NATO's dilemma: fortress vs. dispersal
Enlarged and cohesive membership must confront a breadth of missions in a more technological and globalised world.
Like the great matadors, who are emboldened when the bull's horns appear more fearsome, the Atlantic Alliance has been bolstered by Putin's onslaught. The NATO team has been more united than ever to deal with the unforeseen threat of an attack in Europe and faces the Madrid summit with the dilemma of whether its new strength should lead to an expansion of missions, or whether such a decision would lead to a dispersal of its work and a loss of effectiveness.
The failure that war always entails has unforeseen collateral, and in this suicidal Russian operation over Ukraine, the optimistic note appeared on the Atlantic flank. There was a closing of ranks among democracies, fostering their cohesion, both among de facto members of the Alliance and among those like-minded who want to join the defence mechanism. Almost at the "most unexpected but most opportune moment", because Trump had left the European-US partnership mortally wounded, his faithful friend Putin has achieved for Biden just the opposite of what his predecessor, the coup-maker who did not want to leave the White House, had advocated. From a collapsing Alliance to a full-blown resurrection of the Alliance.
NATO is now torn between maintaining its robust status, with the support even of new members such as Sweden and Finland, and the temptation to expand its geographic framework and missions at the risk of losing clarity of purpose or sufficient risk control.
It is fortunately Madrid's turn to host the most crucial Allied meeting in years, coinciding with the obligation to set out the new roadmap for the organisation and its missions. The so-called "strategic concept", which sets the course of action for all member states' defence services, is renewed every ten years, and is just being fine-tuned in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops for the Madrid summit.
What will relations with Moscow be like when the war is over? Should China be included as a key element of security policy? Will the southern flank be strengthened to the level of the now endangered Central European flank? Are terrorism and cyber-attacks sufficient grounds for invoking Article 5, so that all the musketeers join together in defence of the state under attack?
From the beginning of the new century with the attack on the Twin Towers to the departure of NATO troops from Afghanistan, the assumptions about how NATO should act have been assumed or modified without major divergences, but with signs of discomfort among some partners. The hasty departure from Kabul, which was marked by a good deal of consultation, and unease over the geographical scope of the missions were in some cases undermining the consensual action of all members. With the advent of war in Europe itself, these doubts have dissipated, even on the German flank.
Nevertheless, the debate over whether there should be a common European defence without the United States, i.e. through a mechanism of its own different from that of the Alliance where the American weight is overwhelming, continues to exist. Javier Solana, who has had a foot in both camps, as NATO Secretary General and as the EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, continues to believe that "we will have the capacity to generate a European defence. It won't be tomorrow, but we are laying the stones to pave that road. The EU demonstrates its capacity for rapid integration in times of crisis. It always takes its decisions in favour of integration". For Solana, the key to building Europe's own defence lies in the fact that "countries plan their defences not individually, but collegially. In addition, we must generate our own technology. We are working on it. His pro-European reflections were made at the veteran forum of the Toledo International Seminar on Security and Defence (organised for the thirty-fourth year by the Association of European Journalists), while he was working behind the scenes to generate consensus for the new Madrid summit after having been a front-row protagonist at the 1997 summit also held in the Spanish capital. It was at that time that the first entry of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO took place, which, although not entirely to Moscow's liking, was done openly and with Yeltsin's own signature. The NATO-Russia Council and the Ukraine-NATO Council were then created. All of which Putin's war has now derailed.
Other analysts, and especially military analysts, believe that the American presence is not only more useful, but decisive, and that the defence of the free world as defined in the founding treaty of the alliance is much more assured with the support of Washington, its troops and its armaments. Perhaps there can be no clear nuclear deterrence without American assistance. At present, there seems to be no further discussion. Europe must be strengthened, country by country, and in a consensual manner, but always with the classic US assistance.
With the Ukrainian melon so wide open, awaiting a ceasefire ("an immediate ceasefire would be the best thing that could happen right now", according to Solana), the debate over the democracies' positions on China and the extension of defence mechanisms to the southern Mediterranean, North Africa and the Sahel are very relevant, and at the same time question the Alliance's capabilities to deal with so much territory. Is NATO therefore committed to the global defence of democracies or will it remain limited to protecting the West?
China's size, growing economic and military capacity and especially its expressed desire to play a leading role in the new world order, which has now been somewhat derailed by Putin's operation, have already appeared in the Alliance's strategic concept a decade ago at the behest of the United States. Europeans are not amused by the blame on Beijing. Some believe that China's intention is simply to "have an open shop in Europe" (General Sanz Roldan's phrase). Others cry out against China's interference in the security of 5G technology, its indirect support for Russia, its disregard for human rights, and so on. This is one of the most open chapters for the Madrid summit. The options of the "distant allies" in the Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea) are decisive. And it is very important that the United States does not shift its vision and forces solely towards the Pacific, as it had planned before the European chessboard was broken by Putin, and once again demanded its attention. A necessary balance of forces that does not succumb to the over-dimension of work on such broad fronts. Especially if there is a shock in Taiwan.
For the more globalist, it is necessary to start from the premise that "there are no longer regional conflicts, they are all global... inflation, energy, satellites, etc.", as the Sino-Russian expert Theresa Fallon pointed out at the conference. She pointed out that China is clearly against "NATO expansion", noting criticism of the assistance provided to Ukraine to keep its satellite links alive in the face of Russian destruction of the systems.
The debate in the preparatory rounds also focused on the vision of the necessary defence of the southern flank. Terrorism (Sahel), the use of energy blackmail (Algeria), Russian penetration in African countries previously close to France... all these issues widen the range of pending issues to be analysed and defended by the allies.
Perhaps too many flanks, but on the basis that the Alliance must safeguard clear principles. Although it seems clear to those involved that the positioning of "The West against the rest" is a no-win position and should therefore be avoided.
The former head of Spanish intelligence General Sanz Roldan predicted that "we will have a new order at the end of the war in Ukraine, and it will be based on a very strong transatlantic relationship, and with a very strong geopolitical Europe as well", and all this, "having clear principles that have to mark the way to manage the crisis: freedom, democracy and the defence of the law". Faced with the fear that the long war and the summer impasse might cause us to falter, he advocated that "we must not get tired. We must continue until the solution arrives and those who have done the damage pay".
Clarity of ideas, cohesion among Alliance members, plus those who are now joining, and pragmatism. The Alliance is undoubtedly much stronger, but with the new roadmap set out in Madrid, it should keep a cool head about how to balance its strengths in the face of the broad geographic challenges, and the no less sidereal ones of cybersecurity, international terrorism, uncontrolled migration, the effects of climate change and new trade routes. More than a tough bull to fight, the world already seems to be facing an encirclement of multiple bulls, to which only a good strategy and prudent crisis management can allow us not to come out with serious injuries, or deadly ones if necessary.