T
he military operation launched by the US and Israel against Iran on February 28, 2026, which has now evolved into a fragile ceasefire, has reopened the debate on NATO’s institutional and geographical boundaries. The Trump administration’s stance, demanding that its European allies make their airspace and military bases available for use, as well as deploying active naval assets to the Strait of Hormuz, has triggered a structural tension within the Alliance.
Whilst Article 5 of the Treaty limits the obligation of collective defense to attacks on the territories of member states in Europe or North America, Article 6 further narrows this geographical scope by clarifying the definition of the ‘North Atlantic area’. Although the fact that the Washington–Tehran crisis unfolded entirely outside NATO’s formal area of responsibility provided a legal basis for the Alliance to refrain from taking the initiative as an actor, strategic considerations have been the decisive factor here. Although the Alliance claims to be a ‘global security actor’, its members prefer to define the organization as a regional defense pact, whilst avoiding turning their ‘out-of-area’ engagements into an institutional obligation.
The most striking manifestation of the crisis at the operational level is the profound asymmetry between the expectations of the hegemonic power and the allies’ capacity to resist. Washington’s demands have gone beyond a classic burden-sharing debate to become a test of loyalty for the allies. The main objection raised from the European side in the face of this demanding stance is the political rejection that the process has been escalated without consultation with the allies and that ‘the war in question is not Europe’s war’. During this process, Spain adopted the toughest stance by closing its military bases and airspace to US use; Italy demanded strict prior coordination, whilst France and the UK raised various reservations regarding the allocation of bases.
However, despite these restrictive decisions, the European continent – led by Germany – effectively served as a vital logistical base for American military operations. As the crisis deepened and Iran began retaliatory strikes against Gulf states, France, Italy and the UK deployed their military forces to the region to fend off missile and drone attacks, thereby taking up active positions on secondary fronts. On the other hand, whilst the closure of the Strait of Hormuz dealt a severe blow to Europe’s economic interests, the capacity limitations of their own armed forces and their reluctance to be drawn into a conflict imposed by the US led European states to reject Trump’s demand to reopen the strait by military force. This collective refusal by Europe paved the way for Trump to accuse his allies of disloyalty and to threaten to withdraw the US from NATO.
This situation has left European decision-makers facing a classic ‘alliance dilemma’. Allies found themselves caught between, on the one hand, the fear of being drawn into a conflict in the Middle East (entrapment) in the name of US regional interests, and, on the other, the anxiety of being abandoned (abandonment) without the protection of the American security umbrella in the face of the Russian threat. This structural impasse has pushed Europe towards a strategy of ‘active inertia’, one that appeases the US politically whilst refraining from military engagement.
Two historical precedents in which NATO was able to take action even in crises falling outside the scope of Article 5 provide an important comparison of how this structural limitation can be overcome. The Alliance’s military engagement in the Bosnian crisis (1992–1995), which it experienced during the post-Cold War period, was based on a process of deriving legitimacy directly through the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) phased authorisation mechanisms. Similarly, in Libya, the Alliance’s basis of legitimacy was derived not from its own founding articles but from the UN Security Council’s authorisation to protect civilians (Resolution 1973);
NATO became the institutional vehicle implementing this authorisation due to its command-and-control capabilities, yet the composition of participants remained variable, with members such as Germany remaining on the sidelines. The possibility of this scenario being repeated in the Iran crisis is structurally precluded: Russia and China’s veto powers on the Security Council block any Bosnia- or Libya-style authorisation from the outset. This has reinforced the conclusion that NATO has no capacity to take institutional action on the Iran issue, either within its own Articles 5 and 6 framework or through the UN; consequently, the only realistic option remaining is individual or coalition-based action centred on the US-Israel axis.
Furthermore, the Alliance’s structural fissures are manifesting themselves in various ways on the ground. The Alliance’s past operations against piracy in the Gulf of Aden or its missions to combat terrorism and smuggling in the Mediterranean demonstrate a modest yet functional capacity for action that underpins NATO’s claim to protect global trade routes. However, these historical examples are fundamentally at odds with the military and political nature of the threat in the Strait of Hormuz: Whilst operations in the Gulf of Aden or the Mediterranean are policing-style missions conducted against weak and non-state actors, patrolling under the NATO flag in the Strait of Hormuz amounts to engaging in a direct show of force with a sovereign state possessing advanced ballistic capabilities.
Indeed, this structural incompatibility came to the fore as recently as 2019, amidst the deepening US-Iran nuclear crisis and a situation where attacks on oil tankers were threatening global trade. At that time, rather than uniting under a common umbrella, NATO members established two separate naval forces, each operating independently and guided by opposing strategic rationales: the US-led IMSC (2019), focused solely on military deterrence, and the French-led EMASOH (2020), which aimed solely at diplomatic de-escalation without being drawn into the US–Iran conflict. The fact that this two-pronged structure, with its conflicting objectives, has been established outside NATO has clearly demonstrated that the Alliance lacks a shared perception of threat and the capacity for joint decision-making in ‘out-of-scope’ crisis regions.
The evasive manoevres of European allies are transforming into a far more complex geographical and strategic equation centered on Turkey, which forms the Alliance’s south-eastern flank. Turkey’s long-standing border with Iran and its reflexes to preserve the regional balance of power, combined with a normative opposition to Israel’s military doctrine, are keeping Ankara away from kinetic conflict and forcing it into a conciliatory diplomacy.
Whilst this strategy of isolation is accepted by Washington, strategic infrastructure integrated into NATO, such as the Kürecik radar and Incirlik Air Base, which Turkey hosts on its own territory, creates structural pressure and the risk of ‘spatial entrapment’. To prevent these facilities from being instrumentalized by the US for unilateral operational intelligence or pre-emptive strikes, Ankara has blocked American manoevres by strictly limiting the rules of use within the Alliance’s formal defense framework. This stance demonstrates that geographical realities shape a security framework far more decisively than Alliance texts.
Ultimately, the ‘active inaction’ strategy developed by European states whilst caught in the ‘alliance dilemma’, alongside Turkey’s efforts to restrict the use of NATO infrastructure under its sovereignty to counter the risk of ‘spatial drift’, have clearly demonstrated that the allies will not unconditionally align themselves with a hegemonic power’s unilateral regional conflict. Although Donald Trump has sought to portray the Alliance as a weak and ‘ineffective’ institution in the eyes of the public, citing the allies’ rhetorical distancing and limited support as justification, the logistical and operational realities on the ground point to the exact opposite.
The difficulties the US has faced throughout the crisis against Iran, which possesses asymmetric capabilities, have clearly highlighted the limits of unilateral force projection, despite its military superiority. Ultimately, this crisis has paradoxically demonstrated the extent to which a hegemonic power needs the strategic depth and structural alliance architecture offered by its allies in order to consolidate its regional presence and project power.
(Originally published in Turkish by Kriter)
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