By: Dhritiman Banerjee
The North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO) was formed on April 4th,1949 as the Western Counterweight to the Soviet Union in the newly emerging Cold War. NATO describes itself as the most successful military alliance because it deterred a nuclear war with the Soviets rather than winning a military conflict. This sums up the objective of the alliance perfectly i.e., deterrence rather than aggression. However, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviets, Nato pursued an aggressive expansionist stance with respect to the newly formed Russian federation by expanding eastwards and integrating erstwhile communist states into the alliance and changing the alliance’s goal to global military interventions. This has led to a security dilemma on the Russian part.
However, recent developments including the war in Ukraine have highlighted Nato’s new role while the Trumpism movement in the United States have raised concerns as to US commitment to Nato as its main supporter. Thus, the limitations as well as the scope of the alliance with respect to Russia have recently been exposed which raises serious questions as to the future of the alliance. Therefore, questions arise as to the survivability of Nato as a military alliance and its role in the emerging multipolar world order. This article opines that while Nato may survive, it faces a difficult future ahead without serious reforms to its mission and goals and explains that Nato in its present form is not sustainable without significant support and considering the new US foreign policy goals, the new Nato should expect less American support and thus change its role from expansion to an alliance of deterrence against Moscow.
Trump and NATO
President Donald Trump has approached Nato in a different way compared to previous administrations. He has criticized the low defence spending of the European countries and in his interpretation the increasing imbalance of European commitments with respect to the US. He has also criticized the military contributions of European Nato members to global US military interventions involving Nato in states like Afghanistan, statements which have drawn sharp criticism from European leaders. The President has also criticized former President Biden’s collaboration with Nato in aid to Ukraine and has drastically reduced US military aid to Ukraine. This has increased distrust among European allies regarding US commitment to Nato which has been exacerbated by the President’s statements regarding the annexation of Greenland which is a territory of Denmark, a Nato member. Therefore, it can be said that the erstwhile US-European alliance may be seeing fractures due to the foreign policy of the Trump administration. Europeans believe that Nato is more than a military alliance as it is the backbone of European security and therefore, survival of the alliance is key to European security in the face of emerging Russian expansionism under Vladimir Putin.
Therefore, it can be said that the future of Nato may be different due to US-European emerging distrust and the Europeans may upgrade the security infrastructure of Nato to be less dependent on US support. Also, it should be noted that European leaders have avoided supporting the recent US intervention in Iran and have criticized unilateral US military action in the region. This has deepened Trump’s animosity towards Nato and has led to his Secretary of State Marco Rubio who has criticized the alliance in the past to call for a re-examination of the US-Nato relationship. These developments have raised questions as to the future of Nato amidst the growing US-European animosity. Thus, doubts about the future of the current structure of Nato have started to arise and questions and concerns over continued participation in the organization have become points of recent debate in the discourse of international relations.
In fact, differences with the Americans have led the Europeans to realize the limits of US aid to their security and revisit their military policies. Donald Trump has significantly highlighted the role played by the US in Nato and has termed the alliance unfair. His shift from multilateral commitments to institutions like Nato to a foreign policy based on unilateral expansionism of American power primarily based on hard power calculations show that Nato in its current form may not be sustainable both due to current US foreign policy priorities and the reluctance of Nato members to support US unilateral military actions through deploying their own military assets for American missions. Therefore, it can be said that, US commitment to Nato and European security is set to decrease and European powers may have to view Nato more as a solely European alliance and thus take more measures to be self-reliant for military security.
These developments have raised significant debate on the position Nato vis-à -vis Moscow and how the future of European engagement with the Ukraine war will play out considering Europe’s continuing energy reliance on Russia and decreasing American support to the Ukrainian war effort.
NATO, Europe and Moscow: Deterrence or Expansionism?
It should be noted that, Nato as an alliance was a result of the US Cold War foreign policy of containment and was an alliance meant to deter Soviet aggression on Eastern Europe. The alliance mainly resulted as part of the politics of the bipolarity of the Cold War and was meant to be a counter-weight later to the USSR led Warsaw Pact. However, after the collapse of the USSR and the end of the Cold War the bipolarity of international relations ended and a unipolar system emerged with the US as the sole superpower and Nato as a military alliance functioned under the leadership of the Americans. Therefore, throughout the 1990s, the mission of the Nato changed from deterrence to expansionism and military intervention. Nato in this period expanded into eastern Europe with the joining of erstwhile Communist states like Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic in 1999 and later states like Bulgaria, Romania and Estonia in 2004. Nato also during the unipolar era functioned as a multilateral alliance of military intervention with military action in the Balkans, Middle East, Afghanistan and other regions. Nato in the unipolar system served as a vital part of the liberal institutional hegemony propounded by US.
The new shift in Nato policy reflected the new power dynamics of the Post Cold War and was seen with concern in Moscow as Nato expanded closer to the borders of the new state of Russia and tensions between Washington and Moscow remained. John Mearsheimer notes that Nato expansionism into Eastern Europe led to an existential security threat for Russia as it perceived a crisis in its own borders and thus initiated conflict with Ukraine. But it should be noted that Nato expansionism was a result of US policy in the new era and Europe then and even now depends heavily on the Americans for their military security. This makes American commitments and security guarantees to Europe an important factor in Nato operations and in the security policies of the European states. This factor becomes more important when the Europeans view their animosity with the militarily superior Russia and its actions in Ukraine which is a key flashpoint in European security. It should be noted that the previous policy of Nato expansion to counter Russian aggression is heavily dependent on American support and decreasing American commitment to Nato makes this policy unsustainable in the long run. This creates a security crisis for the European Nato members as their distrust of the trump administration is in direct contrast to their need for American support to contain Moscow.
Moscow’s expansionist foreign policy in Ukraine and its creation of a sphere of influence with states like Belarus in Eastern Europe present a security challenge for the Europeans in the new politics of the multipolar world as the Europeans alone cannot sustain a prolonged military competition with Russia and also dependent on them for their energy security. Therefore, the Post-Cold War calculus of expanding Nato as a counter-weight to Moscow has to be changed and Europe must develop a capability of deterrence to replace their vision of expansion. In this new security scenario, it should be noted that Nato as an alliance requires significant reforms. The alliance has to be aligned to the politics of a multipolar world and must make a trade off between the European priorities of security and continuing to rely on American leadership. Therefore, while Europe is economically stronger than Russia, militarily Russia is superior and Europe’s military capability is heavily dependent on the American nuclear umbrella. This creates a unique security challenge for the Europeans. In fact, the importance of Nato from a European security perspective to counter Russian expansionism can be seen through the recent decisions by Finland and Sweden to join Nato.
Thus, while Nato remains relevant for Europeans to contain Moscow, it is difficult to sustain the alliance in its present role without continuing American support which is unlikely. The European states recognize this and thus have increased military spending to reduce military dependence on the US. However, it is also necessary to redefine the goal of Nato from an expansionist global military bloc to a local military alliance meant to deter Moscow rather than conduct military interventions around the world.
Conclusion: Death of Nato as we know it?
It can be said that Nato in its current form is a dead alliance that cannot serve its function. However, it is still extremely relevant for European powers as a collective security alliance against Russia. In this context, it is imperative for Europe to decrease its military dependence on the US and rebrand Nato to its limited goal of military deterrence in Europe. Nato cannot be viable if these reforms are not done and may fracture due to American-European distrust which will give an advantage to Moscow. It should be noted that while Nato has grown stronger after the Ukraine War due to concerns of Russian expansionism, it faces criticism from America, its main backer from inception. Therefore, Nato cannot serve its current role efficiently in the new multipolar order where US foreign policy is rapidly changing. The new era does not point towards continuing partnership between the Americans and the Europeans but signals that their mutual distrust and reluctance to cooperate on unilateral military actions is likely to increase. Washington will remember Europe’s response during the Iran War and may reformulate its Europe strategy accordingly.
Thus, to conclude it should be asserted that Nato policies of the unipolar world can no longer guide the alliance now. Instead, Europe should recognize its limitations and strive to design Nato in the more limited capability as a deterrent to Moscow based on European commitment to their own security as it can be unlikely that Washington will respond to an article 5 invocation in Europe in the future considering its own requests in Iran were denied by Europe.
