Biden meets not Putin. (Chris Kleponis/CNP/Bloomberg/ Getty)
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This year’s Nato summit was supposed to be a muted, celebratory affair. In contrast with last year, when President Zelensky aired his fury about Ukraine being denied a clear path to membership, it was to be cohesive and restrained. Before gathering, the outgoing Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, had emphasised the importance of predictability, stability, and unity.
If there were fissures, they had been smoothed over: deviant Hungary, long a blemish on the pact’s public-facing unanimity, had agreed not to block military aid to Ukraine provided it would not have to partake in any Nato operations there. All members of the alliance were in total agreement on the basic facts of the war, Stoltenberg insisted. Under Biden’s steadfast leadership, he asserted, the world had united behind Ukraine.
The self-mythologising PR was fitting for a summit that was also the 75th anniversary of the alliance’s founding. And 75 years after the 12 original signatories of the North Atlantic Treaty gathered in Washington to pledge collective defence, the alliance and the world look very different. NATO has always cast itself as a moral arbiter, disseminating “values” and ideology, while simultaneously fostering member states’ dependency on the United States and securing American hegemony over Europe. But this vassalisation has reached a new stage since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The invasion brought a Cold War alliance of questionable 21st-century utility roaring back to life; the long-time neutral holdouts of Sweden and Finland have even opted to join. During the Cold War, NATO counted many of its most ardent critics among left-wing opponents of US militarism; today, its most prominent skeptics are on the Right, and include Donald Trump.
Small wonder, then that American domestic politics loomed large. Held just days ahead of the Republican National Convention, the gathering was timed perfectly to allow Nato leadership to ensure one of their key points for this year — that many hitherto freeloading allies had stepped up their defence spending — would be fresh in the minds of its Republican critics. Back during the now infamous 2018 summit, Trump lambasted flunkies for not paying their fair share and even threatened to withdraw the US from the alliance. This year, though, Nato leaders could boast that at least 20 out of 32 member states would be spending 2% of their GDP on defence. Both anxious Atlanticists and Nato sceptics would be reassured that the alliance was, as Stoltenberg said, adaptive and agile; it would endure, regardless of dramatic changes in political leadership in its member states. And it was responsive both to events on the ground and internal criticism.
But efforts to make the event about the steadiness and durability of Nato — a rare fulcrum of stability in an unpredictable world — were challenged by mounting concerns about the cognitive fitness of 81-year-old President Biden. Despite the usual pomp and pathos, along with attempts to pander to Trump Republicans, inevitably, it became a referendum on Biden’s age. Then, during the brief interlude between the summit and the start of the Republican National Convention, an assassination attempt on Trump’s life made it clear that there would be no assurances forthcoming about Nato’s future, that nothing would be predictable.
Things had begun on a triumphant note, in the Mellon Auditorium in Washington, where the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949. There was no shortage of grandiosity on display. “The most successful military alliance in history”, claimed Stoltenberg, had now become the longest-lasting — outliving even the Delian League of ancient Greek city-states. The auditorium looked like Nato’s holy temple, with Biden describing the US commitment to the Alliance as a “sacred obligation”. His performance was better than at last month’s debate, but it wasn’t reassuring. His eyes were glued to the teleprompter as he seesawed back and forth between jingoistic shouting and barely audible, indecipherable mumbling. He managed to muddle through.
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SubscribeTrump won’t leave NATO. For all his bluster the yanks won’t want to lose any influence in Europe (which is what will happen if Europe becomes more self sufficient) and will want the appearance of unity and strength in numbers to deter the Chinese from Taiwan
I suspect that his main aim is to get the Europeans to pay for more of their defence.
Instead of the U.S. leaving NATO, doesn’t it make more sense to kick out the chronic underfunders?
One of the unarticulated reasons for the underfunding by countries like Canada is that much of the money spent to get to 2 percent of GNP would be spent on buying weaponry from the US. So the US pressure for that level of expenditure is seen as self serving.
Both Britain and France have significant armament industries. They will just have to ramp up production.
I’ve never once heard this uttered by anyone.
A lot of US foreign aid is similarly conditional on it being used to buy American products.
So, manufacture your own. What is stopping you? The Chinese have certainly learned how, and rather quickly as well. Go ahead and take full responsibility for your own destiny. Trust me, there are lots and lots of Americans eager to see you do just that, no matter its effect on our defense industry.
At face value that would seem to be the case, but some NATO members were recruited primarily because they control some very important strategic territory. Turkey, Iceland, Norway, and Denmark spring immediately to mind. The US wouldn’t kick any of the four if they spent nothing on defense. Of the four, I would bet all but Turkey are at less than the 2 percent requirement. Their territory has strategic value that can’t be easily calculated in terms of military spending.
Fair comment
The Turkish army used to be good.
How long have countries under paid and how much money is missing from NATO funds?
Not just them, but the traitors (Hungary) too.
I don’t know whether the US will leave (or pull back from) NATO, but the possibility exists. The European nations must accept this, and increase their military spending significantly. 3% isn’t going to be good enough, it is going to have to be 5% (and the “nuclear” nations of Britain and France must give some thought to increasing their capability in that area). Also, thought must be given to getting rid of Hungary, which is clearly on Russia’s side.
European NATO has an equal economy and greater population to the U.S., and two nuclear powers. You can certainly keep ramshackle Russia in check. This U.S. taxpayer is tired of Europe hiding behind our skirts and wallets. NATO would be fine, and Europe safe, without U.S. membership if only there is the will to simply do what is required. If not, well – TS.
Both Britain and France will need to ramp up their nuclear deterrent.
You ignore that NATO members are US vassal States which the US will not want to lose. The American people no doubt agree with you, as I do…but not their rulers who are the ultimate beneficiaries…
Article 5 represents a visceral red line, equivalent to the French and British response to the German invasion of Poland in 1939. No ifs, not buts.
The significance of US membership, of course, is that they did not participate in the 1939 declaration. Through membership of NATO, now they would.
But you cannot maintain this visceral red line when it is extended to include many small countries, and countries that refuse to pay their way. I remember Merkel’s insulting offer to increase spending some time in the far distant future.
They got complacent, with the peace dividend, and lazy, with the extension to small countries as a form of social club.
Article 5 is in fact rather rubbery – yes, an attack on one member must be considered as an attack on all, but what each member does in response to an attack is up to each member; each member may do what it “deems necessary”. Not what the attacked member deems necessary, and not what NATO deems necessary. Each member individually decides.
There is no automaticity. Congress would never have signed up for automaticity.
Yes exactly! And for anyone who thinks any US President will risk New York for the sake of another country I have a bridge in London they can buy…
Europe post 1990 has decided not to pay. The debacle over Jugoslavia in the early 1990s showed how useless were the EU countries. Europeans flatly refuse to undertake the hard training and risk taking need to produce effective fighting troops.
Lt Col Peter Walter MC and Bar his maxim ” Any fool can run and everyone can run like a rabbit under fire.. It is whether a soldier march long distances carrying all his kit , across all terrains, in all weathers and still be fit to fight. That is the mark of a good soldier “. On ex SAS man recalled “He was hard man and he trained hard men for war “.
When European countries train according to the standards of Lt Col Peter Walter, they they will be effective.
Srebrenica is in Europe and the EU filed.This massacre led to a rise in Muslim terrorism.
Srebrenica massacre – Wikipedia
To a certain extent Starmer’s wish to build 4 new nuclear submarines is a busted flush (and would take all the money used on conventional arms), as is relying on nuclear weapons as a deterrent against anything other than a direct nuclear attack. Putin has >5000 nuclear weapons, enough to reduce all Europe to cinders, but is massively ramping up his conventional army. So if he wins in Ukraine he can attack who he wants, and the UK won’t have a conventional army effective enough to stop him. Would Starmer then pull the nuclear trigger first; knowing it would be the obliteration of the UK? No. so what to do? How about reinvigorating the territorial army? Putin trains everybody (even some schools) with Kalashnikovs and drones, so why not train patriotic UK citizens?
So if he wins in Ukraine he can attack who he wants
In 20+ years, ‘who he wants’ appears to have been no one. Ukraine didn’t happen because Vlad woke up one day and said, ‘Let’s strike.’ How many times must a nation say that putting NATO on its borders is untenable before allegedly rational people concede that this is a valid point?
Are you just totally ignorant? Who he wants includes Chechnya, Georgia, Crimea, Armenia, Syria and, courtesy of the Wagner Group, large swathes of central Africa.
Such irony: the Domino Theory of the 1950’s Right resurrected by the modern Liberal Left. Ukraine may turn out to be the Left’s Vietnam.
And yet he pretty much personally facilitated Finland (which has a very long border with Russia) joining NATO.
Putin has an awful long way to come to get to the UK…even if he wanted to, which I doubt.
Also it may well be that patriotic UK citizens don’t want to be used as cannon fodder just because their rulers want to pose on the world stage pretending that the UK is a world power.
The UK should fulfill obligations to defend its fellow NATO members. None have been attacked during NATO’s existence…except possibly Germany when Nordstream was blown up but not by Russia…more likely the USA or Ukraine. The UK should not participate in NATOs aggressive wars of choice eg Yugoslavia, Libya, Syria…
NATO’s – and the US’ – problem is that 30 years of relentlessly pursued policy have produced a crop of European “leaders” (place-holders would be more appropriate) who are so craven and incompetent that the only “plans” they are capable of pursuing is to nod to any inanity produced by Washington’s neocons.
To please the US, Europeans gutted their armed forces, first to better serve as minions in the US’ colonial adventures, and then to empty their arsenals for the “benefit” of Ukraine.
The US’ cunning plan of leveraging NATO to force Europeans to buy US weapons is doomed to failure for the simple reason that Europe has been bankrupted by its idiotic sanctions, and to pay the US for the weapons the US is shipping to Ukraine.
And precisely right again…
Russia is a “forever enemy”, and taking it down is existential for Western Europe (and probably for the US too).
Maybe NATO’s fear that the gravy train ride is over is because the ride is over. The Soviet Union, the whole point of NATO, no longer exists and no, Putin is not going to resurrect it. The organization has become one more source of centralized power in an increasingly un-democratized West where mediocre people get cushy sinecures and the American taxpayer is, once more, paying the freight.
The US can be an ally; it need not be a bodyguard. EU countries are capable of standing up their own militaries and forming alliances among themselves. The US munitions industry may not like it but so what? That bunch has done enough damage as it is.
Russia still exists, and it is just as much “the Evil Empire” as the Soviet Union ever was.
I’m slightly surprised that there is no mention of Turkey and its behaviour as part of the organisation. It’s a significant part of NATO yet Erdogan seems far closer to Russia than the alliance. If there’s fear about the future it’s got a big Turkey-shaped cloud above it.
Suzerain has responsibility for its vassals. By retreating from Europe the US will effectively drop its imperial project
For the perfect grave-digger NATO could not have done better than appointing mr Rutte as its next secretary-general. He ran The Netherlands into the ground and he will do the same with every institution he leads. His ineptitude knows no bounds.
NATO is an instrument of American imperialism, as was the Warschau Pact an instrument of Soviet-Union imperialism. Main difference being todat that the Warschau Pact was dissolved and NATO expanded. Fundamentally there is no difference between Panama and Kosovo. The first was a part of Colombia and created as a vassal state for a canal. the second was a part of Serbia and created as vassal state for a military base. Many vassals have prospoered under the American umbrella and even cut corners on their mandatory tributes. But Pax Americana has come to an end due to imperial overstretch, frivolous spending, decadent culture, creative destruction and new big boys in the playground. The more insignificant, irrelevant, wasteful the country, person or institution the tighter the pearl clutching. 30 million people killed since WWII and that is called the rule of law. No wonder everyone loathes these people.