For years now, I’ve written, with something between sadness and exasperation, that NATO is dying. Despite pious pronouncements to the contrary, not even the Russian invasion of Ukraine has done much to bring NATO back to its original purpose, namely protecting Europe against a Russian threat. When Germany and other European countries chose climate change fantasy — and Russian oil — over energy independence, they betrayed a fundamental unseriousness about the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s overweening ambitions. (RELATED: Trump Delivers Europe’s Much-Needed Wake-Up Call) Much is being made this week of Donald Trump’s scathing dismissal of NATO in the wake of NATO’s refusal to support efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, or its refusal to take any visible steps to support U.S. efforts to finally, decisively, lance the festering global sore represented by the Iranian theo-thugocracy. The refusal of Spain to allow the U.S. to use our shared bases on Spanish soil is just the latest and most screamingly blatant middle finger waved in our faces by a supposed NATO ally. (RELATED: Five Quick Things: Bye, Pam) What we hear from the leaders of various NATO countries — and also from the usual suspects in the old-line U.S. foreign policy establishment — is that NATO is a “defensive” alliance and that Trump, along with Israel, is waging an “offensive” war, thus relieving NATO of any obligation to support our efforts. This, however, is arrant nonsense. It’s not just that American presidents have, for decades, insisted that Iran must never be allowed to threaten the world with nuclear weapons; European leaders have also done so, repeatedly, and in a wholly bipartisan manner. These same leaders, however, have tried to wish the threat away, signing up eagerly to Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, in spite of the obvious fact that it merely offered a fig leaf to the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions. This eagerness betrayed an obvious, but for NATO leaders unspeakable truth, namely that nothing short of delivering a crushing blow to Iran’s nuclear facilities and its military capabilities could prevent Iran’s leaders from acquiring both nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems whenever they felt like it, and specifically when they felt they’d sufficiently insulated themselves from a response from Israel. What the Europeans still want … is not a true defensive alliance … but instead a very narrowly defined promise that the U.S. will always protect them against Russia. What the Europeans still want, albeit only on their terms, is not a true defensive alliance, an alliance against all threats to their existential security, but instead a very narrowly defined promise that the U.S. will always protect them against Russia. However, unlike the days of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, the Western European NATO members refused to pull their own weight, a fact decried by every American president since the fall of the Berlin Wall. (RELATED: What Exactly Is the Purpose of NATO in the Year 2026?) I don’t discount the contributions various NATO countries made in the war against terrorism after 9/11. On the contrary, as I’ve insisted previously, these contributions deserve recognition and respect. This, of course, was conceived largely in Article 5 terms, fulfilling their obligation under the NATO treaty to come to the assistance of a fellow member who’d been attacked. Moreover, the immediate post-9/11 world was a very different place, different in ways that explain NATO’s failure to step up in the present moment. Put very simply, and bluntly, NATO has failed to act alongside us against Iran because it’s incapable of doing so. This incapacity is reflected in NATO’s military weakness, particularly its naval weakness, but that is, in the larger scheme, a lesser issue. The decisive weakness, the weakness that speaks to the death of NATO, lies in how NATO countries have opened the door to millions of illegal Muslim immigrants, many from homelands where Islamist radicalism runs deep, many whose allegiance to the sharia supremacism of the mullahs outweighs any allegiance they might have acquired for the European countries where they now reside. (RELATED: Putin, Iran, and Europe in a Post-NATO World) Clearly, when the threat comes from radical Islam, countries like Germany, France, Italy, and Spain are no longer capable of defending themselves, nor even honestly acknowledging the threat. After October 7, the massive pro-Hamas “demonstrations” — often nothing less than riots — paralyzed cities across Europe, a challenge that none of these governments proved willing or able to counter. Having demonstrably lost control of their streets, these governments also find that they’ve lost control of their political institutions. In the U.K., for example, Keir Starmer’s Labour government looks increasingly toward members of Parliament who are either representatives of predominantly Muslim districts or, equally disturbing, of the old Jeremy Corbyn wing of Marxists, all of whom view their own country as a colonialist enterprise to be repudiated, while making heroes of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime that stands behind them. To Labour’s left, the Green Party has become explicitly pro-Hamas and pro-Iran. It’s not just Labour. For years, really decades, Conservative governments refused to come to terms with the rape gang issue in a number of cities, largely because it would have meant acknowledging that these gangs consisted of Muslim men, who viewed English girls as sluts undeserving of respect. Again and again, the secular establishment’s fear of being labeled “Islamophobic” and, more fundamentally, its fear that it could no longer control its own cities, stood in the way of any kind of forthright action. (RELATED: The Fall of Britain — and the Warning for America) And it’s not just the U.K. Much the same dynamic operates across western Europe. Despite Macron’s occasional fulminations about bringing the Islamist threat under control, usually after some terrorist atrocity too egregious to ignore, the French government consistently fails to deal with the problem. Again, perhaps they can’t. The French left would explode if any such action was taken, and the center would wallow in inaction, fearful of giving encouragement to the conservative and right-wing parties. The problem is almost everywhere. Even Giorgia Meloni, who recognizes the problem and has been more forthright in calling for solutions, has grown hesitant to support Trump’s campaign in Iran. This bears mute testimony to the fragility of her government coalition and the residual power of the left to topple her conservative government. Even the Vatican, whose administrative ranks are filled with Italian leftist clerical drones, has been quick to criticize the U.S. and Israel. (RELATED: Pope Leo vs. President Trump) Almost everywhere, and the “almost” tells an important part of the story. The front line eastern European states, such as Poland, the Baltics, and Finland, have nothing meaningful to contribute militarily in the Middle East, where naval and air power is most needed. Moreover, their increasing military capabilities remain fully subscribed in containing the Russian threat. But they retain the freedom of action that comes from not having opened their borders to the tsunami of Muslim immigration that followed Angela Merkel’s disastrous invitation to the world. The threat from Iran to Europe was real, even though the European leaders quailed at the thought of owning up to this. The missile strike at Diego Garcia demonstrated that Iranian missiles would soon be capable of reaching almost every European capital. Well-documented North Korean support for Iran’s ballistic missile program lent an urgency to the missile problem that the Europeans willfully chose to ignore. Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz was a latent threat to European prosperity, made all the more acute as European governments confronted life without Russian oil imports. Furthermore, despite the disdain of the NATO mandarins both in Europe and the U.S., the “Axis of Evil” was and is a real thing. We’ve seen how Iranian drones propped up Putin’s war in Ukraine, and we now know that Iran’s missile and drone attacks on its Gulf neighbors have been enabled by Russian satellite imagery and other intelligence sharing. Behind the North Korean involvement lurks Chinese technical assistance, and sometimes direct aid. Even Venezuela and Cuba had dipped a hand in support for Iran. Not incidentally, subversive anti-American networks funded by such bad actors as George Soros and Neville Roy Singham have also entered the field, sowing division here and in Western Europe. Connecting the dots isn’t hard. Singham, for example, is now based in Shanghai, and he acts as an agent of Chinese influence, including promoting pro-Iranian narratives in the media and on the streets. An unlikely source gives the game away. Recently, the mayor of Toronto beclowned herself by insisting that ICE would not be allowed to operate in her city, ignoring the obvious silliness of such a fear. But ICE is now the boogeyman, not only in Canada, but also among urban elites in Europe. Some of this is the usual echoing of American leftists’ favorite tropes. This speaks, however, to a deeper anxiety, namely that for NATO to serve once again as a meaningful defensive alliance, it will need to learn how to protect itself against today’s threats. If NATO countries are to ever regain relevance, they will all need to create and fully support their own versions of ICE. And this, sadly, they will not do. In successive years, JD Vance and Marco Rubio have made this point, the one bluntly, the other more gently, but in both instances unmistakably. Iran and its radical brand of Islam have become the pacing threat, and countries unwilling to defend their own civilizations have ceased to be worthy security partners. Now, Donald Trump is making this even more explicit. Ironically, Spain’s base denial makes the case for our taking full control of Greenland. Iran was a threat to Europe, and until its capabilities are permanently neutered, it will remain such a threat. By failing to defend its members against the Iranian threat, NATO has utterly forfeited its 21st-century relevance. One can complain about Trump’s brusque failure to observe the usual diplomatic niceties, but these niceties, over multiple presidencies, have only obscured geopolitical strategic reality. NATO may have hobbled itself through a generation of declining defense spending, but its member countries killed it by allowing Islamist subversives to take control of their streets and their politics. NATO has an honorable history, and as a one-time devoted Atlanticist, I will always respect what it once meant to the world. There may be something, someday, that can take its place, some kind of alliance worthy of our continuing support. We might, for example, pursue a focused alliance with the Eastern European states aimed specifically at Russia. We might pursue other regional alliances with a genuinely shared purpose. But the NATO that once stood proudly astride the North German plain and the Fulda Gap died at the hands of Angela Merkel and her imitators. Let’s be honest with ourselves and with the world. NATO, today, isn’t merely a shadow of its former self. It’s a moldering corpse that must be buried before something new and better can emerge. READ MORE from James H. McGee: Fresh Horror in Nigeria: The Return of Boko Haram Californicating Virginia: Democrats’ Misleading Appeal to ‘Fairness’ Memes Against America James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025.  You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and its predecessor, Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions. Image licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International.