EU ministers on Tuesday approved 13 new military and defense projects under an initiative known as Permanent Structured Cooperation or PESCO. But listen to Emmanuel Macron of late and the effort might better be named FRESCO, or French-led Security Commotion.

Just three weeks before NATO leaders gather in London for a summit to mark the 70th anniversary of the Washington Treaty that formed the alliance, Macron has set off diplomatic shockwaves, and upended the conversation about the future of transatlantic relations, with a series of provocative statements including his assertion last week that "we are currently experiencing the brain death of NATO."

Publicly, fellow leaders have risen up to dispute Macron's comments and defend the alliance, including NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who decried Macron's "drastic words."

But privately many European officials and diplomats said Macron was largely correct in his complaints, and that other European leaders should be forced to face up to NATO's limitations when they gather in London early next month — especially the increasing unpredictability and unreliability of the United States, NATO's biggest military and financial contributor, and its erratic leader, Donald Trump.

At the same time, these officials cautioned that Macron, in keeping with his trademark approach, was so far acting more as a disruptor than as someone who could offer clear solutions — that France, despite having a nuclear arsenal, was not remotely prepared to replace the U.S. as the protector of Europe, and that the French leader had gone a bit too far when he openly expressed doubts about the viability of Article 5, NATO's collective defense doctrine.

Recent events, especially the confrontation between the U.S. and Turkey over northern Syria, have pushed the alliance to a crossroads.

A closer examination of Macron's statements — and the sharp, even alarmed, responses, to him from both sides of the Atlantic — show that whether you agree or disagree, recent events, especially the confrontation between the U.S. and Turkey over northern Syria, have pushed the alliance to a crossroads. That seems certain to propel EU defense initiatives like PESCO, to heighten American demands for increased military spending by European nations and, ultimately, to raise many tough questions about future ties between the United States and the EU that likely cannot be answered until after next year's American presidential election.

And some officials warned that such questions will persist even if Trump is denied a second term.

Taking aim

Macron made his "brain death" remark during a wide-ranging interview with the Economist, in which he leveled a scathing critique at the United States and Turkey for taking uncoordinated military action in northern Syria. But while the French president had sharp words for Trump, he also put heavy blame for the fraying of the Western Alliance on former President Barack Obama.

Accusing Obama of shifting focus to the Pacific from the Atlantic, Macron accused him of "the failure to intervene in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, which was already the first stage in the collapse of the Western bloc."

"At that point," Macron continued, "the major regional powers said to themselves, 'the West is weak.'"

On Tuesday, Macron doubled down on his criticism of NATO, framing it as an urgent wake-up call for European leaders to recognize the reality of the new international context and challenges the post-World War II world order was experiencing.

"The first risk is laziness, telling ourselves 'we have institutions that we like, let's not question them. They sometimes lost their purpose, no one understands where they’re headed but let’s hide this,'" Macron said in a speech at the Paris Peace Forum, a conference on global governance issues.

"I think we need truth," Macron continued, "Prudishness or hypocrisy don’t work nowadays, because citizens see it. We live in an open world ... When it doesn’t work they tell us. So hypocrisy and silence are not a solution. Intellectual laziness of action doesn't work”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump's national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, were quick to agree that NATO was in peril, but they mainly used Macron's remarks to reiterate Washington's demands for greater European defense spending.

"NATO runs always the risk that it will become obsolete — not because the partnership, not because the political commitments ... between our countries will ever become obsolete," Pompeo said at a public event in Berlin where he helped commemorate the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"But it does run that risk if it doesn’t do the things it needs to do to confront the challenges of today in a way that is effective," Pompeo continued. "If nations believe that they can get the security benefit without providing NATO the resources that it needs, if they don’t live up to their commitments, there is a risk that NATO could become ineffective or obsolete."

O'Brien, speaking Sunday on the CBS news show "Face the Nation," forcefully rejected criticism of Trump's hasty withdrawal of U.S. forces in northern Syria and denied that the pullout had allowed Turkey to undertake a military incursion against Kurdish forces — a view flatly disputed by most experts and NATO allies.

But while O'Brien defended Trump, he slammed European allies over spending.

"It's not right for the American taxpayer to have to defend these countries that don't want to defend themselves" — Robert O'Brien

"NATO's an important alliance to us," he said. "But look, I think the cracks that have formed in the alliance are because we have members of the alliance that aren't paying their fair share, that aren't spending money on defense." He added, "There are a bunch of countries, including Germany and others, that aren't paying their fair share. It's not right for the American taxpayer to have to defend these countries that don't want to defend themselves."

On Macron's side

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn was one of the few European officials to publicly jump to Macron's side, though he said the EU could not do without NATO anytime soon.

"I come from a country that is incapable of defending itself; I think even Europe is not able to defend itself," Asselborn said. "Therefore, the EU would be well advised to stay engaged with NATO."

But he added, "What has happened recently, what a NATO country has done in Syria, this does not correspond to the values many people believe should prevail in NATO. There is no need to view what is happening as self-defense and if there is no coordination within NATO in such important questions, then we must ask ourselves how it is possible to respond to an independent action by the United States without any coordination with Europe. In this respect President Macron is right when he is attacking the level of coordination in NATO with his words."

"This military alliance can only survive," Asselborn said, "if coordination takes place in a normal way."

Other officials would only comment about Macron on condition of anonymity.

“The analysis is pretty much correct," one Western European diplomat said. "It’s the wording that is clearly wrong.”

A second Western European diplomat said: "What happened in Syria is clear: two NATO countries didn’t bother to have any coordination. And he’s right, we cannot ignore this fact, but the part on Article 5 was wrong ... simply a wrong message.”

A rift between Paris and Washington is especially unsettling for Central and Eastern European countries, where fear of Russia is palpable and the prospect of losing the protective umbrella of the U.S. is virtually unthinkable.

“When it comes to the defense issues, we have to be aware that on the other side of the Atlantic we have to deal with a different generation of politicians, who do not really feel the legacy of the transatlantic bond so strongly," said Miroslav Lajčák, Slovakia's foreign minister.

"So what we have to do is to send signals that will strengthen the commitment to this bond, rather than to weaken it. I really believe that the role of the United States in Europe’s security and defense is irreplaceable.”

Macron's comments have left other European governments trying to strike a balance — between stressing their commitment to NATO and expressing support for new EU initiatives.

Italy's ambassador to NATO, Francesco Maria Talò, noted comments by Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte at a meeting with Merkel on Monday "confirming the crucial role we attach to NATO as a platform for our security and as a political platform."

As a show of Macron's resolve, France has a role in 10 of the 13 new initiatives approved on Tuesday by the 25 EU countries participating in PESCO.

"At the same time, we are committed to strengthening of Europe's political and security action," Talò added.

Other officials were quick to note, however, that the U.S. has a pattern of trying to thwart EU military and defense cooperation, complaining about the risk of redundancies to NATO. In fact, these officials said, the U.S. often seems more concerned about protecting the market for the American defense manufacturing sector.

Macron complained openly about this in the interview with the Economist.

"In the eyes of President Trump, and I completely respect that, NATO is seen as a commercial project," Macron said. "He sees it as a project in which the United States acts as a sort of geopolitical umbrella, but the trade-off is that there has to be commercial exclusivity. It’s an arrangement for buying American products. France didn’t sign up for that."

Macron insisted that EU countries had to do more on their own.

"Europe hasn’t demonstrated its credibility yet," he said. "I just think that attitudes are changing and that today European defense is complementary to NATO. But I also believe it now needs to become stronger, because it needs to be able to decide and increasingly take responsibility for more of our neighborhood security policy, that’s legitimate."

As a show of Macron's resolve, France has a role in 10 of the 13 new initiatives approved on Tuesday by the 25 EU countries participating in PESCO.

Quiet on Trump

Max Bergmann, an expert on transatlantic relations at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank in Washington, said he was surprised that European leaders had not complained louder, or acted more decisively in response to Trump's presidency.

"Europe's approach to the Donald Trump administration, basically having an un-American president who is anti-NATO, was to close their eyes, cover their ears and hope they'll get through it," Bergmann said. But he said the chaos in northern Syria was too much to ignore.

"We have an incident right here that shows we can't rely on this guy," Bergmann said. "Macron has been pushing initiative after initiative to try to strengthen the European Union, to try to strengthen Europe, and this guy Trump, when the chips are down, we don't know if he is going to be there."

He added, "Macron was trying to provide a powerful wake-up call to Europe."

Bergmann said U.S. efforts to undercut EU military cooperation were more worrisome than Macron's comments.

"The U.S. objection to the realization of European defense is completely brain dead, to use Macron's expression," he said. "There is a real strategic need there."

Andrew Gray contributed reporting.