Defence: an unaffordable fracture
By Richard North - April 2, 2026
Even if president Trump was serious about leaving Nato, there is some doubt about whether he has the powers to do so.
The main barrier, it would seem, is the National Defense Authorization Act which Biden signed into law in December 2023. This law explicitly prohibits any president from suspending, terminating, denouncing, or withdrawing from Nato unless they have a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate. It also prohibits using federal funds to facilitate a withdrawal without this approval.
However, as with so many things, this is not as straightforward as it sounds. Trump could ask his lawyers (of which he has many) to argue a case that the Biden statute was an unconstitutional infringement on the president’s exclusive power over foreign relations.
There is, apparently, a historical precedent for presidents unilaterally withdrawing from treaties, with the law books quoting Jimmy Carter’s withdrawal from the 1954 Mutual Defence Treaty with the Republic of China (Taiwan).
His decision was a condition for formally recognising the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legal government of China and establishing full diplomatic relations between Washington and Peking on 1 January 1979.
In this instance, there was also a block requiring a two-thirds Senate majority before the treaty could be overturned, but Carter did it anyway and fought off a challenge through to the Supreme Court which ruled in his favour.
Interestingly, the Court did not address the constitutional issue but instead relied on the “political question doctrine”, ruling that the dispute was a matter for the executive and legislative branches to resolve between themselves rather than a matter in which the judiciary should intervene.
This could well be the outcome, should Trump be minded to withdraw, but even if he did not go the whole hog, the president could adopt a policy of “quiet quitting”, keeping the US as a member on paper but undermining the alliance by pulling out the 100,000 or so troops stationed in Europe, and repatriating some of the assets currently deployed.
Trump could also emulate de Gaulle’s move in March 1966, when he removed France from Nato’s integrated command structure, a position that was maintained until Sarkozy returned France to the fold in 2009.
Another stratagem that could be adopted by Trump, is that of disapplying Article 5 for those Nato members who do not meet defence spending targets, effectively making the “collective defence” clause meaningless and thereby ending the rationale for the treaty.
For Britain, though, what is perhaps as alarming as this development is the response of the odious Starmer to it. Rather than seeking to repair bridges which have been damaged by his ambivalence of the war in Iran, the prime minister seems to be exploiting the threat of a rift to forge a closer relationship with the EU.
This he made clear in comments at a press conference in Downing Street yesterday when he declared that “our long-term national interest requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union”.
Talking of the need for “a united front of military strength and diplomatic activity, not once in his formal remarks did he even mention the United States, much less stress the need to maintain our historic links.
Instead, referring to his intention in the “coming weeks” to announce “a new summit with our EU partners”, he spoke of going for something “more ambitious” than merely ratifying existing commitments made last year. He wanted “closer economic cooperation” and “closer security cooperation”, creating a “partnership for a dangerous world we must navigate together”.
The Guardian certainly took this as Starmer’s “strongest signal yet that he intends to reorient towards Europe and away from the US”.
Very much the same view is taken by The Times in a piece headlined “How Keir Starmer is using the Iran war to turn from Trump to [the] EU”.
Although as recently as last month. Starmer was describing the US as an “indispensable” ally, and warning that it would be wrong for the country to associate itself more strongly with “either side of the Atlantic”, he now appears to acknowledge for the first time that the choice may have been made for him.
The paper itself, though, does note that he “knows full well that he is hardly likely to endear himself to the president by using the conflict to align Britain more closely to Brussels than Washington”.
Yet the reality, the paper says, “is that may not matter. Far from a special relationship, the UK’s influence in Washington is at an all-time low and it is hard to see how that will improve any time soon”. Thus, it concludes that, in a volatile world the UK needs allies, and at the moment those allies look more reliable across the Channel than they do across the Atlantic.
This is actually a comment from the nation’s “newspaper of record”, which displays a worrying lack of awareness of the contribution made by the United States to the defence of the UK.
In the context of the recent concerns that Iran might have the capability to launch intermediate range ballistic missiles against London, we have seen how the UK is entirely without a defence against such missiles.
Such protection as is afforded comes entirely from the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) programme which, although adopted by Nato is funded and operated by the United States.
Through the period when concerns have been at their highest, Starmer has not once mentioned this programme or its vital contribution to our defences, which might suggest that he is keen to play down the US role. All Starmer has done is refer to “Nato defences”.
Yet, at multiple levels, the US commitment has been staggering. The backbone of the EPAA programme is the Aegis ballistic missile defence component and the development costs here – upgrading the software to Baseline 9 standards and improving the radar – are estimated at $20.3 billion (up to 2020).
As to the sharp end of the system, the development of the SM-3 Block IIA was jointly funded by the United States and Japan. The US R&D contribution was roughly $2 billion, while the Japanese put approximately $1 billion into the pot to fund the development of the larger second- and third-stage rocket motors and the nose cone. The actual missile did not go into full-rate production until 2024 but that required the commitment of $1.94 billion from the United States.
On top of this, the US also funds the broader infrastructure and rotational forces to maintain the fleet of five Aegis destroyers, the two Aegis Ashore installations, the early warning radar in Turkey (itself defended by expensive Patriot missile batteries), and the command and control centre in Ramstein, Germany.
This is funded through the European Deterrence Initiative, which had a budget of $3.8 billion in FY 2022 and $4.2 billion for FY 2023, dropping to $2.91 billion in FY 2025.
Looking at the bigger picture, NATO’s common-funded command and control architecture for the system is estimated to cost less than €200 million over its first 10 years, spread among 28 allies. By contrast, the replacement cost for all US military equipment and personnel support in Europe is estimated at roughly $1 trillion over 25 years.
This represents a very real and generous commitment by the United States to Europe, bringing not only a level of financial commitment to the table but also making available technology which does not exist at the European level, and which is unlikely to be developed by any European power in the foreseeable future.
Not only is this the case, but the US is working to future-proof the system with the development of the Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) – another joint programme with Japan – with an estimated total development budget of $3 billion.
One can quite understand Trump’s irritation with what he feels is Europe’s free-riding on the back if the US taxpayer, with his resentment boiling over with European nations closing down his access to bases and refusing to support his war against Iran.
However erratic and unpredictable he might be, the US president does have a point. Equally to the point, neither the UK nor the rest of Europe can replace the resource the US is expending in providing for their defence. And, in vital areas such as ballistic missile defence, we simply do not have the technical capabilities.
Rather than sidling up to “Europe” for what comfort it brings him, therefore, Starmer should be pulling out all the stops to cement our relationship with the US. We cannot afford for him to do otherwise.
