Paper Tiger

An internal Pentagon email drafted by Elbridge Colby, the department's top policy adviser, lays out options to punish NATO allies that refused to support American operations against Iran. Among them: suspending Spain from the alliance and reconsidering US backing for Britain's sovereignty over the Falkland Islands. Reuters broke the story on Friday, citing an anonymous official who described the document in detail.

Colby wrote that access, basing and overflight rights, known in NATO parlance as ABO, are "just the absolute baseline for NATO." Spain shut its airspace to American aircraft involved in the war and barred the use of jointly operated bases on its territory, including Rota and Morón. Prime Minister Sánchez has called the Iran war "illegal, reckless, and unjust" since day one. He also refused to raise defence spending to the 5% of GDP Trump demands from allies. Spain spent 1.28% in 2024, the lowest in the entire alliance.

The legal problem is that NATO has no mechanism to suspend or expel members. The North Atlantic Treaty, signed in 1949, only allows voluntary withdrawal under Article 13, with one year's notice. A NATO official reminded the BBC of this fact. Any attempt to suspend Spain would require unanimity among members or a creative reading of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. The email does not propose that the United States leave the alliance or close its bases in Europe. The most realistic option it floats is stripping "difficult" countries of senior positions within NATO's command structure.

The Falklands angle is a different matter. The document suggests reassessing US diplomatic support for European "imperial possessions." Argentina and Britain fought a war over the islands in 1982. Milei, never one to miss a beat, said on Friday that he is doing "everything humanly possible so that the Malvinas return to Argentine hands" and that progress is "unprecedented". Downing Street responded that sovereignty rests with Britain and the islanders' right to self-determination "is paramount."

Sánchez waved it off at the EU summit in Cyprus: "We don't work off emails. We work off official documents and government positions." Pentagon spokesman Kingsley Wilson confirmed the posture without denying the contents: "Despite everything that the United States has done for our NATO allies, they were not there for us." He used the phrase "War Department," the Trump administration's preferred name for the Defence Department.

The email is more signal than substance. It will not produce a suspension because it cannot produce one. But it serves a purpose: it tells Europe that Washington is keeping score. That overflight rights are not a courtesy but an obligation. And that if the alliance does not work when the United States needs it, Washington has ways of making life uncomfortable for those who said no. Former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned this week that NATO's survival is no longer guaranteed within the next decade. Nobody disagreed.