Lauren Sukin et al. | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
March 26, 2025
The Trump administration should offer "unambiguous diplomatic messaging that reinforces its commitments to allies around the world" to tackle a growing credibility crisis, argue Lauren Sukin (Stanton Fellow), Michal Smetana, Marek Vranka, and Ondrej Rosendorf for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
You are on your own.
That is essentially the lesson many US allies have taken from the events of the last few weeks, after President Donald Trump and his administration expressed unwillingness to defend European allies “if they don’t pay” and stopped all military aid and intelligence sharing with war-torn Ukraine.
Recent text messages from a group chat of US senior-most national-security officials are at the center of a US national security scandal—because the editor of The Atlantic magazine was inadvertently included in the chat, which featured detailed information about US plans to attack Houthi targets in Yemen. But the vitriol toward Europe was also palpable in that chat, showing European leaders how the Trump administration talks about them behind closed doors:
“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” Vice President J.D. Vance wrote.
“I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s pathetic,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded.
Trump officials’ belligerent rhetoric and flippant actions against long-time US allies and partners stand in stark contrast with a major US rapprochement with Moscow that has severely undermined Western efforts to isolate Russia on the world stage since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Even against this ominous backdrop, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has insisted that “the transatlantic partnership remains the bedrock of our alliance” and that NATO can continue to protect Europe through Article 5 of its founding treaty, which states that any attack on one member is an attack on all members. But Trump’s foreign policy has already damaged the alliance by showing that Washington seems to no longer care about keeping its promises.
Because the credibility of US commitments to its allies is being tested, we started the Microfoundations of Collective Defense (Microcode) project, funded by a grant from the European Research Council. This five-year project will track transatlantic views on the credibility of collective defense commitments in NATO. Using sophisticated opinion polling techniques, a research team from Charles University in Czechia and the London School of Economics measures confidence in the United States, Europe, and Russia about whether NATO members—the United States included—would rally together to defend one another. The first results are a cause for concern: US allies and enemies alike increasingly think the United States will flake on its security obligations to its NATO allies. This should worry not only European leaders but US officials, too.
In deterrence, we trust? The most catastrophic scenario for the European defense—one in which the United States withdraws from NATO—seems unlikely to happen, despite Trump’s occasional references to such a prospect. But China and Russia see a growing rupture in transatlantic relations as a weakness and an opportunity to test the limits of Washington’s collective defense commitments. Meanwhile, European capitals may ultimately take Trump’s message seriously, deciding that the United States is not to be trusted as an ally. This could push US allies to exclude the United States from major defense planning, exercises, and acquisitions and turn toward US competitors for reassurance.
From Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists