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BRUSSELS — Mark Rutte’s tried-and-tested approach to dealing with Donald Trump is coming under strain as the U.S. president’s war in Iran opens up fresh fault lines inside NATO.
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On Tuesday, Trump branded NATO allies “very foolish” for snubbing his demands for military support in securing the critical Strait of Hormuz trade artery. As a result, reconsidering the U.S. role in the alliance was “certainly something we should think about,” he warned.
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In response, NATO’s secretary-general is reaching for his usual Trump playbook: Avoid criticizing the president in public and work behind the scenes for a solution.
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“He’s calculating there’s little to gain by now speaking up,” said one NATO diplomat, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak freely. “I don’t see how he could please [Trump’s] desire. So better to lay low — publicly at least.”
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But the war is putting Rutte in a bind.
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Despite Trump’s demands, NATO has few powers to act in Iran, while allies’ distaste for the war makes it hard to find needed consensus for any alliance involvement. Yet the longer the conflict drags on, the more it saps resources from the alliance’s core tasks of supporting Ukraine and preparing for a potential war with Russia.
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“It’s very clear that whatever is being used in the Middle East right now, in particular air defense systems, will most likely have to be replaced,” said Pieter Wezeman, a senior arms researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute think tank. “All that comes on top of the already very high demand for arms in Europe.”
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NATO declined to comment on the record.
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Making a Mark
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Until now, Rutte has succeeded in keeping Trump from blowing up the alliance by handing the U.S. president wins in key areas like getting allies to boost defense spending and finding an off ramp that allowed Trump to drop his campaign to annex Greenland.
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“When there are debates between allies, I always try to stay a bit muted, and therefore being able, if necessary, to help a bit,” Rutte said last week, referencing feuding between Trump and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over Madrid’s refusal to allow U.S. planes to use its airfield to attack Iran, and Trump’s wrath at low Spanish defense spending.
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While the alliance hasn’t collapsed, Rutte has come under fire for being obsequious toward Trump and for siding with him against other allies.
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“In the European Parliament … we have openly questioned whether we were hearing the representative of NATO or the representative of the United States,” said Lucia Yar, a liberal Slovak lawmaker on the Parliament’s defense committee. “I hope that Mr Rutte will continue to engage regularly with both sides of the Atlantic.”
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He’s trying the same play during the Iran crisis.
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In one of his first comments, Rutte claimed there was “widespread support” among the alliance’s members for the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran — a claim that drew a fierce rebuke from Spain.
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After days of lying low, Rutte was faced with a direct question on Wednesday about Trump’s threat of a “very bad future” for NATO over the reluctance of allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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The former Dutch prime minister didn’t take the bait, instead pointing to talks happening behind the scenes. “What I know is that allies are working together discussing how to [reopen the strait],” he said.
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“Rutte’s job is to keep NATO together, and it’s hard to see how a rhetorical battle with Trump can help him do that,” said Oana Lungescu, a former NATO spokesperson who now works as a senior research fellow at London’s Royal United Services Institute think tank.
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Out of area
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Yet there are limits to how much Rutte can do to assuage Trump over Iran.
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That’s partly down to a lack of consensus among allies on the war — with many having slammed the conflict that was initiated without consulting them.
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While NATO has shot down Iranian missiles directed at Turkey, the U.S. cannot convince allies to join on the basis that its own territory is under threat, said a second alliance diplomat. The alliance’s mutual defense clause, “Article 5, applies in the case of an armed attack against an ally, so it’s not directly relevant to situations like this,” the diplomat said.
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The Middle East lies outside the alliance’s military “area of responsibility,” according to two other alliance diplomats, further complicating a collective response.
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Finally, Washington has not made any formal demands of NATO. At a closed-door meeting of ambassadors on Tuesday, the U.S. repeated its pleas for allies to help, but did not make any specific requests to the alliance, the two diplomats said.
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Yet with the war already in its third week, doing nothing comes with its own risks for NATO.
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Washington has already withdrawn equipment, including F-35 fighter jets, from a NATO exercise in Norway, while the U.K. has diverted its HMS Dragon destroyer away from activities linked to the alliance’s new Arctic mission to the eastern Mediterranean.
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Defending against Iranian drone and missile counter-attacks has also forced European countries to burn through air defense missiles, depleting stockpiles and hampering NATO’s aim to bolster air defenses, said Wezeman, the analyst. France has already warned its stockpile of air-to-air MICA missiles is running low.
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It may be only a “matter of weeks” until European countries are forced to decide whether to earmark future deliveries of air defense systems for their Gulf allies or Ukraine, he said.
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“Over a longer period of time, it will put a dent in the planning for how to build up the European defences,” he said. “And it has an immediate effect on the capacity of Ukraine to defend itself.”
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“We’re not starting from a place of surplus … we’re going to get stretched even more thin,” the third NATO diplomat acknowledged.
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