President Donald Trump on Monday disparaged those countries who according to the US president, had relied ‘too long’ and at a huge expense, on American defense

Trump had called on NATO member countries to join in efforts to keep the important Straight of Hormuz open to global shipping during his war with Iran

“We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” Trump said in the face of their reluctance to engage

“NATO was created as a…defensive alliance,” It was not an alliance that was designed for one of the allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everybody else to follow” – a NATO member country responded

Another NATO leader asked “What does Trump expect from a handful of European frigates that the powerful US navy cannot do?”

“This is not our war. We have not started it,” he said

Failing to secure the Strait of Hormuz would be “very bad for the future of NATO” – President Donald Trump

The U.S.-Israeli war against Iran, now in its third week, has killed more than 2,000 people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon, and has drawn in much of the Middle East. Iran has launched rockets and drones at neighboring countries and at ships in the Gulf.
As US strike targets in Iran, Israel has launched a two pronged attack on Iran as well as targets in Lebanon deemed connected to Hezbollah.
Iran has not restricted drone and missile attacks to Israel either. Massive missile and suicide drone attacks have been launched against US installations and military bases in Dubai, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have come under attack. Same for cities and settlements in Israel
With all that destruction to infrastructure, as of Sunday Iran announced that 1,444 people were killed, while 18,551 have been injured in the country. Hundreds more have been killed in Lebanon, according to the UN.
Updated figures of casualties in both Israel and US is unavailable. The reported number of deaths in either countries has been reported to be 15 in Israel along with 13 US service men.
Amidst the incessant exchange of suicide drones and missiles between the warring nations, predictably the nearby shipping corridor through the Straight of Hormuz has come under threat from Iran regarding vessels connected to US, Israel and their allies.
The Straight of Hormuz is strategic in the matrix of global shipping and President Donald Trump called for a coalition of nations to keep Hormuz open and clear the waterway of mines.
However, as several European allies declined to meet his call to send warships to escort merchant vessels in and out of the Persian Gulf, Trump on Monday disparaged those countries who according to the US president, had relied ‘too long’ and at a huge expense, on American defense.
“We don’t need anybody; we’re the strongest nation in the world,” Trump said.
He suggested his request for assistance in reopening the Strait of Hormuz instead amounted to a loyalty test of America’s allies. “I’m almost doing it in some cases not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react,” the US president said.
President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy criticizing NATO allies. None more so than his latest suggestion that failing to secure the Strait of Hormuz would be “very bad for the future of NATO”.

Raging fire in Tehran from US Israeli air strikes and missile bombardment

This posture the countries at the end of the verbal attack paints a portrait of an alliance partner whose understanding of the alliance’s purpose that differs from that of the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“NATO was created as a…defensive alliance,” Gen Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the Defense Staff, speaking to British media on Monday.
It was not an alliance that was designed for one of the allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everybody else to follow,” he said.
“I’m not sure that’s the sort of NATO that any of us wanted to belong to.”

“NATO was created as a…defensive alliance,” Gen Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the Defense Staff. ” It was not an alliance that was designed for one of the allies to go on a war of choice and then oblige everybody else to follow.” “I’m not sure that’s the sort of NATO that any of us wanted to belong to.”

Trump had gone further to say his request for assistance in reopening the Strait of Hormuz amounted to a loyalty test of America’s allies. “I’m almost doing it in some cases not because we need them but because I want to find out how they react.”
However, the heavy irony in the call for concerted war efforts in the Persian Gulf by a president who only two months ago was making strident claims to Greenland, the sovereign territory of a fellow NATO member, is not lost on than a few partners in the alliance.
That irony it appears would explain the fairly undiplomatic response to Trump’s call, with a spokesperson of the German government observing that the war with Iran “has nothing to do with NATO”, eerily echoing Defense Minister Boris Pistorius’ undisguised skepticism that Europe’s modest navies could make a difference to escalating events in the Persian theater.
“What does Trump expect from a handful of European frigates that the powerful US navy cannot do?” Pistorius asked.
“This is not our war. We have not started it.”

“What does Trump expect from a handful of European frigates that the powerful US navy cannot do?” – German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. “This is not our war. We have not started it.”

Despite the reluctance of NATO and Europe to engage, the truth is that absent an urgent solution to the crisis in the Gulf, it will conflagrate into a global crises.
Iran’s effective blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, except for a handful of vessels carrying its own oil to allies like India and China, has left western governments seeking solutions to the uncharted shift global geopolitics.
Those developments suggest that regardless of the genesis of the current war in the Middle East, it needs to be quelled, quickly, before the impacts on the global economy get worse.
However, the signals coming from America’s allies in the past few hours suggest that there will be no quick fix.
At his news conference on Monday, British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, said conversations aimed at working out a “viable plan” were ongoing with the US, European and Gulf partners, but that we’re “not at the point of decisions yet.”
The solution needed to involve “as many partners as possible”, Starmer said. British military personnel needed important reassurances before being deployed on a potentially dangerous mission.
“The very least they deserve is to know that they do so on a legal basis and with a proper thought through plan.”

Trump on Monday disparaged his NATO allies for the chill toward joining in his war war Iran. They respond with with, “This is not our war. We have not started it”

The prime minister referred to autonomous mine hunting systems which he said were already in the region.
With HMS Middleton, a mine countermeasures vessel, back in Portsmouth for major maintenance, this is the first time in decades when no British mine-clearing ship is in the region.
Instead, the British Royal Navy is expected to offer newly developed seaborne drones, designed to detect and neutralize mines without putting crews at risk.
But one of the problems Donald Trump is wrestling with is that minesweeping, once a core function of almost all navies, has long since ceased to be a top priority.

British Prime Minister, Sir Keith Starmer said Monday that conversations aimed at working out a “viable plan” were ongoing with the US, European and Gulf partners, but that we’re “not at the point of decisions yet”

Shipping venture near the straights at their peril. A cargo vessel flying the flag of Thailand, buns after being struck by a projectile 11 nautical miles north of Oman

Moreover the latest British technologies had yet to be tested in combat, according to Tom Sharpe, a former Royal Navy commander.
“We’re probably going to find out in the next few weeks whether or not it works,” Sharpe said.
Gen Carter notes that tit has been nearly four decades since western nations carried out a major de-mining operation at sea was in 1991, after Iraq mined the waters off Kuwait to prevent an amphibious landing in the first Gulf War.
“It took us fifty-one days to clear the mines”, he said.
“No navy has invested in this at the scale that they should have done, least of all the Americans,” he added.

Damages to a residential building in the south of Tehran, the Iranian capital, that was hit during US and Israeli air strikes

Smoke billows sky high following a barrage of missile attacks on Beirut, as Israel simultaneously targets Hezbollah operations in Lebanon

The US Navy began decommissioning the the Avenger-class specialized minesweepers – boat, built with wooden hulls to avoid triggering magnetic naval mines, are all being withdrawn from service, replaced by Independence-class littoral combat ships which also use a variety of MCM mission packages – a suite of manned and unmanned systems designed to locate, identify, and neutralize sea mines, at a safer distance from minefields than the Avenger-class MCMs.
But it’s not just about minesweeping, as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard is also capable of using armed fast boats, naval “suicide” drones and shore-based missiles to disrupt shipping.
Recent pictures, released by Iran’s FARS News Agency, appeared to show large numbers of boats and drones being stored in underground tunnels, suggesting that Tehran has long been preparing for just such a moment.
President Trump has suggested that keeping the Strait of Hormuz open, might involve attacks on the Iranian coastline.

US Navy decommissioned half of its Avenger-class mine countermeasure ships in 2025. they are being replaced with littoral combat ships that possess anti-mine capabilities

While the US has already targeted mine-laying boats at berth in Iranian ports, but in an environment fraught with danger countries are hesitating to get involved, many allies are unwilling to conduct minesweeping especially if this involves putting boots on the ground.
While almost all US allies have called for de-escalation as the surest way of unlocking the Strait of Hormuz, the tough stance of wartime allies America and Israel, who are talking about a campaign that could last several more weeks, makes the prospect an immediate cessation of hostilities unrealistic
Asked if in the meantime, could allies could be persuaded to send ships to escort merchant vessels through the vital waterway?
“Germany will not participate with its military in securing the Strait of Hormuz,” Boris Pistorius said on Monday.
The European Union in 2024, launched ‘Operation Aspides’ to help meet the threats to shipping posed by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
It’s a modest mission, currently involving just three warships, and there does not appear to be a huge appetite among EU members to expand it.
EU foreign ministers are meeting on Monday, with a proposal to extend an existing EU naval mission in the Red Sea on the table, as EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas points out, changing the mandate of Operation Aspides would be the “fastest” for the EU to improve security in the Gulf.
The foreign ministers for Spain and Italy have both expressed doubts, just as Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, said his government wanted to hear from Israel and the United States “when they believe they will have achieved their military objectives in Iran,” before discussing new security arrangements.
French President Emmanuel Macron, considered most likely among the major European allies, to lend a hand in the Gulf, last week announced efforts putting together a coalition to escort vessels and guarantee freedom of navigation, added the caveat that it could only happen once the “hottest phase” of the conflict was over.
A few days later French defense minister, Catherine Vautrin, went further back stating that were no immediate plans to send vessels into the Strait of Hormuz.
According to British Royal Navy veteran, Commander Tom Sharpe , a potential escort operation would be much more complex than Operation Aspides, as it would be facing three pronged threats coming from air, surface and underwater.
“Unlike with the Houthis, where it was only an air threat, with Iran, you have all three and you want to try and shoot these things before they’re fired,” he said. “That’s not always possible.”