Collateral risks for NATO

I have long warned that an attack by a major non-NATO ally against a NATO ally would pose an “existential threat to the NATO alliance as we know it today.”

In fact, I raised this issue in an opinion piece titled “When Israel and Turkey Go to War,” published by Asia Times on January 20, 2025. The timing of its publication is noteworthy. It was published on January 20, 2025. That was the day of Donald Trump's second inauguration.

When that opinion piece was published, concerns were expressed that I had exaggerated the risk of further escalation between Israel and Turkey.

A few months later, the Israel Defense Forces bombed Syrian air bases known to be operated by Turkish military and security forces. That put an end to that line of criticism.

Since then, some have wondered why I wrote the article in the first place. There were a couple of reasons. First, I believed that some well-known experts had not accurately assessed what was happening in Syria at the time. Second, I was concerned about a specific scenario playing out in the near future.

I am concerned about an attack by a major non-NATO ally against another major non-NATO ally, for example, Israel against Qatar.

Specifically, I was concerned about a direct attack by the Israel Defense Forces against the Turkish Armed Forces and/or the National Intelligence Organization somewhere in Syria.

For NATO member states, that scenario is tremendously problematic.

In response to such an attack, Turkey would almost certainly claim that the provisions of NATO Article 5 oblige other NATO member states to come to its defense against Israel. That, in turn, would put many member states and strategic partners in a difficult position.

In effect, Turkey would be asking those NATO member states to come to its defense against a major non-NATO ally (i.e., Israel).

Following the attack in Doha, I am now concerned about another type of scenario.

Specifically, I am concerned about an attack by a major non-NATO ally against another major non-NATO ally (e.g., Israel against Qatar; Qatar against Israel).

This scenario is arguably less problematic than the previous one.

However, an attack by a major non-NATO ally against another major non-NATO ally still poses a risk to the stability of the Alliance.

In the wake of the Doha attack, there has been a flurry of commentary in the media. In the process, many experts have not taken the time to really consider the broader implications of the Doha attack for the Alliance. That is a mistake.

Qatar may not be a NATO ally, and the Israel Defense Forces may not have carried out a direct attack on the Qatari Armed Forces. However, Qatar remains an important non-NATO ally, and the Israel Defense Forces, with or without justification, appear to have violated its sovereignty.

Therefore, in the wake of the Doha attack, experts should seek to understand the incident from a broader perspective.

Without a broader perspective, the impact of the Doha attack on the norms that stabilize and reinforce the NATO Alliance would be overlooked. This includes the prohibition of various types of armed attacks against other member states and strategic partners.

Within the NATO Alliance, it is to be hoped that no one wants the Doha attack to open the door to the weakening of the fundamental norms that determine its stability. This includes the prohibition of direct confrontation between the armed forces and security services of NATO member states and their strategic partners.

The disappearance of that norm would pose a serious problem for NATO member states. There is already a significant risk of direct confrontation between two or more NATO allies and/or important non-NATO allies.

Such a scenario could unfold in Syria. No one has resolved the root causes of the Israeli airstrikes against Syrian bases. Therefore, there remains a significant risk of direct confrontation between Israel and Turkey in Syria.

It could unfold in Greenland. Those words may surprise some historians. The ties between Denmark and the United States seemed reasonably strong and enduring over the past two decades. However, that changed after Donald Trump's second election.

It could even unfold in the infamous known unknowns. Increasingly, there are things happening in the shadows that could lead to a direct confrontation between NATO allies and/or major non-NATO allies. The problem is that these things are extremely difficult to understand.

In the future, there will likely be even more known unknowns. The world of international politics is becoming much more ambiguous, turbulent, uncertain, and vague, and NATO and major non-NATO allies are increasingly responding with increasingly novel interventions. These conditions promote even greater gaps in public (and even private) knowledge.

Therefore, to make sense of the Doha attack, experts should use both a narrow and a broad perspective.

Through a narrow perspective, experts will be able to make sense of the implications of the relationships between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Qatar, and Qatar and Hamas.

On the other hand, experts will be able to make sense of the relationships between NATO member states and their strategic partners through a broader perspective.

While experts try to understand all the repercussions of the attack, NATO policymakers should reconsider what it really means to be an important non-NATO ally.

To a casual observer, the current version of that role does not seem to fit with the current international system.

Unless Israel and Qatar were coordinating secretly behind the scenes, the Doha attack suggests a clear and present need for a new conceptualization of what a major non-NATO ally is.

In the process of revising the concept of a major non-NATO ally, NATO policymakers will have to reconsider the criteria required for membership in the club.

That will force some uncomfortable questions for member states. For example, they will have to consider whether major non-NATO allies have the right to give refuge to representatives of an organization designated as terrorist by the United States. Or by Turkey. Or by Israel.

They will also have to consider whether major non-NATO allies have the right to carry out a military strike against individuals and/or entities located on the sovereign territory of another NATO ally or major non-NATO ally without a request from the government of that independent state.

Michael Walsh is a nonresident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is also a former member of the Expert Working Group on Emerging Security Challenges, co-chaired by NATO and the Partnership for Peace Consortium.