NATO’s Washington Summit
In a post two weeks ago, I said that an assessment of NATO’s past 75 years must have two principal chapters: One on NATO’s performance in providing security for the territory of its members, under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, and a second one on the consequences of its members’ individual and collective actions, and their impact on the global perception of NATO and the West. I concluded that the first chapter is a success story, the second an entirely different one.
For the second chapter, I drew attention to Europe’s initial resistance to recognizing the independence of its colonies, the long list of the West’s regime change projects, and decades of external military interventions. My conclusion was that such individual or collective policies and actions have not always served the interests of the Alliance as a whole, moreover, they have undermined the West’s public discourse on democracy and the so-called “rules-based international order”.
At the Washington summit, the top items were the war in Ukraine and relations with China. If not discussed at length at plenary meetings, the war in Gaza, not mentioned in the Washington Declaration, and the rise of the far-right in Europe must have been among the topics of bilateral talks. However, at the end of three days, President Biden’s remaining in or exiting the presidential race overtook all else.
Last Monday, Russian missiles hit some Ukrainian cities and destroyed a children’s hospital in Kyiv providing the world with yet another image of the cruelties of war. This was a week after the visit to Moscow by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, now the Chairman of the Council of the European Union, to discuss prospects for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a rare trip to Russia by a European leader, drawing Washington’s ire. It was a day before the NATO summit. Moreover, Indian Prime Minister Modi was in Moscow for an official visit. With the most disturbing pictures of children fighting cancer on the streets, this was a shot in the foot for Moscow. President Biden condemned the wave of Russian missile strikes that killed at least thirty-eight people in Ukraine as a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”, as he vowed to strengthen Kyiv’s air defenses. But the same world leader has never said much when Gaza hospitals were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and artillery.
On the first day of the summit, the US, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Ukraine issued a “Joint Statement on Strengthening Ukraine’s Air Defenses” announcing the provision of additional air defense systems to Ukraine. And it was declared that F-16s will start flying in Ukraine’s skies this summer.
As expected, an official invitation to join the Alliance was not extended to Kyiv. Still, the Washington Summit Declaration says Ukraine’s future is in NATO, and that Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance. The allies will continue to support it on its irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.
The Declaration calls on Russia to withdraw all its forces from the Republic of Moldova and Georgia, stationed there without their consent. It reaffirms member states’ continued support to Allied regional efforts aimed at upholding security, safety, stability, and freedom of navigation in the Black Sea region including, “as appropriate”, through the 1936 Montreux Convention. It also says that NATO supports the Euro-Atlantic aspirations of interested countries in this region. This must be an indirect reference to the Bucharest Summit Declaration of April 3, 2008, which said, “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”
On the first day of the summit, President Biden reaffirmed Washington’s support to Ukraine. He declared, “Putin won’t stop at Ukraine.” And he notably said, “And here with us — and here with us today are countries from the Indo-Pacific region. They’re here because they have a stake in our success and we have a stake in theirs.”
Perhaps as a follow-up to President Biden’s earlier comments on Russia not stopping in Ukraine, the Summit Declaration says, “We cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies’ sovereignty and territorial integrity.” And probably in response to President Putin’s references to Russia’s being a nuclear power, the Declaration also says, “Nuclear deterrence is the cornerstone of Alliance security. The fundamental purpose of NATO’s nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression. As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.”
Russia will not emerge as the “victor” in the war in Ukraine because its initial target was the invasion of the entire country. Ukraine will not recapture the territories lost to Russia by force. Washington and its allies will not be able to meet Mr. Zelensky’s demands for more and more support unless they join the war. This makes peace talks the only path to stopping the ongoing loss of life and devastation. Unfortunately, this is not in sight yet and the current picture reminds me of Professor Christopher Clark’s remarkable book, “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914”.
In a Foreign Affairs article a week before the Summit, NATO’s Secretary General Stoltenberg accused Beijing of providing critical support to Moscow’s war effort. He said that on the one hand, China is fueling the conflict by sending Russia high-end technologies that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, and aircraft, but on the other hand trying to maintain good relations with the West to avoid sanctions and keep trade flowing. Mr. Stoltenberg stressed that President Xi cannot have it both ways and at some point, China’s support for Russia’s illegal war must come with a cost.[i] President Biden also made similar remarks in his press conference.
Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted, calling NATO a vestige of the Cold War.
Washington Summit Declaration says that China has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine through its so-called “no limits” partnership and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base. It also says that China continues to challenge Alliance members’ interests, security, and values posing a systemic challenge to Euro-Atlantic security.
Again, China reacted.
It seems that the historical perspective of NATO does not go far beyond President Xi’s reign and ignores the devastation wrought upon China in the decades leading up to the Second World War by leading some members of the Alliance and their top Asia-Pacific partner. A century of humiliation takes time to be erased from memory. At least, the Washington Declaration, combining determination to stand up to Beijing with a call for dialogue, said, “We urge the PRC to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions and promote stability through transparency. We remain open to constructive engagement with the PRC, including to build reciprocal transparency with the view of safeguarding the Alliance’s security interests. At the same time, we are boosting our shared awareness, enhancing our resilience and preparedness, and protecting against the PRC’s coercive tactics and efforts to divide the Alliance.”
In 1949, NATO was an alliance of twelve nations. During the Cold War and after the collapse of the USSR it became an alliance of thirty-two. Since 1949, NATO has been a great success in shielding the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of its members. None of them was attacked or dangerously threatened. Today, however, although NATO is not officially at war, it is deeply and increasingly involved in war in Europe. This makes the stretching of NATO’s collective commitment to its members’ security over to the Indo-Pacific a questionable move, particularly when they are trying to shore up their defense in Europe.
As for Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Moscow, the Joint Statement issued following the 22nd India-Russia Annual Summit said that the two leaders noted the continued strengthening and deepening of the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership between India and Russia, and expressed appreciation for the special nature of this time-tested relationship which is based on trust, mutual understanding, and strategic convergence. Moreover, the Joint Statement reiterated the importance of robust and wide-ranging cooperation in the energy sector as a significant pillar of the Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership.[ii] In brief, India, another rising global power, is not yet ready to give up its cooperation with Moscow.
To conclude, the Washington summit has sent a message of unity on Ukraine. It has challenged China. Whether the allies are united on every sentence, or every word of the Summit Declaration remains to be seen because there are no quick solutions in sight to problems high on the global agenda. And with a Trump White House, some of the summit’s long-term commitments may just evaporate.
The NATO summit is over but the world, and particularly the European members of the Alliance, continue looking at Washington, to see if the Democratic Party would be able to put its “dismal performance” following President Biden’s “dismal debate performance” and display unity. Throughout the three-day summit, continuing calls to President Biden to quit the presidential race, and the media’s labeling of his every public appearance as yet another “test” in which he had to get passing grades was just sad. If President Biden were to lose the election, the ground would be ready for blame games.
It is clear that the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump will further complicate an already troubled presidential race.