If Washington proves willing to sacrifice cohesion for unilateral escalation, its allies will drift away just to protect themselves
By Murad Sadygzade, President of the Middle East Studies Center, Visiting Lecturer, HSE University (Moscow).
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/authors/murad-sadygzade/Telegram
March 2, 2026, Tehran, Iran © Majid Saeedi / Getty Images
[RT] What
is unfolding around Iran is not only another Middle Eastern war. It is
also a profound test of the political, strategic, and moral cohesion of
the Atlantic world.
The widening confrontation driven by the
military actions of the US and Israel against Iran is exposing something
far larger than a regional crisis. It is revealing the accelerated
decomposition of Western unity at the very moment when the old
architecture of unchallenged American hegemony is visibly fading. In
that sense, the strikes on Iran are not simply an act of escalation in
one theater. They are a historical stress test for NATO itself, for the
credibility of Washington’s leadership, and for the entire Western claim
to strategic coherence in an age of global turbulence.
For
decades, the Atlantic alliance rested on a simple assumption. The US
would lead, Europe would follow, and even when there were frictions, the
structure would hold because all parties believed that the preservation
of American primacy was identical with the preservation of their own
security. That formula is breaking down in real time. The war around
Iran has made this impossible to ignore. Western European leaders are no
longer merely expressing discreet discomfort or ritual concern. They
are publicly and demonstratively refusing to be drawn into an American
military adventure whose goals they do not understand, whose
consequences they do not control, and whose costs they know they will be
forced to absorb. Germany, France, the UK, and Spain have all rejected
direct involvement in the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran,
while leading European officials have stated in essence that this is not
their war, that Europe had not been properly consulted, and that
Washington had not offered any convincing plan for success.
That
matters because the dispute is not about tactics alone. It goes to the
heart of alliance politics. If Washington can ignite a conflict with
enormous global implications and then demand support from its allies
after the fact, while offering neither consultation nor a credible
endgame, then NATO ceases to function as an alliance of coordinated
strategy and begins to resemble a system of imperial requisition. The
Europeans understand this. Their refusal is a message, that the US
increasingly treats its allies not as sovereign partners but as
instruments to be mobilized after decisions have already been made in
Washington and West Jerusalem. It says that when the strategic center
becomes erratic, unilateral, and ready to externalize risk, the
periphery begins to detach.
Donald Trump’s own rhetoric has thrown this reality into even sharper
relief. When NATO members refused to support the American effort around
Iran and to commit naval forces to the Strait of Hormuz, Trump did not
respond as the steward of an alliance. He responded as a resentful
patron whose clients had failed to obey. Media reports quoted him
calling NATO’s refusal a very foolish mistake and making it clear that
the US would remember that everyone agreed in words but did not want to
help in deeds. In the same political atmosphere, he also signaled that
because of American military power, the US no longer needed or desired
NATO assistance and, in essence, never truly had. Washington is
increasingly willing to threaten, humiliate, or discard its own allies
whenever they cease to be tactically useful.
This is why the
current split is so serious. It is not only Europe resisting a war. It
is Europe being forced to confront the possibility that the US would
rather risk the cohesion of NATO than restrain its own escalation. In
other words, Washington appears increasingly ready to sacrifice not only
the comfort and stability of its allies, but potentially the political
substance of the alliance itself, if preserving American freedom of
action requires it. That is what imperial decline often looks like. A
hegemon in ascent builds institutions because institutions extend its
reach. A hegemon in decay empties those same institutions of meaning
because they begin to constrain its impulses. NATO then becomes less a
community of mutual defense than a stage on which American power demands
applause while reserving the right to act alone.
The economic
consequences of this course are as grave as the diplomatic ones. The
escalation in the Middle East is already hitting energy markets with
brutal force. Crude prices rise sharply as Iran threatens additional
strikes on energy facilities across the region. The Strait of Hormuz,
one of the most important arteries for the export of hydrocarbons, is
under growing pressure, with around one fifth of global oil and LNG
trade exposed to disruption through that corridor. That is a blow aimed
at the circulatory system of the world economy.
The vulnerability
of the Europeans is not reducible to a simplistic map of direct oil
imports alone. In strictly physical terms, the EU is less dependent on
the Gulf than many Asian economies, yet it remains deeply exposed to a
Middle Eastern war through prices, shipping routes, industrial
feedstocks, and gas market contagion. Recent European analysis has noted
that only about 6% of EU crude oil imports came directly from the
Middle East in 2025, while other suppliers such as Norway remained far
more important in volumetric terms. Yet this does not remove the
strategic danger, because Europe does not live outside the global
pricing system.
Even if a barrel is bought from Norway, the US, or
elsewhere, the EU still pays for a Gulf shock through world benchmarks,
shipping costs, insurance premiums, and competition for alternative
cargoes. The gas dimension is equally important. European Commission
data showed that LNG accounted for 45% of EU gas imports in 2025. In the
second quarter of that year, the US supplied 58% of EU LNG, Russia 14%,
and Qatar 8%. In narrow supplier terms, that does not make Europe
primarily dependent on Gulf gas. In strategic terms, however, it makes
the continent acutely vulnerable to any crisis that tightens the global
LNG market, reroutes shipments, or raises the marginal cost of imported
gas across the board.
Türkiye is even more exposed because it sits at the intersection of
energy transit, regional trade, and food processing. Recent energy
analysis showed that Türkiye imports about 99% of its natural gas needs,
while LNG accounted for 44% of Turkish gas imports in the first quarter
of 2025. Turkish gas purchases have historically included substantial
volumes from Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan, alongside LNG from suppliers
such as Qatar and Algeria. On the oil side, Ankara has also worked to
diversify toward Iraqi and Kazakh crude, while the Kirkuk to Ceyhan
route regained importance during the current disruption. Türkiye is
therefore not a distant observer of this crisis. It is one of the
countries through which the energy and logistics consequences of a
broader Middle Eastern war are transmitted almost immediately.
Energy
is never just about energy. Oil and gas are not isolated commodities
sitting outside the real economy. They are embedded in everything. They
shape the cost base of petrochemicals, the economics of fertilizers, the
viability of energy-intensive manufacturing, the pricing of transport,
the resilience of logistics chains, and the stability of food systems.
When hydrocarbons surge, they do not simply raise household heating
bills or petrol prices. They radiate outward through every industrial
layer. The price of plastics, solvents, synthetic fibers, ammonia, urea,
freight, diesel-powered agriculture, packaging, shipping insurance, and
industrial feedstocks begins to rise with them. In a global economy
already weakened by years of sanctions warfare, inflationary shocks, and
supply fragmentation, another energy shock becomes not a temporary
disturbance but a multiplier of systemic fragility.
The fertilizer
issue is especially revealing because it shows how quickly geopolitical
escalation mutates into food insecurity. Fertilizer producers in parts
of Asia have reportedly halted new orders because disruptions linked to
the conflict and the near paralysis of crucial shipping corridors had
choked off a significant share of fertilizer flows from the Middle East,
along with the oil and gas used to make it. Raw material prices surged
within days.
This matters far beyond any one region. Fertilizers
are among the hidden foundations of modern food production. When natural
gas prices spike and fertilizer flows tighten, the cost of producing
food rises, margins collapse, and lower application rates can hit
yields. Food security then becomes hostage to a war sold in the language
of deterrence and strategic necessity.
The EU is not a marginal
agricultural space that can shrug off fertilizer and fuel shocks.
Eurostat figures show that the EU produced 258 million metric tons of
cereals, 162 million metric tons of raw milk, and 21 million metric tons
of pork in 2024. That scale matters because modern European agriculture
is energy-intensive at every stage, from fertilizer production and
mechanized cultivation to drying, refrigeration, slaughter, packaging,
and transport. When gas and oil costs rise, the pressure does not remain
confined to wholesale energy exchanges. It pushes directly into the
cost of bread, meat, dairy, feed, and logistics across the continent.
The
fertilizer link is especially brutal because nitrogen fertilizer is
structurally tied to natural gas. European Commission material has long
underlined that natural gas is both a feedstock and an energy source for
ammonia production, while Eurostat has shown how heavily the nitrogen
fertilizer industry depended on imported gas. In 2023, EU agriculture
consumed an estimated 8.3 million metric tons of nitrogen fertilizer.
That means any renewed gas shock in Europe does not simply hurt heating
or electricity markets. It strikes at one of the chemical foundations of
agricultural output itself.
Türkiye matters here as well, not only as a consumer, but as a
processing and re-export hub. USDA reporting has described Türkiye as a
major agricultural re-export powerhouse that imports raw materials,
processes them, and sends finished products into surrounding markets.
FAO also noted that in the 2025 and 2026 marketing year, Türkiye’s
cereal exports were preliminarily forecast at 5.4 million metric tons,
with wheat accounting for the largest share. Even with some fluctuation
from year to year, Türkiye remains a major milling, flour, and
food-processing node for a broad belt stretching into the Middle East,
North Africa, and parts of Eurasia. If energy prices surge, shipping
corridors tighten, and imported grain or feedstocks become more
expensive, the shock is transmitted not only to Turkish consumers but to
a much wider food geography connected to Turkish processing and export
channels.
Western Europe understands this danger with particular
clarity because it remains acutely vulnerable to energy dislocation.
Earlier media coverage in March suggested that Europe could absorb the
latest Middle Eastern energy shock, but not much more, with gas futures
pricing higher for longer and officials increasingly concerned about the
effect on industry and consumers. The implication is stark. Europe is
not entering this crisis from a position of industrial comfort. It
enters after years of inflation, deindustrialization pressures, and the
trauma of the previous energy shock connected to the war in Ukraine.
Another sustained rise in energy costs will hit chemical production,
fertilizers, metals, transport, and manufacturing competitiveness all at
once. The very sectors on which military resilience also depends would
come under renewed strain.
That brings us to an often overlooked
but decisive point. Escalation against Iran may not only threaten
European prosperity. It may also undermine Europe’s military production
base and therefore its ability both to rearm itself and to continue
supplying Ukraine at the scale its own rhetoric demands. Ammunition does
not appear out of thin air. It requires explosives, propellants,
nitration chemistry, metals, energy, transport, and functioning
industrial chains. Media reports in March indicated that major producers
of military explosives in Europe were already under pressure to expand
output over a period of several years, which in itself is a warning.
Europe’s ammunition ecosystem remains tight, dependent on narrow
industrial nodes, and vulnerable to shocks in energy and chemical
inputs. If energy-intensive industries are hit again by soaring gas and
oil prices, if feedstocks become more expensive, and if shipping lanes
remain under pressure, then every promise about sustained munitions
output becomes harder to fulfill.
In that sense, the Middle
Eastern escalation collides directly with the European theater. Brussels
and the major NATO countries cannot simultaneously claim that Ukraine
requires long-war support, that European defense production must surge,
and that a fresh energy and industrial shock caused by an American-led
confrontation with Iran will have no effect on supply capacity.
A
continent that is already racing to replenish stockpiles, rebuild shell
production, and finance new military contracts does not need a
hydrocarbon convulsion that raises input costs across the board. By
pressing forward with a high-risk confrontation in the Gulf, Washington
is effectively asking Europe to underwrite two strategic crises at once
while retaining no meaningful voice over the one that may cripple its
economic base.
This is one reason why the allied refusals have been so explicit.
Europe is not merely trying to avoid entanglement. It is trying to avoid
strategic self-harm. Media coverage has described a transatlantic
relationship already under severe strain from disputes over Ukraine,
tariffs, and Trump’s broader unpredictability. The Iran war has
intensified that strain by demonstrating that the White House can make
decisions with global economic consequences and then pressure allies to
validate them militarily. European governments have denounced the
strikes as reckless, destabilizing, and legally dubious. They have
emphasized distance from the conflict and explored maritime security
options only on terms not subordinated to Washington’s war aims. This is
a political language of dissociation, not solidarity.
There is
also a deeper historical irony here. The Atlantic alliance was always
presented as the institutional expression of a supposedly rules-based
order. Yet in moments of crisis, the message from Washington
increasingly sounds less like law and more like coercion. Support us
after the fact. Absorb the blowback. Pay the economic cost. Accept the
strategic ambiguity. Do not ask who made the call. Do not ask for the
plan. That is not alliance management. That is hierarchy under stress.
And hierarchies under stress become unstable because those below them
start to ask whether obedience still serves their interests.
The
consequence may be larger than a temporary quarrel over Iran. What is
coming into view is the possibility that the war will accelerate the
transition from an Atlantic-centered order to a harsher and more openly
plural world. If Washington proves willing to sacrifice NATO cohesion
for the sake of unilateral escalation, then allies will hedge more
aggressively, diversify their alignments, and invest in political
distance as a form of self-protection. The more this happens, the less
credible Western claims to indivisible strategic unity will become. That
does not mean a smooth or peaceful transition. Quite the opposite.
Periods in which old hegemonies fade are rarely calm. They are volatile
precisely because the declining center still possesses enormous military
power while losing the political authority that once organized consent
around it.
That is why the present escalation is so dangerous. It
could drag the world toward a wider war in which regional fronts merge,
energy routes become battlefields, industrial supply chains turn into
instruments of coercion, and alliance commitments become unstable. A
conflict that begins with strikes on Iran may not remain confined to the
Islamic Republic. It can widen through retaliation, naval
confrontation, proxy escalation, market panic, and strategic
overreaction. In such conditions, the difference between a regional war
and a global one narrows frighteningly.
However, from that very
danger another reality is emerging. The outlines of a new world order
are becoming visible through the cracks of the old one. Not a harmonious
order, not a morally purified order, but a more plural and more openly
contested one. A world in which power is more dispersed, in which
Western institutions can no longer automatically command obedience, and
in which multiple centers of decision-making increasingly shape
outcomes. The path to that world may be violent and unstable, and it may
pass through exactly the kind of crisis now unfolding. But the
essential point remains. The war around Iran is not only about Iran. It
is about the end of automatic Western cohesion, the mounting cost of
American unilateralism, and the birth pains of a more multipolar age.