NATO is once again in the rhetorical cross hairs as the Trump administration has chided some European members for not allowing American aircraft to transit through U.S. European bases. Nor have the Europeans rallied to politically help the United States confront Iran’s blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Washington’s ire is warranted but its reactions are unnecessary.

The high octane rhetoric across the Atlantic is justified given the fact that some NATO allies such as Spain have not stepped up to their treaty obligation and actually closed their airspace to American warplanes. Earlier in the war, British Prime Minister Kier Starmer tried playing the same card. “This is not our war and we're not going to get dragged into it,” he commented early on by restricting the use of British bases to U.S. aircraft which were covered by the NATO alliance.

Needless to say, this did not play well with the White House.

The political fracas raises the obvious questions. U.S. President Donald Trump warns that the U.S. may leave NATO. The Europeans blink in horror but then the smug distain of some in their political class feels vindicated by confronting Washington. Enough! The transatlantic trash talk only plays into Moscow’s hands and its Ukraine game plan.

NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a multinational defense alliance founded by the U.S. on April 4, 1949 in a bid to defend Europe against Soviet aggression. Twelve members including the U.S., Canada and ten European states, among them Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Portugal, formed the cornerstone of post-WWII collective security.

Yet keep in mind, North Atlantic do not only denote he waters between Europe and North America, but also includes the Baltic, North Sea and the Mediterranean. In other words, not the Persian Gulf, not the Indian Ocean nor the Red Sea. NATO is often known as the Transatlantic Alliance.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s, many “experts” having declared that the West had won the Cold War, then logically asserted with the confidence of fools that “now there’s no need for NATO.” Why do we need such an expensive defensive military alliance for a future without any credible threat of a European war? NATO, from its comfortable perch in Brussels, had to “reinvent itself” and seek “new missions out of area” to become NATO 2.0.

Tragically the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America jolted the world into refocus.

Soon, NATO launched its largest Out of Area operation, an 18-year multinational mission in Afghanistan supported by U.S. and U.K. and troops from more than a dozen NATO nations.

The alliance is all about collective security. The treaty’s Article 5 states an attack on one is an attack on all 32 members.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Washington, D.C. for some damage control in the wake of the Iran war. Speaking at the Reagan Institute, he stated that Trump, “drove Allies toward a historic decision at NATO’s Summit in The Hague last summer, to invest 5 percent of GDP into defense.”

Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister added, “Europe is assuming a greater and fairer share of the task of providing for its conventional defense … there will be no going back, and nor should there be.” He stressed, “This is a move from unhealthy codependence to a transatlantic alliance grounded in true partnership.”

But breaking Islamic Iran’s blockade closing the strategic Strait of Hormuz and reopening the Persian Gulf brings unpredictable military and political consequences.

NATO navies are simply too small. Britain’s once vaunted Royal Navy, still strong enough to support the Falklands War operation in April 1982, has been reduced to less than half the size. Let’s face it, the 600 ship U.S. Navy of the Reagan era now stands at 292 ships. I’ve asserted that the U.S. Navy is overextended in its global missions.

Protecting oil tankers through armed convoy operations in the Persian Gulf would logically fall to the U.S. Navy, not necessarily NATO. Indeed, the vital Strait of Hormuz carries nearly 90 percent of the petroleum and 83 percent of liquefied natural gas destined for India and East Asia.

NATO probably won’t rise to the occasion in the Persian Gulf, but at the same time has massively upgraded its military spending for European defense in light of the Ukraine war. But let’s get real. The U.S. founded and nurtured NATO during the dark days of the Cold War. It has protected our mutual security interests for generations. It’s a successful American alliance certainly worth keeping.

John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism:The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."