NATO summits have not been very substantial throughout history. The “family photo” of world leaders is usually the most remembered moment of these meetings, largely symbolic. Emmanuel Macron came to describe the organization as brain dead just two and a half years ago. Now, however, the current events in Ukraine reveal a fundamental truth of the organization: it is an alliance meant to counter an adversary, for better and for worse.
The feud, too, is a showcase of what the alliance’s surprisingly rapid revival can and cannot do for global security. NATO experienced its own crisis years agois now leading the solution to another.
The alliance of 30 countries from Europe and North America had as its objective to contain the advances of the Soviet Union in the world. Just three years ago, however, critics wondered if it might not be suitable for 21st-century geopolitics. Some US foreign policy leaders argued in 1990 that NATO was not the right way for America to engage with Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In fact, Donald Trump often criticized NATO: he wanted allies to spend more on their military and for the US to withdraw from the alliance. That stance irritated Washington Security, but he wasn’t the only one who emphasized the shortcomings of the alliance. “What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” Macron also said in 2019.
An unfortunate comment after Trump pulled US troops out of Syria to avoid clashes with NATO ally Turkey. However, he withdrew those forces without consulting other alliance allies, casting doubt on the reliability of the White House. It must be borne in mind that US power is one of the organization’s greatest guarantors, and Trump had mistreated that image.
“They have partners in the same part of the world and they have no coordination in strategic decision-making between the US and its NATO allies. None,” Macron added. Those criticisms and other concerns in late 2010 even led academics who were supporters of the transatlantic alliance to say that NATO was in crisis.
Derek Chollet and Amanda Sloat, senior officials in the Biden administration, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine in 2018 that NATO summits were “simply not worth it” and too risky when Trump was in office, denigrating the alliance.
Nicholas Burns, a Harvard professor and Biden’s ambassador to China, co-wrote an article in 2019 that argued that Trump’s attack on NATO, increasingly undemocratic leaders under the umbrella of NATO (Turkey and Hungary), and the failure to confront Putin “have led the Alliance to the most worrying crisis”.
Willing to move tab
But the alliance is learning from its last great exploit, in 2014, when Putin annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and then invaded the country’s eastern provinces. In response, NATO expanded its troop cohort quick response. And in 2018, it developed a preparation plan with important land, sea and air capabilities capable of being mobilized in 30 days.
While it was a bear in hibernation, NATO announced a few days ago that new battle groups would be deployed to four countries on its eastern flank, and Biden announced that the alliance would respond to Russia if it used chemical weapons in Ukraine. They now have enough combat power to defend alliance territory against a strong competitor like Putin.
But it’s not just about sending troops. Biden announced aid of 1,000 million euros in new humanitarian aid for those affected by the new refugee crisis in Europe and another 1,000 million in military and security aid for Ukraine. Along with European countries, the White House and the State Department announced yet more sanctions against Russian politicians, military leaders and elites, and measures to stop sanctions evaders.
Germany, long averse to military spending, has also decided to increase its defense budget. European countries, skeptical of immigrants, have welcomed Ukrainian refugees. And, above all, the alliance has been revived.
However, now NATO is a key pillar to the Russian invasion from Ukraine. “Putin has fundamentally reinvigorated NATO,” said Ivo Daalder, Obama’s former ambassador to NATO. Its own secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said at the summit of the summit: “NATO is providing unprecedented support to Ukraine, helping it to defend itself.” There is a unity of purpose now that there was not before.
NATO was the first transcontinental alliance in peacetime and maintaining it is vital. Former alliance official John Manza summed it up well: “It’s like a fire truck that’s sitting at the local station. You can complain and say, ‘Oh, it’s not doing anything, it’s just costing us money,’ until there’s a fire and you need it”.
Image: Thibault Camus (GTRES)