By Mike Nelson
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Speaking to a senior British officer during World War II,
Winston Churchill not only succinctly captured the crucial yet frustrating
alliance in which he found himself in the fight against Nazi evil, but also
gave us an enduring reminder of the truths of multinational operations: “The
only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without them.”
Currently, President Donald Trump seems vexed by both of
those undertakings: fighting with allies and fighting without them. In the
Middle East, he is simultaneously dealing with the divergence in plans between
the United States and Israel while also gnashing his teeth over NATO allies’
reticence to sign up for the latest American military effort.
But both circumstances reflect a basic fact: All
countries have their own interests. And while interests among allies may
overlap to varying degrees, they are almost never uniformly the same. Beyond
this basic and constant reality, there are additional circumstances surrounding
the Iran war that are critical to understanding partner-nation decisions,
including the operation’s unclear end state and persistent friction between the
Trump White House and America’s European allies.
Despite high levels of military coordination between the
U.S. and Israel, there appear to be some points of disagreement over how the
war is being waged. After Israeli strikes on Iran’s South Pars gas fields, for
example, Trump criticized the target selection—despite subsequent reporting that America had given the operation the green
light prior to its execution. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the
president’s statement suggested slight daylight between the U.S. and Israel at
the tactical level and prompted renewed discussion on whether the two nations’
long-term goals for the campaign are aligned at the strategic level.
To boil down the current conflict into very basic terms,
we are fighting the leaders of the Islamic Republic because they are,
historically and demonstrably, the bad guys. That the Iranian regime is our
enemy, and a disruptive force in the region, is beyond question. But Iran
represents a different danger to each of the partners currently engaged in
combat with it. Tehran undermines America’s regional interests, works to harm
our security efforts, and threatens American-aligned Middle Eastern countries.
To Israel, however, the threat Iran poses is existential.
Not only has Iran expressed a consistent desire to eradicate the state of
Israel, it has taken steps to bring it about—from bolstering the power and
presence of Hezbollah on Israel’s doorstep to authorizing the Hamas-led attack
that killed 1,200 people. Even the shared American and Israeli goal of
preventing an Iranian nuclear capability comes with different costs to each
country should the effort fail. Iran cannot bring about the end of the United States.
Israel has no such assurance.
Taking these differing concerns into account, the ideal
end of the conflict might look different to each country. Ending the radical
theocracy of the mullahs likely means an end to the Iranian ambition to destroy
Israel, which explains why the Israeli military is targeting regime leadership,
as well as Basij elements responsible for putting down any revolutionary
popular uprisings. The United States, on the other hand, may realize that
regime collapse, depending on how it happens and what follows, could create
additional dilemmas for regional stability—a lesson hard-learned after the
overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya led to civil war, instability, and the
rise of Islamist terrorist groups, conditions that endure today.
Despite speculation from
the fringier extremes
of the political horseshoe, differences in priorities and national interests
are not indications that Israel pulled us into a war, is manipulating us, or is
working against us. In fact, differences between coalition partners on a war’s
priorities, methods, pace, and goals are the norm, not the anomaly. During
World War II, disputes between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Churchill, and Joseph
Stalin over the conduct of the war in the European theater were constant—with
the Soviets and British focused on addressing threats to their respective
homelands and the United States balancing resources to fight in the Pacific
theater. Sometimes, these national interests are not in conflict but simply
reflect a different ranking of priorities. Poppy eradication and counter-narcotics
operations in Afghanistan were of greater importance to the United Kingdom than
to America, as Afghan heroin found its way onto the European black market.
But while these natural differences occur in coalitions,
this current conflict has unique features that exacerbate them. The first is
the lack
of a clear and agreed-upon end state for the operation. As much as the
president’s non-specific language about the goals of the conflict has prompted
questions from the American people, it has also invited action by the Israelis.
If the operation’s underlying goals are unclear, Israel is entitled to conduct
operations aimed at bringing about what it thinks they should be.
Further, Epic Fury, unlike other conflicts in our
history, is not strictly organized—in terms of command and control—as a
coalitional campaign. During World War II, American, British, and Free French
forces were all unified under the command of the supreme allied commander,
Dwight Eisenhower. During the war in Afghanistan, the four-star American
commander was “dual-hatted,” leading both the U.S. forces and the international
coalition. Under this construct, countries maintained the decision-making power
to determine the manner and types of missions in which their forces could
participate, but delegated the planning, synchronization, and oversight of
their operations to the coalition headquarters.
This arrangement created the country-specific rules of
engagement and prohibitions that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and others have
bemoaned and mocked, but it also built a framework in which coalition
forces could operate in concert despite differing national priorities and risk
assessments. Coalitions are not necessarily designed to force partners into
certain actions, but rather to establish priorities and limits around what
forces will not do. In other words, national priorities that fall outside the
collective goals of the coalition are not conducted by coalition forces.
In Epic Fury, the American and Israeli militaries are
conducting parallel operations that are coordinated with, but not subordinated
to, each other. The Israeli Air Force is developing its own targets outside of
the command of a U.S. Air Force general, while at the same time, both
militaries are synchronizing operations with respect to key functions, like air
traffic control and the suppression of Iranian air defenses.
On the other side of the equation, the president is
growing ever more frustrated with European partners who are not yet willing to
commit naval assets to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Part of Trump’s anger seems
to stem from a misunderstanding of how alliances in general and NATO in
particular work; he seems to think that America’s transatlantic allies are
required to come to its aid despite the fact that it isn’t under attack. That’s
not to say NATO cannot join in such a conflict, as it did in Libya in 2011, but
such operations are voluntary.
What’s more, the president’s current demand for NATO
support comes after months of claiming
the United States does not need European allies, demeaning their previous contributions to American-led
conflicts, suggesting America would not support or defend them if an
Article 5 triggering event occurred, and even threatening to invade a fellow NATO ally’s territory. In
short, the president has not conducted himself in a way that might make partner
and allied countries predisposed to assist him in a conflict in which they were
not consulted before hostilities began.
But, while some Europeans may be enjoying a certain
degree of schadenfreude at watching a man who belittled their military prowess
appeal for their help, pettiness is likely not the driver of their
decision-making. Trump is correct in his assertion that Europe is more
dependent upon commerce flowing through the strait and therefore more affected
by its disruption. It is indeed in Europe’s interest for the blockade to end.
However, the president has not articulated how expansive the war will be, what
his theory of victory looks like, nor even his plan to combat Iranian
operations to disrupt maritime traffic. His latest proclamation that reopening the strait will be “a simple
military maneuver” suggests an enduring unseriousness about the risks involved
in such an operation. It isn’t difficult to understand why Europeans might sit
it out unless and until the United States figures out a more concrete plan for
dealing with the Pandora’s box it opened.
It’s worth noting that current American requests of
European allies seem to be for niche capabilities, such as minesweepers, not
necessarily more of the core fighting functions. Often coalition partners
contribute by providing these kinds of small but crucial capabilities, sending
unique units in small numbers, such as when a newly democratic Czechoslovakia
provided chemical detection units to the Gulf War. This is an example of how
allies can be critical and essential partners, even when they are “a little off the front lines.”
At the inception of the war with Iran, the Trump
administration seemed to have underthought some of the critical decisions and
complications, both with regard to Israel and Europe. From the outside, it
appears the White House took it for granted that, because the U.S. and Israel
agreed that Iran posed an intolerable threat, this mindset extended consensus
on all matters springing forth from that initial understanding. The
administration seemed to have believed the war would be resolved quickly,
before Iran had a chance to respond with measures that complicate global trade
or, if it did, that the United States would be able to deal with the fallout
quickly. As such, the president likely did not feel he needed to rally support
from or even notify our European allies and could instead maintain his
adversarial rhetoric toward them.
The administration needs to define better boundaries and
goals for the campaign. The U.S. then needs to present specific, realistic
requests to any European or international partners from whom we seek support.
And finally, we should probably find a way to craft an appeal that avoids
deriding U.S. allies and partners as “cowards” or “ungrateful.”
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