Nato’s new challenge
Nato’s fundamental mission, President Harry Truman noted when the alliance was formed 70 years ago today, was to provide the US and its allies with “a shield against aggression”. Lord Ismay, the organisation’s first secretarygeneral, was more plain-speaking. Its goal, he said, was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. These sentiments were expressed in the immediate aftermath of another disastrous world war that had reduced large swathes of Europe to ruin, encouraging the Soviet Union to expand its hegemony. Yet judged by those original objectives, Nato has proved its worth.
By far its most significant achievement has been to keep the peace in Europe, thereby allowing the Western democracies to flourish to the extent that they were able to celebrate the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. Nato has continued to justify its existence in subsequent decades, not least when member states invoked the Nato treaty’s Article 5 mutual defence clause following the devastating September 11 attacks on the US in 2001.
Yet as the alliance marks its 70th anniversary, the celebrations taking place in Washington this week will be modest. The original plan to hold a summit of the alliance’s 29 leaders was scaled down over concerns Donald Trump might use the event as a platform to renew his attacks on leading European members, such as Germany, over their failure to pay their fair share towards Nato’s defence costs.
The confrontational tone Mr Trump frequently adopts with European allies has raised concerns that the US might even withdraw from the alliance, leaving the Europeans to fend for themselves. These fears have led to renewed interest in Paris and Berlin about creating a European defence force, which many critics believe would act as a rival to Nato, thereby undermining the effectiveness of the alliance.
At a time when Nato faces challenges on numerous fronts, from Russian aggression to China’s increasing military prowess, neither of these developments bodes well for its future prospects. On the contrary, when the nature of warfare is changing at an alarming rate, the alliance’s first priority should be to ensure it has the ability to operate effectively in new domains such as cyber, space and advanced missile technology. That is by far the best way for Nato to justify its existence in the decades to come.