The leaders of NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, gather on Tuesday at The Hague in the Netherlands for their annual summit. Their meeting doesn’t seem headed for disaster, as many had feared just a few months back.
Despite NATO’s success in winning the Cold War and remaining the most powerful community of nation-states in modern history, President Trump has openly questioned the alliance for years. He said that during his previous term, he told the leaders of NATO countries that he would “encourage” Russia do “whatever the hell they want” against NATO members not pulling their weight in military spending. He repeatedly questioned whether the United States should honor the alliance’s mutual-defense pledge under Article V of NATO’s founding treaty — the core idea that an attack on one is an attack on all — if members who did not live up to their financial obligations were attacked.
To be sure, the weakening U.S. interest in NATO, the lack of American commitment to defend Ukraine and the uncertainty in a Europe unsure of how to plan with such a fickle partner could still put the alliance in peril. But there are several reasons those who are already declaring the alliance dead — and I know a lot of such people — should put aside their fatalism.
NATO’s 32 members are on the verge of achieving a stronger standard for acting together. The alliance’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, just reaffirmed that he expects its members at the summit to adopt higher common spending levels, with each member state aiming to spend 3.5 percent of its gross domestic product on its military as part of 5 percent on overall security. The current goal for military spending is only 2 percent. Most alliance members now do meet that goal, but just barely, and it is not enough to put Europe in a position to confront Russia or meet other security challenges to Europe and North America.
When Mr. Trump and his team proposed the 5 percent level a few months ago, it seemed astronomically high — especially with the United States itself spending only about 3.2 percent of its own G.D.P. on its military at present. (For reference, Cold War norms were 5 percent to 10 percent; the figure exceeded 35 percent in World War II.)
By broadening what could fall under national security spending to include upgrades to critical infrastructure, such as cybernetworks and roads, NATO members including the United States, seem to be working toward a new consensus. To be sure, a pledge does not translate into actual new spending or new capabilities, but it is a step in the right direction.
Another reason for optimism is provisional but a big improvement from a few months ago: NATO is again mostly unified in wanting to prevent further Russian gains against Ukraine.
The United States, to be sure, remains a wild card. President Trump’s Oval Office showdown with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in February remains among the most uncouth moments of Mr. Trump’s second term. But Mr. Zelensky went on to accept Mr. Trump’s terms for trying to promote a temporary cease-fire in the Ukraine war, while President Vladimir Putin of Russia did not. Mr. Trump has now publicly criticized Mr. Putin for his continued attacks on Ukrainian cities and publicly left open the door to the idea that it may soon be time to toughen sanctions on Russia.
Mr. Trump has, for the moment at least, appeared to grasp that Mr. Putin is both the perpetrator and the problem in this conflict. Mr. Trump must do much more, including authorizing a new American aid package and arms transfers to Ukraine, and presenting concrete proposals for tightening the economic pressure. He should try to persuade European financial institutions holding frozen Russian assets to start seizing $10 billion a month and giving it to Ukraine until there is progress at the negotiating table.
Last, pessimists about NATO’s future should be reminded that the United States has not reduced any of its own military forces in Europe since Mr. Trump was inaugurated. It may do so in coming months. But as long as American armed forces remain in parts of NATO territory close to Russia, the chances that Vladimir Putin would attack any NATO member are low. If the Russian president knows that U.S. forces would be near any attack on, say, a Baltic member of NATO, he would be unlikely to carry one out despite Mr. Trump’s shaky public commitment to the alliance.
History provides a useful guide here. The original 12 members who signed the treaty establishing NATO in Washington in 1949 were unified in their fear of Soviet aggression and ambition. There was no Trump-like figure in their midst signaling uncertain commitment to the alliance. Yet the treaty itself and its muddled Article V provision (try reading it if you really think it was an ironclad promise that the United States would come to Europe’s defense in a future war) were seen as insufficient to deter Moscow. Only when NATO brought West Germany into the alliance, allowed German rearmament and stationed alliance forces (including Americans) on the border between West Germany and East Germany did NATO member populations begin to feel secure.
NATO has never consisted of just comforting words and written agreements. It has first and foremost consisted of credible combat power, linked to the conventional and nuclear forces of the entire American military machine. Large elements of that machine are still present. Roughly 100,000 military personnel are on European soil, including many on the eastern states close to Russia.
On a related note of provisional optimism for NATO’s fortunes, Mr. Trump has decided that yes, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe (a job first held by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower) should continue to be an American. He had reportedly considered handing off the baton to a European. It would have been a poignant symbol of U.S. disengagement.
Michael E. O’Hanlon is the director of research at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program and the author of the forthcoming book “To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution.”
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