Trump and other populists will haunt NATO’s 75th birthday party
Editor’s note (July 8th): After this article was published Sir Keir Starmer was elected as prime minister in Britain, and Marine Le Pen’s hard-right National Rally failed to become the largest party in France’s National Assembly.
AT HIS FIRST summit with European leaders in 2021, after years of upheaval under Donald Trump, Joe Biden exulted: “America is back.” To which Emmanuel Macron of France asked: “For how long?” The question will resonate more loudly than ever as NATO leaders meet in Washington on July 9th-11th. Mr Biden is limping behind Mr Trump in the race for the White House. Mr Macron himself is being overwhelmed by a populist wave. And the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is languishing in the polls. Sir Keir Starmer, set to become Britain’s new prime minister this week, may feel he is joining NATO’s last supper, not its 75th birthday party.
It was all supposed to be very different: a celebration of the world’s most successful alliance, created in 1949 in the early days of the cold war. Its longevity has defied naysayers for decades. And its purpose has been bitterly re-affirmed by Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine. Yet NATO again lives in dread for its future. Partly this is owing to external threats, but mainly it is because of the internal convulsions that will result if NATO-sceptics such as Mr Trump and Marine Le Pen, leader of the hard-right National Rally, come to power next year and in 2027, respectively.
The uncertainty will spread beyond NATO to America’s globe-spanning alliances, and could scarcely come at a worse moment. The dangers to the democratic world are greater than at any time since the cold war’s end. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and has threatened to use nuclear weapons. China menaces Taiwan, a self-governing island it claims as its own, and is bullying neighbours such as the Philippines. Russia and China have intensified their “no limits” partnership, and both have drawn closer to other Eurasian autocracies. Iran and its proxies are engaged in a deepening conflict with Israel and American forces. Iran has also sold drones and ballistic missiles to Russia. Similarly, North Korea has shipped hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and just signed a mutual-defence pact with Russia.
Against this axis of autocracy, Mr Biden has revitalised America’s democratic alliances and other partnerships. NATO has been strengthened and enlarged. Asian allies are bulking up and becoming a bit more NATO-like. And the two groupings are co-operating more closely. “America’s unique ability to bring countries together is an undeniable source of our strength and our power,” Mr Biden said in a speech to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day last month. But will voters undo such efforts?
In 1796 George Washington urged the young American republic to “steer clear of permanent alliance” with foreign powers. Since the second world war, though, America has signed defence pacts with roughly 60 countries, depending on how they are counted, pledging to defend about 25% of the globe’s population and 65% of its GDP (see chart). These alliances endured beyond the cold war in part because they became institutionalised, and in part because they found new missions or rediscovered old ones.
In Europe, America created a collective-defence alliance based on Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which holds that an armed attack on one ally is an attack on all. In Asia, meanwhile, America established a hub-and-spoke system, in which countries have defence pacts with America but typically not each other. These include the ANZUS treaty with Australia and New Zealand, and separate treaties with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. America has close defence ties with Israel and Taiwan, though they are more ambiguous than treaty-based alliances. Beyond is a nebula of looser security partnerships.
Academics argue over whether alliances encourage war or ensure stability. Even the closest ones come under strain: the American protector fears entrapment; the protected fear abandonment. Nuclear dilemmas are especially sharp. Charles de Gaulle, the late French president, said America would not sacrifice New York to defend Paris. Still, most allies shelter under America’s nuclear umbrella; America extends it to limit nuclear proliferation.
Demonstrating American commitment involves constant effort: frequent exercises, the forward deployment of conventional forces and, in NATO’s case, the sharing of nuclear-related missions with allies. The drawback is that allies inevitably free-ride. America has grumbled since the time of Dwight Eisenhower about its European allies skimping on defence.
Whereas Mr Trump mused about leaving NATO, Mr Biden has doubled down on it. With the recent entry of Finland and Sweden it has grown to 32 members. Last year’s summit in Vilnius approved NATO’s first detailed plans to defend allied territory since the cold war. Defence spending in Europe is rising. This year 23 allies are expected to meet or exceed (in some cases by a wide margin) the target of spending 2% of GDP on defence, compared with three in 2014, when the pledge was formalised.
NATO’s most immediate task will be to keep supporting Ukraine, now in the third year of its war, as Russian forces grind forward. The summit will endorse a plan for NATO to take over co-ordination of military aid to Ukraine, hitherto overseen by the Pentagon, and training for Ukrainian forces. Ukraine’s friends have committed about €297bn ($319bn) in economic and military aid since early 2022, about 60% of which has come from European countries, according to the latest figures compiled by the Kiel Institute in Germany. The months-long halt in American weapons because of delays in congressional funding is a warning to European allies that they need to do more, and for years to come, if Ukraine is to survive. One tricky question will be how to signal that Ukraine is moving closer to NATO without promising it membership in wartime, which America and Germany, in particular, oppose.
In the Indo-Pacific, meanwhile, China accuses America of building an “Asian NATO”. That is a far cry from reality. Nevertheless, America and its allies are weaving an ever-thickening “latticework” of agreements to connect the various military spokes. These include the AUKUS deal with Britain to supply Australia with nuclear-powered submarines and jointly develop other weapons; co-operation with Japan and South Korea to defend against ballistic missiles; a defence-industrial deal with India to produce jet engines; the Philippines’ agreement to grant America access to several bases; and various deals to host each others’ forces. Japan is also creating, for the first time, a joint military headquarters to co-ordinate air, naval and ground forces. America, in turn, will have to overhaul its own command arrangements to operate seamlessly with Japan.
Asked if an Asian NATO was needed, Admiral Samuel Paparo, the head of America’s Indo-Pacific Command, which would oversee any war with China, recently hedged: “At this time, I do not think that it is necessary that the region coalesces into a larger treaty organisation.” But, he argued, allies have the “technical capability” to become a regional alliance “if there was a sufficient threat in the Pacific”.
American strategists have long sought to bind their eastern and western allies closer together. One idea, dating to 2004, is to create an “Alliance of Democracies” of 60-odd members to overcome both the geographical limitations of NATO and the paralysis of the UN. Another is to expand the G7—“the steering committee of the major democracies”, as Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, calls it—so as to bring in more Indo-Pacific allies. Some would include South Korea and Australia (and the EU) to create a “Democracies Ten” or D-10; others would also add New Zealand and NATO itself for a G12. The big but still unrealised geopolitical prize is India. Warily it has moved closer to the West even as it remains friendly with Russia.
Co-operation between east and west has certainly grown. Japan joined in sanctions against Russia; Australia and South Korea have provided vital weapons for Ukraine. European allies are taking a greater interest in the east. NATO’s strategic concept in 2022 for the first time noted the “systemic challenges” posed by China. Some Europeans conduct “freedom of navigation” patrols in the Taiwan Strait. Asian leaders are regularly invited to NATO and G7 summits. But Alexander Lanoszka of the University of Waterloo in Canada argues that co-operation will be limited by constraints and hesitation on both sides.
Mr Biden often divides the world between autocracies and democracies, an imperfect classification that risks alienating non-democratic friends and potential allies, such as Vietnam and Saudi Arabia. But as rival alliances coalesce, history suggests democratic ones are more likely to hold together and their members are more likely to fight for each other, says Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council, an American think-tank. Pacts between autocrats tend to be more fractious (eg, Nazi Germany double-crossed the Soviet Union in 1941).
Tough crowds
The rise of nationalist populism in the West may test the proposition. NATO has grappled with the likes of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Viktor Orban, the leaders of Turkey and Hungary, delaying the accession of Finland and Sweden. But the challenge is now of a different order. France, though historically semi-detached, is one of Europe’s two nuclear-weapons states. And America still remains NATO’s indispensable protector.
France’s National Rally, which topped the poll in the first round of the parliamentary elections and is likely to do so in the second round on July 7th, has said it will not push for France’s withdrawal from NATO’s integrated military command, which it rejoined in 2009, while the Ukraine war is raging. But it said it would stop giving Ukraine long-range cruise missiles.
Mr Trump has vowed to end the war quickly, giving no details. His acolytes suggest he would threaten to halt weapons supplies if Ukraine did not agree to peace talks (and conversely tell Russia that America would remove all restrictions on weapons if it did not talk). More serious is his threat to forsake Europe altogether. He shocked allies in February when he told a rally he would not defend “delinquent” allies (ie, those who fail to spend 2% of GDP on defence) from the Russians. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” He repeated the threat in his recent debate with Mr Biden.
Perhaps power and the darkening geopolitical balance will tame the anti-alliance impulses of Mr Trump and Ms Le Pen. After all, Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, and her party have shown it is possible to have roots in fascism, support NATO and Ukraine—and win elections. Even so, nationalists and populists will prove disruptive. Their contempt for elites and foreigners sit uncomfortably with the ideas underpinning alliances: sharing burdens and risks for common security. ■