POINT OF VIEW – NATO: Full speed ahead or astern

Without an identity and lacking a true mission, NATO risks becoming inconsequential on the international stage. Only a serious upgrade can save it.

The United States definitely fell out of love with NATO during the Nineties of last century, at the time of the Kosovo-Serbian war. On that occasion the US came to realise that, despite the undisputed leadership role granted to it by other member states, when leading the Alliance into a war itfound itself having to enter into battle “by Committee”. War operations were thus hamstrung by collective decisions that were often influenced more by political considerations than military imperatives.

On that particular occasion both the North Atlantic Council which assembled all the ambassadors at the Alliance’s headquarters, and the Military Committee, the top technical organism that took its orders from the Council, demanded to have their say on the choice of targets, especially after the “flawed” American bombings of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the national Serbian TV station, and the US then took exception to the frequency with which these bodies exercised their powers of veto.

The result was that the next time, after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York, America refused to accept the support of all the allied countries that had immediately called for the implementation of the collective solidarity foreseen by article 5 of the Treaty,preferring to take the fight to Afghanistan on its own terms. It only called on the Alliance at a later date when, as the then US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld put it, “it was no longer about putting dinner on the table, it was only a question of clearingup”.

The result was that the Alliancewas essentially demoted to an organisation mainly providing member states withjoint military training and acting as areservoir from which one could draw “volunteer coalitions”, a blow from which it has never completely recovered, just at it has notcome to terms with having lost its important role as a forum for political discussion which it held at the time of the “Committee of Three” in the Fifties.

To this one has to add the nefarious consequences of itsstubbornly pursued policy of exclusion and confrontation with regard to itslong-time enemy at a time when, following the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the USSR, Russia no longer appeared threatening and was in fact in desperate need of assistance.

Instead of opening its doors to Moscow and to a peace agreement that might be acceptable for the vanquished as well as the victor, NATO focused its efforts on expanding eastwards, an approach that unavoidably caused alarm in those who could see the enemy advancing by a few thousand kilometres in the direction of its capital by relentlessly extending membership of the Atlantic Treaty to new countries. Furthermore, the eagerness shown by NATO, with the European Union in tow, in its attempts to complete its advance before Russia could recover and put up some sort of fight, meant it opened its doors unconditionally to countries that were by no means ready for such a move, but were fully intent on exploiting every advantage they might secure from the two organisations while at the same time refusing to share the disadvantages membership entails. Thus the Alliance found itself split between an “old” and a “new Europe”, something that played into the hands of Neo-Conservative American interests but did little to bolster internal cohesion.

With America leading the way, and influenced to some extent by the anti-Russian neuroses displayed by countries previouslypart of the EuropeanSoviet bloc, NATO persisted in its anti-Moscow approach, and ended up suffering two humiliating defeats in its expansion strategies, at first in Georgia and then in Ukraine, and by focusing all its energies to the east, it ultimately overlooked the southern front which, marred by instability and the rise of Islamic terrorism, was clearly the more threatening.

These critical aspects have actually got worsein recent times. One reason is President Trump’s readiness to criticise the Alliance whenever he gets the chanceandhis outspoken mistrust of his NATOallies, to this one has to add the rise of forces that are brazenly calling for a speedy normalisation of relations with Russia and Putin, all of which is now compounded by recent developments in Turkey.

Up to very recently Turkey was considered one of the main pillars of NATO, endowing it with an Islamic component that was supposedtogive it traction and penetration in North Africa and the Middle East. Its armed forces were also considered the largest and most effective of those on a southern front which, weakened by its political and territorial inconsistencies, had come to be known as the “soft underbelly of the Alliance”.

However, Erdogan’s tormented success in recent years and the gradual hardening of his regime’s stance have seriously muddied the waters. Nowadays Turkey is no longer a democracy; it’s more of a “dictatorcy”, closer to Putin’s regime than the democracies of the other Atlantic Pactstates. The strengthening of the bonds between Ankara and Moscow, brought to a head by Turkey’s purchase of Russian surface-to-air missiles and nuclear reactors has the top brass in Brussels seriously worried. What’s more, the much vaunted efficiency of the Turkish armed forcesis certainly not what it used to be after the failed coup and the extensive purgespromoted by the regime, even among the military, and this is another cause for concern. The Alliance has no rule on how it should behave in these instances and how it might sanction a member who no longer appears aligned to its principles in many ways. There’s little it can do to get Turkey to tow the line, except consume itself with indecision and embarrassment.

In spite of the triumphalist tones of the communiques issued by the top echelons and the ongoing search for new spheres of action, NATO currently gives the impression of being an ageing woman in her dotage, who has outlived the days of her royal splendour. Is the decline irreversible? Much will depend on its capacity to get back in step with the times and start confronting the real problems head on instead of trying to pass off minor cosmetic touch ups as true renovation, a favourite trick it has been engaging in for the last thirty years.

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