Nato has entered “uncharted territory” amid growing transatlantic tension and possible miscalculations over Greenland, leaving European officials unsure of Washington’s direction, a former senior British commander has warned.
Gen Sir Richard Barrons told The National that there was “chaos and bewilderment” inside Nato headquarters as allies attempted to come to terms with the White House’s increasingly unpredictable approach to Europe and collective security.
“We’re in uncharted territory for an alliance that has emphasised its unity since 1949,” the former head of the UK’s Joint Forces Command, said on Tuesday. “We’re clearly having a different conversation now.”
While the US has stated for two decades that Europe needs to pay more — with Washington’s annual Nato bill at about $400 billion — what was new, he argued, was the increasingly “hemispheric” focus of American strategy and its willingness to openly question the alliance.
Absent Americans
Meanwhile, Nato officials who work in intelligence and defence planning are increasingly unsettled, he said, despite efforts to carry on as normal. “There is chaos and bewilderment, because people understand the multi-layered depth of the relationship and how important it is to both sides.”
Further fractures have been detected amid reports of a potential silent US drawdown of officers from the alliance, a British officer told The National. “When I visited a Nato headquarters division last month, there were almost no Americans. They had simply withdrawn their people from that particular headquarters, with the exception of a very low-level token presence,” he said.
That was before tension rose to their highest levels in decades with President Donald Trump’s demands to annex Greenland, using tariffs against European countries as leverage.
Mr Trump, who is due to arrive in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, has said he wants to take over Greenland, which is a territory of America’s Nato ally, Denmark, to ensure what he has described as the sovereign security of the US.
Gen Barrons said this carried profound risks if mishandled. “If the US were to take Greenland by force, that would be the end of Nato as we have known it. What would succeed it would be a very different relationship between the US and Europe.”
'Major crisis'
Former MI6 chief John Sawers also told the BBC that it was a “major crisis” for European security, with America seeking to take territory off a fellow alliance member while Russia was “gleefully exploiting the transatlantic differences”.
“So we are at a very serious moment indeed,” he added. “This is not just about unpleasant tweets from the President, this is about the future of our national security.”
Gen Barrons also argued that while there is little popular support in America for taking Greenland by force, even contemplating such a move would amount to a “historic misjudgement”.
While there were “many reasons to think an accommodation will be found” and Nato would ultimately survive, he warned that Mr Trump, buoyed by what he described as success in Venezuela, had become more unpredictable.
“On one hand, calmer heads may prevail,” he said. “On the other, we are dealing with a very mercurial American president, buoyed by a sense of recent success, and that makes this situation risky.”
History had also shown how quickly miscalculations could spiral, he cautioned. “Nobody thought in August 1914 that there would be war but in September the First World War broke out, driven in part by irrational decisions.”
While Prime Minister Keir Starmer has adapted a firm but conciliatory position, ruling out a trade war with America, the Lib Dem foreign spokesman Calum Miller warned MPs that Mr Trump was driving “a presidential motorcade through Nato and the entire system of post war security”.
Obama's warnings
But former military intelligence officer Frank Ledwidge, argued that Europe was in large to blame for failing to heed warnings since president Barack Obama’s presidency that it was not spending enough on defence.
“This is the sound of chickens coming home to roost after years of neglect, relying on the US and ignoring warnings from Obama onwards.”
He added that the British and other northern Europeans had failed to “defend the North Atlantic properly” and that if they had had “paid more attention to what was traditionally our patch instead of Central Asia or Iraq, we’d be in a much stronger position today”.
That view was echoed by retired Col Richard Kemp, a former commander of the Nato force in Afghanistan, who noted that the alliance was “extremely nervous because Trump is demanding reciprocation for the security benefits the US has provided. The transatlantic relationship is paralyzed and I can’t recall such fractures between the UK and US in my living memory”.
One potential positive signal for the relationship emerged from US Speaker Mike Johnson during a visit to the UK Parliament on Tuesday, in which he addressed MPs and urged calm after he said he had spoken to Mr Trump “at length” the night before.
“My mission here is to calm the waters, rebuild dialogue and ensure the US-UK special relationship not only endures, but grows stronger,” he said.
