Amid U.S. involvement in a war against Iran, President Donald J. Trump has decided to double down on previous public expressions of disregard and distrust toward NATO. President Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO several times since his reelection. His repeated jibes at the alliance have raised concern among European defense experts and government officials. Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder recently noted that “It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense.” And French President Macron indicated on April 2nd that, in his view, U.S. President Trump was undermining NATO through his repeated threats to withdraw from the alliance. Raising new fears of American abandonment on the part of European leaders, Trump, in various interviews and social media posts within a few days, said that the United States “will remember” France’s refusal to assist in the war against Iran; that NATO was a “paper tiger”; and that “Putin knows that, too, by the way.”

The most recent Presidential broadsides against NATO reflected Trump’s frustration with European allies who chose not to involve themselves in the war against Iran and/or denied their political and military support for the actions taken under Operation EPIC FURY—an effort that Secretary of War, Hegseth describes as “laser-focused [to] destroy Iranian offensive missiles, destroy Iranian missile production, destroy their navy and other security infrastructure – and they will never have nuclear weapons.” But this hesitancy among European allies should not have surprised U.S. leadership. Neither NATO as an alliance nor individual European governments were consulted before the decision to go to war, nor were they fully informed until the operation was already in progress. Further to the issue of NATO support, Trump’s address to the nation on April 1st simply assumed that the United States would wind up its military operations within several weeks and would turn the problem of unblocking shipping in the Strait of Hormuz over to European countries and others. In addition, Western European governments have strong public support for putting distance between themselves and the war in Iran. Popular majorities in every country oppose the U.S. and Israeli campaign, and European opposition to the war is enhanced by Trump’s personal unpopularity on that side of the Atlantic.

An additional element in the split between Trump and NATO was the Russian interpretation of its implications for the war in Ukraine, and more broadly, for Russia’s national security strategy writ large. Prolonged U.S. commitment to war in the Middle East could deplete the availability of military assets that would otherwise be available to sustain Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia. The global spike in gas and oil prices was an obvious boon to the Russian economy and, from the standpoint of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, an unwelcome distraction for European leaders from the priority of supporting Ukraine. Russia also took advantage of Epic Fury to reinforce its support for Iran by providing targeting information for Iranian missile attacks against Israel and other regional states. Russia and Iran had already been sharing technology and knowledge with respect to drone warfare even prior to the launch of military operations against Tehran.

To some extent, the volatility in the Trump administration’s approach to NATO reflected the President’s frustration at his inability to broker a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. Vladimir Putin viewed Russia’s war as existential and refused to acknowledge that there was any distinction between Ukrainian and Russian civilizations, let alone sovereignties. The Ukrainians responded in kind, resisting Russia’s invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory with creative use of drone technology and edgy defensive strategizing that put at risk a variety of targets in Russian territory, including bomber bases and critical infrastructure. Worse for Putin, his invasion in 2022, preceded by Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, refocused NATO on its primary mission of deterrence and defense in Europe as opposed to “out of the area” operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Even the formerly Cold War neutral states, Sweden and Finland, were added to NATO’s membership because of Russia’s attempted coup de main against Kiev that turned into the longest and most destructive war in Europe since World War II. Caught in a trap of his own making, Putin continued to pour troops and material into the battlefields of Donbas and elsewhere in eastern Ukraine to support a more favorable negotiating position, should productive negotiations ever materialize.

Given Trump’s propensity for rearranging the deck chairs on foreign policy via Truth Social memoranda, it is conceivable that he will tone down the anti–NATO rhetoric once he has decided on a strategy for winding down the U.S. military campaign in Iran. The process of deconflicting the Strait of Hormuz will likely involve participation from European nations and other countries. Almost nobody benefits from continued bottlenecks in global shipping of oil and other vital commodities. Regardless of the outcome in Iran, the United States needs NATO, and NATO needs the United States. Without the U.S. as the indispensable leading partner, NATO Europe has insufficient nuclear or conventional deterrence against further Russian aggression. This assertion implies no disregard for the steps that the U.S. European allies have already taken since 2022 to improve the quality of their armed forces and military–industrial complexes. It is instead a recognition that the unique American nuclear deterrent and conventional war-fighting capabilities, supported by European determination to resist further Russian aggression, create a global as well as a regional deterrent for Russia and its partners (The CRINKs – China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) that benefits not only NATO but also world peace. On the other hand, a divided and internally fractious NATO invites further aggression within and beyond Europe.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State Brandywine and the author of numerous works on nuclear deterrence, arms control, and military strategy. He is a senior fellow at NIDS and a recent contributor to the Routledge Handbook of Soviet and Russian Military Studies edited by Dr. Alexander Hill (Routledge: 2025). The views of the author are his own.

Trumping NATO was originally published on Global Security Review.

While many readers may not be familiar with the inner workings of constitutional monarchies, it is important to keep in mind that a prime minister serves at the pleasure of the monarch, in whose name the prime minister forms a government. While not common, the monarch can remove the prime minister due to a loss of confidence. In the case of Iran (1953), the Shah saw Mosaddeq as a threat to the constitutional order, which, in fact, he was.

The Shah’s restoration of constitutional order in 1953 also addressed three important geostrategic issues. The first concerned the nature of Iran’s government and how its leadership would be determined. In 1951, as a member of the parliament or Majles, and subsequently as prime minister, Mosaddeq pushed for a public referendum to have the parliament dismissed and the constitutional monarchy eliminated, which would have given him virtual dictatorial powers to rule.

By 1953, as prime minister, Mosaddeq again called for just such a public referendum to choose between his government by decree and what he viewed as an antiquated monarchy. The referendum passed overwhelmingly, and Mosaddeq signed a decree calling for the results to be implemented although Iran’s constitution recognized no such role for referendums. The prime minister was clearly seeking to engage in unconstitutional activities.

The second issue was Mosaddeq’s long sought effort to nationalize Iran’s oil reserves, then controlled jointly through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. In 1951, prior to becoming prime minister, he led parliament to pass legislation nationalizing Iranian oil assets. The United Kingdom took Iran to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but because Iran did not recognize the authority of the ICJ, the court dismissed the lawsuit in 1952. This ultimately led the UK to organize a boycott of Iranian oil exports, which was effective in preventing Iranian oil, 50 percent of the nation’s foreign currency assets, from being sold on the international market.

The third issue was Mosaddeq’s growing rapprochement with the Soviet Union (USSR) and reliance on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party as an important source of political support. Moscow was looking to control more oil resources, particularly those in Iran and the Middle East, which led the Soviets to actively engage in the spread of communist propaganda and revolutionary efforts in the region.

The American Role

For supporters of today’s regime in Tehran, it is an article of faith that the US and UK illegitimately overthrew a popular and democratic ruler, Mosaddeq, over a desire to keep Iranian oil resources under British control and an unwarranted fear of communism.

The Associated Press for example, concluded that what they saw was a “reactionary CIA-led 1953 coup against revolutionary Mosaddeq” which “lit the fuse” for the 1979 Islamic revolution a quarter century later. All the elements were there—greed for oil, a supposed push to stop popular democracy, and an irrational fear of communism—to make the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the “bad guys” in this narrative.

By accepting the narrative that Iran’s path toward progressive democracy was hijacked by the CIA, wholesale excuses are possible to explain away Iran’s terrorist enterprise over the past four decades. For many fellow travelers in the West, the fictional “coup” against Mosaddeq provided an excuse for avoiding a confrontation with Iran over its rogue behavior.

Iran’s mullahs describe American and British action from 1953–1979 as “the great arrogance”—the meddling in Iranian affairs by foreign interests. However, the legitimate constitutional restoration of the Shah (1953) was led by a completely legitimate loyalist-royalist coalition made up of members of the Iranian military, the Iranian theocracy, Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi’s supporters, and supporters of the Iranian constitution. The Shah legitimately issued two decrees on August 19, 1953, dismissing Mosaddeq as prime minister and appointing General Fazlollah Zahedi as prime minister.

The American desire to staunch the spread of communism was a perfectly legitimate concern that led President Dwight D. Eisenhower to support constitutional government under the Shah. For the British, without whose investment in infrastructure, processing, and export there would be no Iranian oil to export, legitimate financial interests were at stake. The Soviet Union also cared about oil. In the early 1950s, Iranian oil and gas reserves were a growing part of known oil and gas reserves. Control over them would provide economic and diplomatic leverage for an economically impoverished Soviet state.

It should come as no surprise that a false narrative surrounding Mosaddeq’s removal developed almost immediately. Reality, however, is far different. Mohammad Mosaddeq was legitimately removed from power for attempting to topple the constitutional monarchy on behalf of the Soviet-supported Tudeh party. American and British support was exactly what the Shah required to restore the constitution. The ultimate collapse of the Shah’s government and its replacement with an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy is a tragedy the United States regrets even to this day.

Peter Huessy and Joe Buff are Senior Fellows at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are their own.

Iran’s 1953 Coup that Wasn’t was originally published on Global Security Review.