The letter from NATO’s Secretary-General to Trump is a sign of the decline of political morality in the West.
Author: Fayaz Bahraman Najimi, analyst of regional and international affairs (Germany), member of the Sangar Advisory Council
Original article: منشی چاپلوس ناتو
For many years, independent analysts and critics of Western power have been convinced that political leaders in this region no longer possess the classic qualities of leadership. They are not representatives of the people's will but depend on powerful lobbies from the military, financial, and media industries. These leaders are more like puppets of American power than representatives of their own peoples. This becomes especially evident during global transformations when Western power loses its former authority.
One clear sign of this decline was the letter NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg sent to Trump before his trip to the NATO summit in Brussels. Trump made this private message public by posting it on the Truth Social network—a move that revealed the depth of flattery and political decay at the highest levels of Western institutions.
In the letter, Rutte calls the U.S. military operation in Iran “truly outstanding” and praises Trump for “decisive action” and “courage that no one else possessed.” This tone not only reflects Europe’s moral and political dependence on the United States but also echoes the rhetoric of narcissistic leaders like Trump, who crave praise and make decisions based on personal interests rather than collective ones.
Interestingly, the NATO Secretary-General, now a symbol of the “Western defense alliance,” not only thanks Trump for pressuring member states to increase military budgets but also describes this as “Trump’s victory.” At the end of the message, he promises to meet at a royal dinner—another example of mixing illusions of elite aristocracy with the crisis-ridden reality of the West.
Even by Western diplomatic standards, this letter is a disturbing example of the collapse of political morality.
When senior officials of a global alliance claiming to defend democracy, freedom, and anti-authoritarianism openly praise a figure accused by psychologists of pathological narcissism, it shows that the political decline of the West has penetrated not only institutions but also deeply into the characters and language of its leaders.
While countries of the Global South—from Latin America to Africa and Asia—are led by experienced and aware leaders moving beyond old models of power, the West is stuck with puppets still revolving in the orbit of dependence on the U.S. With such models, Western political civilization is collapsing, and the “private congratulations” of NATO’s secretary, shamelessly published publicly, is a small testament to this great truth.
