By Rebeccah Heinrichs
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Many on the right have joined President Donald Trump’s
heated ridicule of the behavior of our European allies during Operation Epic
Fury: their risk aversion, penchant for process over decision and action, and
overall lack of preparedness and capability to confront the Iranian terror
threat, while simultaneously criticizing the one ally with the will and
capability to do so. The transatlantic alliance has in fact been unhealthy for
some time, dating back to before the Obama administration conspired with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel to reset relations with Russia and pursued policies,
including the Paris Climate Accords, that weakened the West to the advantage of
China. But there is much more to the story, and today both sides of the
Atlantic should grapple with some hard truths and work to end the feuding. The
United States needs NATO allies and is the indispensable leader of the alliance
for the foreseeable future.
“I am not currently recommending any additional changes
to our posture in Europe.” That was the congressional testimony of General
Alexus Grynkewich, commander of the U.S. European Command and the NATO Supreme
Allied Commander Europe, on March 18. Roughly six weeks later, the Department
of Defense announced that it would withdraw 5,000 American troops from Germany.
The announcement followed President Trump’s Truth Social post suggesting that
he was considering withdrawing troops after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz
claimed that Iran was “humiliating” the United States.
The Department of Defense then sent a notice to Congress
specifying that the planned deployment of a Long-Range Fires Battalion (LRFB)
to Germany was also canceled. That deployment was possible only because Trump
rightly withdrew the United States from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF)
Treaty during his first term, after Russia deployed prohibited systems in
violation of it. He did so over intense opposition from Democrats. The Biden
administration was later forced to grapple with the same acute Russian threat
to Europe and, remarkably, initiated the deployment of the LRFB to strengthen
deterrence and prevent Russia from expanding its war beyond Ukraine. The LRFB
deployment could have been a masterly strategic accomplishment of Trump’s
second term. But it is now poised to be undone by his own war department — if
Congress permits it. There is already bipartisan objection to the announcement.
In early March, Merz said that he and Trump were “on the
same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away.” He was
right. The Islamic Republic’s terrorism exports and missile force have posed as
great a threat to European security as they have to American and Israeli
security. But the war is unpopular in Germany, and Merz’s claim that the
Iranians were “humiliating” the United States was aimed at a domestic audience.
As bad as the comment was, removing U.S. troops from Germany isn’t a reasonable
punishment in part because, despite Merz’s public kvetching, Germany has been
quietly and steadily enabling Trump’s ongoing war against Iran. General
Grynkewich explained during those recent congressional hearings that, despite
the initial and highly publicized British refusal to permit the United States
to initiate bomber strikes against Iran from the joint base at Diego Garcia,
and despite complaints from some European politicians, the reality is that
European countries are helping, and more than passively so.
Merz’s public insistence that “Germany is not a party to
this war, and we do not want to become one” does not change the fact that
Germany has been key to Operation Epic Fury. Ramstein Air Base is a central
command-and-logistics hub for the military campaign, and there are no flight
restrictions at German bases. Germany under Merz has also been receptive to the
United States’ urging that Europeans share more of the defense burden across
NATO and shoulder more of the help for Ukraine. Germany is the largest European
buyer of American weapons and the largest supplier of weapons to Ukraine. Under
Merz, Germany has agreed with Trump’s criticisms of previous German policies to
dismantle nuclear power plants in favor of dependence on Russian gas. Friedrich
Merz is no Angela Merkel.
In London, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ghastly decision
to prevent the United States from operating freely from Diego Garcia was
reversed within days. The United States has since operated freely out of the
joint base, as well as out of RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and a network of
other U.K. bases, including RAF Menwith Hill, RAF Molesworth, RAF Croughton,
and RAF Digby. And, despite Starmer’s condemnations of the United States’ war
against the Iranian regime, the U.K. military is working closely with the
Americans on providing intelligence. British politicians may have pandered to
domestic audiences who oppose the war, but British air defenders have been busy
intercepting hundreds of Iranian drones heading toward Gulf states where
American forces are deployed, and the Royal Air Force is flying sorties in the
Middle East to help counter Iranian attacks.
France’s Emmanuel Macron has also aggravated Trump. At a
dinner, Trump said Macron was willing to help with the Strait of Hormuz, but
only after the war ended. Trump mocked the French president and derided NATO as
a “paper tiger.” But France is also playing an important role in support of
Operation Epic Fury. The French are giving the United States access to
sovereign French bases and granting overflight access to hundreds of sorties.
They sent air-defense systems, including a SAMP/T and multiple helicopters, to
the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait. This is in addition to the dozens
of Rafale fighters they have deployed to the UAE for air-to-air defense. The
French armed forces have moved their sole aircraft carrier from the Baltic Sea
to the Eastern Mediterranean, positioned eight frigates in the wider Northern
Indian Ocean, and are currently routing two minesweepers to the region.
Among NATO’s smaller members, public support from their
governments has been clearer. Belgium’s defense minister called the U.S. war “a
righteous cause to try to decapitate the Ayatollah regime.” All three Baltic
states have expressed support for the United States. Foreign Minister Margus
Tsahkna of Estonia stated that Estonia backs the United States and Israel in
“every action that curbs the Iranian regime’s capabilities,” and dozens of
Estonian parliamentarians signed a statement of support. Lithuania’s president
put the matter bluntly: “We cannot say with one hand that the presence of U.S.
troops on the territory of Lithuania is a matter of course and we simply accept
it as a given, but when we are asked to contribute to international missions,
we say that this is none of our business.” No doubt if they weren’t rightly
prioritizing the acute threat from Russia, they would send whatever military
forces they had.
***
A sign of the strange times is that some commentators,
taking cues from President Trump’s public haranguing of European allies, now
suggest that the Gulf states are more helpful allies than old Europe. Sure,
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE are cooperating with the United States and
Israel by sharing intelligence and allowing logistical access. It represents a
welcome change in the region. Still, this new and bolder support does not come
close to the contributions the United States receives from European allies, whose
integration with the U.S. military reflects decades of joint planning, earned
trust, and military competencies forged through combat in the Middle East and
coordinated war-gaming exercises as part of active deterrence against Russia.
Even so, Trump has threatened to punish Europeans for not
doing enough or for their political leaders’ public criticisms. Beyond removing
troops from Germany, ideas have ranged from withdrawing troops from Spain —
despite the indispensability of Naval Station Rota — to no longer recognizing
the Falklands as British territory, a report mercifully dismissed by Secretary
of State Marco Rubio. Redeploying U.S. forces may sometimes be necessary as
threats change, but removing troops as punishment from host nations that enable
U.S. power projection amounts to cutting off America’s nose to spite our face.
This does not mean that American frustrations with
European allies aren’t legitimate. Starmer’s public criticisms of the war,
antagonistic remarks about Israel, and initial refusal to grant full access to
Diego Garcia earned anger not only from President Trump. Republican members of
Congress who value NATO and the special relationship were dismayed by London.
Spain was — and remains — the European ally most defiant of Trump and opposed
to seeing the United States win Epic Fury. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez not
only condemned the war; the socialist leader also lambasted Trump and has
refused to permit United States strikes from Spanish bases. Spain has long been
an obstinate NATO member and was the only ally to refuse Trump’s call for
defense spending at 5 percent of GDP, the alliance’s stated standard.
The fact is, though, that while NATO’s members share a
national security interest in an American victory, Operation Epic Fury is not a
NATO mission. The United States neither informed nor consulted allies, nor did
it ask for assistance, before it and Israel went to war. There were sound
reasons for acting this way, but it nonetheless makes it politically difficult
for European leaders to express enthusiasm at the start of the war. Compounding
matters, Trump initiated Epic Fury mere weeks after threatening to forcibly
take control of Denmark’s territory of Greenland and publicly humiliating ally
leaders who opposed those threats.
Trump’s focus on Greenland has shone a spotlight on the
United States’ profound national security interest in preventing Russia or
China from taking control of the Arctic. But the threat to forcibly seize
Greenland — even if one believes it was a Trumpian maximalist bluff — created a
serious rupture of trust among allies who had been willing to bear with tariffs
and public rebukes, and it collapsed goodwill among the most pro-American
factions in European capitals, where favorable views of the U.S. dropped to an
all-time low.
European conservatives from the U.K. to Germany to Poland
who otherwise expressed solidarity with Trump and the American right on border
security and immigration also condemned the Greenland gambit and did so
forcefully. And there is no political support in the United States for seizing
Greenland, which likely explains why the president dropped the issue and left
it to Rubio and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to pursue a diplomatic
resolution with Denmark.
What made the episode especially breathtaking was its
timing. Just months earlier, Trump had been praising Europe’s willingness to
invest more in conventional defense and shoulder a greater share of NATO’s
burden. The Greenland crisis also followed immediately after the highly
successful U.S. raid to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. That
achievement should have dominated the news cycle, allowing the administration
to highlight its military competence and deter adversaries. Instead, Trump’s Greenland
threats had a serious negative impact on U.S. influence and worked directly
against his broader objectives, including rallying allies to help open up the
Strait of Hormuz.
It is one thing to demand that allies rebuild and invest
in their militaries and carry a greater share of the collective defense burden;
it’s quite another to castigate them, let alone threaten their sovereignty. It
should surprise no one that European democratic leaders now lack domestic
political mandates to openly join the war. And yet, because of abiding shared
interests, Europeans have been working with the United States to execute Epic
Fury, if only quietly.
So what now? Europeans are at least a decade or more from
having the military capabilities to replace what the United States provides.
They need the United States to remain the backbone of NATO for the foreseeable
future. And the United States needs the collaboration of its European allies
not only to help provide security against Russia but to project power into
Africa and the Middle East from European bases. Again, Grynkewich explained
this to Congress. He said, “To fly bombers from the United States, or even from
locations in the theater, and project power into the Middle East requires a
tanker bridge. That tanker bridge is projected from USEUCOM bases.” In plain
English: we refuel, safely, from supportive and trustworthy European allies. To
remove the infrastructure in Europe that gives U.S. forces communications,
weapons-detection abilities, intelligence, and logistics would cost the United
States dearly.
***
It’s time for the U.S. and Europe to cease the feuding.
The United States is winning against the Islamic
Republic, but to turn military success in the campaign into a geopolitical
masterstroke, Trump will need an international armada to escort ships through
the Strait of Hormuz. And to get that, he will have to adjust his diplomatic
approach — not toward our enemies but toward our allies. Rather than publicly
berating allies, he should move the disagreements to private channels. It
should go without saying, but there should be some formal acknowledgment on the
U.S. side that there will be no more threats over Denmark’s territory. And on
the other side of the Atlantic, European leaders should explain to their
skeptical publics that the American campaign against the Iranian regime has
served their interests, has made them safer, and merits support.
Security conditions in the Strait of Hormuz are
sufficient for the mission to be underway, which is why the United States is
more forcefully transiting the strait with U.S. Navy destroyers. Operation Epic
Fury has eliminated most of Iran’s defense-industrial base, including its
ballistic missile arsenal, launchers, and long-range drones. Iran’s navy has
been largely neutralized after losing 150 warships and the bulk of its naval
mine inventory. More than 250 senior Iranian officials have been killed and some
2,000 command-and-control structures struck.
Even so, the rump Iranian regime continues to try to
attack U.S. ships, and it appears that Trump is prepared to resume military
operations against Iran to further degrade the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps’ ability to terrorize the strait. European leaders should support the
resumption of U.S. strikes and stand ready with a multinational armada as soon
as the last wave of operations concludes. The more the United States can
internationalize its efforts to restore and maintain a free and open maritime
corridor through the strait, the faster — and more permanently — it can reopen
a choke point that carries roughly 25 percent of global seaborne energy. The
official position of the U.K. is that it is willing to help keep the strait
open, and the French defense minister has said that the French, Belgians, and
Dutch have a joint mine-clearing program that they could contribute. They’re
not the only potential partners. Bringing more allies into the campaign would
help overwhelm whatever IRGC elements remain willing to harass shipping along
the coast.
Although U.S. energy dominance enables the United States
to absorb disruptions caused by Iranians terrorizing the strait, it remains
politically desirable for Washington to end the war decisively — and as soon as
possible — and to bring gasoline prices below $3 per gallon. For U.S. allies
and partners, reopening the strait is not merely desirable but imperative.
India, for example, sources nearly half of its crude oil
through the strait, and the conflict is already inflicting costs on the
population of this crucial U.S. partner. While only about 4 percent of European
crude oil imports pass directly through Hormuz, Europe has reduced its
dependence on Russian energy by sourcing roughly 8 percent of its liquefied
natural gas import requirements from Qatar, shipments that must also pass
through the strait. That shift followed pressure that began during the first Trump
administration to end reliance on Russian energy, including sanctions
implemented on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. To complete the picture,
75 percent of Europe’s jet-fuel imports come from the Gulf region. For Japan,
around 95 percent of oil imports pass through the strait; for South Korea,
roughly 70 percent of crude imports do so.
It is intolerable for the United States or any of its
allies to permit Iran to run an extortion racket by charging fees for safe
passage. Doing so would concede unacceptable leverage to Tehran — and by
extension, to China, Iran’s most powerful backer — and set a dangerous
precedent for Chinese ambitions in the South China Sea. Whether or not Trump
says he needs allies and whether or not allies want this war to be their war,
shared interests remain clear: The Islamic Republic must lose and the United
States and Israel win.
Trump is at his best when he urges Europeans to be strong
and to work with the United States. As Secretary Rubio said in his Munich
speech, “We believe that Europe must survive, because the two great wars of the
last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately, our
destiny is and will always be intertwined with yours. . . . We should be proud
of what we achieved together in the last century, but now we must confront and
embrace the opportunities of a new one — because yesterday is over, the future
is inevitable, and our destiny together awaits.”
King Charles III recently concluded a warm state visit to
the United States, which could not have been timelier. Trump and Charles got
along very well, and Trump even lifted sanctions on Scottish whiskey as a favor
to Charles — even after Charles delivered a speech to a joint session of
Congress extolling Ukrainian bravery and underscoring the need to support NATO.
The address elicited a bipartisan standing ovation and compliments from Trump.
The visit gives Europeans something to build on. Repairing transatlantic
relations is necessary, and Trump has shown he is willing to change course if
it serves his interests. Trump’s direction to remove 5,000 American troops from
Germany may be redeemed, if, for example, the president shifts them to NATO’s
eastern front — Poland or Romania — and he can easily reverse the decision not
to deploy the LRFB missile battalion. Poland has already publicly signaled it
would be happy to host additional U.S. forces. The threat from Russia against
Europe remains acute, and this move would go a long way to assure allies and
Putin that the United States is committed to NATO.
We have heard often that “America First” does not mean
America alone. But if the United States behaves like a bully toward its allies,
we may find ourselves feeling increasingly lonelier than we’d like. Trump has
initiated a war that American and Israeli forces have executed with the help of
allies — privately — to the benefit of the entire world. Allies will be needed
in a much more public way to help win the peace.
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