The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is now centered on the battle for the Strait of Hormuz.
The strait provides the critical Indian Ocean chokepoint for oil and natural gas-exporting nations rimming the Persian Gulf. But Iran’s use of drones, mines, missiles, and gunboats to harass transiting ships has brought energy exports to a near-total halt. This has led to rising energy prices and volatility. The Trump administration is now pressuring allies to provide naval forces to escort tankers through the strait and thus stabilize the global energy market.
Although their navies are too small and underfunded, many European nations have a small number of excellent air-defense-capable warships. Unfortunately, the Europeans aren’t inclined to accept President Donald Trump’s request. And they’re offering poor excuses as to why they don’t want to help.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz summed up European sentiments on Monday, stating, “We will not participate in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz by military means. The war in the Middle East is not a matter for NATO. Therefore, Germany will also not become involved militarily.”
Merz is being disingenuous. Iran’s closure of the strait might not involve NATO commitments, but it is clearly a major European security concern. Iran is deliberately causing significant economic harm to European nations and populations. Iranian leaders hope this pressure will lead American allies to force Trump to end the war.
Not all allies are telling Trump to take a hike.
France has indicated it will provide European-led naval escorts once fighting in the strait declines. Denmark and the Netherlands have also indicated they might support these efforts.
Again, however, these are the uncertain exceptions to the rule. To the Trump administration’s understandable chagrin, America’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, is equivocating. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has weakly suggested that the U.K. might deploy unmanned drones to help secure the strait. Other European nations with especial economic interest in reopening the strait have also ruled out joining escort operations. These include Belgium, Greece, and Italy.
It’s understandable that American allies are frustrated with Trump.
U.S. military action to prevent a resurgent Iranian nuclear capability was almost certainly going to be necessary at some point over the next 12 months. But the regime change ambition of this very significant air campaign has thus far failed to deliver on that objective. It seems highly unlikely to do so in the coming days and weeks. And while Iranian military forces have been depleted, it is unclear how Iran will be prevented from reconstituting those forces in the future. All of this has come at the cost of global economic turmoil.
Trump’s insistence that NATO members owe him their support also reflects his overly simplistic understanding of the transatlantic alliance.
Iranian action in the strait does not trigger NATO defensive commitments. And while the president deserves significant credit for getting NATO allies to finally spend more on defense, he continues to adopt a strategically illiterate assessment of NATO’s purpose and value. Even at the most basic economic level, the alliance guarantees hundreds of billions of dollars in annual American exports and other commercial benefits. Treating NATO as a catch-all partnership is foolish and, measured alongside the U.S. relationship with other allies such as Israel, deeply disingenuous.
Still, NATO members do not define their military interests solely through NATO. France has conducted extensive non-NATO military operations in West Africa in recent years. The U.K. has military forces on its Falkland Islands territory, outside of NATO’s defensive remit. Merz is also boosting Germany’s non-NATO military ties, stating recently that Germany-India relations carry “strategic significance that strengthens both sides.”
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Where does this leave us?
With the truth that international politics are complicated. And the additional truth that European nations are being harmed by Iranian aggression against their interests and those of their allies. America and NATO notwithstanding, the Europeans will lose significant credibility in the Middle East and beyond if they refuse to deploy forces to defend their core interests.