Helen Maguire -
This year’s meeting of Nato leaders on the outskirts of London was supposed to be an opportunity to smooth over disputes from the past and focus on unity, while showcasing Britain’s key role in the alliance despite its departure from the European Union.
Instead, events in north-eastern Syria in October have cast a long shadow over the gathering. French President Emmanuel Macron’s comment about the “brain death” of Nato has triggered a vivid debate within the 29-country defence alliance.
“This leaders’ meeting is timely,” Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said two weeks ahead of the gathering. “Not least because questions are being asked about the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship.” In early October, US President Donald Trump abruptly withdrew troops from north-eastern Syria, where they had backed up Kurdish militia who led the international fight against the IS militant group. This paved the way for a Turkish military incursion targeting the Kurdish fighters, whom Ankara views as a terrorist threat.
The events unfolded quickly following a phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Neither the United States nor Turkey — both Nato members — coordinated their action within the trans-Atlantic alliance.
“To my mind, what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato,” Macron later told the Economist news magazine. “Strategically and politically, we need to recognise that we have a problem,” he said.
“What will Article 5 mean tomorrow?” Macron asked, referring to Nato’s core pledge that all allies will come to the defence of any attacked member. “We should reassess the reality of what Nato is in the light of the commitment of the United States,” he said.
Other Nato leaders were quick to distance themselves from the French president’s words — while French analyst Francois Heisbourg, a former defence adviser to Macron, warned on Twitter about the “danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy.” “This view does not correspond to mine,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said of Macron’s remarks, while US Nato Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison said Washington “firmly” disagrees with the assessment.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said it was “dangerous” to question Nato’s mutual defence clause. Macron “does not feel the hot breath of the Russian bear on his neck,” he told the Financial Times newspaper.
In the wake of the interview, Germany and France have launched parallel proposals to set up a commission of experts to brainstorm suggestions to reform the Cold War-era alliance.
The idea fell on welcome ears at a foreign ministers meeting last week in Brussels, according to Stoltenberg. It will likely crop up at the London talks.
Nato is striving to show it is keeping up to speed in a changing world: It announced last week that it would add a fifth operational domain, space, to follow land, sea, air and the more recently added cyberspace. But back down on Earth, European allies are at pains to bolster defence capabilities within the European Union, as part of broader efforts to give the bloc greater independence from the US. However, few question Nato’s key role in defending Europe.
Trump has long criticised Nato allies for not bearing their share of the defence burden. At last year’s summit, he raised the prospect of withdrawing from the alliance if other countries don’t boost their military spending.
The approach is arguably paying off, as allies have upped their defence budgets. Germany — one of the main targets of Trump’s ire — is now on track to spend 1.42 per cent of gross domestic product on defence next year, edging closer to Nato’s 2 per cent goal. — dpa
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