NATO must reinvent itself

This past Saturday, April 4, was the 71st anniversary of the signing of the Washington Treaty. A signature that in the following years would give birth to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO. A dozen countries laid the foundations of a political organization that would later become a military alliance as well, until it reached the thirty members it currently has. This post-World War II political context gave way to a series of international structures of clear Western relevance and pre-eminence, of which NATO was one. 

In recent years, the lack of representativeness of the current international situation in some of these institutions and bodies has been highlighted, as well as the limited usefulness of others which have been developed for very different geopolitical contexts. That is why those that can, must rethink their course, their objectives and their structures. Renew or die. This is how NATO will begin to do so, as indicated at the London summit of December last year, following a statement by Macron in November in which he addressed the current state of the Atlantic Alliance as “brain dead”. The phrase didn't fit well within the organization, although the events leading up to the comment justified it. That is why the establishment of a team of ten experts was considered with the aim of making a series of recommendations that would improve coordination between the allies and the political sphere of the organization.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on 31 March the names of the ten people in charge of this task. He also indicated the gender parity and the geographical representation of the Alliance in this team. The names and the countries of origin are as follows: Thomas de Maizière (Germany), Greta Bossenmaier (Canada), Anja Dalgaard-Nielsen (Denmark), Wess Mitchell (United States), Hubert Védrine (France), Marta Dassù (Italy), Herna Verhagen (Netherlands), Anna Fotyga (Poland), John Bew (United Kingdom) and Tacan Ildem (Turkey). Among the profiles chosen are politicians and diplomats who have held important positions in both national and international institutions, but there are also representatives from the academic and business worlds. This group will work under the leadership of American Mitchell and German Maizière, in addition to Stoltenberg himself. Furthermore, according to the Secretary General's statement, they will work side by side with the Council of the Alliance as well as with the allied countries and other relevant actors. 

This period of reflection, like Macron's words, comes at a time of some instability inside NATO. It is true that the Trump Administration is far from exercising the leadership it is supposed to. It' s also true that the decisions taken by the American president have sometimes been unilateral and at times erratic. The almost total withdrawal from Syria or the assassination of Soleimani in Iraq are two examples from recent months. Despite this, Trump criticizes, although not without reason, the scant responsibility of some European countries for the commitments made to the Organization with regard to the budget items allocated to Defense, which is set at 2% of GDP. However, the way in which the contribution of the allies is measured shouldn't be done exclusively in the Defence budgets, since many times the budget is fragmented in other items, such as Industry. Besides, the contribution to the Alliance in the field of missions and operations should be considered, something that in many occasions certifies, in a better way than the economic investment, the commitment of a State towards its partners. In both senses, Spain, for example, with one of the lowest defense budgets, but with a not inconsiderable amount in the Industry budget, is among the main contributors of personnel and resources to the Alliance, including the first deployment abroad - in Latvia - of armoured vehicles. Although the economic investment of 2% of GDP should not disappear from the medium-term objectives, perhaps one of the proposals to be made by the group of experts would be to assess another way of meeting the commitments made to the Alliance. 

It isn't just Macron's statements or Trump's unilateralism that have led to attacks on the NATO waterline recently. The excessively interventionist behaviour that Turkey has been developing since last autumn is of concern to both the whole and individual allies. Erdogan's decision to intervene in northern Syria, something that could lead to direct confrontation between Turkish and Russian troops, also present in the country, set off alarm bells in the Atlantic Alliance. The response given by the Asad regime and the Kurdish militias present in the north of the country has caused Turkey to lose several dozen troops. At the end of February, after the death of around thirty Turkish soldiers, Ankara didn't hesitate to invoke Article 4 of the Alliance to convene the NATO Council as a matter of urgency. In this way, Turkey tried to get its partners on its side, something that would be frowned upon by Moscow and whose geopolitical consequences could have gone beyond the Syrian conflict, where the balance between the Syrian players and their respective international supporters - the US and Russia - is already hanging by a thread. The Council's decision was, however, limited to condemning the death of the Turkish military and to calling for a peaceful solution in accordance with international law. However, this wasn't the only option that worried the allied countries. The agreement reached by Ankara with Tripoli, with the Libyan National Accord Government (GNA), on the distribution of the exclusive economic zones, EEZs, which included Greek waters, has rekindled the historical tensions between these two countries (Turkey and Greece) in which European powers have not hesitated to take a position, as is the case with France. 

NATO is therefore obliged to reinvent itself. While the Baltic and Eastern European countries continue to demand the Alliance's support in the face of the Russian threat, other European leaders such as Macron are proposing a shift in the organisation's relationship with Moscow. The Alliance must also address its southern flank, where the Sahel is becoming increasingly unstable, a permanent requirement of the southern European allies. It must also manage the growing Turkish interventionism, and concentrate the efforts that the allied countries make in the stabilization of the Middle East. And finally, in the political field, the Organisation should find mechanisms to promote the so-called “Europe of Defence”, an element which, far from being supplementary to NATO, should be complementary. The development of the latter will make it possible to relax the American obsession with fulfilling economic commitments, and will strengthen the possible responses of the Alliance that may be required in the most immediate strategic environment.