Please Check the Box: How Submissive Are You, Dear Allies?

“Has your country publicly supported American foreign policy?” That is how the questionnaire Washington has been sending around to its allies these days begins, and the very first line makes clear that this is not about asking questions, but about testing people. One of these forms is currently making the rounds through embassies, sent by the most powerful military force in the world to its closest partners, and it reads like an employee survey from a suspicious company boss. The United States wants to know how faithfully each NATO country is devoted to Donald Trump’s policies before deciding how much protection it will still be worth in the future. You know forms like this from the business world, where a new owner checks who he wants to keep. Except this is not about employees, but sovereign states, and protection, treated as a given for decades, is becoming a commodity with a loyalty discount.

More checkpoints follow, each one phrased more harmlessly than what it really means. What restrictions has the country placed on the U.S. military at its bases? Does it obediently buy from American defense companies? Has it opposed regulations that make contracts with U.S. companies harder? And, with studied casualness, has it signed on to the principle of “strong, clear and quiet,” that phrase coined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that sounds like an ad for men’s cologne and is now supposed to serve as a measure of foreign-policy maturity. A form like this has no room for shades of gray. It wants check marks, and one missing check mark is already an answer in itself. Imagine diplomats from sovereign countries being expected to check boxes showing how often their country has contradicted the White House, as if they were being asked to explain a bad customer review.

Anyone who reads the form quickly understands what this is about. America offers protection and demands ideological obedience in return. Insiders who are remaining unnamed because of the confidentiality involved report strong rejection in national capitals; they say they feel as though they are being treated like vassals expected to swear an oath of loyalty before receiving their fief. The comparison is off in only one respect. The medieval lord at least threw in some land. Among equals, loyalty is understood. The moment one side demands it in writing, partners become subordinates.

What is breaking here is old. Since World War II, an American guarantee carried the relationship across the Atlantic, sturdy enough to survive every dispute; people disagreed and still stood up for one another. Tie protection to obedience, and all that remains of the friendship is the naked alliance of convenience it always was underneath. A relationship built on calculation lasts as long as the math works out, and anyone who asks for it on a form is telling the other side to its face that he never fully trusted it. Through the Cold War, through Suez and Iraq, that guarantee held, even when the Europeans grumbled and the Americans cursed. It survived because no one tied it to conditions. Protection was always a deal, dressed up as kinship. This time the disguise comes off, and the price is printed in black and white on a sheet of paper.

The form touches every open wound without naming a single one. The United States and Israel started the war against Iran on their own, without even calling NATO; afterward several countries, Spain among them, denied the Americans use of their bases for the attacks. Now Washington wants to know who said no back then, and immediately asks whether they would be willing to “reduce or eliminate” that no. You kick the door in and then politely ask whether next time the key can be left ready. The politeness of the wording fools no one about the seriousness behind it.

Europeans were caught just as cold in January, when American forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and took him out of the country, something many on the continent saw as a blatant violation of international law. It is no accident that the questionnaire specifically demands public support for “initiatives” in the Middle East and the Western Hemisphere, exactly where Trump acted without the alliance. They are supposed to applaud what they were never allowed to help decide, and please put the applause in writing. For Washington that is order, for Europe it is a precedent nobody asked for.

In the second part, the tone turns commercial. Countries are supposed to prove that they are spending more and gradually taking over American capabilities themselves, while at the same time continuing to buy in America. The form asks whether they have opposed programs carrying the label “Made in Europe,” and if not, “would they be willing to do so?” That sounds like a salesman pushing insurance on you while setting fire to the house it is supposed to protect. Poland received additional troops almost as soon as Karol Nawrocki, a man Trump likes, won the presidency. Resistance comes at a price: in Germany and Hungary, Washington has for some time been propping up the political right. Loyalty becomes a currency that buys troops, and disobedience becomes a debt paid back through withdrawal. Anyone holding the form in their hands understands the scale.

The letter was first sent to embassies in Washington, and this week it circulated through NATO headquarters in Brussels, where officials are due to meet again later this month. It is part of a six-month review of the U.S. presence in Europe that is supposed to be completed by December; for most of the allies, the outcome already seems clear. A NATO official confirmed the review, stayed silent about the letter, while the Defense Department said nothing at all. The allies are bracing for deep cuts to troops and to the capabilities that can decide victory or defeat in a real war. 5,000 troops are leaving Germany, and other units are being withdrawn without replacement. Capabilities Europe itself does not possess are also being cut, above all heavy bombers. Drones and warships are on the list too. You pull back the shield and in the same letter ask whether the person left exposed has behaved properly. Europe will not replace what it loses quickly; you do not build heavy bombers in a year, and deterrence once given up does not come back because someone asks for it.

Read also our article: The Court Jester of the West

That leaves the Secretary General. Mark Rutte has taken on the thankless job of court jester, keeping the king in a good mood while the king packs up the silverware. He calls the review that strips Europe bare logical; he celebrates the forced increase in spending as a new closeness that will finally bring the alliance together, as he said in July, and says regular reviews are sensible anyway. It is hard to know what weighs more heavily, his mockery or the patience with which Europe puts up with him. This jester does not mock the king, he holds the stirrup for him. An alliance that has to prove its loyalty year after year has long since become an employment relationship, and the stronger party has little trouble terminating contracts that are only ever provisional.