“Obsolete”. “Brain dead”. “Useless gadget”. This is how US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have described the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that earlier this month celebrated its 70th birthday with a summit in Watford, near London.
With such putdowns, some observers expected that NATO, known in political circles as “the old lady”, would be on its way to a retirement home. Yet, the summit morphed into an ardent courtship complete with generous birthday presents for the “old lady”, among them a $150 billion injection of new funds in the defense expenditure of almost all 29 members.
There was also unanimous accord on fresh efforts to commit all 29 members to devoting a minimum of two percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) to defense. At present only three members, the United States, Great Britain and Greece, meet that target.
Despite months of speculation regarding a drawdown of US forces in Europe, the summit noted that the number of American troops in the old continent has risen by 14,000, the biggest increase since 2000. There was also agreement on major consultations regarding a redefinition of the alliance’s goals and strategy. That may include direct involvement in fighting or at least containing “states sponsoring international terrorism”, something that Erdogan raised with some vehemence.
Article V of the treaty commits all members to joint action if, and when, a member is attacked. The only time that that article has been invoked in the past 70 years was when the US fell victim of the 9/11 attacks against New York and Washington, allowing all members to side with the US in the operation that ended the Taliban “Islamic Emirate” rule in Afghanistan. To commit the alliance to fighting “terrorist groups and states” could give the alliance a new mission beyond its Cold War goal of defending Western Europe against possible Soviet aggression.
Most historians insist that NATO succeeded in keeping the peace in Europe and contributed to the ultimate demise of the USSR. However, evidence obtained after the Cold War ended shows that even if they harbored expansionist ambitions the Soviets lacked the military and economic resources needed for triggering a war of conquest in Europe.
The USSR turned eastern and central European states into satellites within the framework of accords reached with the US and Great Britain at Yalta and Potsdam. Where those accords did not apply, for example in Iran and Greece, Soviet troops withdrew without being forced out by any Western army. In Europe itself, Moscow did not try to seize direct control of countries that had not been included in the Yalta and Potsdam accords even when they had their homespun own Communist regimes such as in Romania and Yugoslavia.
NATO played no role in many wars waged by its individual members notably the French colonial wars in Indo-China and Algeria, the British anti-insurgency operations in Malaya and Aden and the Franco-British-Israeli invasion of Egypt in the Suez War. In fact, in the case of the war in Algeria, and the Suez operation, the US publicly opposed the NATO allies involved.
In contrast, the US had to form alternative alliances to fight the wars in the Korean Peninsula and Indochina and, more recently in Grenada, Kuwait and Iraq.
For their part, the British fought the Malvinas (Falklands) war against Argentina without NATO support. More recently, NATO played a supporting part in the Balkans leading to the disintegration of Yugoslavia. However, even there one could not speak of the alliance standing against a putative Russian aggressor as post-Soviet Russia, having reached a vague cooperation accord with US-led alliance, joined NATO in some of the operations.
NATO was also absent in the proxy war between Greece and Turkey, both members of the alliance, over Cyprus in1974.
In the current decade, a new narrative themed on Russia’s “aggressive intentions” has taken shape and partly sued to justify the continuation of NATO despite the disappearance of its Soviet-bloc counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. Russian invasion of Georgia, and the annexation of South Ossetia and the Crimean Peninsula, followed by the creation of a Russian-controlled enclave in eastern Ukraine have been cited as reasons for NATO to continue to live and even get stronger, although defending Georgia and Ukraine was never part of its mission.
If NATO has fought no war and cannot fight any short of a Third World War what is its raison de’tre and justification for resources put at its disposal?
The answer is that NATO is there, precisely, to convince putative aggressors that they can never emerge victorious in a major war against the alliance, and, thus, had better keep their peace. In that overarching mission, NATO has been notably successful.
That is not all. Membership of NATO has helped accelerate the process of democratization in many European countries, Federal Germany and Italy emerging from Nazi and Fascist rule to Spain, Portugal and Greece shaking off decades of military dictatorship, not to mention European nations shaking off the Soviet yoke. NATO membership also kept the Turkish military on a tight leash, preventing the generals from extinguishing the last flicker of democracy in that nation.
Despite all that, there is little doubt that the alliance is in need of a redefinition. President George W. Bush tried to “do something” by initiating moves aimed at enlargement, that is to say enlisting new members and associate members, such as Georgia, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Ideologically hostile to NATO, Bush’s successor President Barack Obama tried to “fade out” the alliance through budget cuts and shift of emphasis through his so-called “pivot Asia” strategy.
Obama’s policy boosted some European circles to initiate debates about the creation of a European military machine independent of NATO. French Gaullists, never enthusiastic about NATO, have been among the most ardent advocates of such scheme. (Under President Charles De Gaulle, France withdrew from the military aspect of NATO, closing the alliances bases on French territory. France resumed full membership under President Jacques Chirac.) The European Defense Union, essentially a Franco-German partnership, is the first fruit of those debates. More importantly, the European Union has launched The European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) as a framework for developing fully-fledged military alliance of all 27 members (minus Britain if it leaves the union).
NATO may seek a redefinition of its future role in four ways.
First, a revival of the Nixon Doctrine, that is to say the creation of regional alliances committed to protecting global order, may be an effective means of dealing with local threats on a retail basis. Such alliances already exist in some places, notably in the Asia-Pacific region with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea. Creating a similar structure in the MENA region, currently the most unstable part of the world could also be a worthy challenge.
Secondly, more resources are to be devoted to developing remote-control war fighting capabilities. With some traditional bases, notably Incirlik in Turkey, either closing or being downgraded, new, smaller but more sophisticated bases are under construction, including two in Albania.
Thirdly, preparing for cyberwarfare, including its guerrilla, or “retail” version, is getting greater attention. Special units, notably one based in Latvia, are already up and running and more points of coordination are planned.
Fourth, forming, training and deploying special highly mobile units to combat international terrorism and its sponsors without the need for committing regular forces. The US is already testing that idea by replacing ordinary combat units in Syria, for example, with smaller but far more effective units trained to combat terrorism.
There is a saying that English old ladies never die, they just fade away. In the case of NATO, however, it seems that, far from fading away, this old lady is having a rejuvenation cure, still capable of seducing its 29 suitors.
