The petty doctrine: Trump punishes Germany and other NATO allies for not cheering his war, and Putin smiles in the corner

The Pentagon recently announced that it would pull roughly 5,000 troops out of Germany over the next year.

This decision arrived hot on the heels of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz committing the unforgivable sin of saying out loud what most of the planet has been saying privately: that the United States entered a war against Iran with no discernible strategy and no exit ramp.

By Saturday, Donald Trump was already promising more pain. He told reporters the U.S. would be “cutting a lot further” than the initial report, and added that Italy and Spain were on the list too, per Euronews.

Yes, the same Spain whose prime minister has repeatedly criticized Trump for undermining international law, and the same Italy whose Giorgia Meloni denied U.S. bombers landing rights at a Sicily air base and called Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo XIV “unacceptable.” Coincidence? We think not.

In fact, their crime, as best anyone can tell, is declining to enthusiastically co-sign a war the U.S. launched without even bothering to notify most of NATO in the first place.

And just to make sure no one missed the message, EU car tariffs are jumping to 25 percent next week. Somewhere in Moscow, Vladimir Putin is having the best week of his never-ending tenure.

He has watched for years as the United States, through diplomatic efforts, expanded NATO’s influence right up to his doorstep and painted him as the villain of the European story. And now, without firing a shot or lifting a finger, he gets to watch the President of the Untied States do his work for him, methodically dismantling the alliance and publicly humiliating its members.

Then again, none of this is being framed that way, nor seen with the actual geopolitical ramifications it will have on the world. While some Democrats may argue that Trump has weakened or isolated the United States with his strongarm tactics, this isn’t about that.

A weakened country still holds the chair at the head of the table, but what Trump is doing is the equivalent of shoving the chair away on purpose, and then wonder why the room rearranged itself in its absence.

Will it help the United States? No. Will it help Europe or NATO? Certainly not. It does, however, help Trump get even with Friedrich Mertz, who he feels personally slighted him.

After World War II, there was this quiet assumption that the United States, for all its flaws, could be counted on to act in something resembling its own long-term interest.

That was, for the majority of the Western world, the deal… until Trump.