The fall and rise of NATO

Madrid: When the member states of NATO, the world’s largest military alliance which spans the North Atlantic, last drafted a new mission statement, it characterised Russia as a partner and didn’t mention China.

In the dozen years since, the world has changed markedly. And now, after much soul-searching and chastisement, NATO has too.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stands with US President Joe Biden and other world leaders at the NATO summit.Credit:Getty

In 2016, the 30-member alliance – which includes the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada – seemed almost moribund. The then-US president, Donald Trump, described it as “obsolete” and told American military chiefs he “didn’t see the point in it”.

It sparked French President Emmanuel Macron to warn European countries they could no longer rely on America to defend NATO allies.

“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO,” he declared at the time, warning that Europe stood on “the edge of a precipice”.

Spurred on by a drift in leadership within NATO, a weakened US and a distracted West, Russian President Vladimir Putin struck.

But more than four months after his forces invaded Ukraine, the war has reshaped the world in ways few could have predicted. The geopolitical map has been redrawn and the US has forged a global coalition supporting Ukraine.

Russia is now more isolated than at any time in recent history and China – now officially listed as a threat to the alliance – appears weakened and diminished.

And even old Western alliances have been restored. As US President Joe Biden declared following the decision to welcome two new nations into the fold in Madrid on Wednesday, Putin’s war on Ukraine has only strengthened NATO.

“He tried to weaken us, expected our resolve to fracture, but he’s getting exactly what he did not want,” Biden said. “He wanted the ‘Finland-isation’ of NATO. He got the ‘NATO-isation’ of Finland.”

The new confrontation with Russia has revitalised the alliance – founded to counter the threat from the Soviet Union during the Cold War – bringing with it two new potential Nordic members, Finland and Sweden, and more boots on the ground.

In a sign of its clear commitment to Europe after the isolationist Trump years, the US has poured in more than 40,000 additional troops, while Britain and other NATO members have deployed extra troops to the alliance’s eastern flank in countries bordering Russia.

The alliance now wants to increase its available forces on high alert to more than 300,000 troops to genuinely fortify the border with Russia and fully defend allied territory.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has finally agreed to meet NATO’s defence spending target of 2 per cent of GDP. It is also investing €100 billion ($152 billion) on rearming – a pledge that would once have sent a collective shiver across Europe.

And even Turkey, despite its more recent growing ties with Russia, has come down on the side of NATO.

In contrast, other international bodies such as the United Nations – where Russia is a permanent Security Council member and wields a veto – have been made to look irrelevant.

“At this summit, we rallied our alliances to meet both the direct threats that Russia poses to Europe and the systemic challenges that China poses to a rules-based world order,” Biden said.

“I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will not end with Russia defeating Ukraine. Ukraine has already dealt a severe blow to Russia.”

Readying allies for a long conflict in Ukraine despite talk in March of a possible victory, he added: “We are going to support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Two years ago, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister, was dismissed by many within the alliance when he warned it should turn its attention to threats further afield. He suggested NATO should seek to “scale down” activities outside members’ borders and “scale up” their domestic defensive resilience to better resist external threats.

“China is coming closer to us … We see them in the Arctic. We see them in cyberspace. We see them investing heavily in critical infrastructure in our countries,” he said at the time.

“And of course, they have more and more high-range weapons that can reach all NATO-allied countries. They are building many, many silos for long-range intercontinental missiles.”

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol during the “family photo” of the Asia-Pacific partners at the NATO leaders’ summit in Madrid.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The past week has shown that despite the war in Ukraine, the West has not lost sight of the threat from Beijing. And NATO is now looking away from its geographical moorings to recognise borders are not the same as they once were.

It is why Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was invited, along with his counterparts from Japan, South Korea and New Zealand – now known as the “Asia Pacific Four” – which declared their nations were “not distant from the challenges” being faced in Europe.

Just six weeks after his election and with foreign affairs never having been at the forefront of his responsibilities, Albanese has had to make a swift transition to become a player on the world stage.

Addressing a meeting with his regional counterparts in a hotel conference room on the outskirts of Madrid on Wednesday, Albanese declared that the events in Europe had “real and significant implications” for their own region of the Indo-Pacific, just as events in the Indo-Pacific affected Europe.

Ultimately, this is code for the Chinese Community Party’s increasingly assertive actions throughout the region.

“Only by working together can partners offer a real choice … in the region and take tangible steps to promote, peace, stability and prosperity for the Indo-Pacific,” the Australian leader said.

Albanese drew a direct link from Russia’s “special relationship” with Beijing.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the invasion of Ukraine had “shaken the very foundations of the global order”.

The security of Europe and the security of the Indo-Pacific, Kishida said, could not be decoupled.

NATO’s new Strategic Concept warned that authoritarian regimes “challenge our interests, values and democratic way of life”, interfering in democratic processes and testing nations’ resilience.

It called out both Russia and China over their investment in sophisticated conventional and nuclear missile capabilities “with little transparency or regard for international norms and commitments”.

The document also singled out China for its efforts to control key technologies, critical infrastructure and strategic materials.

“China is not our adversary, but we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” Stoltenberg told the summit, referencing Beijing’s military forces, including nuclear weapons and “bullying” of neighbours.

“We must continue to stand with our partners to preserve the rules-based international order. A global system based on norms and values. Instead of brute violence.”

Declaring that “global challenges demand global solutions”, Stoltenberg said NATO would step up co-operation with its Indo-Pacific partners, including on cyber defence, new technologies, maritime security, climate change and countering disinformation.

But for now, the strategy outlines, Russia remains the alliance’s “most direct threat”.

This week, the new head of the British Armed Forces, Sir Patrick Sanders, warned of an approaching “1937 moment”, a reference to Western Europe’s failure to confront Nazi Germany’s territorial expansion in the years preceding World War II.

“At this summit, we rallied our alliances to meet both the direct threats that Russia poses to Europe and the systemic challenges that China poses to a rules-based world order.”

“We are not at war, but we must act rapidly so that we aren’t drawn into one through a failure to contain territorial expansion,” he said.

Sir Lawrence Freedman, emeritus professor of war studies at King’s College London, says the one effect of the “brutal and criminal” nature of Russia’s invasion has been to forge a “remarkable” NATO unity on the need to support Ukraine in a war where the outcome cannot be predicted with confidence.

“The conflict is already causing great economic pain and hardship, and may yet lead to gas rationing, even though member states are not engaged in the fighting,” he said.

“This is, therefore, one of those climactic moments in international affairs on which all future security arrangements depend. The alliance’s unity may fray but, for now, the commitment has been made to support Ukraine as it seeks to drive out the occupiers.”

Freedman says NATO cannot simply wait for Putin to depart the scene or for Russia to withdraw its forces. He says it must provide Ukraine with constant supplies of new weapons and ammunition as well as financial support.

Still, Russia has warned that in providing this assistance, NATO allies are risking the outbreak of a nuclear war.

“The public must be prepared with due candour for the long haul,” he says.

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