If NATO Dies, Long Live NEATO

Even since the end of the Cold War, Western Europe and the United States have had conflicting geopolitical ambitions and values.  

But something profound has now changed. Canada’s Mark Carney calls it a “rupture,” and that doesn’t seem too far from the truth.  

The current American administration says it hopes to save Europe from itself, from the risk that mass immigration will cause “civilizational erasure.” Its initial intention was to support MAGA-inclined parties across Europe, but that idea may not survive the current political weather — President Trump’s nationalism, seen in statements suggesting European NATO troops had “stayed a little back from the front lines” in Afghanistan, clashes with the populist right’s need to appear patriotic, and has caused a significant backlash. 

An alternative perspective, which now seems to be gathering impetus on both sides of the Atlantic, is that Europe must disentangle much of its security apparatus from America’s. The current administration no longer sees Europe as a value-adding contributors to its diplomatic and military power. It will now leave Europe mostly to fend for itself (some key enablers will remain) while maneuvering to take European territories. The continent needs to wake up.  

The Greenland crisis is a historic opportunity to align European foreign policy into a coherent, hard-power-backed new alliance. All major parties in the West, including the right-wing parties in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, find themselves at odds with America’s ambitions.