Freelance

Only one day after President Donald Trump had left France and returned to the White House, his Secretary of War (Congress approval for the change in name pending) met with his colleagues in NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

I am quite sure everyone has experienced, when in an employment, what may be called a dressing-down by his/her boss. Every employee of course tries to avoid this but it seems to be inevitable in any career. You either leave, are fired, or improve your performance.

A wise boss will offer you opportunities to save face (as long as the misdemeanor isn’t too grave and he/she rather wants to get rid of you). The scolding is generally be done behind closed doors. It is considered confidential.

As for NATO and the various defense secretaries of past US administrations, I am quite certain that relevant meetings took place both as a matter of routine and in response to international crises—for instance, when Article 5 of the NATO Treaty was invoked after September 11, 2001, or when Vladimir Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and in 2022 when Russia launched a full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine.

Certainly, these meetings were behind closed doors and their sensitive decisions were classified.

What Pete Hegseth did in Brussels was outrageously different. I have asked GeminiAI for an English expression for German, Einen Einlauf verpassen and was informed, To read someone the riot act may be fitting best.

It aligns, by the way, with J.D. Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference in 2025 and Marco Rubio’s at the same venue in 2026. But publishing this verbal attack on his NATO colleagues on the White House website is a particularly egregious blunder. It is harmful, dangerous. Possibly treason.

When Hegseth does now maunder about NATO 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — trying to provide a sense of history of the last 80 years—he confuses opportunities (the Fall of the Sowjet Empire and, what Francis Fukuyama called, The End of History) and backlashes (the rise of Islamic terrorism which culminated in 9/11 and the decades-long wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. The so-called, by Trump, forever wars).

The former has indeed made it necessary for European leaders to re-consider its relationship with Russia, which possibly led to a fatal trivialisation of former KGB foreign intelligence officer, Vladimir Putin, who emerged as Russia’s new dictator since 2000. The latter, at least immediately after 9/11, was heavily supported by all NATO-members after the United States under President George W. Bush invoked for the first and only time Article 5. And, they led to unseen migrations of fugitives which European nations since then attempt to fend off, in accordance with the rule of law.