In Madrid, the alliance showed a renewed sense of purpose, but Europe is still divided and the US is tired of paying for the continent's security.
Most summits declare their “historic » meaning. And their participants inevitably talk about “achieving a new consensus.” But the NATO summit in Madrid can quite rightly make such statements. Because the military alliance, which French President Emmanuel Macron called “dead” a few years ago, has regained its vitality and strategic purpose.
NATO has decided to increase the rapid reaction force to 300,000 soldiers to deter any further Russian aggression. And, as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, it became “the biggest review of our collective defense since the Cold War.” Jonathan Yehl, director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), writes about this in an article for The Guardian. The readiness of all 30 member countries of the alliance to increase defense spending is unprecedented. But even more importantly, NATO has restored its role as the only organization capable of offering collective defense to the European continent.
Sweden and Finland have already received significant security guarantees as part of their membership in the European Union. However, both countries still decided to join NATOat the summit in Madrid. Because they understand the difference between the EU's intentions and NATO's capabilities backed by US military power. At the same time, the leaders of the alliance are well aware that the challenges are still very big. In Madrid, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said that the accession of Sweden and Finland would make NATO “more European.” But it was a very obvious statement that could be made about virtually every wave of alliance expansion. Every new country that joined it was from Europe, which means it made it more European.
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But each enlargement, as well as the accession of Sweden and Finland, did not solve the same problem. They did not reduce NATO's heavy dependence on US power. The Transatlantic Alliance responded well to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Since March, the alliance began to increase its presence in the Baltic states, Poland, as well as in Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. Allied troops stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. But despite the fact that many allies have committed their assets to this effort, the US contribution is many times greater than that of all Europeans combined. If the 100,000-strong US army had not been deployed in Europe (the largest since the mid-1990s), it is unlikely that the alliance would now act as a united front.
The latest promises to increase defense funding are also impressive. But right now, only 9 out of 30 participating countries spend 2% of their GDP on the army. And among those who do not do this, such large European countries as France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The rest say that “the work continues.”
NATO has estimated that allied countries have promised to spend an additional 184 billion euros on defense in addition to the already existing budgets. And about half of this amount falls on Germany. But the question is how this money will be spent and for what time. The easiest way to improve European defense capabilities right now is to buy more off-the-shelf American equipment. But such an idea goes against the approaches of European countries. French diplomats emphasize that the war in Ukraine should not turn into a gold mine for the US defense industry. NATO's internal debate about “burden sharing” is likely to continue, even if more money is spent on defense. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donald Trump and his followers continue to claim that NATO is a fraudulent scheme designed to defraud American taxpayers. Even if Trump doesn't sit down in the presidential chair again, the very idea that the US spends more than it should on the protection of fat and wealthy Europeans will be quite influential during the parliamentary elections that will be held in the US in November.
The sheer audacity of Russian aggression against Ukraine allowed the Biden administration to get the necessary funding from Congress. However, in Washington, by default, they believe that there will definitely not be a re-allocation of 40 billion dollars to help Kyiv. And in the future, the debate about the distribution of the financial burden among NATO allies will intensify, when a parallel discussion will begin about the post-war economic reconstruction of Ukraine, which, according to preliminary estimates, will cost about 500 billion dollars.
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NATO also promised to increase the number of rapid reaction forces to 300,000 soldiers. However, the alliance never gave an answer to the important question of whether its troops should be permanently based in countries bordering Russia in order to deter the aggressor. Failure to do so would leave some NATO countries at risk of at least temporary Russian occupation until help arrives to liberate them. And this means that horrors like the one in the Ukrainian Bucha may repeat themselves on their territory. And none of the NATO countries will agree to put up with this prospect. But if you deploy international contingents in Central and Eastern Europe on a permanent basis, it will be very expensive. And the promised increase in defense spending will not be enough.
In fact, all NATO did in Madrid was make promises, hoping that the essence and terms of what was promised could be discussed later. But the greatest paradox of the alliance is that the determination to oppose Russia's imperialist intentions remains the glue that holds it together. But at the same time, this is NATO's greatest vulnerability. Despite all the talk in Madrid, there is still no consensus on what to do with Russia. Everyone agrees that her aggression cannot be allowed to succeed. But does this mean that Russia needs to be physically defeated on the battlefield in Ukraine, as Great Britain and most of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe want? Could it be enough to end the war in such a way that Moscow cannot declare victory, as the German leader would like?
Now these debates seem abstract. But when Moscow starts hinting that it wants a truce with Ukraine, all these differences of opinion in NATO will come to the fore. The new strategic concept adopted in Madrid consists of 71 points on 11 pages. This is without a doubt a beautiful set of sleeves. But when the guns in Ukraine fall silent, some will not obey them.
