Inert Alliance
By coddling Trump & ignoring Ukraine, NATO is courting failure
(NATO leaders with the King and Queen of the Netherlands on June 24th)
Amid all the hoopla about higher spending and unbreakable transatlantic bonds, make no mistake: NATO is failing.
No, the Kremlin’s little green men haven’t shown up in Estonia or Finnish Karelia – not yet anyway. Nor has a stealth armoured attack closed the Suwalki gap.
But the “strongest Alliance in history” – as the Hague Summit Declaration unblinkingly puts it – the team of democracies that deterred Soviet aggression in Europe, knocked heads in the Balkans and made Afghanistan better for two decades – that alliance is now faltering.
It’s not falling apart, as some said it would after the Cold War or Trump’s first win.
But it’s not holding together either. After Biden’s weakness and allied unwillingness to confront live threats, Trump has broken transatlantic trust.
Yes, larger defence budgets are welcome.
Yes, Europe and Canada are re-focusing on long-neglected defence industries.
But the hard core of credible deterrence is already broken.
Will the US defend a European ally if attacked by Russia? We don’t really know.
This uncertainty is compounded by the reality that senior members of this administration are hard-wired into the Kremlin.
These office-holders are not just soft on Russia or ready to capitulate in the face of ‘Putin’s’ demands. Many are actively working in Moscow’s interest.
Trump’s ‘negotiating team’ for peace in Ukraine has offered today’s fascist Kremlin a new sphere of influence, including ‘control’ of the territory of NATO allies. Trump has conferred by phone with Putin’s double more than with any NATO leader. This White House is not working for peace: they want to legitimize Russian aggression.
In truth, trust in NATO and NATO’s ability to deter aggression have been in steep decline for over a decade. The failure to uphold red lines in Syria – or to stop Russian- and Iranian-sponsored bloodbaths there – was a first strike.
A second was Merkel and Sarkozy’s failure in 2008 and Merkel and Hollande’s in 2014 – with full US acquiescence – to be remotely serious about Putin’s first invasions.
Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine could easily have been deterred – but NATO leaders instead chose a path of irresolution and weakness.
The coup de grace in NATO’s loss of credibility was the ill-judged, inhumane and shameless 2021 retreat from Afghanistan, which gave the previously cautious Putin all the insight he needed into how NATO would react to an all-out invasion.
While it is easy to blame Biden for implementing Trump’s diabolical act of surrender to the Taliban, the truth is that not a single ally spoke out against this betrayal.
As a result, our alliance is today failing at all three core tasks.
It has left “deterrence and defence” in tatters by failing to take substantive action in Ukraine – the war NATO was created to win.
Ukraine and Russia are not even mentioned in the Hague Summit Declaration, knee-capping collective self-defence even before Russian drones hit NATO borders.
On “crisis prevention and management” NATO has played absolutely no role in mounting a strategy for defeating Russian or Iranian aggression.
On “cooperative security” – the core task that took us to Afghanistan – Brussels cannot even lead a discussion about defending Ukrainian airspace.
In Ukraine, the ‘strongest alliance in history’ does not even have a training mission. After agreeing to coordinate military support to Ukraine, this idea was quietly dropped at this week’s summit in the face of Trump vetos.
A coalition of the willing for Ukraine’s victory is still possible without NATO.
But NATO will not be an alliance if it continues to ignore current Russian aggression.
Sooner or later, allies have to choose between Trump’s treachery and Ukraine’s survival, where the principle of collective self-defence hangs in the balance.
To suggest there is any real choice here is itself an act of dishonour.
Brilliant analysis Chris.
But I still don't understand what NATO's European leaders are afraid of. Is it possible that they don't believe that their populations will back them?
As in most coalitions, there are brave but also naive optimists.
I haven't read the European Gallup figures. But is there a survey or statistics on the population's attitude to what should be done in relation to Russia?
Are there really solid statistics that the population does not understand that Russia only respects power?
I can perhaps understand that countries geographically far from Russia dare to live with the risk. But the closer the countries are geographically to Russia, the better they understand the risk that Russia poses on various levels.
Even the historically peaceful, cold-hearted Nordic countries realise that Russia is continually testing their will to resist in cyberspace, at the borders, in the air, on and under the sea. And these countries seem to stand firm in the belief that Russia only respects an active and powerful response.
I am still very pleased that the Nordic countries were so quick to bring the Baltic countries into our military and economic alliances. Perhaps it would not have been possible today?
Russia is not Nazi Germany, but the overestimation of their own importance seems to be made of the same stuff and dreams.
80 years without war in Europe have led to a stronger economy, better understanding of each other's culture and differences in culture. Understanding that individual countries cannot do without membership in coalitions. But at the same time, the aversion to the brutal use of force has grown. We have become more civilised and more empathetic. That in itself is a great progress. But it was not only the Roman Empire that collapsed because the inhabitants and soldiers were softened by the Pax Romanum. I, however, doubt whether that is the whole truth.
Russia knows that, and therefore it is realpolitik when Russia wants to test and weaken the alliances of civilised people. But relativism and understanding are not acceptance of real threats. When our civilisation is at stake, we must act resolutely, soberly, and with - if not cynical - cool reason. We must fight for all that we hold dear. Die, if necessary. We know that mountains can be blown up, and a river can be forced. But a people can never perish unless it accepts it itself.
The lack of respect for the individual's need for happiness, peace, and stability shown by the Russian Tsars, the Soviet leaders, and Russia's ditto, is difficult for civilised people to understand. And again, understanding is not acceptance.
But European civilised people, plus the inhabitants of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, should know from experience that respect for individual rights has a price.
The longer we wait to actively protect individual rights, the higher the price in human lives, in economic decline, and in general deterioration and welfare will be.
We do not have soldiers for decoration. We have them for active defence of individual rights. If the defence of individual rights requires the lives of soldiers, then the soldiers must sacrifice their lives.
We can mechanise war to a great extent, but ultimately only human active presence on the battlefield can ensure peace at all levels against aggressive countries like Russia.
Civilised people also know that boots on the ground lead to brutalisation of those people who abhor brutality. To avoid or reduce brutality, soldiers must pay the high price that soldierly life in war entails.
Nuclear weapons? Useful as a threat but so highly polluting of land, seas and air that only suicides will use them.
Kennedy knew this and risked it during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If the leaders of civilised countries are not afraid of the attitudes of their populations, are they afraid that the civilised institutions that civilised people have built to protect civilisation will judge them as uncivilised?
That risk is important enough in the public interest to take.
History will usually be skeptical and critical. But humans are now only mortals who cannot foresee the entire future.
And now is the time to go as far as we can see. And then we must see how far we can go. That is what civilised people have elected their leaders to do.