Has NATO ever been weaker?
Michael Richmond
When Russia invaded its neighbour Ukraine in February 2022, Putin had made a gamble. That NATO did not have the will nor the resolve to provide a cohesive response, militarily or economically before Ukraine would be subjugated. But Ukraine two and a half years on is still here and has taken the fight back to Russia.
Ukraine has been courageous, and NATO has pulled together. Over the course of the conflict two new members have joined NATO, Sweden and Finland, after decades of neutrality, adding 830 miles to NATO’s border with Russia. Military spending in the defensive alliance has gone up to where together they spend 2.71% of GDP on defence. Well above the 2% target. In 2024 NATO will spend $1.47 trillion on defence, the most in the alliance’s history. NATO also has a renewed sense of purpose. It has a state hostile to its existence on the European continent that is trying to change European borders by force. This is a sense of purpose that NATO has not had since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Most impressively of all, the Biden administration has been able to lace together, NATO and the Asian democracies together to form a global response to the invasion based on a shared responsibility for protecting the current rules based international order.
By these arguments, NATO, it would seem, has never been stronger.
However, if you were to ask the Ukrainians what they thought of the western response they would be thankful but disappointed. President Zelensky has thrown great amounts of diplomatic energy into convincing member states to send more ammunition and more lethal defence systems. To prevent an escalation with Russia and an expansion of the war beyond its current sphere, over the course of the conflict NATO has been responsive but conservative towards Ukraine’s requests for military aid. There are both limits to the ammunition and arms NATO countries can send to Ukraine without diminishing the strength of their own militaries and without escalating tensions with a nuclear power. There are limits to the amount of military aid NATO countries can send due to economic constraints. There are limits to the amount of arms NATO countries can manufacture given most defence industry was shed following the end of the Cold War because of the peace dividend. Ukraine is merely on life support.
Ukraine fatigue is also creeping in. Olaf Scholz’s Germany, the second largest donor of military and financial aid aside from the United States, has already declared it is lowering its aid to Ukraine due to budgetary requirements. Scholz is also facing pressure from both the far left and right in Germany to cease aid and focus spending on Germany’s domestic woes. Germany is a significant but not isolated case. Orbán’s Hungary and Fico’s Slovakia both rely on Russian energy and have closer political ties to Putin than the rest of Europe. They want an end to the war even if it means Ukraine losing territory.
Then there is the elephant in the room. The United States, the largest military spender in NATO. While Biden has successfully rallied support for Ukraine’s cause, by the 20th of January next year he will no longer be President. Trump will be the next president and has a history of pressuring NATO countries, rightly in my view, to contribute more. Recently, however, his rhetoric has demonstrated a stronger disregard for the alliance when he said he would encourage Russia to attack NATO allies who do not pay their fair share. He has attacked NATO characterising it as an American protectorate, not an alliance. He also wants to see an end to the war and halt the bloodshed. On the face of it a moral cause but in practice would mean Ukraine conceding large amounts of territory to the Russians and most likely having to adopt a neutral status. No NATO for Ukraine.
There are also fundamental weaknesses to the makeup of the defensive alliance. Article 5 is what gives the defensive alliance its strength. An attack on one is an attack on all. When article 5 was drafted it was purposefully vague to ensure the United States didn’t get directly involved in every single European conflict large and small. What that means is each member state is responsible for how they respond to an attack on the alliance. As a result, what makes Article 5 strong is not necessarily the wording of the article but its interpretation. This is why political rhetoric that puts down NATO is so damaging.
A crucial point that is often not addressed in the media is the effect that European countries spending more on defence would have on the dynamics of the NATO alliance. NATO was originally set up so the United States could protect Western Europe in the event the Soviet Union pushed further westward. The alliance is not a protectorate, but it is an alliance where the United States is the guarantor of European security. If this is no longer the case and Europe steps up, then it will be less necessary for the United States to get involved in the continent. Europe not needing to rely on US security assistance might make NATO, a transatlantic alliance, redundant.
It is most striking that this weakening of NATO is coming at a time of renewed geopolitical tension in the world. Grand Strategy and Great Power conflict is back. The Morgan Stanley CEO, Ted Pick, said something recently at a finance summit in Riyadh that has stayed in my mind: “The end of financial repression, of zero interest rates and zero inflation, that era is over. Interest rates will be higher, will be challenged around the world. And the end of ‘the end of history’ — geopolitics are back and will be part of the challenge for decades to come,”
Indeed, it seems we have reached the end of ‘The End of History’.
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