INTERNAL THREATS TO NATO

NATO remains the strongest and most successful military alliance of the human history. By recently admitting North Macedonia, the total number of members of the alliance reached thirty. The 70-year-old organisation has so far consolidated significant military, technical and financial resources along with an impressive list of accomplishments, including the victory in the Cold War, restoration of order in the Balkans, fight against terrorism after September 11, 2001 in Afghanistan, Iraq and Sudan, fight against maritime piracy and drug trafficking, as well as various supporting operations. All this inspires respect and seems to indicate that the alliance will continue to exist. But what about the rumours about the problems inside the bloc and its likely decline? We can even hear calls for rethinking the world without NATO. First, both the present and former leadership of NATO admits that the alliance does not always (or rather, very often) fails to respond to new challenges. Secondly, the member states have big problems with common goals and ideology. And even supporting the image of a common enemy, Russia, does not help in this case. It now seems that the main enemy of NATO is not outside but inside.

As paradoxical as it sounds, many member states agree that the main opponent of NATO is the U.S. President Donald Trump. Europe is sceptical about the implacable reliability of the Big Brother, thinking whether it is time to begin solving issues related to its security and external relations on its own. In fact, the underlying principle of the alliance, which is the famous Article 5 on collective defence, can really be dangerous for the alliance. According to the French Le Monde, NATO members resemble those beautiful actors who continue to go on stage pretending to ignore the cancer that gnaws at them.

Indeed, many pretended to ignore the explicit modesty of the 70th anniversary celebration held without a summit or a larger event. Only foreign ministers came to Washington and everything was very modest and dry. According to the Western media, the main reason for such a small-scale celebration was the U.S. President who, incidentally, was not present at the event at all, meeting only with the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Probably no one wanted Trump to remind his partners about debts or to say that the alliance was outdated, or even worse, that he did not see it as a meaningful organisation.

It is known that the U.S. President is very annoyed by the uneven distribution of expenses within the alliance, meaning that the United States bears the bulk of defence expenditures in NATO. Although the European share in the NATO budget increased by $41 billion in the last two years, and another batch of $100 billion is expected until 2020, Trump understands that if all countries complied with the decision to increase their military budgets by 2% of GDP until 2024, there would be more money.

On the other hand, Europeans are very much concerned that Trump does not show enough interest in NATO at all. Rather, not quite in NATO, but in its classical format used for decades, as he prefers to work with the Eastern European countries such as Poland, which, unlike Germany or France, is much more compliant. Initially, it seemed that cooperation between Washington and Warsaw would be bilateral, like on a Polish-American military base. Meanwhile, during Trump’s presidency, the United States has significantly increased military presence in Europe. Pentagon, for example, is going to spend $6.53 billion in 2019, as opposed to $3.42 billion spent in 2017. But then Trump apparently thought and decided that all NATO members should invest in the military infrastructure of NATO, including the construction and maintenance of warehouses, upgrade of airports, ports and bridges on the eastern frontier and approved only $2.3 billion for these purposes. In the near future, NATO will invest $260 million in the construction of a military hub in Poland near the city of Powidz, which is going to serve as a military base for American troops in Eastern Europe.

Thus, Poland is improving its position thanks to funds raised by all European countries, which do not feel happy, of course. Not to mention the fact that, despite the Article 5, many NATO states are unlikely to fight with Russia, if Poland has problems with Russia declaring that Russia attacked her.

Europe believes that the United States enjoy the greatest benefit from NATO. In fact, the U.S. has always been the major beneficiary within NATO, but Europeans consider Trump’s criticism too serious a challenge. Germany is particularly dissatisfied, as the U.S. constantly reminds it about cooperation with Russia via the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline, is going to make the German economy hostage of Russia, according to Trump. To make things clearer, we can also take into account the constant trade quarrels between the U.S. and Europe, as well as American opposition to the introduction of 5G mobile communications thanks to Chinese technologies. Here we can recall the statement by the First Secretary General of NATO, Hastings Ismay, credited as having been the first person to say that the purpose of the alliance was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down".

However, not every American is happy with the situation either. "Never before has NATO had a U.S. leader who didn’t appear to believe deeply in NATO itself," quote the leading American media outlets Nicholas Burns and Douglas Lute, former US permanent representatives to NATO. To somehow calm down themselves and reassure the allies, the leadership of the U.S. Democratic Party invited NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to speak in front of both houses of the U.S. parliament, where he tried his best to protect NATO from Trump's criticism, for which he repeatedly was applauded by American lawmakers.

In addition to relations with European partners, Stoltenberg devoted considerable time to Moscow. NATO was established to protect Europe from Soviet influence, and nothing has changed since — opposition to Russia is once again presented as the most urging. "We do not want a new arms race. We do not want a cold war. But we should not be naive," said Stoltenberg addressing the American congressmen. The former NATO Secretary General (2009-2014), Anders Fogh Rasmussen, in his interview with BBC admitted that the actions of Russia in Ukraine in February-March 2014 took NATO by surprise. According to Rasmussen, "Russia began a complicated special operation known as a hybrid war... They used not only conventional armed forces, but also cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns and others... NATO was not ready to resist this." It was the Ukrainian events that became a turning point for NATO, when it realised that "Russia was not a strategic partner, but a strategic opponent."

In principle, nothing new, does not fit into the current situation. Except for one moment. NATO intends to strengthen its presence in the Black Sea, in order to "restrain Russia's militaristic ambitions" (the so-called "Black Sea package of measures"). This can seriously destabilize the situation in the region, taking into account the interests of many parties, and the fact that everything takes place in close geographical proximity to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, as well as taking into account the possible involvement of Turkey, which is now considered the most problematic NATO member country.

Ankara is criticised for two reasons — the construction of the Russian Turkish Stream pipeline and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to buy Russian S-400 air defence systems with deliveries scheduled for July 2019, which the United States regarded as a threat to internal security and NATO. NATO military fears that the C-400, integrated into NATO air defence systems, will be used to spy on the alliance aircraft. In addition, the emergence of the S-400 in Turkey violates the principle of standardization of equipment of NATO countries. In response to Ankara’s decision, the United States suspended supplies of F-35 fighter components to Turkey, which, among other things, will affect the construction of the large aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ship Anadolu adapted specifically for F-35 aircraft. Turkey is also warned about the sanctions under the CAATSA Act (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act), which can be a fatal blow to the Turkish economy. "Turkey must choose. Does it want to remain a critical partner in the most successful military alliance in history or does it want to risk the security of that partnership by making such reckless decisions that undermine our alliance?," U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said at the 70th anniversary event held in Washington, DC. Discord between Turkey and the United States (NATO) took place in Syria regarding the Kurdish issue. Turkey asks the United States whether Washington wants to remain an ally of Turkey or risk friendship by joining forces with terrorists and undermining the defence of its NATO ally?

Now, Ankara perhaps will need to make another difficult decision: its position in connection with the U.S. plans in the Black Sea. Navigation in the Dardanelles Strait is regulated by the 1936 Montreux International Convention, which states that during peacetime, Turkey shall let in any ships, no matter the flag their sailing under. But if Ankara decides that there is a military threat, it has the right to prohibit the passage of ships of a potential enemy...

Apparently, the greatest threat to NATO is coming from within. The member states are reluctant to sacrifice their national interests for the sake of common interests. On the contrary, they want to pursue a multi-vector foreign policy and have versatile trade relations. Therefore, the presence of the alliance in Europe can be interpreted not only as a measure to contain Russia, but also to deter the EU itself. Under present conditions, the fact that Europeans want either a "strategic autonomy" or "European sovereignty" looks quite understandable and explicable. But it can seriously, if not fatally, injure NATO.