NATO has a birthday coming up. On April 4, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will turn 70. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed on April 4, 1949. Its first twelve members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, and West Germany in 1955. Post-Franco Spain joined in 1982. With the fall of the Berlin Wall, countries in eastern Europe rushed to join, thirteen more so far, with North Macedonia being the thirtieth soon.
There will be a number of articles on NATO’s anniversary in the next few days. The Economist has already published a lengthy piece on “NATO at 70” in its March 16 issue. Ivo Daalder, former ambassador to NATO and now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. wrote an excellent article in last Friday’s Chicago Tribune. While these articles cover the subject of NATO and its future better than I can, I would like to add a few thoughts to the birthday celebration for what has been best defensive military alliance in history, thoughts related to its future.
Concerns about NATO’s future have increased, especially among the foreign policy elite, since Donald Trump was elected president 2016. President Trump, after all, said NATO was obsolete while on the campaign trail in 2016,1 and he has been pretty obnoxious since then about the failure of many NATO countries to increase up their defense spending in line with commitments they have made in 2014 to get their defense spending up to 2% of GDP by 2024.
Also, complaints about the level of defense spending by other countries in NATO have been made for a long time. It wasn’t President Trump who first used the phrase “free riders” for NATO countries who aren’t paying their fair share. It’s just that President Obama wasn’t as obnoxious about how he said it. Of course, his relative politeness didn’t get the job done in terms of getting other countries to spend more.
While one can never tell what President Trump is going to tweet or do next (and/or how long he will do it), President Trump has arguably done more for NATO than his predecessor. While President Obama wouldn’t sell defensive weapons to Ukraine after Russia’s 2014 invasion, the Trump administration has. The U.S. is increasing the number of its troops in Poland and the Baltic states. Maybe another president would be doing the same things, but the point is the Trump administration is.
In fact, Europe and the Russian interference there is playing a bigger role in the foreign policy of the Trump administration than it seemed to play in that of President Obama. The Obama administration protested Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but President Obama left it to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to deal with the situation. But then, while President Obama would say the right things (in the view of the foreign policy elite), I never had the feeling he cared all that much about Europe. For example, when Germany celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 2009, President Obama didn’t attend, sending Secretary of State Clinton to fill in.
Also, as I said above, which of the Democratic candidates in 2020 are going to do even as much as President Obama did? Which is a concern. Because a choice next year between an erratic President Trump and a Democrat who doesn’t seem to care and doesn’t have a foreign policy you can trust (because it is unclear how much they have thought about it) would be depressing. Because Europe and NATO are important.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, Russia is turning aggressive. I know that Vladimir Putin said the collapse of the Soviet Union “was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [twentieth] century.” But Russia isn’t a big country any more, and they don’t have all that much money.2 Why President Putin is spending his time and money trying to recreate the Soviet empire is beyond me – other than, perhaps, that is what dictators do – and can do.
While I don’t understand why President Putin is doing these things, we are better off if we don’t let him. His view of Russia’s greatness will create instability in Europe and deny the peoples of Europe the right to decide for themselves how their countries should live and who they should be friends with. The trouble with this kind of instability is that you don’t know where it’s going to end up or what it is going to result in. It may be a place or situation more difficult than anything we can foresee now.
To stop that from happening, we need to stay involved in NATO. But we also need NATO to do its part, too. While some NATO members are doing better, many of them aren’t. They need to start now.
If NATO is going to pick up its game, it has to start with, not Donald Trump and the United States, but with – Germany. I realize that Chancellor Merkel is viewed by many as among the best of world leaders. That may be true in some areas, but when it comes to NATO, Germany hasn’t done the job. Chancellor Merkel has worked to stop the violence from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But in terms of NATO and defense spending, Chancellor Merkel has been missing in action. Germany’s defense spending is about 1.3% of GDP currently, and while it is to increase a little next year (to 1.37%), it is scheduled to go back down after that, winding up at 1.25% in 2023.
Plus German companies are partnering with Gazprom, the Russian natural gas company, to build yet another Russian gas pipeline to Europe under the Baltic Sea, bypassing eastern Europe and denying countries like Poland and Ukraine transit fees. Plus making it easier for Russia to cut off gas sales to eastern Europe while still supplying the western Europe. When it is oil and gas sales that are helping to prop up Vladimir Putin’s regime, why Germany should be facilitating more of those sales is hard to understand. The same question arises as to why Germany should be making it easier for Russia to pressure its former satellites in eastern Europe.
I understand that Chancellor Merkel is in a coalition with the Social Democrats (the SPD), and the SPD may have a different view of Russia than other people do.3 Still, leaders are supposed to lead. But, if NATO is important to Europe and Germany, Chancellor Merkel needs to get Germany to increase its defense spending and improve the readiness of its defense forces – and stop making it easier for Vladimir Putin to finance his aggressive foreign policy with more energy sales. Also, she, and other Germans, need to not blame President Trump for their failure to do so – because they weren’t doing it when President Obama was in office, either.
NATO has been the most successful military alliance in history, but it’s not going to stay that way unless its members want it to. I understand it would be better if President Trump calmed down and tweeted less, but he’s not going to. On the other hand, President Trump won’t be in office forever. Other members of NATO need to start doing their part, even if they don’t like the current occupant of the White House. They need to start spending more, to meet their commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defense. And they need to spend that money more effectively, improving their readiness. While some are doing it, too many aren’t. NATO is an alliance. If the current U.S. president isn’t doing as well as he might, other countries, other leaders, need to do a little extra. Because if they don’t care, and if they don’t demonstrate that they care, NATO isn’t going to be around when it is needed in the future.
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1 He has since said that NATO is no longer obsolete.
2 What money Russia does have is largely because of oil and gas sales. Which means that, when oil prices are up, President Putin has more money to play with. Thanks to American frackers, President Putin hasn’t had as much money as he would otherwise have had.
3 In 2005, after he had lost reelection, then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder hurriedly signed an agreement with Russia to build the first Nord Stream gas pipeline. Within a few months of leaving office, former Chancellor Schroeder became chairman of the shareholders committee for Nord Stream AG. He also has become board members of other consortia in which Gazprom, the Russian-owned energy company, is the majority shareholder.
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