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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is trying to find a way back to “normalcy” after four years of drama, under the proper leadership of former U.S. President Donald Trump.
This will be a big challenge. NATO seems to have lost its rumor after Trump distorted his strategic vision and values and questioned his shared destiny, albeit rhetorically.
But the arrival of transatlanticist Joe Biden brings life and vitality to the treaty as the U.S. president tries to reassure European allies that his administration is restoring confidence and restoring harmony.
It is not the first time the alliance has recovered from the internal crisis.
In fact, in recent decades there has been a frightening perception of one crisis or another in NATO: “deep crisis”, “deepening”, “basic crisis”, “general crisis”, “unprecedented crisis” and even – “real crisis”.
But NATO has always recovered.
Even before the end of the Cold War, NATO had its share of ruptures and disagreements over the Suez Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the presence of authoritarian regimes along its lines. However, fears of the Soviet Union during the Cold War helped unite its members regardless of their disagreement. The greater the threat perceived, the deeper the unity.
When the Eastern Bloc collapsed in 1989, the alliance was formed to exclude the Soviets, the Germans fell down and the Western Europeans lost their raison d’être. NATO’s internal disagreement continued in its own right, spreading to the East and the neighborhood and leading to several military expansions in the far Middle East.
In 2001, 24 hours after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, NATO invoked Article 5, the basis of its collective defense, for the first time in its history. But conducting asymmetric wars outside the long-established field of operations, especially in Afghanistan, was a source of gratitude for the effort and tension.
For the past 30 years, NATO has still managed to maintain its unity, undergoing numerous aesthetic and structural operations to restore its vitality. It nearly doubled from 16 members to 30.
The Alliance has repeatedly overcome internal disagreement through adaptation and commitment. He will perform again on June 14 in Brussels with the aim of improving his appearance and performance in an increasingly competitive world. Biden will certainly have a great reputation in Europe compared to Trump.
NATO will once again have confidence when it unites more than it divides its members.
In my opinion, this is primarily about protecting their common economic and financial interests. With a population of nearly one billion and half of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), NATO has decided to be the military arm of the privileged clubs of Western capitalist democracies.
Today, the alliance faces two major strategic challenges: growing China and reviving Russia, as cyber, spatial, and geopolitical threats include, among others, the “Global South,” where Beijing and partly Moscow are expanding.
All other issues that have been raised in public, such as climate change, human security and development, etc. This is not because they are not important – surely they are – but because they are more G7 than NATO material.
Since Trump’s psychological break-up, some Europeans have been saying they don’t have too much dependence on the US for security, as they have in the last seven decades.
The youngest members of NATO have been particularly traumatized by the behavior of the wrong president, and the older members of the continent, such as France and Germany, have been careful but have also been experts in reactions. They are taking advantage of the American problem to demand greater European security autonomy and greater parity with the United States.
They have also adopted a more nuanced and less dramatic view of the challenges posed by Russia and China than the Biden administration. They would rather avoid the rhetoric of the Cold War and emphasize commitment than confrontation with Russia and Beijing.
And they have a point.
Russia, as former President Barack Obama said, is now nothing more than a “regional power,” instead of the force of its fearful actions expressing weakness.
It is better to have Russia through political and economic commitment than to alienate it through strategic confrontation.
And while China is on the rise presenting a new geopolitical puzzle, it is not the Soviet Union.
Despite its tremendous economic power and strategic ambition, it does not advocate an alternative view of the world. Since joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, Beijing has integrated its economy into the world-led economic system of the West and has enjoyed immense enjoyment of trade with the West.
Europeans see China as an economic competitor or worse, as an enemy and settle for a multipolar world. But Washington is looking at China through a different lens. He believes that China is determined to become an Asian hegemon and insists on maintaining its rise before it becomes the world’s number one power. America wants to remain the undisputed superpower of the world.
This means that the Biden administration will have to divide its prosperous but prosperous European partners in order to leave them behind.
In fact, part of the pressure is bearing fruit as Europeans are increasingly moving away from China, especially in the areas of technology and investment, and the UK has deployed an aircraft carrier over the South China Sea.
In practical terms, NATO will later try to adopt a new strategic assessment in line with the 2010 strategic assessment, but one that places greater emphasis on political cohesion and coordination. Europeans will demand greater equality and pressure Washington to act almost unilaterally until the last minute when the Trump administration or the Biden administration decided to withdraw from Afghanistan.
For its part, Washington will continue to insist, as it has done in recent decades, that Europe must pay more attention to NATO and show a greater commitment to their collective security. Asian powers, including Japan and South Korea, could also appear under the pretext of “defending democracy” in East Asia.
Easier said than done? Maybe.
But the biggest challenge lies in defining NATO’s new role and mission, given Washington’s insistence on what the alliance must do to maintain world dominance in America, which will surely lead to a new cold war with China.
Biden wants to take advantage of the NATO meeting to gather the alliance behind America ahead of his June 16 summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, knowing full well that China is looking forward to it.
Encouraging the Alliance to expand further in Ukraine and Georgia or to extend its projection of strength in the future is sure to provoke Moscow and Beijing and bring them closer together, with a serious branch of world security.
Biden should be careful what he wants; it may come true.
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