How a Month of War Has Exposed the Fragility of Global Institutions
It took less than 48 hours for the post-Cold War consensus to unravel. When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes against Iran on February 28, they did so without consulting their European allies, without seeking a UN Security Council mandate, and without a clear exit strategy. One month later, the institutions that have underpinned global stability for nearly eight decades are buckling under the strain.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, already strained by Trump’s long-standing complaints about European defense spending, is now facing an existential crisis. The president’s suggestion that the U.S. may not have an obligation to defend NATO allies who fail to provide material support for the Iran war has left European capitals scrambling. “We spent hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds protecting them, and we would have always been there for them,” Trump said at an investment forum in Miami. “But now, based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be”.
The European Union, meanwhile, is staring down the barrel of a potential recession. Eurozone finance ministers met Monday to assess the economic impact of the Middle East crisis, with the European Commission warning that a sustained energy supply disruption could trigger stagflation—the toxic combination of high inflation and low growth. The EU has already seen natural gas prices spike, and there are concerns that the conflict could spread to the Strait of Hormuz, through which Europe receives much of its liquefied natural gas.
The United Nations has been sidelined entirely. The Security Council has passed multiple resolutions calling for ceasefires in various theaters of the conflict, but none have been enforced. UN peacekeepers in Lebanon have become casualties of the war rather than agents of its resolution; three Indonesian peacekeepers were killed in two separate incidents over the weekend, and the UNIFIL headquarters in southern Lebanon was struck by Israeli artillery fire.
Even the International Atomic Energy Agency, the global watchdog for nuclear non-proliferation, has been reduced to documenting damage after the fact. The agency confirmed Monday that Iran’s heavy water production plant in Khondab has been “severely damaged” and is “no longer operational”—a development that would have triggered emergency sessions of the Security Council in a different era. Today, it is barely noted in the headlines.
The erosion of international norms extends beyond the Middle East. In Israel, the Knesset passed a law on March 30 making the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians convicted in military courts of deadly attacks, a measure that has drawn sharp international criticism. The legislation requires execution by hanging within 90 days of sentencing, with no right to clemency.
In the United States, the Trump administration is preparing to submit a record $1.5 trillion defense budget to Congress, even as it signals a willingness to abandon long-standing alliances. The contrast could not be starker: more money for the military, less commitment to the partnerships that have historically multiplied American power.
“The rules-based order is not being challenged from the outside,” said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It is being abandoned from the inside.”
