It's About Time to End NATO

The Future of European Security

The media is having a field day reprinting Trump’s zany, childish communication to the Norwegian Prime Minister about his missing Peace Prize. He is so much fun when he is not lethally dangerous and out of control. Late night comics nobody watches are enjoying the material – almost no need for writers these days.

But something deadly serious is going on. Trump’s presidency is actually an accelerant to international trends already under way. The bonfire of the global arrangements, rules, and institutions the US put in place in the 1940s has actually been going on since the end of the Cold War. This month the target is NATO.

Until now, the Europeans have largely adopted a strategy of groveling and flattery in dealing with Trump. (Sit down, Tony Blair, please! Stop leaping out of your third grade desk, your hand in the air, seeking the emperor’s attention)

Now, the Europeans may actually be getting their act together to confront American Authoritarianism. NATO itself, keystone of US strategy since 1949, is in doubt. And it is about time.

NATO was built in 1949, at the start of the Cold War. Lord Ismay, NATO’ first Secretary General, is said to have summarized the Alliance’s goal: “keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”

When the concept of a transatlantic mutual defense treaty was proposed, Europeans welcomed it. Their militaries had been smashed, there was concern about Soviet intentions, resources were limited, and an American return to isolationism was feared.

President Truman bought into the idea. Not only could the US help defend Europe, the Alliance opened a broad opportunity to lead, even dominate, discussions about future European security. Over time, the alliance also provided an opening in the European market for US military equipment, which would make NATO’s many militaries more “interoperable.”

There was an option B at the time, a road not taken. In agreeing to the advantages of NATO, the Europeans were also stepping away from developing a separate European defense capability, one that could serve the requirements of a security policy designed in Europe.

The Vietnam War made it clear to some Europeans that the direction and intention of US security policy might not always coincide with European views. In the late 1960s I helped create a trans-European journal, agenor, which advocated for a separate European security policy and defense capability alongside NATO, to meet separate European security needs.

Our view, then, was that the economic organization that became the European Union could well have interests and needs separate from those of the US. That meant building something separate from NATO’s integrated military planning and forces.

It was not a new idea. France had proposed a European Defense Community in the 1950s. The EDC treaty included France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Italy, and, most important, West Germany. The same countries that were involved in the integration of European economies. The EDC was to be a separate, autonomous, European military capability which could be a European pillar within NATO or operate outside. The French u-turned and failed to ratify the treaty in 1954, leaving it on the table.

Over time, the European members of NATO have tied their military planning, equipment and operations to NATO. The French have been the only significant exception to this widespread European self-subordination to American power and wishes. In 1966, French President Charles DeGaulle expelled US forces and the NATO military headquarters from France. (The HQ settled in Belgium).

Ever since, French presidents have tried to create more autonomous European military capabilities, defense research, and production, mostly without significant progress toward any separate European military. Only France has maintained its own forces, equipment, and defense industry, at some cost. Even France returned to the NATO military organization in 2009.

I have felt for decades that the Europeans missed the opportunity to widen the strategic space and buy their own capability. I argued this case repeatedly through the 1990s and co-authored a book arguing the Europeans had the technological assets and resources to create it.

I gave up writing about the topic more than 20 years ago; there seemed to be no interest among European governments in strategic autonomy with a military to back it up. Minor patches of strategic planning and military cooperation emerged in the European Union, but the members of the EU have been unwilling to dedicate resources to a more integrated force or tackle the problem of its relationship to NATO.

Until now.

Trump has poured gasoline on NATO’s funeral pyre. First the new US national security strategy, which is caustic about Europe; now the threat to invade Greenland. European leaders seem to realize that Trump’s bullying has gone too far and that the Transatlantic Alliance is at the point of rupture.

The damage is increasingly irreversible. The Trump administration has made it clear it is an unenthusiastic supporter of continuing to supply arms to Ukraine. There is little taste in Washington, DC for a confrontation with Putin’s Russia. NATO is no longer a framework for transatlantic defense coordination. Europe needs to seek its own alternatives and build forces to match.

The naked truth now facing the Europeans is that they have sacrificed autonomy for proximity to the American eagle. The eagle has now turned on them and has little or no interest in the club they helped create.

Europe has the resources and technology to create its own military and it may welcome greater strategic autonomy from the thrashing beast. Will they seize this opportunity or once more subordinate themselves to the dying superpower?

It is time for the Europeans to dedicate serious thought and resources to their own defenses and let NATO slide into the dustbin of history.