NATO should have learned from its 2004 inclusion of the Baltic states, militarily weak and exposed countries whose defense now constitutes a major, expensive, and perhaps unachievable military requirement. Instead, the expansion of membership has continued. Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, Montenegro in 2017. Now there is talk of bringing in Bosnia or North Macedonia.
But expansion weakens the alliance rather than strengthening it. It commits NATO to defending vulnerable, and often politically fragile, states while adding little to NATO military capabilities. It weakens U.S. domestic commitment by provoking resentment from NATO-skeptics. Finally, it constitutes yet one more jab at Russia, increasing its sense of encirclement and paranoia.
It’s time to stop NATO expansion. Genesis: NATO’s Search for a Post-Cold War Purpose The problem has been building for a generation, arising in the 1990s when NATO began looking for a new purpose at the end of the Cold War.
NATO’s initial purpose had been clear as Lord Ismay, its first secretary general, had stated: NATO would keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.
By that, he meant that the alliance would block the Soviets from moving further west as they had the military power to do, tie the Americans to Europe to prevent disengagement as had occurred after World War I, and prevent the Germans from becoming militarily aggressive as had happened twice before.
In this, the alliance succeeded brilliantly. Its stable membership reflected its clear military purpose, the 14 original members all being on board by 1955. From then until the end of the Cold War, only Spain joined this cohesive bloc.
When the Cold War ended, none of the three original purposes were still valid. The Soviet Union was on the ash heap of history, the Americans were firmly tied to Europe, and the Germans were a stable and trustworthy democracy. Rather than dissolve such a successful alliance and disrupt all the institutional arrangements that had built up over 40 years, the alliance turned into a kind of military arm for European integration.
Thus, NATO reached out to the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, initially offering them a kind of associate membership (the “partnership for peace”) and then permanent membership. The national security establishments in NATO countries strongly supported this shift in purpose. They still do, as seen in a 2016 open letter published in War on the Rocks when Montenegro sought membership.
Every state added to NATO brings a strategic liability. The Baltic states, added to the alliance so casually during a period of U.S. hegemony, exemplify this problem. The alliance is pledged to defend them, but their geographic position — far from NATO military power centers but close to Russia’s — makes them almost undefendable.
The results of U.S. wargames have given reason for pessimism, projecting that the Russians could capture the Baltic capitals of Riga and Tallinn within 60 hours. NATO has scrambled to deploy units forward to the Baltic states and to increase its low rate of military spending to build capability that backs up its new treaty commitments. Even so, mounting more than a tripwire defense may be impossible.
New strategic liabilities can be offset by new military capabilities. However, while Poland and Romania brought large militaries with real capability, most new additions did not. Albania has only 8,000 members in its military forces (active and reserve), Slovenia 9,000, and Montenegro 2,000. These are small countries with weak militaries and essentially no ability to project power outside of their borders. They are consumers of security, not providers.
The weakness of new members might be offset by the capabilities of old members, but, as President Donald Trump never tires of pointing out, NATO defense spending is low. Indeed, in 2011 Secretary Gates bemoaned the “demilitarization of Europe.” Average NATO spending for the European members is only 1.5 percent of GDP, up slightly from a 2015 low of 1.42 percent.
By contrast, the United States spends 3.5 percent of GDP (using NATO’s methodology). Even the Baltic states, which arguably face an existential threat, spend barely two percent, though, to be fair, they have doubled their spending since 2011.
Germany, having the largest economy in Europe, might be expected to take up a major part of the burden but for reasons historical (two world wars), political (threats are far away) and social (a deep distrust of military power), its military spending is low (1.2 percent of GDP), the readiness of its forces is poor, and its ability to deploy forces extremely limited.
By some other measures, alliance members look a little better. A recent CSIS study noted that, although military spending is low, some NATO members have contributed substantially to peacekeeping missions and strengthening the alliance’s mechanisms for moving forces east.
Nevertheless, deployable and effective military capability is far below what a rich collection of countries should be able to produce. The new states are not just militarily weak but, often, politically weak also. The Baltic states have large Russian minorities who might be turned against the government in a showdown with Russia.
The Balkans are a tangle of interstate tensions and internal divisions. Montenegro barely suppressed a recent military coup. Serbia, which sits next to several NATO members, is unreconciled to its loss of status after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Albania has ethnic enclaves in other countries, and some Albanians dream of a “greater Albania.” Bosnia is still bitterly divided by ethnic tensions.
Weakening Domestic Support for Alliance Commitments
Trump has become notorious for his hostility to NATO and his confrontations with Allied leadership.When Montenegro joined the alliance in 2017, Trump asked the obvious questions: Why should his son defend this country and would these “strong and aggressive [Montenegrin] people” start “World War III”? The national security intelligentsia was horrified, but the question was reasonable. Most Americans could not find Montenegro on a map if their lives depended on it, and the Balkans have been a source of instability for centuries.
If the problem were one particular president, the alliance might just wait for a change of administration. However, Trump put his finger on an issue that bothers many Americans. While 80 percent of Americans support NATO in concept, half believe that the United States should not be required to defend NATO allies from attack if they do not spend more on defense.
Academics have questioned the value of alliances because of the commitments they entail. Politicians on the left, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, have questioned the cost. Discontent with allies is, therefore, a permanent part of U.S. politics, and alliance expansion exacerbates this discontent.
Finally, expansion provokes the Russians. Russia argues that the United States had promised not to move the alliance east when the Cold War ended, a claim with some support in declassified archives. Although this interpretation is disputed by Western analysts, the Russian perception of Western perfidy persists.
This Russian perception was strengthened by the 2011 intervention in Libya where NATO, given a mandate to protect civilians, instead supported a military overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi.
Beyond perceptions, the Russians have some objective facts on their side. Military analysts are often told to “turn the map around” and imagine how the world looks to an opponent. What the Russians see is this: NATO and Ukraine now occupy approximately the spring 1942 frontline between the Soviet Union and the Wehrmacht, except for Belarus.
While NATO views this as benign, the Russians cannot help remembering the last time an adversary got this close. While Western audiences dismiss as propaganda Putin’s denunciations of fascism in neighboring countries, many Russians share Putin’s alarm about western intentions.
Cessation of expansion does not mean that other countries must be left out in the cold. The “partnership for peace” still exists as a way to link countries to the alliance without formal membership.
Such a mechanism could be employed in the future, not just for Bosnia and North Macedonia but also for Georgia, Kosovo, Finland, Sweden or any other country that might become interested in membership when they feel threatened.
These partnerships extend NATO’s influence and enhance the capabilities of the partner to resist aggression without burdening the alliance with the treaty obligations or provoking domestic controversy.
Ultimately, though, NATO is not the United Nations where universal membership is a goal. It is a military alliance that requires some degree of internal cohesion for effectiveness and commits its members — especially its largest member, the United States — to use force on behalf of the others.
Continuous expansion makes the alliance vulnerable to eventual collapse as military demands increase, internal cohesion fractures, Russia finds more weaknesses to exploit, and U.S. commitment declines. Jennifer Lind and William Wohlforth make this point as part of a broader strategic argument that, “Washington should … concentrate its attention and resources on managing great power rivalries. As part of this, the United States should reduce the expectation that it will take on new allies.” (War on the Rocks fans can hear a discussion of this article in a recent Net Assessment podcast.)
Michael Mandelbaum makes a similar argument in proposing containment of Russia, China, and Iran. He argues that “Adopting containment as a strategic frame would help restrain Washington’s occasional impulses to do more (try to transform other societies) or less (retreat from global engagement altogether).”
The bottom line of both strategies is the same: NATO needs to stop expanding if it wants to survive.
Matthew Cancian served as a captain in the Marine Corps from 2009 to 2013, deploying as a forward observer in Operation Enduring Freedom. He is currently a PhD candidate at MIT and a non-resident fellow at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
Mark Cancian (Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, ret.) is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program. Colonel Cancian spent over three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, active and reserve, serving as an infantry, artillery, and civil affairs officer and on overseas tours in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq (twice).
And Michael Brendan Dougherty writes:
Last week, Donald Trump said reckless things about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and silly things about Montenegro, the alliance’s newest member, specifically.
He has complained about America’s Article 5 obligations under the treaty, though he seems to share the widespread misunderstanding that Article 5 obliges all member states to immediately engage in full-out war if any member state is attacked.
This isn’t quite true: Congress would not have approved such a surrender of American sovereignty. In fact, Article 5 obliges each member nation to respond to aggression with “such action as it deems necessary.”
Trump’s statements have occasioned a flurry of defenses of NATO on the right, including from my colleagues David French, Jim Geraghty, Jonah Goldberg, and Rich Lowry. Unfortunately, they failed to persuade me.
French would have had Trump say: “If the last two centuries of American history teach us anything, it’s that allied military strength keeps the peace. Allied military weakness invites war.” French says that allied military strength makes peace.
But what do we mean by “strong”? Do we mean depth of felt commitment? Or do we mean strength in terms of armored divisions? Because, lately, NATO expansion has meant adding weak states.
Estonia has lots of felt commitment toward the Western alliance, but not much in the way of tanks. If the old cliché that one’s department — or squad — is “only as strong as its weakest member” applies to military alliances, it means NATO continues to get weaker.
We were once as strong as the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey. Later we were as strong as Poland. Recently we were as strong as the Estonian militia. And now we will be as strong as Montenegro’s 1,950 active-duty military members.
In fact, that may be too generous. An extra 1,950 men under arms is something. But new members may offer problems as well. Do we know, for instance, what the election-security systems are like in the periphery nations of NATO? Or in Montenegro?
Compare Montenegro to Poland. Poland has a long and urgent history of wanting to resist Russian aggression. All but the tiniest fringes in Polish political life support NATO membership. Poland has consistently hit its commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on its military. It is anxious to host more U.S. defense materiel.
Since it left the Soviet sphere, it has gone from being a very poor country in Europe, to nearly reaching parity with Western European economies. It is considered one of the most well-run European countries, with a low ratio of debt to GDP and outstanding transparency in government spending.
Meanwhile, Montenegro “remains deeply divided over joining NATO” according to all reports. If President Milo Djukanovic had not won reelection, his opponent, Mladen Bojanic, is likely to have canceled the nation’s bid to join NATO.
There is also an issue of political culture. No one seems to know exactly how Djukanovic, an ex-Communist and longtime political operator in Montenegro, became so wealthy. A good portion of Montenegrins consider their leader a kind of dictator, since he served as prime minister from 1991 to 1998, then president until 2002, then prime minister again until 2006, and in several terms since.
French raises the stakes rather high:
But expansion weakens the alliance rather than strengthening it. It commits NATO to defending vulnerable, and often politically fragile, states while adding little to NATO military capabilities. It weakens U.S. domestic commitment by provoking resentment from NATO-skeptics. Finally, it constitutes yet one more jab at Russia, increasing its sense of encirclement and paranoia.
It’s time to stop NATO expansion. Genesis: NATO’s Search for a Post-Cold War Purpose The problem has been building for a generation, arising in the 1990s when NATO began looking for a new purpose at the end of the Cold War.
NATO’s initial purpose had been clear as Lord Ismay, its first secretary general, had stated: NATO would keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.
By that, he meant that the alliance would block the Soviets from moving further west as they had the military power to do, tie the Americans to Europe to prevent disengagement as had occurred after World War I, and prevent the Germans from becoming militarily aggressive as had happened twice before.
In this, the alliance succeeded brilliantly. Its stable membership reflected its clear military purpose, the 14 original members all being on board by 1955. From then until the end of the Cold War, only Spain joined this cohesive bloc.
When the Cold War ended, none of the three original purposes were still valid. The Soviet Union was on the ash heap of history, the Americans were firmly tied to Europe, and the Germans were a stable and trustworthy democracy. Rather than dissolve such a successful alliance and disrupt all the institutional arrangements that had built up over 40 years, the alliance turned into a kind of military arm for European integration.
Thus, NATO reached out to the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe, initially offering them a kind of associate membership (the “partnership for peace”) and then permanent membership. The national security establishments in NATO countries strongly supported this shift in purpose. They still do, as seen in a 2016 open letter published in War on the Rocks when Montenegro sought membership.
Every state added to NATO brings a strategic liability. The Baltic states, added to the alliance so casually during a period of U.S. hegemony, exemplify this problem. The alliance is pledged to defend them, but their geographic position — far from NATO military power centers but close to Russia’s — makes them almost undefendable.
The results of U.S. wargames have given reason for pessimism, projecting that the Russians could capture the Baltic capitals of Riga and Tallinn within 60 hours. NATO has scrambled to deploy units forward to the Baltic states and to increase its low rate of military spending to build capability that backs up its new treaty commitments. Even so, mounting more than a tripwire defense may be impossible.
New strategic liabilities can be offset by new military capabilities. However, while Poland and Romania brought large militaries with real capability, most new additions did not. Albania has only 8,000 members in its military forces (active and reserve), Slovenia 9,000, and Montenegro 2,000. These are small countries with weak militaries and essentially no ability to project power outside of their borders. They are consumers of security, not providers.
The weakness of new members might be offset by the capabilities of old members, but, as President Donald Trump never tires of pointing out, NATO defense spending is low. Indeed, in 2011 Secretary Gates bemoaned the “demilitarization of Europe.” Average NATO spending for the European members is only 1.5 percent of GDP, up slightly from a 2015 low of 1.42 percent.
By contrast, the United States spends 3.5 percent of GDP (using NATO’s methodology). Even the Baltic states, which arguably face an existential threat, spend barely two percent, though, to be fair, they have doubled their spending since 2011.
Germany, having the largest economy in Europe, might be expected to take up a major part of the burden but for reasons historical (two world wars), political (threats are far away) and social (a deep distrust of military power), its military spending is low (1.2 percent of GDP), the readiness of its forces is poor, and its ability to deploy forces extremely limited.
By some other measures, alliance members look a little better. A recent CSIS study noted that, although military spending is low, some NATO members have contributed substantially to peacekeeping missions and strengthening the alliance’s mechanisms for moving forces east.
Nevertheless, deployable and effective military capability is far below what a rich collection of countries should be able to produce. The new states are not just militarily weak but, often, politically weak also. The Baltic states have large Russian minorities who might be turned against the government in a showdown with Russia.
The Balkans are a tangle of interstate tensions and internal divisions. Montenegro barely suppressed a recent military coup. Serbia, which sits next to several NATO members, is unreconciled to its loss of status after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Albania has ethnic enclaves in other countries, and some Albanians dream of a “greater Albania.” Bosnia is still bitterly divided by ethnic tensions.
Weakening Domestic Support for Alliance Commitments
Trump has become notorious for his hostility to NATO and his confrontations with Allied leadership.When Montenegro joined the alliance in 2017, Trump asked the obvious questions: Why should his son defend this country and would these “strong and aggressive [Montenegrin] people” start “World War III”? The national security intelligentsia was horrified, but the question was reasonable. Most Americans could not find Montenegro on a map if their lives depended on it, and the Balkans have been a source of instability for centuries.
If the problem were one particular president, the alliance might just wait for a change of administration. However, Trump put his finger on an issue that bothers many Americans. While 80 percent of Americans support NATO in concept, half believe that the United States should not be required to defend NATO allies from attack if they do not spend more on defense.
Academics have questioned the value of alliances because of the commitments they entail. Politicians on the left, like Sen. Bernie Sanders, have questioned the cost. Discontent with allies is, therefore, a permanent part of U.S. politics, and alliance expansion exacerbates this discontent.
Finally, expansion provokes the Russians. Russia argues that the United States had promised not to move the alliance east when the Cold War ended, a claim with some support in declassified archives. Although this interpretation is disputed by Western analysts, the Russian perception of Western perfidy persists.
This Russian perception was strengthened by the 2011 intervention in Libya where NATO, given a mandate to protect civilians, instead supported a military overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi.
Beyond perceptions, the Russians have some objective facts on their side. Military analysts are often told to “turn the map around” and imagine how the world looks to an opponent. What the Russians see is this: NATO and Ukraine now occupy approximately the spring 1942 frontline between the Soviet Union and the Wehrmacht, except for Belarus.
While NATO views this as benign, the Russians cannot help remembering the last time an adversary got this close. While Western audiences dismiss as propaganda Putin’s denunciations of fascism in neighboring countries, many Russians share Putin’s alarm about western intentions.
Cessation of expansion does not mean that other countries must be left out in the cold. The “partnership for peace” still exists as a way to link countries to the alliance without formal membership.
Such a mechanism could be employed in the future, not just for Bosnia and North Macedonia but also for Georgia, Kosovo, Finland, Sweden or any other country that might become interested in membership when they feel threatened.
These partnerships extend NATO’s influence and enhance the capabilities of the partner to resist aggression without burdening the alliance with the treaty obligations or provoking domestic controversy.
Ultimately, though, NATO is not the United Nations where universal membership is a goal. It is a military alliance that requires some degree of internal cohesion for effectiveness and commits its members — especially its largest member, the United States — to use force on behalf of the others.
Continuous expansion makes the alliance vulnerable to eventual collapse as military demands increase, internal cohesion fractures, Russia finds more weaknesses to exploit, and U.S. commitment declines. Jennifer Lind and William Wohlforth make this point as part of a broader strategic argument that, “Washington should … concentrate its attention and resources on managing great power rivalries. As part of this, the United States should reduce the expectation that it will take on new allies.” (War on the Rocks fans can hear a discussion of this article in a recent Net Assessment podcast.)
Michael Mandelbaum makes a similar argument in proposing containment of Russia, China, and Iran. He argues that “Adopting containment as a strategic frame would help restrain Washington’s occasional impulses to do more (try to transform other societies) or less (retreat from global engagement altogether).”
The bottom line of both strategies is the same: NATO needs to stop expanding if it wants to survive.
Matthew Cancian served as a captain in the Marine Corps from 2009 to 2013, deploying as a forward observer in Operation Enduring Freedom. He is currently a PhD candidate at MIT and a non-resident fellow at West Point’s Modern War Institute.
Mark Cancian (Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, ret.) is a senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program. Colonel Cancian spent over three decades in the U.S. Marine Corps, active and reserve, serving as an infantry, artillery, and civil affairs officer and on overseas tours in Vietnam, Desert Storm, and Iraq (twice).
And Michael Brendan Dougherty writes:
Last week, Donald Trump said reckless things about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and silly things about Montenegro, the alliance’s newest member, specifically.
He has complained about America’s Article 5 obligations under the treaty, though he seems to share the widespread misunderstanding that Article 5 obliges all member states to immediately engage in full-out war if any member state is attacked.
This isn’t quite true: Congress would not have approved such a surrender of American sovereignty. In fact, Article 5 obliges each member nation to respond to aggression with “such action as it deems necessary.”
Trump’s statements have occasioned a flurry of defenses of NATO on the right, including from my colleagues David French, Jim Geraghty, Jonah Goldberg, and Rich Lowry. Unfortunately, they failed to persuade me.
French would have had Trump say: “If the last two centuries of American history teach us anything, it’s that allied military strength keeps the peace. Allied military weakness invites war.” French says that allied military strength makes peace.
But what do we mean by “strong”? Do we mean depth of felt commitment? Or do we mean strength in terms of armored divisions? Because, lately, NATO expansion has meant adding weak states.
Estonia has lots of felt commitment toward the Western alliance, but not much in the way of tanks. If the old cliché that one’s department — or squad — is “only as strong as its weakest member” applies to military alliances, it means NATO continues to get weaker.
We were once as strong as the United Kingdom, France, and Turkey. Later we were as strong as Poland. Recently we were as strong as the Estonian militia. And now we will be as strong as Montenegro’s 1,950 active-duty military members.
In fact, that may be too generous. An extra 1,950 men under arms is something. But new members may offer problems as well. Do we know, for instance, what the election-security systems are like in the periphery nations of NATO? Or in Montenegro?
Compare Montenegro to Poland. Poland has a long and urgent history of wanting to resist Russian aggression. All but the tiniest fringes in Polish political life support NATO membership. Poland has consistently hit its commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on its military. It is anxious to host more U.S. defense materiel.
Since it left the Soviet sphere, it has gone from being a very poor country in Europe, to nearly reaching parity with Western European economies. It is considered one of the most well-run European countries, with a low ratio of debt to GDP and outstanding transparency in government spending.
Meanwhile, Montenegro “remains deeply divided over joining NATO” according to all reports. If President Milo Djukanovic had not won reelection, his opponent, Mladen Bojanic, is likely to have canceled the nation’s bid to join NATO.
There is also an issue of political culture. No one seems to know exactly how Djukanovic, an ex-Communist and longtime political operator in Montenegro, became so wealthy. A good portion of Montenegrins consider their leader a kind of dictator, since he served as prime minister from 1991 to 1998, then president until 2002, then prime minister again until 2006, and in several terms since.
French raises the stakes rather high:
Absent NATO, it’s likely we would have already fought a Third World War. Absent NATO, it’s even possible that the world would have faced a nuclear holocaust by now. NATO continues to serve the critically important function of preventing the reemergence of great-power politics that led up to earlier European conflicts.
To my eyes this is almost exactly inside-out. It is not NATO that keeps the peace and prevents nukes from being launched; it’s the stability provided by mutually assured destruction that has prevented a Third World War and a nuclear holocaust.
Russia’s calculation has never been, “Oh no, now that the Americans have Latvia, we really better not ever get into war with NATO.” Instead, it’s the existing unpalatability of nuclear war between Russia and the United States that allows the Western alliance to take on marginal allies at seemingly little risk.
Sometimes, I wonder if NATO’s members even see it as a military alliance. Western policymakers have often treated the organization as a kind of primary school for states in need of remedial education.
One is taken through the requirements to join, not because it adds significantly to the military strength of the alliance, but because NATO has a framework by which it can judge states, and membership has enough benefits to act as a motivator. If it passes muster with NATO, a state can go on to the next level of schooling, seeking matriculation into the more stringent European Union. Pass, that, and someday you can aspire to the euro zone.
Also, NATO lately makes decisions on military matters for non-military reasons. The U.S. State Department recently protested Poland’s recent law on Holocaust scholarship by threatening to redeploy NATO troops and resources outside of Poland. Why? Either the troops had a strategic reason to be stationed in Poland, or they did not. NATO is a either a military alliance to deter Russia, or it is a political project to deter Central European populists.
French concludes: “America pledges to fight for Montenegro and prepares to fight for Montenegro so it will never have to fight for Montenegro. Anything less places our sons at greater risk.” This does not describe a military strategy. It’s a rather straightforward description of a bluff. If we pretend that Montenegro is an ace long enough, our adversary will never force us to play out the hand.
There’s another more direct and much more effective way to ensure we never have to fight for Montenegro: choose not to guarantee its security in perpetuity. Choose not to say that a compromise of this tiny nation’s sovereignty has the capacity to destroy the credibility of the U.S. alliance with once-serious powers such as France and the U.K. Montenegro now, and what next?
Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, has promised that the member states are committed to helping Georgia also accede to the alliance. This is of course madness. Now we’re not just including nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, but members who have gotten into post-1990s wars with Russia?
I’ve spoken with officials who were in the room when President George W. Bush put his hands on Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili and warned him not to “poke the Bear” — because we would not bail him out. Saakashvili did manage to get into a scrap with Russia, and Georgia was rudely put back in its place by Moscow.
Adding Montenegro does not strengthen the NATO alliance. It offers no significant military or intelligence capability to the alliance and its financial contributions will not be noticed. Its political culture is much more vulnerable to outside manipulation than the ever-lowering NATO average.
Adding weak states makes it more tempting for Putin to test the Article 5 bluff. Instead of making an alliance that deters a conflict with Russia, we are making one that invites a credibility-shattering challenge.
My colleague Jonah Goldberg says that Trump is rehashing the pre-World War II appeasers’ cry, “Why die for Danzig?” I’m surprised when anyone brings up this famous essay. It doesn’t make the interventionist, pro-expansion point.
The fact is that, much to the chagrin of Poland’s government and diplomats, Britain and France were not prepared to vindicate Polish territorial claims when they promised to do so, not when Hitler attacked from the West, nor when Stalin eventually claimed it for the Eastern bloc.
Poles fought in the expectation of Western allies immediately opening up a second front or sending in air support. They fought and they died waiting. And many of their children died before Poland could be considered part of the West again.
Trump was wrong to so cavalierly increase doubts about America’s commitment to the periphery of the alliance. But he’s not the only one ruining the credibility of NATO. So too are the expansionists, who have turned NATO into something other than a military alliance.
They have made it into a political summer camp for laggard European nations, have used it to try to punish democratically elected political parties that “Atlanticists” dislike within the West, and have made the U.S. security guarantee more questionable by adding nations we are not in position to protect at all.
Russia’s calculation has never been, “Oh no, now that the Americans have Latvia, we really better not ever get into war with NATO.” Instead, it’s the existing unpalatability of nuclear war between Russia and the United States that allows the Western alliance to take on marginal allies at seemingly little risk.
Sometimes, I wonder if NATO’s members even see it as a military alliance. Western policymakers have often treated the organization as a kind of primary school for states in need of remedial education.
One is taken through the requirements to join, not because it adds significantly to the military strength of the alliance, but because NATO has a framework by which it can judge states, and membership has enough benefits to act as a motivator. If it passes muster with NATO, a state can go on to the next level of schooling, seeking matriculation into the more stringent European Union. Pass, that, and someday you can aspire to the euro zone.
Also, NATO lately makes decisions on military matters for non-military reasons. The U.S. State Department recently protested Poland’s recent law on Holocaust scholarship by threatening to redeploy NATO troops and resources outside of Poland. Why? Either the troops had a strategic reason to be stationed in Poland, or they did not. NATO is a either a military alliance to deter Russia, or it is a political project to deter Central European populists.
French concludes: “America pledges to fight for Montenegro and prepares to fight for Montenegro so it will never have to fight for Montenegro. Anything less places our sons at greater risk.” This does not describe a military strategy. It’s a rather straightforward description of a bluff. If we pretend that Montenegro is an ace long enough, our adversary will never force us to play out the hand.
There’s another more direct and much more effective way to ensure we never have to fight for Montenegro: choose not to guarantee its security in perpetuity. Choose not to say that a compromise of this tiny nation’s sovereignty has the capacity to destroy the credibility of the U.S. alliance with once-serious powers such as France and the U.K. Montenegro now, and what next?
Jens Stoltenberg, secretary general of NATO, has promised that the member states are committed to helping Georgia also accede to the alliance. This is of course madness. Now we’re not just including nations that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, but members who have gotten into post-1990s wars with Russia?
I’ve spoken with officials who were in the room when President George W. Bush put his hands on Georgia’s Mikheil Saakashvili and warned him not to “poke the Bear” — because we would not bail him out. Saakashvili did manage to get into a scrap with Russia, and Georgia was rudely put back in its place by Moscow.
Adding Montenegro does not strengthen the NATO alliance. It offers no significant military or intelligence capability to the alliance and its financial contributions will not be noticed. Its political culture is much more vulnerable to outside manipulation than the ever-lowering NATO average.
Adding weak states makes it more tempting for Putin to test the Article 5 bluff. Instead of making an alliance that deters a conflict with Russia, we are making one that invites a credibility-shattering challenge.
My colleague Jonah Goldberg says that Trump is rehashing the pre-World War II appeasers’ cry, “Why die for Danzig?” I’m surprised when anyone brings up this famous essay. It doesn’t make the interventionist, pro-expansion point.
The fact is that, much to the chagrin of Poland’s government and diplomats, Britain and France were not prepared to vindicate Polish territorial claims when they promised to do so, not when Hitler attacked from the West, nor when Stalin eventually claimed it for the Eastern bloc.
Poles fought in the expectation of Western allies immediately opening up a second front or sending in air support. They fought and they died waiting. And many of their children died before Poland could be considered part of the West again.
Trump was wrong to so cavalierly increase doubts about America’s commitment to the periphery of the alliance. But he’s not the only one ruining the credibility of NATO. So too are the expansionists, who have turned NATO into something other than a military alliance.
They have made it into a political summer camp for laggard European nations, have used it to try to punish democratically elected political parties that “Atlanticists” dislike within the West, and have made the U.S. security guarantee more questionable by adding nations we are not in position to protect at all.
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