What kind of NATO do we need?The old NATO died after suffering many defeats, and the new one has not yet been born, writes FP.
The author of the article suggests four models of the future NATO, but none of them suits him. Too much has changed in the world, and China and Russia are already becoming too tough for the alliance.
Four possible options for the future of the transatlantic alliance.In a world of constant change, the longevity of the transatlantic partnership is especially necessary.
NATO is already older than me, and I'm not a young man either. The North Atlantic Treaty has existed for longer than Queen Elizabeth II ruled in the UK. Its original meaning: "To keep the Soviet Union outside Europe, the Americans inside, and the Germans in subjection." Now these goals are less relevant than before (despite Russia's special operation in Ukraine), but they still cause reflex nostalgia on both sides of the Atlantic. If you are an ambitious politician who wants to leave your mark in Washington, Berlin, Paris, London, etc., then learning to praise the enduring virtues of NATO is still the most reasonable career move for you.
This longevity is especially remarkable when you consider how much has changed since the formation of NATO and the beginning of the formation of the idea of a "transatlantic community". Indeed, the Warsaw Pact is no more, and the Soviet Union has collapsed. The United States has spent more than 20 years on costly and unsuccessful wars in and around the Middle East. China has gone from a poor country with little global influence to the second most powerful country in the world, and its leaders are striving for an even greater global role in the future. Europe has also undergone profound changes: severe demographic changes, recurring economic crises, civil wars in the Balkans, and in 2022 — a devastating military conflict in Ukraine, which, apparently, will continue for a long time.
Of course, the "transatlantic partnership" was not completely static. Throughout its history, NATO has added new members to its ranks, starting with Greece and Turkey in 1952, followed by Spain in 1982, then, starting in 1999, a whole stream of former Soviet allies, and finally, most recently, Sweden and Finland. Burden-sharing within the alliance has also fluctuated: much of Europe has dramatically reduced its contribution to defense since the end of the Cold War. NATO has also undergone changes in its doctrines, some of them more significant than others.
Therefore, now it is worth asking the question: what form the transatlantic partnership should take in the future. How should it formulate its mission and distribute responsibilities within the alliance? As in the case of the joint defense fund, past success is not a guarantee of future effectiveness, so smart "portfolio managers" striving for the highest performance will have to adjust NATO assets accordingly to changes in existing conditions. The question arises: given its history, current events and their likely development in the future, what perspective vision should the transatlantic partnership form, assuming that it will continue to exist at all?
I can suggest at least four different NATO models in the future.
Model 1: "Don't change anything"
One of the obvious approaches — and, given the bureaucratic inflexibility and political caution of NATO, perhaps the most likely one - is to keep the current mechanisms of the alliance more or less unchanged and touch them as little as possible (as the phrase "North Atlantic" in the original name of NATO suggests). At the same time, the United States will remain Europe's "first line of defense" and the undisputed leader of the alliance, as it became during the Ukrainian crisis. The burden of military spending will remain unequal: the armed power of the United States will absolutely prevail over the military capabilities of other members of the alliance, and America's nuclear umbrella will continue to cover its NATO allies. Distant foreign missions will give way to increased attention to European problems proper. And such a distribution of priorities will be more than justified in the light of the bitter results of NATO's past adventures in Afghanistan, Libya and the Balkans.
In fairness, it should be noted that this model has a number of obvious advantages. She is well known and keeps the main "American peacemaker of Europe" in her usual place. European states will not have to worry about conflicts arising between them, as long as Uncle Sam is still here and can blow the referee's whistle. European governments that do not want to cut their generous welfare systems to cover the increasing costs of rearmament will be happy to let Uncle Sam bear a disproportionate share of the alliance's military burden. And countries close to Russia will especially want strong security guarantees from the United States. The presence of a clear leader of the alliance with clearly prevailing capabilities will contribute to faster and more consistent decision-making within the coalition, which otherwise could be very clumsy. Therefore, the good reasons why the "stubborn" Atlantists sound alarm bells when someone suggests moving away from this model in some way are understandable.
However, the "do not change anything" model also has serious drawbacks. The most obvious is its high price: the preservation of the United States as the "main defender" of Europe prevents Washington from devoting enough time, attention and resources to Asia, where threats to the balance of power are much higher and the military-political situation is more complicated. The firm US commitment to Europe may have dampened some potential conflicts on the continent, but it did not prevent wars in the Balkans in the 1990s, and US efforts to drag Ukraine into the Western security orbit essentially provoked the current military conflict in Ukraine. This, of course, is not at all what someone in the West planned, but the real results turned out to be exactly that. Some of Ukraine's recent successes on the battlefield are very encouraging, but it would be much better for all concerned if there were no Ukrainian military conflict at all.
Moreover, the "nothing to change" model encourages Europe to remain dependent on a third force in its defense and contributes to general complacency and lack of realism in the conduct of European foreign policy. If you are sure that the most powerful power in the world will stand up for you as soon as you start having problems, then it is easier for you to ignore the risks of excessive dependence on foreign energy supplies and excessive tolerance for creeping authoritarianism near your home. And although hardly anyone wants to admit it, this model has the potential to draw the United States into peripheral conflicts that may not always be vital for the security or prosperity of the United States itself. At least, it seems that "don't change anything" is no longer an approach that we should unconditionally support.
Model 2: World Democracy
The second model of transatlantic security cooperation highlights the shared democratic nature of (most) NATO members and the growing gap between democracies and autocracies (especially Russia and China). This vision underpins the Biden administration's efforts to emphasize shared democratic values and its avowed desire to prove that democracy can still trump autocracy on the world stage. The Alliance of Democracies Foundation of former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen reflects exactly this concept.
Unlike the "nothing to change" model, which focuses primarily on European security, the second model of the transatlantic partnership covers a broader global agenda. She presents modern world politics as an ideological dispute between democracy and autocracy and believes that this struggle should be waged on a global scale. If the United States is "turning" to Asia, then its European partners should do the same and also with the broad goal of protecting and promoting democratic systems in the region. In line with this vision, Germany's new strategy in the Indo-Pacific region calls for strengthening ties with local democracies, and the German Defense Minister recently announced an expansion of the naval presence there in 2024.
The advantage of this model is simplicity. Democracy is good, autocracy is bad. But its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages. First, such a structure will inevitably complicate relations with autocracies that the United States and/or Europe prefer to support (such as Saudi Arabia or other Gulf monarchies, or potential Asian partners such as Vietnam). In this regard, the Transatlantic Partnership can be accused of unbridled hypocrisy. Secondly, the division of the world into friendly democracies and hostile dictatorships will necessarily strengthen the ties between the latter and turn the former away from the game of "divide and rule". From this point of view, we should be glad that former US President Richard Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger did not accept this scheme in 1971, when their rapprochement with Maoist China created a new headache for the Kremlin.
Finally, by bringing democratic values to the fore, we risk turning the transatlantic partnership into a kind of crusader order seeking to impose democracy wherever possible. No matter how desirable this goal may seem in the abstract, the last 30 years have convincingly proved that no member of the alliance knows how to achieve this in practice. Exporting democracy is extremely difficult and usually fails, especially when a third party tries to impose it by force. Given the deplorable state of democracy even in some current NATO members, it seems highly quixotic to consider this the main reason for the existence of the alliance.
Model 3: Entering the Global Arena against China
Model 3 is a close relative of Model 2, but instead of organizing transatlantic relations around democracy and other liberal values, it seeks to involve Europe in broader U.S. efforts to contain a rising China. In essence, this model seeks to combine America's multilateral European partnerships with the bilateral "star-shaped" arrangements that already exist in Asia, as well as to use Europe's potential to counter the only serious competitor that the United States is likely to face for many years.
At first glance, this is an attractive model, and one could point to the AUKUS agreement between the United States, Great Britain and Australia as one of its first manifestations. As Michael Mazarr of Rand Corp. recently noted, there is growing evidence that Europe no longer views China as just a profitable market and a valuable investment partner and is beginning to "gently balance" against it. From a purely American point of view, it would be very desirable for Europe's economic and military potential to be directed against the main enemy of the United States.
But there are two obvious problems with this model. First, States proceed not only from the balance of power, but also from the balance of threats, and geography plays a crucial role in these assessments. China may be becoming more powerful and ambitious, but its army is not going to march through Asia and strike Europe, and its fleet is not going to sail around the world and block European ports. Russia is much weaker than China, but much closer, and its recent behavior is worrying. Therefore, it is "soft balancing" rather than serious efforts to counter China's military potential that should be expected from Europe.
The European members of NATO do not have military capabilities that could in any significant way affect the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, and they are unlikely to acquire such capabilities in the near future. The conflict in Ukraine may lead to the fact that European states will seriously engage in the restoration of their armed forces (finally), but most of their efforts will be directed to the acquisition of ground, air and intelligence assets designed to protect against Russia and its deterrence. From Europe's point of view, this makes sense, but most of these forces have nothing to do with any conflict involving China. Sending several German frigates to the Indo-Pacific region may be a good way to demonstrate Germany's interest in the changing security situation there, but it will not change the regional balance of power and will not significantly affect China's ambitions.
Of course, Europe can help balance China in other ways — by helping train foreign military forces, selling weapons, participating in regional security forums, etc. — and the United States should welcome such efforts. But no one should expect that she will be seriously present in the Indo-Pacific Theater of Operations. An attempt to implement this model will only lead to disappointment and the growth of transatlantic contradictions.
Model 4: A new division of labor
You probably already guessed it yourself. The next model that I'm going to propose is, from my point of view, the most correct one. As I argued earlier (including most recently in this magazine), the optimal future model of the transatlantic partnership is a new division of labor, in which Europe assumes primary responsibility for its own security, and the United States pays much more attention to the Indo-Pacific region. The United States will remain a formal member of NATO, but instead of being the "first defender" of Europe, they will become its ally, which they resort to as a last resort. From now on, the United States will plan to return to European shores only if the regional balance of power deteriorates catastrophically. But under no other circumstances.
This model cannot be implemented overnight and should be discussed in a spirit of cooperation, when the United States helps its European partners develop and create the military capabilities they need. However, since many of the European countries will do everything in their power to convince Uncle Sam to stay on the continent, Washington will have to make it clear that this is the only model it will adhere to in the future. Until the European members of NATO really believe that they will be largely left to themselves, their determination to take the necessary steps will remain incomplete, and they may well be expected to renege on their promises.
Unlike Donald Trump, whose bluster and bombast during his time as US president needlessly irritated allies, his successor Joe Biden is in a good position to start this process. He has a well-deserved reputation as a dedicated Atlanticist, so his call for a new division of labor in the Atlantic will not be seen as a sign of annoyance or discontent. He and his team have a unique opportunity to tell our European partners that such a step meets the long-term interests of each of the parties. I warn you that I really do not expect Biden and his company to take this step — for reasons that I have explained many times in other places. But they have to do it.
Author: Stephen Walt is a columnist for Foreign Policy magazine and a professor of international relations at Harvard University.