Robert Mason and Savar Suri
7 August 2025
Despite recent decisions favouring Ukraine and growing hostility towards the Kremlin, the foreign policy decisions of President Donald Trump have caused an upset in the transatlantic relationship and undermined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in three key ways.
First, the second Trump administration has proven to be an unreliable ally by initially siding with Russia in the UN General Assembly on the issue of the Ukraine War. President Trump suspended US military and intelligence cooperation with Ukraine, and in a further challenge to the neo-liberal order, has spoken about bringing Russia back into the G7. Despite a rebalancing in his posture, that damage is hard to undo, especially in removing any momentum Ukraine had on the battlefield. President Trump has indicated that the US will not defend NATO allies that are not paying enough for their own defence and questioned Article 5 of the NATO founding treaty that deals with collective defence. Despite commitments from NATO members to increase military spending to 5% of GDP, trust issues persist. When coupled with security breaches such as leaked Signal group chats, these shifts are not only affecting NATO member threat perception, but also wider calculations about intelligence sharing and coordination within the Five Eyes network (US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) that has stood as a cornerstone of international security since World War II.
Second, if the US withdraws from NATO, as it has from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and the Paris climate accord, it could potentially upend the military alliance, undermine NATO cohesion, and create a limited, primarily European alliance that will need to find more allies to survive and project power.
Third, since each NATO member-state holds veto power, even if the US stays in the alliance, the Trump administration could choose to act as a spoiler or engage in a miscalculation with Russia drawing the alliance into conflict. Therefore, the Trump administration potentially represents a triple threat to both transatlantic and international security, alongside the existing threat posed by Russian grey zone warfare.
In the short-term, the increase in NATO military expenditure that successive US administrations have lobbied for could be used to address the first two threats presented by the Trump administration—US commitment, and potential withdrawal—primarily by beefing up national defenses and ramping up military industrial projects. This already appears to be taking place. However, since Spain and possibly others refuse to adhere to the new threshold, it is inevitable that further enlargement and partnerships may be necessary.
Turning to the Indo-Pacific
NATO’s Secretary General Mark Rutte has spoken about the need to adapt and build ties in the Indo-Pacific where there is evidence of a growing alignment between China, Russia, Iran and North Korea (CRINKs) and where Euro-Atlantic security “is all interconnected with what is happening in the Pacific.” The threat from the CRINKs grouping is multifaceted: a Chinese invasion of Taiwan could further degrade the norm of sovereignty and the international liberal model that underpins NATO. Russia is already considered by some NATO members as an existential threat. Growing military cooperation among these states continues to translate into greater regional and international insecurity, including Iranian missile and drone sales to Russia for use in Ukraine and Russia’s use of North Korean troops and hardware in Ukraine.
NATO already has four partners in the Indo-Pacific region, with the Indo-Pacific 4 group of nations (IP4). This group, which emerged as a distinct entity in 2022, currently includes South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. However, many of these countries are more closely partnered with the United States than with NATO as a whole. Amid US withdrawal from the alliance, NATO might find the IP4 reevaluating their NATO collaborations as well, making their collaboration far less sensitive than in a de-facto US-led entity and Cold War with China.
Moreover, American withdrawal from NATO may threaten the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States (AUKUS) which would further weaken NATO influence in Asia Pacific. The United States, under the new administration, has already begun to review its participation in the AUKUS agreement, worrying decision makers in Canberra who consider the deal to be a vital deterrent to Chinese actions in the region. In response, France has been touted as an alternative partner in the deal.
By attempting to work closer with IP4 nations, NATO can be better prepared for emerging crises without an overreliance on US support. NATO has already started enhancing its defence ties with Japan, a further step could involve NATO formalizing its relationship with the IP4, an idea which the United States had already previously floated under the Biden administration. In the long term, more could be done to work with Major non-NATO Allies (MNNA) in Asia, Africa, South America, and Oceania.
NATO and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States
For a number of reasons NATO could build closer but more informal military ties to the GCC states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates) which prefer to remain neutral on the issue of great power competition. The Southern Neighbourhood, incorporating the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel, is a region that has experienced the Arab Spring and migration crises of direct relevance to the security of many NATO member states. These are no longer ‘Black Swan’ events but are becoming increasingly common and predictable ‘Grey Swan’ events that could be more manageable through NATO foresight and planning.
Recently, NATO has established a strategic foothold in the Middle East in the form of a NATO liaison office established in Amman, Jordan, in July 2024. The aim is to enhance dialogue and practical cooperation between NATO and Jordan. It has also undertaken a review into what more it can do in the Southern Neighbourhood. This follows years of engagement between NATO and Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia, through the Mediterranean Dialogue that has existed since 1994, as well as with the Arab Gulf states of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates via the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative established in 2004. After the Israel-US attack on Iran and the Iranian attack on Al Udeid air base in Qatar, GCC state interest in enhancing security ties with NATO states is bound to grow, albeit in a way which does not undermine their security interests.
Having spent billions of dollars on arms imports, large scale investments in building domestic military industrial capacity, and increasingly, exporting arms to regoinal partners; the GCC states are well positioned to advance international security objectives. Although more cicumspect on the war in Ukraine, being cognizant of maintaining their relations with Russia, these Middle Eastern partners have led on mediation. NATO could subsequently extend and enhance MNNAs that currently include Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar.
The GCC states, some of which play pivotal roles in the political economies across the Southern Neighbourhood, including the Sahel, represent logical partners for NATO in specific contexts. For instance, in recent years the GCC states have taken a strong interest in developing and securing many parts of Africa, giving them more leverage on a number of security issues. The UAE has provided more than $750 million in development aid to the G5 Sahel nations, which include Mauritania (where NATO already has a presence), Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, and Niger, while Saudi Arabia has invested over $1.3 billion in food infrastructure projects across Africa. More could be done on border security, cooperation in directly tackling violent Islamist groups, on infrastructure, and on aid delivery. With key European politicians expressing the need for increased drone capabilities and amid broader instability, leveraging Türkiye as a NATO member and the GCC states as allies on specific issues could expand NATO’s presence in the Southern Neighbourhood whilst also freeing up NATO bandwidth to address other pressing concerns.
By leveraging existing and new partners in different regions, NATO could deepen and expand relationships and give it the strategic flexibility it might find useful, with or without US support.
Robert Mason is an Associate Professor at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy (AGDA). Savar Suri is an Émile Boutmy Scholar at Sciences Po.