Stephen’s view:
Today I'm going to answer a question that was sent to me a few weeks ago by Gorka from Venezuela and Spain...
Hi Stephen, it would be interesting to hear your comments on Europe's position in the Middle East conflict. I had expected a more unified NATO response. Best regards. Gorka.
Thanks Gorka.
It is true that in the past NATO generally did things together. In 2001 and 2003 the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were US-led, but were supported by NATO members.
But we are in a fundamentally different world today, and this is a fundamentally different situation.
Firstly, the war in Afghanistan is generally considered to have been a total failure. Iraq is arguably in a better state today than it was under Saddam Hussein, but the war was far from a success. Because of this, there is probably a general scepticism from other NATO countries about following the US into another war in the Middle East.
Secondly, the objectives of the war were not clear enough. Trump gave a few reasons upon launching this war, such as stopping Iran from having a nuclear weapon, destroying Iran's ballistic missile capability, and stopping its support for proxy groups. However, there wasn't any clear indication about why these objectives were important now. The fact that the Iranian regime massacred tens of thousands of its own people in January did not seem to be an important reason for the war. We have seen how fragile these objectives have been over the last few months, as some of them stopped being objectives at all (Trump now says that Iran should be allowed to have ballistic missiles). There is also a new, more important objective, that didn't exist at the start of the war - opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Thirdly, President Trump has arguably degraded NATO through his own words and actions. He has threatened to remove the US from NATO many times. He said in a rally in 2024 that he would encourage Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO members that aren't paying their fair share of NATO budgets. He has proudly stopped military support for Ukraine during the biggest war in Europe since World War 2. He reduced the number of soldiers based in Germany and possibly other parts of Europe. He threatened intra-NATO war by repeatedly insisting that Denmark needed to give Greenland to the US, and wouldn't rule out using military force to take Greenland. He threatened European countries with tariffs until Denmark gave Greenland to the US.
For these reasons I think that I can understand why European leaders and governments have not thrown their support behind the US in its war in Iran.
Looking at how the war has gone so far - badly - I would say that they were right to be cautious. Perhaps I can explain why in the next newsletter.
Have a great weekend.
Stephen
P.S. There will be no newsletter next week because I am running with the bulls.
