Dusty Wentworth

  There is a fashionable line in Washington that European NATO members are feckless passengers, forever borrowing American protection while giving nothing back. It is a neat story, domestically useful, and strategically corrosive. It is also false. NATO’s collective defence clause, Article 5, has been invoked only once, after the attacks of 11 September 2001. It was invoked by the United States. European allies responded, not with speeches, but with troops, body bags, and decades of political fallout at home. Yet Donald Trump’s public contempt for EU and NATO partners, coupled with threats of tariffs as a lever to force compliance, treats allies like subordinates and trade like a weapon. That posture cannot be waved away as “tough negotiating”. It is a rejection of diplomacy in favour of coercion. And it is happening again, now with Greenland. Article 5 Was Invoked Once. Allies Paid in Blood. Afghanistan was not a side-show for NATO partners. Non-US NATO forces suffered over...