{"text":[[{"start":7.25,"text":"The writer is a senior fellow for Europe at the Council on Foreign Relations"}],[{"start":12.25,"text":"A European official visiting Washington told me recently, in bewilderment: “The Iran war is like a black hole in which everything is disappearing — including Nato.” From a European perspective, it is incomprehensible why Nato is on the chopping block because of the war. Iran is not Nato territory, the US chose not to consult European allies and could not seriously have expected Europeans to join them in what they saw as reckless adventurism."}],[{"start":38.15,"text":"But within the US administration, the frustration and grievance is real, and even extends beyond Maga into conservative foreign policy circles. Europeans did not have to join us, but they could at least stand with us. How is refusing base usage not a breach of solidarity and loyalty?"}],[{"start":55.4,"text":"This stark divide is not limited to Iran. Throughout the past few months, I’ve had many conversations with officials and analysts on both sides of the Atlantic about the alliance’s “disintegration”, as Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called it. These discussions left me concerned that the alliance is ending in the worst possible way: not in what many Europeans hoped would be an orderly transition of “burden shifting” towards a more equal Nato in which Europeans take more responsibility."}],[{"start":83.6,"text":"Instead, it is a messy divorce in which both sides have begun developing their respective “stab in the back” myths. Even though the alliance is not yet formally dead, the narratives about who is to blame for its ending are already hardening. And myths we tell about the end of an era shape what comes next."}],[{"start":101.44999999999999,"text":"There is a German word, Dolchstoßlegende, which describes the story a nation tells itself about how it was betrayed. It goes back to the myth claimed by military leadership that the German army was undefeated “in the field” during the first world war and instead “stabbed in the back” by traitors at home, especially Social Democrats and Jews."}],[{"start":123.89999999999999,"text":"The problem about stab-in-the-back myths is that accusations of mutual betrayal are the worst possible basis on which to end a relationship, because it prevents building something new on shared ground. This also applies to the future of Nato."}],[{"start":138.35,"text":"From the perspective of the Trump administration, Europe’s original sin was to abandon the US in a moment of consequence and expose the alliance as hollow."}],[{"start":147.79999999999998,"text":"But for Europeans, the critical betrayal was Greenland. The fact that the US threatened to annex Greenland and considered the territory of a sovereign ally negotiable is the key inflection point. After Donald Trump’s speech at Davos, in which he ruled out military force but demanded “immediate negotiations to once again discuss the acquisition of Greenland”, the atmosphere in EU capitals resembled the aftermath of a state of emergency, as diplomats worked through scenarios for a confrontation with the US."}],[{"start":177.95,"text":"There is a “before” and an “after” Greenland in Europe. After the US crossed this line, Europeans began planning for a Plan B: the defence of Europe without the US. But this is not how it is understood in Washington. Instead, US officials downplay the Greenland episode and ridicule Europe. A Republican senator said that Europeans are “too emotional” about the Greenland episode (to which an Estonian colleague drily remarked that Russia also always told the Baltic states that they were “too emotional”)."}],[{"start":210.39999999999998,"text":"Greenland is seen as overheated talk, one of many episodes which should not be viewed as too serious. I have heard a similar disbelief from outside-the-beltway business elites about why Europeans would “blow up Nato over Greenland”."}],[{"start":223.49999999999997,"text":"The two different stab-in-the-back narratives — Greenland on the European side, Iran on the US side — and the lack of understanding for each other will be destructive for the future of Nato."}],[{"start":234.24999999999997,"text":"For a while after Trump’s re-election, there was a new hopeful version of Nato’s future: an orderly transition in which Europeans gradually take over more of their own defence, Americans would pivot towards the Indo-Pacific with their newly freed resources, and the alliance would re-emerge more equal and more powerful. The US-Europe relationship would be organised around joint interests instead of shared values or cold war history."}],[{"start":259.5,"text":"But this is only possible if that shared story of Nato still exists. What is replacing it now — with the messy, punishing withdrawal of American troops from Germany and the announcement the US will review its forces in Europe — is a dirty divorce, conducted in the language of betrayal. If Americans and Europeans cannot agree on why they parted ways, they may never be able to walk together again."}],[{"start":290.40000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1782103391_8437.mp3"}