Home ›› 30 Jun 2022 ›› Editorial
NATO leaders will proclaim a united wartime front this week at a summit in Madrid. Yet the quandaries that once left NATO adrift are still bubbling. Before Russia sent its troops streaming into Ukraine, NATO had been searching for reinvention. For some, China and its expansive, modernizing military presented NATO’s next big challenge. Others wondered what the Afghanistan war quagmire meant for the alliance’s future. In 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron said NATO was experiencing “brain death.” Then Vladimir Putin reminded them all that Russia was still willing to pillage, bomb and murder on a grand scale in an effort to consume an entire country in NATO’s own backyard. The military alliance suddenly found renewed popularity, with Finland and Sweden clamoring to join. And it inadvertently found that its next act resembles its original one: defending its eastern borders and deterring Moscow.
The decisions at the Madrid summit will now “prepare the alliance for a new phase of the relationship with Russia,” said Alexander Vershbow, a veteran U.S. diplomat. NATO, he said, “will have to change.” That doesn’t mean NATO’s existential questions are solved, though. Publicly, NATO leaders this week will endorse a new “Strategic Concept” — a once-a-decade blueprint laying out top imperatives and challenges. Behind the scenes, though, NATO diplomats have been scrambling to revise the long-term strategy, seeking compromises on how to present threats and priorities as the alliance grapples over when and if today’s Russian menace will eventually give way to other perils, most notably from China. “There are always differences of perspectives and views that you find across NATO with 30 different countries represented around the table,” said Julianne Smith, the U.S. ambassador to NATO. While the alliance is consumed with the effort to arm and finance Ukraine, it simultaneously wants to recoil from direct conflict with Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power. Europe’s push for more strategic military autonomy also remains a lively debate, as does the possibility of NATO-skeptic U.S. leaders reclaiming power. China and other long-term threats are not receding. “Obviously, at this moment, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are very much focused on collective defense,” Portuguese Foreign Minister João Gomes Cravinho told reporters last month. But, he stressed, “the current focus on collective defense,” while “very important, will not necessarily be the focus over the next few years.”
History isn’t always linear
After Putin declared all-out war on Ukraine, NATO was, once again, in great demand. Allies began committing to boost defense spending at home after years of reluctance. Germany upended decades of post-World War II dogma to send Ukraine weapons. Sweden and Finland ditched military neutrality to seek NATO membership. There was an agreement — NATO must reshape itself amid the first full-fledged war on European soil in the 21st century.
“I’ve been pleased to see how much the alliance has come together in recent months,” said Smith, the U.S. ambassador. The most immediate dilemma for the alliance has become how to better protect its more vulnerable eastern members without significantly increasing the risk of all-out war with Russia. The question touches on a sensitive history for Baltic members like Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which still recall their days as part of the Soviet Union. They are all quick to warn the Western allies against dismissing Moscow’s histrionic military threats. They argue the West’s unwillingness to confront Moscow over the last decade-plus is precisely what led to the current situation, pointing to the tempered international response after the Kremlin invaded part of Georgia in 2008 and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. “For countries like the Baltic states, it’s important not only words but also deeds,” Latvian Minister of Defense Artis Pabriks told reporters earlier this month. “If we would react correctly in 2008, when Georgia was invaded, there would not be Crimea of 2014,” Pabriks said. “If we would act correctly in 2014, there would not be 2022. So will we act now correctly in order to avoid the next war? That’s a big question.” In response to these concerns, NATO allies have sent more troops, planes and ships to the eastern flank. But numerous eastern members are vocally pushing for more. They want a larger-scale, more permanent troop presence in the region. Many western European countries, however, feel such a permanent approach would unnecessarily close the door to eventually improving relations with Russia. They want to keep a small avenue available in case a new regime comes to power in Moscow and diplomatic dialogue becomes viable again. For now, the alliance has taken a middle-ground approach. Germany, for instance, has pledged to up its military’s presence in Lithuania — but with reinforcements that in part come from troops based in Germany and rotating through the country. “There is a lot of caution here,” said Jana Puglierin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ Berlin office. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, she added, “wants to make sure that he has done everything in his power to walk this fine line.” The German approach is expected to mirror the compromise NATO will endorse at its upcoming summit. Allies will place more weapons and equipment along NATO’s eastern edge, perhaps even building more headquarter operations there, as well. Recently, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance will boost its high-readiness forces to more than 300,000 troops, part of what he described as “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense and deterrence since the Cold War.” But many of the troops themselves will only serve temporary shifts, technically remaining stationed in their own country. While the Baltic states have indicated they are open to the arrangement, it’s not an approach that will settle the broader debate — especially if the war in Ukraine burns for months or even years.
Balancing the load
As always, economic factors are underlying the divisions over how to dole out troops and weapons. Permanent bases along NATO’s eastern front also mean permanent expenses — expenses that can’t be quickly redirected. A permanent base is essentially a miniature city. Familiar chains open outposts. Soldiers’ kids go to school. Grocery stores get stocked with products from back home. “Obviously in terms of permanent basing, the costs can be quite different than a rotational presence where the families do not accompany the troops that come through because they rotate over six months or a year,” said Smith, the U.S. ambassador. “And by rotating troops through, it does give you some added flexibility that you wouldn’t necessarily have with permanent basing,” she added, explaining the debate.
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