Collateral damage is a universally acknowledged hazard of war \u2013 more commonly known for its impact on truth and non-combatant civilians.<\/p>\n
Its consequences are much less frequently visited on military alliances.<\/p>\n
The United States\u2019 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato<\/a>) allies are fearful that may be about to change as a result of the fallout from Washington\u2019s decision to team up with Israel in waging war against Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n Donald Trump<\/a> has attacked the pact with a vehemence rarely heard over what he regards as disloyalty and failure to help in re-opening the strait of Hormuz. Tehran closed the strategic waterway in response to the military onslaught it faced in the conflict, which is currently paused thanks to a two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s criticisms of the 77-year-old alliance are nothing new; accusations of freeloading against allies for supposedly inadequate defence spending date back to his first term. But the stridency and threatening nature of Trump\u2019s complaints have escalated, triggering fears that he could abandon the alliance \u2013 an act that would require approval from Congress.<\/p>\n The air of panic drove Nato\u2019s secretary general, Mark Rutte, into a hurried trip to Washington, where he tried to soothe Trump\u2019s resentments in a closed-door White House meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The two-and-a-half-hour session did not go smoothly, despite Rutte\u2019s reputation as a \u201cTrump whisperer\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt went shit,\u201d an unnamed European official told Politico<\/a>, calling the encounter \u201cnothing but a tirade of insults\u201d in which Trump \u201capparently threatened to do just about anything\u201d.<\/p>\n Afterwards, Trump resorted to his familiar fusillade of abuse on his Truth Social platform, posting<\/a> in capitals: \u201cNATO WASN\u2019T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON\u2019T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN. REMEMBER GREENLAND, THAT BIG, POORLY RUN, PIECE OF ICE!!!\u201d<\/p>\n Omitted \u2013 to widespread relief \u2013 was any definitive declaration that Trump intended to withdraw from an alliance that the US founded in 1949 with 11 other countries, in what was then seen as a vital bulwark against the spread of Soviet communism. Since the end of the cold war, it has expanded to include 32 countries.<\/p>\n In a speech to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute a day after the White House showdown, Rutte \u2013 a former Dutch prime minister \u2013 fluctuated between self-flagellation and self-abasement in his condemnation of his fellow Europeans for previously failing to meet their own defence costs, while voicing understanding for Trump\u2019s viewpoint over Iran.<\/p>\n Nato members had been \u201ca bit slow, to say the least\u201d, he conceded, to provide support for the US\u2019s war against Iran \u2013 a campaign about which none of its members had been consulted and few supported.<\/p>\n But praising Trump for his \u201cbold leadership and vision\u201d, Rutte argued that Nato would survive not in spite of the US president\u2019s splenetic outbursts, but because of them.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s commitment to progress reversed more than a generation of stagnation and atrophy by reminding Europe that values must be backed by hard power \u2013 hard power provided not only by the United States,\u201d he said, referring to an allied commitment agreed last year for members to spend 5% of GDP on defence by 2035<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy, then, does everyone in this room have a knot in their stomach about the future of the transatlantic alliance? Why, when we turn on our televisions or scroll on our phones, do we see eager early drafts of Nato\u2019s obituary? Let me be clear, this alliance is not whistling past the graveyard.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet its physical survival may conceal a multitude of moral wounds inflicted by Trump\u2019s rhetorical assaults, which have included belittling Nato as a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d and demanding that one of its founders, Denmark, cede Greenland to the US \u2013 putting Washington on a potential military collision course with other members.<\/p>\n Additionally, there has been profound shock over the macabre nature of Trump\u2019s bellicose threats against Iran \u2013 among them a warning that Iranian civilization would be eliminated \u201cnever to return\u201d if the country\u2019s leaders did not open the strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n Analysts say Trump\u2019s demands and accusations, coupled with threats to commit what many saw as tantamount to genocide and that ran contrary to Nato\u2019s values, corrode the trust that has sustained the alliance.<\/p>\n