President Donald Trump has severely damaged the trust that America's allies place in the United States, according to Mike Nelson, a retired Army Special Forces officer and member of the Atlantic Council's Counterterrorism Project. Writing for the conservative publication The Dispatch, Nelson argued that Trump's posture toward NATO goes well beyond pressing European members for greater defense spending—a pressure campaign that predates Trump, as successive U.S. administrations have called on allies to meet the alliance's 2% of GDP defense spending target.

Nelson framed the geopolitical landscape with a cinematic analogy: "The world's liberal democracies had grown comfortable and complacent, like the eponymous character at the beginning of Rocky III, while the tyrannical, authoritarian, and malign regimes (the Clubber Langs of the world, if you will) grew stronger and more prepared."

While acknowledging that there had been ample warning signs the United States would demand more European investment in NATO, Nelson contended that the administration's actions represent a fundamentally deeper rupture.

"President Trump has continued to suggest that the United States—the most powerful of NATO's member nations—might not support its fellow members if they were attacked," Nelson wrote. "Trump has even suggested that the United States might be the country doing the attacking. The Danes took his threats against Greenland so seriously that they deployed their special operations forces to the territory in preparation for an American offensive."

Nelson described the broader signal sent by the administration's rhetoric and conduct: "The message is clear, through both the Trump administration's words and actions: Europe should not count on the United States. The nation that had once been the stalwart ally might, in the near future, be a neutral observer at best or an adversary at worst. Even if the Trump administration does not progress further down this path, the idea that America may be fickle about commitments in which we had previously been resolute is not a concern that can be ignored. Europe now has to consider the possibility that the indispensable nation may choose to be dispensable in the future of European security."

Nelson also highlighted what he characterized as a contradiction in the administration's approach, pointing to a recent statement by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby. While Trump has publicly urged Europe to reduce its dependence on American power, Colby's remarks suggested the administration simultaneously expects Europe to remain reliant on U.S. weapons systems while remaining vulnerable to a potential American withdrawal of support.

"It is realistic and rhetorically clear that if the United States keeps banging on the table demanding that Europe become less dependent on us, the result would be for it to become more independent from us," Nelson wrote. "The result of the Trump administration pushing Europe to the side is Europeans adapting to that reality. Yet Colby seemed perturbed at the effect for which his policy was the cause when he posted a condemnation of Europe's plans on X last week, saying that a 'middle powers' strategy'—the idea that second-tier powers would align independently and in prevention of aggression by the great powers—is not 'a serious possibility.'"

Nelson added, "In a demonstration of the underlying problem, Colby condemns Europeans who consider procuring weapons elsewhere, but then reminds them that 'access to the American DIB (defense industrial base) is a privilege, not a right.' How dare you consider looking elsewhere for weapons, but also remember we might cut off your access to them, fail to fulfill already paid-for orders, deny software integration that makes the weapons usable, or deny you access to repair parts. Gee, who would want to build a hedge against that unreliable supply chain?"

The tension Nelson identifies reflects a broader debate already underway in Europe. France has long advocated for "strategic autonomy"—the concept that the EU should develop the capacity to act militarily and industrially without relying on the United States—and the EU has established mechanisms such as the European Defence Fund to support joint weapons development. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has accelerated European defense spending across the continent, with multiple NATO members reaching or exceeding the 2% benchmark.

Nelson drew a parallel to the United States seeking European cooperation in the Iran War after repeatedly insulting allied nations.

"Without a strengthened transatlantic alliance, the world will become less advantageous for liberal democracies and more favorable for those rising powers looking to fill the empty space created by the gaps in the alliance," he argued. "There are some who convince themselves America has no business maintaining interest in, or benefiting from the liberal world order and instead recommend a withdrawal to behind the walls of an American-dominated fortress of the Western Hemisphere."

He concluded: "But history demonstrates that the storms that gather around the world eventually spread to those who seek refuge in isolationism."