Two months ago, I suggested that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte fake a heart attack and postpone next week’s summit in The Hague. I genuinely feared that the Trump team’s animus toward the United States’ closest friends had become so intense that it would lead to a disastrous meeting. The list of evidence, after all, is long: U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to abandon any ally that did not meet defense spending targets; called for the annexation of Canada and Greenland; humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office; and constricted the provision of intelligence and weapons to Kyiv. The evidence further includes Vice President J.D. Vance’s nasty Munich speech, his explicit support for European political extremists, Washington’s hesitance to appoint a U.S. officer to command NATO, the administration’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its parroting of actual Russian talking points. I feared that Trump might use the summit to announce the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe, which would be an open invitation for Russia to expand its sphere of influence and possibly attack a NATO ally.
But I underestimated a core strategic asset of the alliance: its ability to find ways to finesse deep disagreement among members. After all, this is the alliance that came up with the 1967 Harmel Report, which advocated both threatening the Soviet bloc through deterrence and reducing tensions through détente. It is also the alliance that took the 1979 Double-Track Decision to deploy new nuclear weapons while simultaneously advocating for their withdrawal. NATO members have been geniuses at finding ways for opposing things to be simultaneously true in order to accommodate the problems of the moment. And the problem of the moment is Washington threatening to abandon U.S. commitments when Europe fears that it cannot be secure without the United States.
Going into next week’s summit, NATO appear to have found a way to prevent the worst outcome, as they always have before. Trump will probably still announce U.S. troop reductions at the summit, but the headline news will be all 32 allies agreeing to increase defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Reading the fine print, only 3.5 percent will go to weapons and troops; the remaining 1.5 percent will be for infrastructure. But infrastructure is both important and popular. And incidentally: For the United States to reach merely the new 3.5 percent target, it would require adding $380 billion to the annual U.S. defense budget.
So the NATO allies will sail these choppy waters and placate Trump demands while downplaying the new strategic risk that another U.S. troop reduction now injects. This is what good allies do. It’s also what free societies do, which is find compromises that keep governments voluntarily cooperating. Trump’s threats that the United States would not defend any NATO allies spending insufficiently on defense may yet prove a lethal blow to the bloc that has protected its members for more than 70 years. But as of now, NATO remains alive.
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