European leaders are confronting what The Economist's editor-in-chief calls a genuine "divorce" within NATO, after the continent's governments reportedly refused President Donald Trump's request to send warships to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and the president responded by saying a U.S. withdrawal from the alliance is "beyond consideration."
It is beyond consideration. It is actively on the table.
Zanny Minton Beddoes, speaking Monday on CNN's "Global Public Square" with Fareed Zakaria, described a Europe that is furious, rattled, and finally starting to understand that the old arrangement may be over. Not paused. Not strained. Over.
"I think there's a recognition in Europe that, you know, maybe this is a divorce."
Roughly 20% of the world's oil supply travels through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has threatened or moved to restrict access to the strait. The United States launched an offensive against Iranian targets. And when Washington asked its NATO allies to contribute warships to reopen one of the most strategically vital chokepoints on the planet, Europe said no, according to Fox News.
That refusal is the context for everything that followed. Not Trump's rhetoric. Not his tone. The refusal.
For decades, American military power has underwritten European energy security, trade routes, and territorial integrity. The implicit deal was always that in exchange for American protection, allied nations would stand ready when the moment demanded it. The Strait of Hormuz is that moment. Europe's oil flows through it. Europe's economy depends on it. And Europe will not lift a finger to secure it.
Then they wonder why Washington questions the arrangement.
Beddoes painted a picture of European leaders seething at the president's language, calling themselves insulted and disrespected. She described their anger in vivid terms:
"They're furious about being called cowards and other insults by the president of the United States when, remember, you know, the only time NATO's Article 5 has been invoked was after 9/11 and thousands of Europeans and NATO forces served with distinction in Afghanistan."
The Afghanistan point is real, and those contributions deserve acknowledgment. Thousands of European troops served, and many died, in a war that was America's fight first. That matters.
But invoking a 24-year-old commitment to deflect from a present-day refusal is not the argument Beddoes seems to think it is. The question is not whether Europe once showed up. The question is whether Europe will show up now, when a waterway critical to its own economy is under threat, and American forces are already engaged.
The answer, apparently, is no. And the fury flows in only one direction.
What stood out most in Beddoes's analysis was her description of the shifting mood among Europe's most pro-American governments:
"I think there's a growing realization in Europe, even amongst those European countries that have always seen the glass half full and have always hoped that they can maintain some kind of special relationship with the United States, that this time something really might be different."
She also noted the economic dimension weighing on European capitals:
"They see the impact on their economy. And on top of that, now they have the president of the United States and the secretary of state basically saying, you know, 'NATO is finished.'"
What Beddoes frames as a crisis of American reliability reads, from this side of the Atlantic, as a crisis of European seriousness. The nations most invested in the transatlantic relationship are the ones who should be leading the charge to prove the alliance still functions. Instead, they are hoping the tone changes while the substance stays the same: America pays, America fights, Europe benefits.
That is not an alliance. It is a subsidy.
The word "divorce" does a lot of work in Beddoes's framing, and it reveals something important about how Europe's commentariat processes this moment. In a divorce, both parties lose something. Both must rebuild. Both face uncertainty.
But the losses are not symmetrical here. The United States has the world's largest military, its deepest defense industrial base, and the ability to project power globally without European permission. Europe, by contrast, has spent decades hollowing out its defense capabilities under the comfortable assumption that Washington would always be there.
If this is a divorce, one party kept the house in order. The other let the roof collapse because the neighbor was paying for repairs.
The June 25, 2025, NATO summit in The Hague was supposed to demonstrate alliance unity. What it demonstrated instead is that unity without shared burden is just a photo opportunity.
Conservative critics of NATO have never argued that alliances are inherently bad. The argument has always been simpler: alliances that require one member to carry everyone else are not alliances at all. They are dependencies. And dependencies breed resentment on both sides.
Europe now faces a choice it has avoided for a generation. It can build the military capacity to defend its own interests, secure its own trade routes, and stand as an equal partner. Or it can continue to free-ride while complaining about the tone of the driver.
Beddoes argued that the flare-up over Iran is "the latest, perhaps most serious, in a litany of warnings." She's right about that much. The warnings have been coming for years. They came under polite language and diplomatic cushioning, and Europe ignored them. Now they come bluntly, and Europe is outraged.
The message hasn't changed. Only the volume has.
Europe's leaders can call it a divorce if they want. But a partner who refuses to share the burden, then rages at being asked to, chose this outcome long before the papers were filed.
