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Jun 12th 2021
IN THE LAST four years we have been facing some challenges in transatlantic relations, said Jens Stoltenberg, NATO general secretary, softly referring to the diplomatic pandemonium of the Trump years. Today, he said, we have a unique opportunity to open a new chapter in the relationship between North America and Europe. But will NATO leaders take it?
On 14 June the leaders of all 30 NATO members will gather for a conference in Brussels, sandwiched between a G7 summit in Britain and an EU-US summit. They will discuss the future of the alliance. The feeling would be lighter than in previous gatherings, when Mr. Trump physically stoned a prime minister, threatened to break away from the alliance and rushed early after taunting fellow leaders. Yet the challenges facing NATO have not disappeared with the arrival of Mr. Biden.
In recent months Russia has mobilized troops around Ukraine, Belarus has forced a European airliner to take over a dissident and America has announced the withdrawal of its troops from the Afghanistan process by more than half. complete June 8 forcing NATO to follow suit. However the top point is to reshape the alliance in more fundamental ways.
The concept of strategic NATOs, a document spelled raison dtre, was last updated over a decade ago, at a time when Russia was assumed to be a potential partner and China an unrelated. In Brussels, leaders will order Mr Stoltenberg to produce a new version, a process that could take a year or more. This will reflect a widening of NATO’s gaps, embracing new challenges such as climate change, technological threats and China’s rise.
Things are changing. Mr. Stoltenberg pointed to rising defense spending in Europe (see chart) and further exercises, including large -scale drills now underway involving 9,000 troops and both British and French aircraft carriers. The alliance also quickly rethought the basics of military strength. It is writing a new strategy for artificial intelligence and has completed its first new cyber-defense policy in seven years. At the top, leaders will promote a transatlantic technology accelerator to connect suppliers of the highest military technology to investors.
One of NATO’s motivations for this technological rejuvenation, Mr. Stoltenberg said, is a fear that the Chinese nation that does not share our valuesis is pulling on key areas such as artificial intelligence. It is not obvious that we will keep the technological edgethat never happened in the Soviet Union during the cold war, he added. The China discussion was a very important moment, said Tim Sayle, author of the Enduring Alliance, a NATO historian, which marks a major break in what the alliance did in the first 70 years.
Yet the biggest question of all is whether the transatlantic rift under Mr. Trump is a passing ruction or something more lasting. Mr. Biden made the right noises, hotly speaking of NATO and reversing Mr. Trump’s troop reduction in Germany. His eight-day trip to Europe will end at a summit with Vladimir Putin, president of Russia, in Geneva on June 16. In theory that allowed Mr. Biden to form a common front with allies before facing Mr. Putin, who on June 9 rose to the ante by banning groups linked to his main political rival, imprisoned Alexei Navalny.
However, GG Biden cannot replace all of his friends at once. Take the example of Nord Stream 2 (NS2), a nearly completed gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that will bypass Ukraine and increase Europe’s dependence on Mr. Putin. The Biden administration opposed the project, but on May 19 said it would likewise reject sanctions. That pleased the German government, but alarmed those in favor of a stricter approach to Russia. The situation across Central Europe is sour after the NS2 decision, said Michal Baranowski, an expert in the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund, an American think-tank. The feeling is one of infidelity.
Then there’s the fact that the European defense landscape has shifted irreversibly in recent years. The shock of Mr. Trump’s election and Britain’s departure from the EU began with a bloc activity, from joint defense projects to a common fund for the defense industry.
Many European officials, with thoughts of a radical turn to the Americas Republican Party and the prospect of populists succeeding Mr. Biden, are anxious that such schemes should maintain the momentum they have gained in the year of Trump. Many are complementary to NATO, such as the EU’s efforts to make it easier for military forces to move across the continent. In practice, an element of competition is inevitable. In response to Mr. Stoltenbergs pushing for an increase in the pool of common funding for NATOunchanged since 2014 The Florida Parly, Frances ’defense minister, retracted: All this money is money that goes to increasing national budget and a defense effort in Europe.
What’s more, European officials know that all American presidents, including Mr. Biden, have a lot to worry about. The American military presence in Europe remains large, but the latest weapons are usually shipped first to the Pacific. So did the officers. The first overseas trips of Anthony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, and Lloyd Austin, its defense secretary, were to Asia. There is considerable doubt in Washington that a divided, interested Europe will govern much of the effort for U.S. efforts against China, said Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations, another think-tank.
Although, the geopolitics of Europe and Asia will inevitably go hand in hand, not least because America’s national defense strategy in 2018 has clearly discarded what is necessary for the country to fight two wars simultaneously. We need to urge European NATO to handle more of the conventional avoidance burden in Europe, said Wess Mitchell, a former American official who co-chaired a panel of experts for Mr Stoltenberg last year. so that in the event of a major crisis the United States could focus on China without questioning the stability of theater in Europe. From what I have seen of Mr. Trump, NATO has no time to rest on these tasks.
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Summit season”
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