Awkward allies, and each in his own way
Dec 1st 2019
THE CELEBRATION of NATO’s 70th birthday should have been a triumphal march. The average lifespan of collective-defence alliances over the past five centuries is just 15 years. NATO has not only survived to three score and ten, but is in many ways in fine fettle. It remains “the strongest alliance in history”, says Jens Stoltenberg, its secretary-general, and has implemented “the largest reinforcement of our collective defence in a generation, with for the first time in our history combat-ready troops in the eastern part of the alliance”. Yet it has manoeuvred around its anniversary year with all the caution of an army entering hostile territory—the final, fraught operation being a gathering of its leaders on December 3rd at Buckingham Palace, where the queen is to host a reception, and a summit the next day in Watford, just outside London.
Since the collapse of communism NATO has ranged far and wide, fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and pirates off the Horn of Africa. But Russia’s intervention in Ukraine in 2014 prompted a return to the core mission of defending Europe. The response has been vigorous. NATO has put multinational brigades in the three Baltic states and Poland. It has set itself demanding readiness targets, aiming by next year to have 30 mechanised battalions, 30 air squadrons and 30 warships ready to move within 30 days. It has held its biggest exercises since the end of the cold war: “Trident Juncture” last year involved some 50,000 troops in and around Norway; next year about 20,000 will come over from America for “Defender 2020”.
So why the current caution? It is a tale of three presidents, says Kori Schake of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think-tank.
No prizes for guessing the first of the trio. President Donald’s bolshiness towards the alliance probably explains why NATO chose to mark its actual 70th birthday, in April, with a meeting of foreign ministers rather than government heads. Better to avoid the risk of another bust-up of the sort seen at the Brussels summit the previous July, when Mr even threatened to pull America out of the organisation if the rest failed to shape up. True, he no longer calls the alliance “obsolete”, as he did before taking office, but he has been louder than his predecessors in criticising allies for not spending enough on defence and happy to point the finger—especially at Germany.
The scope for Mr to make mischief in London this week is not confined to NATO. He may also be tempted to weigh in on the British election, now less than two weeks away. And the two to are linked: Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party’s leader, is no fan of NATO or of America; were he to become prime minister Britain’s defence posture could change radically. Mr, however, has an election back home to worry about, and with next year’s vote in mind he may become more inclined to boast about NATO rather than to bash it. He has already been claiming credit for significantly increased defence spending by the European allies and Canada—now estimated at an extra $130bn between 2016 and 2020.
Even if Mr tones down his criticism, the doubts he has raised about America’s commitment to the alliance have not been lost on a second presidential troublemaker: Emmanuel Macron of France. In a recent interview with The Economist Mr Macron said that NATO was experiencing “brain death”. He bemoaned the absence of co-ordination between America and its partners. “Strategically and politically,” he said, “we need to recognise that we have a problem.” He also questioned whether Article Five, the cornerstone of the alliance that sees an attack on one country as an attack on all, could be depended on. “If the Bashar al-Assad regime decides to retaliate against Turkey,” he asked, “will we commit ourselves under it?”
Mr Macron’s comments caused consternation. Frontline states worried about his push for a strategic dialogue with Russia. Germany seemed to suspect him of wanting stronger European defence to replace NATO, rather than complementing it. Mr Stoltenberg says that “this idea that the US is leaving Europe is just simply wrong”, and insists that the European Union “cannot defend Europe”, especially after Brexit, when 80% of NATO’s defence spending will be from non-EU allies. But Mr Macron is unrepentant: “The questions I have asked are open questions, that we haven’t solved yet,” he said after meeting Mr Stoltenberg in Paris on November 28th. And Turkey, he repeated, could not expect solidarity from its allies if it acts unilaterally in Syria.
That brought an angry response from the third president in this drama: Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Mr Macron, I appeal to you from Turkey and I will say it at NATO,” he fumed: “have your own brain death checked out first.” Turkey is an important NATO ally, but it has been an awkward one of late. It has upset America by buying a Russian air-defence system, and as a result has been pushed out of the F-35 fighter-jet programme, for fear that vital data would be compromised. Now it is said to be holding up NATO decisions on defence plans, demanding that the allies recognise the YPG Kurdish militia in northern Syria as a terrorist group.
At the London summit the allies may find a way to finesse Mr Erdogan’s obstructionism. With luck, Mr will not spoil the party. The allies will not only reassert that Article Five is ironclad; they will also look to the future. They have just agreed to make space a fifth domain for operations (alongside land, sea, air and cyber), and have started to think collectively about the strategic implications of China’s rise, a first step towards a more co-ordinated response. They have also agreed on a rebalancing of payments into NATO’s central budget, which will see Germany pay a little more and America a little less by 2021. But Mr Macron’s awkward questions—what will Article Five mean tomorrow? what does it mean to belong to NATO?—will not be solved in Watford.
