In late October 1956, an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft flew over a military base in Cairo and captured an image that showed the site intact, despite the launch of the British, French and Israeli assault on Egypt following President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalisation of the Suez Canal in July. Ten minutes later, the aircraft returned and photographed a completely altered scene: cracks in the ground, destroyed buildings and burning aircraft, all indicating that British bombing had struck Cairo.
The next morning, President Dwight Eisenhower received the photographs over breakfast and reacted with visible shock at the scale of the British escalation. His anger was directed at British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, who had launched military operations without consulting Washington, opening a serious rift between transatlantic allies.
The United States even refused to hold a joint summit with Britain during the assault, calculating that any appearance of alignment with the aggression would cost Washington valuable Arab public opinion. When Eden later sought to repair relations and proposed a visit to Washington, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles urged Eisenhower not to receive him. The meeting was ultimately blocked, deepening British frustration and leaving the Suez crisis as a defining example of how strategic interests can fracture even the closest alliances.
From Suez to Hormuz
The Suez crisis marked the political and military decline of Britain and France, while the United States emerged as the undisputed leader of the Western bloc. The Arab region, in turn, moved out of the old British-French order and into the bipolar structure of the Cold War between Washington and Moscow.
Today, nearly seventy years later, the region appears to be witnessing a moment that recalls Suez, but in reverse. The American-Israeli war on Iran, the tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, and the accompanying economic and political disagreements between Washington and European capitals have reopened the question of transatlantic relations. This time, however, the issue is not the end of British and French imperial leadership, but whether American leadership of the Western alliance is still accepted by Europe in the same way.
There is a decisive difference between the Suez moment and the current Hormuz moment. In 1956, the crisis revealed a transfer of leadership within the West from Europe to the United States. Today, the crisis suggests the emergence of a different phase in which American leadership is no longer entirely comfortable or uncontested for Europeans.
Europe is no longer willing to automatically align itself with every American strategic choice, particularly when those choices involve wars far from European territory but capable of inflicting direct economic harm on the continent.
For that reason, the war on Iran may prove to be more than just another Middle Eastern conflict. It may become a defining moment that reveals a structural transformation within the Western alliance, much as Suez did seven decades ago. Major crises do not merely alter balances of power. They also change how allies view one another, forcing a reassessment of the meaning, value, limits and leadership of alliances themselves.
Europe and the Search for Strategic Independence
From the first days of the war, it was clear that Europe did not want to be drawn into direct confrontation with Iran. The European Union, along with France, Germany and Italy, focused on calls for de-escalation and diplomatic engagement. This caution was not driven only by fear of military escalation, but by wider economic and security calculations, foremost among them energy security, the risk of a new refugee wave, and concern that the war could expand into a regional conflict involving the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Europe understands that any prolonged disruption in Hormuz would produce an energy shock, drive up oil and gas prices, and directly hit a continent already burdened by weak growth, inflation and the long-term consequences of the war in Ukraine. As a result, the European position sought to separate the strategic alliance with the United States from participation in a war that Europe did not regard as serving its own interests.
At the same time, some reports pointed to indirect European support for the American war effort through intelligence sharing, logistical backing, or permitting US forces to use European bases. This exposed a familiar political duality. Europe publicly distanced itself from the war once it became clear that the Iranian state would not collapse easily, yet elements of the continent still cooperated militarily with Washington. That contradiction is not new. It was visible during the Iraq war in 2003. Today, however, it is more pronounced because Europe itself is less united than it was two decades ago.
The strain across the Atlantic has also been sharpened by Donald Trump’s policies towards Europe, including tariffs on European products, repeated threats to withdraw from NATO, and the Greenland controversy, which revived the idea that Washington increasingly treats Europe through the logic of transactions rather than alliance. For many Europeans, this signals that the United States no longer sees Europe primarily as a strategic partner, but as an economic competitor and a political and military dependent expected to pay for protection.
The war on Iran therefore exposed contradictions within the Western camp. Washington sees the conflict as part of a broader effort to reshape the Middle East and contain Iran. Europe sees it as a threat to regional stability and the global economy. This divergence is more serious than a temporary policy dispute. It reflects a deeper difference in strategic worldview.
If the war resumes after the current pause, and the ceasefire fails to produce lasting peace, the transatlantic divide is likely to deepen. Europe will be pushed further towards strategic independence, a concept increasingly present in European discourse and one that centres on reducing military and economic dependence on the United States. This could accelerate efforts towards joint European defence and independent energy policies.
Even if the war ends in a full settlement, the relationship across the Atlantic will not return to what it was before. Europeans have now seen that the United States can drag its allies into major crises without meaningful coordination. Americans, in turn, have seen that Europe is no longer prepared to fall in behind American wars by reflex. This does not necessarily mean the collapse of the Western alliance, but it does suggest a shift from a one-sided alliance to a more negotiated one based on mutual interests.
War, Energy and the European Economy
If the political divergence between Europe and the United States reflects differing strategic visions, the economic divergence reflects differing levels of exposure to risk. Middle Eastern wars have always affected Europe more severely than the United States because Europe remains an industrial economy dependent on imported energy, while the United States has in recent years become one of the world’s largest energy producers.
Europe views any conflict in the Gulf primarily through the lens of energy security. A large share of the oil and gas entering global markets passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and any threat to navigation there is immediately reflected in European economic vulnerability. Previous crises, from the tanker war of the 1980s to more recent tensions with Iran, have shown that even the threat of closure is enough to ignite prices.
Europe’s problem is not limited to higher oil prices. Rising energy costs increase industrial production costs, weaken the competitiveness of European manufacturing, especially in Germany and Italy, drive up inflation, and place governments and central banks under intense pressure. The result is slower growth and the heightened risk of social and political instability.
This explains why Europe’s public messaging from the beginning of the war focused so heavily on preventing maritime escalation. For Europe, the gravest danger is not a land war or even air strikes, but a naval conflict in the Gulf. That would disrupt trade and energy flows, striking at the foundations of the global economy and particularly the European one.
The risks also extend to global shipping routes. A war in the Gulf does not only threaten oil supplies, but also the trade corridors linking Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Any disruption would raise shipping and insurance costs and delay supply chains. Europe depends on the Suez Canal for around 40 per cent of its trade, while the United States depends on it for only about 3 per cent.
This means that the United States can withstand a relatively long war due to energy self-sufficiency and the scale of its economy, whereas Europe is far more fragile in the face of energy and trade shocks. The strategic clock of war is therefore not the same on both sides of the Atlantic. What Washington can absorb for months may be economically devastating for Europe over the same period.
As the war drags on, pressure inside Europe will intensify from industrial firms, unions, and the transport and energy sectors, pushing governments towards more independent positions and stronger calls for an end to the war. In that sense, the conflict risks becoming not merely an external crisis for Europe, but an internal one.
This is especially serious because Europe is already carrying the burdens of the Ukraine war, high military spending, energy strain, economic slowdown, social tension and the rise of populist right-wing parties. A new war layered on top of these pressures could trigger substantial political consequences, especially in countries approaching elections.
Security and Defence: The Limits of the American Umbrella
If the economic dimension has exposed Europe’s fragility, the security dimension reveals a deeper contradiction. Europe remains embedded in a military structure tied closely to the United States through NATO. This raises a question that is no longer theoretical: can Europe become an independent security actor, or will it remain dependent on the American umbrella even in wars it does not want?
Since the end of the Cold War, European security has rested on structural dependence on the United States. NATO has not functioned as a traditional military alliance so much as an institutional framework for near-total American leadership in major defence matters. Even with the rise of European rhetoric around strategic autonomy, Europe’s military capabilities remain fragmented and limited when compared with those of the United States, whether in intelligence, weapons systems, or command and control structures.
The war on Iran has revived this debate in a far more urgent context. Europe now finds itself in the position of facing a war led by the United States, one it does not want to join, yet one from which it cannot fully detach because of its operational integration with Washington. American military bases in Europe, shared intelligence networks and NATO logistics make a clean separation between European political decisions and the American military machine extremely difficult.
This is why reports of indirect European support, whether through intelligence sharing or logistical facilitation, are entirely plausible within this framework. Even when European governments choose not to directly join combat operations, they remain embedded in a security system led by Washington. That reality reveals the limits of European independence. Europe may retain the theoretical right to refuse a war, but not the practical ability to fully detach from its consequences.
This arrangement no longer appears stable. Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from NATO or reduce the American commitment to Europe’s defence have shaken European confidence in the durability of the US security umbrella. What may appear in Washington as negotiating rhetoric is understood in Europe as proof that complete reliance on the United States is dangerous.
The Iran war intersects directly with this structural anxiety. Europeans now face a reversed equation. The United States may drag them into wars they do not want, while at the same time proving unwilling to defend them in other crises if political calculations change. In some cases, Washington itself may even appear as a threat to European interests, as the Greenland issue has suggested.
For that reason, the debate inside Europe over building an independent defence capability has gained new urgency. Initiatives such as Permanent Structured Cooperation and efforts to establish joint European defence industries are no longer being presented merely as long-term aspirations, but increasingly as strategic necessities. The war on Iran has highlighted that dependence on Washington does not only bring protection. It also brings subordination in decision making.
The path towards European defence independence, however, remains difficult. Deep internal divisions persist. Eastern European states such as Poland and the Baltic countries still see the United States as the principal guarantor of their security against Russia and are less enthusiastic about moving away from NATO. France, by contrast, has long favoured strategic autonomy, while Germany continues to search for a middle ground between the two.
These divisions mean that Europe, even as it recognises the need for greater independence, is still unable to achieve it quickly. That leaves the continent in a fragile and unsettled position, caught between an inability to separate from the United States and a reluctance to fully embrace American policy.
Greenland and the Threat Within the Alliance
The war on Iran came at a time when the Atlantic alliance was already under strain. It reinforced the view that the United States is willing to act without regard for the economic and political interests of its European allies. This suggests that Washington can, at least indirectly, pose a threat to European interests, and that its ambition towards Greenland is not simply rhetorical pressure, but part of a broader geopolitical mentality.
When Trump revived the idea of buying Greenland from Denmark, Europe did not read it merely as a bizarre remark. It was understood as an expression of a geopolitical worldview that treats land and strategic locations as assets to be bought and sold. For Europeans, it evoked the language of nineteenth century great power politics.
The Greenland issue left a lasting political and psychological mark because it reinforced the impression that the United States no longer sees Europe as an equal partner, but as a sphere of influence or a strategic domain too weak to defend itself, and therefore open to pressure and bargaining that strengthen American positioning at the expense of European sovereignty.
In the same way, many in Brussels see the Iran war as a major strategic decision made in Washington, with Europe now expected to adapt to its consequences. For European policymakers, the Hormuz crisis is part of an accumulating pattern since the beginning of Trump’s presidency. Washington increasingly views alliances through the lens of direct cost and return, while Europe continues to rely on a multilateral international order that the United States itself helped build but now appears less willing to uphold.
This difference in how the international system is understood helps explain the widening disputes across trade, defence, Middle East policy and even relations with Russia and China.
Towards a Post-Atlantic Era?
In recent years, European political thought has increasingly engaged with the idea of a post-Atlantic era. This does not imply the complete disappearance of the alliance between Europe and the United States, but rather the loss of its centrality to the international system, a role it has held since 1945.
In such a world, Europe may become more independent, the United States more focused on rivalry with China, and the transatlantic alliance may become just one alliance among several rather than the organising core of the West itself.
After five weeks of the American-Israeli war on Iran and the announcement of a two-week ceasefire, the main question in Europe is no longer simply how the war will end, but what lasting effect it will have on the structure of relations with the United States. Europe understands that major wars do not only redraw maps. They also alter alliances and reshape how allies view one another.
If the war resumes, the first area to be hit will be the European economy, especially if tensions in Hormuz continue or if maritime disruption spreads through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab. In that case, internal pressure on European governments from public opinion, industry and economic sectors will intensify.
Over time, that economic pressure may become political pressure, driving new foreign policy orientations and potentially contributing to the rise of more radical left-wing or right-wing governments. This could weaken traditional parties and give greater momentum to calls for independence from American policy, even if such a shift also risks widening fractures within Europe itself.
In that scenario, the coming years could witness faster movement towards joint European defence projects, higher military spending, and efforts to build defence industries less dependent on American arms. These changes would not happen overnight, but once initiated they would steadily alter the balance of transatlantic relations.
If the war instead ends in a full settlement and the ceasefire proves durable, its effects will still not disappear quickly. The conflict has already exposed disorder within the Western camp and is likely to deepen the political coolness between Washington and Brussels. There may be no direct rupture, but there could be a slow drift apart, with the alliance remaining intact in form while disagreements widen over trade, energy, defence, and relations with China, Russia and Greenland.
One of the main obstacles to a more independent Europe, a goal France pursues more strongly than most, is that Southern European states such as Italy and Spain have historically been wary of domination by the central powers, especially France and Germany. Germany’s military weakness compared with France also means Berlin may have to concede greater political weight to Paris inside the European Union, something German decision makers may hesitate to do.
In the end, the pace of any move towards a post-Atlantic order may depend less on Europe than on the United States. If the current direction of American policy continues under Trump and beyond, Europe may be forced to proceed further along a path of self-reliance.
In a world increasingly shaped by multipolarity, a dynamic accelerated by the Hormuz crisis, the current war may become a catalyst pushing Europe towards a more independent role in the international system, with its own calibrations towards China and Russia and its own perspective on the Middle East. This would strengthen the shift towards multipolarity not only from outside the Western structure, through the rise of China and the return of Russia, but also from within the West itself, through the erosion of the Atlantic alliance.
Just as the 1956 Suez war marked the end of British and French dominance, the war on Iran may be remembered as one of the moments that opened a new phase in transatlantic relations and in the structure of the international system. If Suez revealed the end of a European era and the start of clear American leadership of the West, the American-Israeli war on Iran may now be revealing that this leadership is no longer accepted as self-evident, even among Washington’s own allies.
