculus, whispered but increasingly believed, that being an American ally is becoming more dangerous than being America’s enemy?
Trump did not simply change Europe’s position on the American map of the world, he brought a new map by which Washington sees the world. He doesn’t consider America’s alliance system an asset; he perceives it as a liability. While some envy Washington for its alliances, Trump envies China for being unconstrained by allies.
His aversion to alliances explains, at least partially, the fact that he sees the war in Ukraine as analogous to 1914, when the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist led Austria-Hungary to declare war on Serbia and set off a chain reaction that sparked World War I. When Trump looks at the crisis in Europe, he doesn’t seem to think of British folly in believing that it had bought peace after signing a peace treaty with Adolf Hitler in Munich in 1938. Trump understands the risk of the U.S. sleepwalking into a disastrous and unnecessary war with Putin’s Russia as far higher than the risk of appeasing a revisionist power that tries to reconquer parts of Europe. For Trump, Russia’s war in Ukraine is Sarajevo rather than Munich.
The question of NATO’s future should be understood as a response to two separate questions.For the Trump Administration, the question is what role NATO has when America no longer views the European Union as an American project but still wants to retain the Old Continent within its sphere of influence. It is a vision where America seeks to replace the Cold War West, which was described as the “free world” and defined by shared liberal values, with a cultural West rooted in Christianity and whiteness.
For Europeans, the stakes are different but no less urgent. They see NATO as essential to weathering Trump’s assault, and to building their own defense capabilities in an increasingly anarchic world, in which American security guarantees can no longer be taken for granted. Trump can be tempted to believe that if there is no NATO there is no reason for the Russian President Vladimir Putin not to become Washington’s best friend. Europeans can be tempted to believe that increasing defense budgets will be enough to defend Europe in the absence of the United States.
The theater of American Empire
The audacious special operation by the U.S. in Venezuela was a pageant of imperial might. It was a preview of what we may call theatrical imperialism––an emerging phenomenon in which great powers brandish strength as a way to rule without really governing. It is also a sign that Washington’s latest national security strategy should be taken at its word. Understood this way, the Trump Administration’s posture becomes legible: Trump is not interested in destroying NATO but rather in using European anxiety about American abandonment as a cudgel to remake Europe.
Europeans will likely be able to defend themselves, but Europe has both a “time problem” and a “political problem”. They need to diminish their dependence on American technologies and weapons while simultaneously keeping Trump happy and preserving the illusion that Europe can rely on American military power. For Trump, Russia’s war in Ukraine seems to represent an opportunity. Much as a private security company exploits rising risks to increase the cost of its services, Washington exploits European vulnerability and enjoys the attendant escalation of tension between Russia and its European allies.
Russians, for their part, regard Europe as the enemy and Trump as a natural ally. Lord Hasting Lionel Ismay, the British general and diplomat, who served as the first Secretary General of NATO, famously remarked the purpose of the alliance was “to keep the Americans in, the Soviets out and the Germans down.” Russia’s current strategy might be described as keeping the Americans in, the Europeans out and the Ukrainians down. Europeans ought to brace themselves for Trump’s ongoing threats to annex Greenland—an act that would violate the territorial integrity of a NATO member state. There is a strong possibility that such an annexation—Trump’s Crimea, as it were—could occur within this year.
European leaders spent a year trying to flatter Trump and promised to buy American weapons but his ultimatum to Europe to give up Greenland or face increased tariffs is pushing them against the wall. Describing Trump’s behavior as crossing numerous “red lines,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever remarked that Europe has to make a choice and that “being a happy vassal is one thing, being a miserable slave is something else.” Europe will be forced to make this choice.
Europe still desperately needs NATO. And Europe’s relevance in the world will depend on its readiness to live in a world without the Atlantic alliance. Any hope that Europeans will mobilize in face of dual threats from Trump and Putin is inspiring but unrealistic. According to a recent poll by the ECFR, 20% of respondents who view America as an adversary are also the least enthusiastic about increasing defense budgets.
European leaders should convince their publics that they understand the difference between playing the fool and being one. To be a fool is to believe that, despite evidence to the contrary, America will stand with Europe in case of a Russian invasion—or to believe that once Trump leaves office, the U.S. will regain its senses. Europe’s major strategic challenge is to recollect the slogan: NATO is dead, long live NATO!
Hence then, the article about nato may not survive the trump era was published today ( ) and is available on Time ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( NATO May Not Survive the Trump Era )
Also on site :