Iran, now more isolated than at any point in decades following Israeli and American airstrikes on the country’s nuclear program, offers US policymakers a rare moment of strategic clarity. Its regional proxy network has been shattered, its military leadership decapitated, and none of its major international partners, including China and Russia, have rushed to its aid. This abandonment reveals a hard truth about modern autocracies: Relationships built on transactional logic collapse when there’s no immediate payoff.
On June 13, after Israel struck targets deep inside Iran, reports suggest that Vladimir Putin’s first outreach was not to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, but to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This muted response came despite Iran’s recent supply of drones and ballistic missiles vital to Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and the Russian State Duma having just ratified a long-term “strategic” partnership with Tehran in April. Yet when Iran faced a moment of acute crisis, the Kremlin’s “condemnation” and recent “pledge of support” are more political theater than Moscow rushing to Tehran’s side, underscoring the increasingly transactional and fragile nature of authoritarian alliances.
Beijing, for its part, has also re-evaluated its position vis-à-vis Iran. Despite China being Iran’s most important trading partner and a major importer of Iranian oil, the Chinese foreign ministry offered restrained calls for diplomacy following the US military action against Iran’s nuclear program. No deployments. No diplomatic blitz. In fact, China’s ambassador to Israel, Xiao Junzheng, had unambiguously condemned Iran’s ally, Hamas, for the Oct. 7 attack and called for the release of the hostages. For all of Tehran’s alignment with Moscow and Beijing in recent years, the Islamic Republic appears increasingly isolated when the regime is most threatened.
By contrast, NATO members did not hesitate to support the US in one of its darkest moments. That highlights a key difference between an alliance of values and an alliance of convenience. Autocratic partnerships depend on mutual benefit. Democratic alliances, at their best, rest on something deeper.
NATO members did not hesitate to support the US in one of its darkest moments.
It’s worth remembering that the only time NATO has ever invoked Article 5 — the mutual defense clause at the heart of the alliance — was not due to Russian aggression in Europe, but in response to the al-Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed 2,977 Americans. On Sept. 12, just one day after the attacks, every NATO member stood with the United States, affirming that an attack on one was an attack on all.
In the years that followed, British, Canadian, German, Polish, and other NATO troops deployed to Afghanistan; many never returned. Canada, which had no direct stake in the conflict, sent over 40,000 troops to the theater between 2001 and 2014, losing 158 members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Germany lost 59. This was not transactional assistance, but an act of shared sacrifice. As the US grows more skeptical of multilateralism, we would do well to remember that NATO is not just a security pact. It is an alliance predicated on trust, shared values, and sacrifices made together, from the NATO-led, United Nations-sanctioned peacekeeping mission in Kosovo to Afghanistan.
Yet, even as the 2025 NATO Summit ends with a collective reaffirmation of Article 5 and a commitment by alliance members to raise defense spending to 5%, in recent years, trust in the alliance has frayed. Despite many European states having met or exceeded NATO’s previous 2% defense spending benchmark — including Poland, which spent more than 4% of its gross domestic product on defense in 2024 — Washington continued to send mixed signals.
Moments like Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the 2024 Munich Security Conference, which questioned America’s commitment to Europe, and Trump’s repeated threats to withdraw from NATO, have cast long shadows across the continent. Furthermore, when Trump was asked on Fox News about the recent NATO summit, he once again invoked the specter of coercive diplomacy, “the best insurance, if they don’t do it [5% of GDP on defense]: you leave.” Allies may now wonder whether US support would be guaranteed in a future crisis or subject to negotiation.
To be clear: pressing allies to shoulder a greater share of collective defense is not wrong. But doing so by mimicking the transactional logic of authoritarian regimes undermines the very fabric of the alliance system. NATO isn’t strong because of money. NATO is strong because the countries that make up this historic alliance rest on a “common heritage of democracy, individual liberty, and rule of law.”
The North Atlantic Treaty, signed in 1949, begins not with military strategy but with shared ideals: “The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and their desire to live in peace with all peoples and all governments.”
Iran’s abandonment highlights what happens when relationships are fundamentally transactional in nature, absent of shared principles. When crisis comes, there is no shield, only a resounding whimper.
The question before the United States today is not simply whether NATO allies are paying their fair share. It’s whether we still share the values that shape the foundations of the transatlantic alliance. If US leaders reduce NATO to a balance sheet, they risk undermining the most successful military alliance in modern history and doing their adversaries’ work for them.
Iran stood alone because it does not truly have allies, just fair-weather friends. When America was under attack, NATO didn’t hesitate. That is the difference. That is the lesson. And that is why NATO still matters.
Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to clarify JD Vance’s role in the Trump administration.