Europe is weaker relative to the US now than at any time since the end of World War 2 – the result of deliberate US strategy to subordinate its allies in order to create a disciplined bloc ready for major war against China. The Iran war has accelerated Europe’s difficulties.

In 2022, America’s anti-Russian war cut off Germany’s cheap Russian gas supply that had powered the German industrial base. The US-led sabotage of Nord Stream, coupled with Germany’s self-destructive sanctions against Russia, meant Europe’s leading economy was forced to turn to expensive liquified natural gas (LNG) from the States, which now provides 60% of all European LNG.

In 2026, the Iran war – which the US launched without consulting its European allies –choked off Europe’s remaining energy supplies. Gas storage levels across Europe were, by mid-April, at just 25-30% of full capacity, dangerously below the EU legal minimum of 90% of capacity. The price of gas in Europe was more than double what it was before the war began. Oil prices rose too, which in turn meant dearer petrol. Fertiliser also became more expensive, which has raised the price of food. Fuel hikes also meant higher production costs. Energy-intensive industries have been particularly affected, including car-making and chemicals, which Germany produces. Supply chains that rely on shipping have been disrupted, and shipping insurance has risen.

President Trump used Europe’s energy insecurity, threatening to withhold LNG unless the EU implemented, in full the one-sided trade deal agreed in 2025. It includes Europe buying $750 billion of US energy by 2028 and locks in European dependency, further undermining the remaining sovereignty of individual European countries. Trump also put pressure on the European powers to commit forces to the Straits of Hormuz, especially when Qatar could no longer honour its energy contracts after its gas production was hit by Iranian missiles.

The European Central Bank warned of weak economic growth and soaring inflation, resulting in faster deindustrialisation and a cost-of-living crisis. In comparison, the US has been largely “insulated from the oil price increase, given that it is now the world’s largest crude exporter,” according to Chatham House fellow, Neil Quilliam.

The US economy is forecast to grow by 2% in 2026, up from the 1.7% forecast in December – a low figure but better than Europe’s, where Germany’s forecast GDP growth over the next 10 years is now -0.5%. France and the UK are only slightly better. European stock markets have fallen almost three times more than their American counterparts since the start of the Iran war.

The Iran war, says geopolitical analyst Professor Mearsheimer, represents a “double-whammy” for Europe’s weak leaders after the Ukraine war, and now Europe is in “deep trouble”. Thomas Fazi adds, “The war against Iran is also a war on Europe. If the proxy war in Ukraine was designed to decouple Europe from Russian gas, the Iran war is aimed at decoupling it from Mediterranean resources altogether.”

Meanwhile, American energy companies like Chevron have already gained hugely from the energy price rise. President Trump boasted in a social media post: “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” While US shale production is unaffected by the war, European oil companies BP, Shell and TotalEnergies, whose shares have risen for now along with US companies, could in the longer-run become exposed because of their dependence on Gulf holdings. TotalEnergies has already seen 15% of its output in Qatar, Iraq, and the UAE shut down.

Europe’s position on the war has been uneasy. Italy’s prime minister Meloni described it euphemistically as being “outside the scope of international law”, as did French president Macron and German Chancellor Merz, though they all condemned Iran’s perfectly legitimate retaliation too. Only Spain’s Pedro Sánchez has been overtly critical of the US and Israel.

The Europeans have no compunction about the war’s illegality, given their support for Israel’s Gaza genocide. However, they are worried about its economic impact and resulting domestic destabilisation. They want, then, to appear to have distanced themselves for political cover.

Meanwhile, they’re complicit. Without parliamentary approval, Britain has allowed the US to use RAF bases to bomb Iran using RAF Fairford, whose long runway is the only European airfield the bombers can use. B52s take off form there for carpet bombing with 2000lb bombs. Fairford also houses half the fleet of American B1 bombers. Diego Garcia is likewise being used, though Starmer delayed permission for a couple of days until Trump publicly insulted him. Like Britain’s facilities, Germany’s base at Ramstein is vital to the war effort – it is the central logistical hub for the US military in the Middle East. All supplies go through it. France is also allowing US planes to use its airbase at Istres.

Half the French navy has been deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean, including the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, with a further ten warships promised. Germany, Italy, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain have all sent ships – as has even Spain – while Turkey sent F-16 fighter jets to its occupied territory in the north of Cyprus. All this is on the pretext of protecting Britain’s main Cyprus base Akrotiri following a drone attack for which Iran and Hezbollah denied responsibility. Macron said the drone strike was “an attack on all Europe”.

With such a build-up of forces, active combat becomes increasingly likely. A false-flag attack on one of the European vessels would be all it would take.

France has plans to expand Operation Aspides – the EU’s naval gunboat fleet assembled in 2024 to challenge Yemen’s Ansarallah in the Red Sea. This expansion would begin by bombing Yemen and then moving into Hormuz for what Macron called a “defensive mission to reopen the Strait”.

Britain is also involved independently in the war in an active way. British fighter planes have destroyed Iranian drones to protect the Gulf states and Israel. By April, they’d flown 1,200 hours of missions. The government has declared it legal to strike Iran, if the reason is to protect British or allied personnel. The legal immunity includes pre-emptive strikes. The same legal cover has been given by the German government for the use of Ramstein for offensive operations.

Despite Trump’s fury at the Europeans for not joining in his war of choice eagerly enough, NATO’s top military commander, Alexus Grynkewich, reported more objectively that most of the European allies had been “extremely supportive” and that the US had found it “much easier to project power with our network of bases and allies.”

President Trump’s threat to leave NATO unless European ships help open the Strait of Hormuz has been one of his pressure tactics, a form of extortion in line with his insistence that Europe raise its military spending to share the defence ‘burden’: Europe must contribute more to western wars, even if it ruins them. Despite the rhetoric, the US is not about to abandon an alliance which serves its own interests in projecting its foreign policy (as Alexus Grynkewich observed) and keeping Europe compliant.

For its part, European reluctance to risk entering the Strait has been less an expression of strategic autonomy than a means of exerting leverage from a position of weakness. Europe wants something for its sacrifices if it is eventually forced to participate in the US war. Wolfgang Ischinger, president of the Munich Security Conference, advised the European powers to link any involvement with counter-demands, “That the US re-engage directly in Ukraine, that the long-planned American sanctions package against Russia is finally implemented.” These demands echo Chancellor Merz’s insistence that the US maintain sanctions on Russia, for fear that Europe will be left paying for the Ukraine war alone – as envisioned in the US National Defense Strategy 2026, allowing the US to focus on its own hemisphere and China.

How much room for manoeuvre Europe has in this tussle with the USA will become clear over the next period. But strategic autonomy, for those who argue for it, is a distant prospect. The US still massively outspends its combined allies on arms and their financial dependence on it is greater than ever. Equally, the unbridgeable divisions between European powers, exacerbated by the Iran war, make a coherent European military force very hard to achieve. EU member states are “acting separately” on the conflict, according to the Atlantic Council’s Europe Centre, which in turn is putting strains on the unity of the EU.

Independent moves by different European countries are accelerating. Not only is France taking a leading role in assembling the European Armada, but it is using the instability created by the Iran war to announce the expansion of its nuclear arsenal, framed as a stabilising move. France is offering nuclear ‘protection’ to eight EU countries, including its old enemy Germany, as well as greater nuclear integration with Britain. This would allow France’s force de frappe to “spread out across the depth of the European continent,” as Macron explained, in effect asserting French military dominance over Europe.

France is also sensing opportunities in the US withdrawal from Iraq after pro-Iranian militias attacked American bases and the embassy in Baghdad. France hopes to be seen as a reliable alternative, while it also has assets to protect – such as the energy company TotalEnergies which has invested billions in Basra’s gas fields.

Meanwhile, France is also trying to reinsert itself into its former colony, Lebanon, under the guise of ‘protecting’ the Christian Maronites and the 20,000 French citizens there. It tried unsuccessfully to pressure the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah, aiding Israel’s invasion, while at the same time had its soldiers stationed in Lebanon as part of the UN peacekeeping force targeted by Israel, which doesn’t want interference from a rival coloniser.

Like France, Germany is using the Iran war as an excuse to boost the remilitarisation it began in response to the Ukraine war. Chancellor Merz saidhis country must once again “learn to speak the language of power politics.” Germany’s embrace of the French nuclear umbrella plan would bring it a step closer to becoming a nuclear power itself. Currently, German planes are allowed to carry US nuclear weapons. Under the plan, German planes would carry French (and British) nuclear warheads as well. As Bloomberg’s Katia Hoyer observes, Germany is now thinking the “unthinkable”.

Nevertheless, the longstanding rivalry between France and Germany, which has rendered the ambitious project for a joint new-generation fighter plane impossible, makes a Europe-wide nuclear deterrent unlikely.

For Britain, meanwhile, the Iran war threatens its major interests in the Gulf states, including its bases in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the UAE and trade worth £60 billion a year. On the positive side for the British establishment, the French nuclear plan could reward Britain with shared strategic leadership over Germany and greater military reach over Europe. Starmer is also using the Iran war to re-enter the EU by the back-door.

The Iran war has exacerbated tensions within the EU, already strained by the Ukraine war. The president of the unelected European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen declared in response to the war that “Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order” and argued for a “more realistic and interest-driven foreign policy.” This bellicose speech effectively disposing of international law was seen as a further unwelcome extension of the Commission’s powers by many EU politicians and diplomats. Von der Leyen is also using the Iran crisis to end the current system of unanimous decision-making in the EU. “Often we move forward with the speed of the slowest,” she said. Her proposed use of the EU’s “enhanced cooperation” mechanism would by-pass the democratic will of countries such as Hungary and Slovakia which have at times got in the way of anti-Russian sanctions. The Iran war is sharpening the EU’s anti-democratic teeth.

The divisions in the EU leadership reflect wider tensions between Atlanticism – following the US slavishly – and those calling for a Europeanised NATO. Both strategies are warmongering and neither involves a decisive break with America. Atlanticism has allowed US bullying to go unchecked – as, for example, the US’s unilateral tearing up of the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran, which the EU had helped negotiate, and forcing a rise in European arms budgets. On the other hand, creating an EU army and raising its strength to the current level of NATO would entail a rise in military spending on such a scale to 10% of GDP from the current 3.5% according to NATO chief Mark Rutte, that the European powers would have to abolish their postwar welfare systems to pay for it. Either way the working class pays for war.

So this is now the battleground for the EU and Britain: welfare or warfare. It will be in resisting such attacks on living standards that a movement for peace and progress will have to develop.

Some positive signs have been in public opinion polls, particularly in southern Europe. One Italian poll showed 69.5% of Italians believed Italy should follow Spain’s lead in denying the US the right to use its military bases. As a result of that, along with last year’s refusal by the dockers to handle Israeli arms at the ports, the Italian government stopped the US from using its airbase in Sicily to bomb Iran. France too denied airspace to US flights of weapons to Israel – even as it prepared for a naval war.