Nasty Negativity at NATO

“What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO… You have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None. You have an uncoordinated aggressive action by another NATO ally, Turkey, in an area where our interests are at stake…

“[NATO] only works if the guarantor of last resort functions as such. I’d argue that we should reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States.”

French President Emmanuel Macron in the Economist, November 7^th.

Although oft repeated during his presidential campaign, that NATO is “obsolete,” candidate Donald Trump adjusted his rhetoric after his election to focus on getting NATO nations to increase their contributions to the organization, now celebrating its 70^th year. The other 28 allies have increased their annual contributions by $130 billion over the last few years, but Trump believes that they can do more. And the US will do less. Trump’s presence at NATO annual summits can best be described as “awkward.” While Macron’s position is extreme and other nations have a softer approach, the French President’s statement rings true. With Trump arriving in London on December 2^nd for the latest NATO summit, awkwardness was on steroids… everywhere. 

Lots of “A” words: ambivalence, ambiguity, anger and more of that ugly awkwardness, as Mr Trump’s statements at the summit reflect: “The US president said NATO served a great purpose, and Mr Macron's remarks [noted above] had been ‘very insulting.’… He also said he could see France ‘breaking off’ from NATO, but did not explain why.

“However, at a joint press conference with Mr Macron later, Mr Trump struck a warmer tone, stressing that the two countries had ‘done a lot of good things together as partners.’” BBC.com, December 3^rd. The televised conversation was indeed dramatic: “President Trump said a warning from President Emmanuel Macron of France that Europe could no longer assume American support was ‘a very dangerous statement.’ Mr. Macron said he stood by it.’… By the time their 45-minute appearance at the American ambassador’s residence in London was over, the French leader had managed a rare role reversal, putting Mr. Trump on the defensive about his vision for NATO and his handling of a military conflict involving Turkey, and swatting away the president’s joke about sending Islamic State fighters from Syria to France.

“‘Would you like some nice ISIS fighters?’ Mr. Trump said, crouching forward and claiming that ‘many’ fighters had come from France. ‘I can give them to you.’… ‘Let’s be serious,’ Mr. Macron, who sat coiled on the edge of his seat with one hand clamped firmly on his knee, replied. ‘The very large numbers of fighters on the ground are the fighters coming from Syria, from Iraq.’” New York Times, December 3^rd.

Given Trump’s bromance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, many NATO nations do not believe that the United States would honor its treaty commitment to defend any NATO member that is attacked anyway… and Russia has always been the likely attacker. Trump is so disliked in most of Europe that his staunchest ally – UK Prime Minister Conservative Boris Johnson who faces a mid-December vote – didn’t want Trump anywhere near him during Trump NATO visit.

Bottom line: NATO is vastly stronger than Putin’s Russia. The only thing Putin could hope for is an unraveling of that 29-nation alliance. And Donald Trump is delivering that in spades. Trump recently negotiated for the United States to reduce its roughly 22% contribution to NATO’s total budget down to 16.35%, to be matched by much-smaller Germany. Denying Trump a platform for his generally negative and insulting NATO speeches, NATO leaders purposely designed a very short meeting with almost no places for Trump to lecture the group. Most the meetings were be smaller, bilateral discussions. And that little two-person televised meeting with Macron.

Everyone remembers “last year.” “Trump upended the 2018 summit in Brussels, insulting Germany and demanding more defense spending from other allies before leaving to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, where he publicly disputed U.S. intelligence findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.” Los Angeles Times, December 2^nd.

Trump’s machinations in Ukraine were discussed by all the players in more private settings. Desperately seeking justification for his willingness to use US aid as a playing card to enhance his election power, “Trump at times has suggested that he blocked the aid because European allies — the same ones he will be meeting with this week — were not doing enough to help Kyiv defend itself against Russian aggression.

“That explanation came into question after a U.S. diplomat testified in an impeachment hearing last month that the European Union has spent a total of $12 billion to aid Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2014, four times as much as the United States… Analysts [didn’t] expect NATO allies to publicly confront Trump over Ukraine, which is not a member of the alliance, during the summit.” LA Times

As if Trump’s potential to unravel the entire alliance were not bad enough, NATO also faced member-nation Turkey that was cozying up to NATO greatest antagonist. “NATO members face major challenges, however. One of the biggest is the decision by Turkey, a NATO member, to purchase Russian S-400 missiles, ignoring complaints by Washington and its allies.

“In response, the United States barred Turkey from participating in the F-35 fighter jet program dominant in NATO. Washington has also threatened to impose sanctions on Turkey for dealing with Russian military firms… After meeting with [Turkish President Recep] Erdogan at the White House on Nov. 13, Trump told a joint news conference that Turkey’s acquisition of sophisticated Russian military equipment, such as the S-400, ‘creates some very serious challenges for us, and we are talking about it constantly.’

“Erdogan refused to back down. ‘We regard the proposal to completely remove the S-400s as meddling in our sovereign rights,’ he said after he returned to Turkey. ‘There can be no question of us leaving the S-400s.’… Turkey purchased the Russian S-400s instead of the U.S.-made Patriot system in defiance of its NATO partners. The S-400s and the Patriots perform roughly the same function of intercepting missiles… ‘Yeah, it’s concerning,’ Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo said the next day [after the White House meeting]. We are hopeful. We’re still talking to the Turks. We’re still trying to figure our way through this thing.’” LA Times. Erdogan apparently likes to double-down as much as does Donald Trump. He’s now talking to the Russians about buying Russian fighters to replace those that the US refused to provide.

Many of the European NATO allies are hoping that the alliance survives long enough to outlast Trump’s presidency, believing any other American president would vote to support NATO. “‘Most of them are trying to keep their head down and let the storm pass,’ said Thomas Wright, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution in Washington.” LA Times.

But reality, suggests a radical realignment is taking place. From the European perspective, writing for the December 3^rd New York Times, Ivan Krastev, chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the author, most recently, of After Europe, opines: “Until recently, most European leaders’ hopes were bound up with the outcome of America’s presidential elections. If Mr. Trump were to lose in 2020, they believed, the world would somehow return to normalcy.

“All of that has changed. While Trump-friendly governments in Europe, like Poland’s and Hungary’s, still follow the polls and cross their fingers that Mr. Trump will get four more years in office, European liberals are giving up hope. It is not that they are no longer passionate about American politics. On the contrary, they religiously follow Congress’s impeachment hearings and pray for Mr. Trump’s defeat. But they have finally started to realize that a proper European Union foreign policy cannot be based on who is in the White House.

“What explains this shift? It is plausible that European liberals are unconvinced by the foreign policy visions of Democratic hopefuls and detect isolationist tendencies in the party as well. Europeans are still struggling to understand how it was that Barack Obama — probably the most European-minded American president and one most loved by Europeans — was also the one least interested in Europe. (At least until Mr. Trump came along.)

“Europeans are also scared by the prospect of a Cold War-style clash between the United States and China. A recent poll by the European Council on Foreign Relations found that in conflicts between the United States and China, a majority of European voters want to remain neutral, finding a middle way between the superpowers. There’s good reason for this: Europe remains economically tied to China in ways that Washington doesn’t seem to appreciate, as evidenced by the recent spat over the Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s plans to build 5G networks across the Continent.” What Krastev does not appreciate is how many Americans share his and his fellow European’s fears.

              I’m Peter Dekom, and given the number of international treaties that Trump has abrogated, I wonder how long the United States will require before it can restore its international stature and credibility… if ever.