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Newsday
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IT IS JUST five paragraphs long, but the communique issued by NATO leaders on June 25 after their summit in The Hague speaks to a completely re-engineered global order.
Out is any reference to Ukraine’s “irreversible path” to membership of the 32-nation bloc.
In is a remarkable new commitment: the allies will invest five per cent of GDP on defence annually by 2035. This is a major uplift from the previous two per cent benchmark, amounting to hundreds of billions more in spending. To commit to such militarisation is to achieve the delicate triangulation of four separate goals.
The first is to signal that NATO has concluded it can rely on the US no longer. It must defend itself.
The second is, simultaneously, to appease Donald Trump, the current occupant of the White House, who has shattered the stability of the trans-Atlantic alliance by bringing into question his commitment to article 5 of NATO’s founding charter, which is the idea that “an attack on one is an attack on all.”
Mr Trump has long portrayed allies as “delinquent” nations freeloading off US taxpayers, even though the post-Cold War stability of Europe facilitated by NATO’s expansion has been integral to US economic and political interests.
But the third aim is to buy more time.
NATO knows it is not yet ready to defend itself. In momentarily quelling Mr Trump’s disdain and in opening the levees for spending to flow, it has given itself a fighting chance. Time will be required for construction and building capacity.
Signalled most clearly, however, is the fourth aim: deterring aggressive neighbours.
Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, this week acknowledged the bloc has its eyes on Russia as its single most dangerous threat.
“They are building up their armed forces and reconstituting at such a pace that they could be ready in three, five or seven years to attack NATO,” he warned.
This goes some way to explaining the remarkable acts of bootlicking and grovelling – so uncharacteristic within global diplomacy – that featured this week in The Hague.
Mr Rutte called Mr Trump “Daddy” in explaining away the latter’s use of obscene language. In private texts, he addressed the US leader as “dear Donald” and praised his “decisive action in Iran.”
It is a mistake to see this flattery as sincere or uncalculated.
But it is also a mistake for NATO leaders to think the American president does not see through the ruse. For him, their humiliation is the point. That is his schtick. That is why the world is in a brittle new reality in which war is a real risk. Behind the lovefest, there is a long-term cost to being “owned” by Mr Trump.
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