Former NATO Ambassador Daalder: Alliance Facing 'Worst Crisis' in Its History — Six Weeks 'Extraordinarily Damaging'

Former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder told the Europe Today program on April 9 that Trump's threats and the post-Rutte meeting fallout had triggered 'the worst crisis' the alliance has ever experienced. Daalder stated: 'The last six weeks have been extraordinarily damaging to NATO. We see a divided NATO, which has been the goal of first the Soviet Union and then Russia for the better part of 80 years.' Daalder, a senior diplomat in the Obama administration and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, assessed that the combination of Trump's explicit withdrawal threats, the European access denials over Iran, and Rutte's failure to secure any reassurance from Trump had produced a qualitatively different crisis from previous transatlantic disputes. The Council on Foreign Relations published a piece titled 'Will NATO's Seventy-Seventh Anniversary Be Its Last?' Time magazine ran an op-ed: 'Leaving NATO Would Be National Self-Sabotage.' Euronews and UPI covered Rutte's post-meeting position — the NATO chief noting that while 'some' allies had failed to meet commitments, 'the large majority of Europeans' had provided basing, logistics, and overflight rights.