NATO Is Dead, Europe Is Sick

The war with Russia has already begun and it’s not the one we expected. The aim is to shatter European unity, not invade Lithuania. Unfortunately, Russia isn’t alone. There’s also China and above all… Donald Trump.

The truth is sometimes unbearable to look at. That is why Renaissance painters represented it allegorically as a naked woman, modesty demanding that we look away. Or we think of Botticelli’s famous work, the Callumny of Apelles, in which King Midas stopped seeing truth so lent his donkey ears to ignorance, suspicion, flattery and fraudulence. And it’s exactly because Emmanuel Macron’s claim that NATO is ‘brain-dead’ has a lot of truth in it that it’s unbearable to many ears. This claim, however, raises two essential questions that it would be wrong to ignore.

Is NATO Completely Dead?

In terms of form, eminent experts have said this before the President; Jacques Attali and Pascal Boniface to name but two. But a head of state is not an analyst, a mere observer of the world around him. Should he have said it? We could debate that all day.

In terms of substance, should we think it? NATO is a military alliance and, like all military alliances since the Delian League, its raison d’être comes from the unity of its members – we can do more together than we can alone. Likewise, its strength as a deterrent comes from its credibility – an attack on one member equals an attack on us all.

Where does NATO’s credibility lie? In the United States’ word that it will defend the Alliance’s European members. Even Montenegro. If the moment of truth arrives, the Alliance’s ultimate credibility will depend on what goes on inside just one head – that of the president of the United States.

What is its credibility since Donald Trump came to power? Objectively speaking, it has been damaged. It was Trump, not Macron, who said that NATO was obsolete. It was he, not Macron, who cast doubt on Article 5. And it was also he who said that the European Union was a trading enemy to the U.S. Can we still be military allies when we’re trading enemies? European leaders have buried their heads in the sand, telling themselves that this is just a difficult moment and will pass.

But last October in Syria, Turkey, a NATO member state, threatened European people’s security and it threatened them simply because of a situation which another member state, the United States, caused. This shook the unity and credibility of the Alliance to the core. Especially as Trump was rejoicing in being 6835 miles (11,000 kilometers) from Syria. Tallinn is not that much closer. As if that wasn’t enough, Trump rolled out the red carpet for Mr. Erdogan in Washington, saying that he was a “big fan” of the Turkish president. What more do we need before we pronounce the Alliance’s clinical death today?

Of course, American forces are still in Europe. Their number has actually increased. But their dissuasive power is like that of the Berlin Wall before it fell. Externally strong and powerful, it could collapse overnight. Because if Trump can betray the Kurds following a phone call with Erdogan, why wouldn’t he betray the Lithuanians after a phone call with Putin? Who believes he would sacrifice Mar-A-Lago to save Vilnius?

We can still say that Macron’s words were poorly chosen. He would have been better off talking about a cardiac arrest, for then that would imply the patient could be revived. Or that the Alliance was struggling while NATO is going well. But that’s just semantics. The fact is that the Alliance is in agony and those that say otherwise are just looking the other way. They are sleepwalking.

It is definitive? That’s the real question because the Alliance has already faced numerous crises and has always come out the other side.

Can Europe Defend Itself On Its Own?

We would still need to know against what. The single imminent threat against Europe is that from Turkey in Cyprus territorial waters, therefore European waters. What is the Union going to do? Bury its head again? It has something to defend, but what is missing is the desire.

For all northern and eastern Europeans, the only menace which counts is a conventional Russian attack in the Suwalki Gap. And technically it should be said that European forces would do badly without American forces. But we should take care not to replay the battles of the Cold War, ones which did not even take place!

And stop lying to ourselves. If we’re scared of a country with the GDP of Spain and whose defense spending is five times less than the 28 members of the Union altogether, it’s clear that the problem is not the volume of spending, but in its structure.

While they don’t integrate their military might and decision-making processes, Europeans are powerless in the face of those united states who are determined and well-organized. The absence of both integration and desire are the two sicknesses from which European defense suffers.

Especially as, if Russia lashes out at Europe, it will be on other battlefields than the North European plain. In cyberspace, within the political and electoral arena, space itself, not to mention via other means, for example influencing perceptions or giving money to political leaders, like in Italy.

Wake up! The war with Russia has already started and it’s not what we thought. Its goal is to shatter European unity, not invade Lithuania.

Unfortunately, the Russians aren’t the only ones. There’s also China and above all… Trump. This president is the one who most actively lashes out at Europe’s unity. He is the very opposite of Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan, who saw Europe not as a competitor but as a partner. It’s extremely worrying because European unity also came about thanks to Americans and we owe them a huge debt of recognition.

Today this recognition must not blind us. A sea of change has come about. It’s time for Europeans to take their fate into their own hands. With actions, not just words. And above all, to not let anyone seize their most precious treasure, their unity. United we stand, divided we fall.