As France joins forces with Russia and China at the United Nations, and makes a deal with Iran, supporters of the NATO alliance argue that it is a purely defensive affair. In that case, what purpose does it serve in the modern world?
In one of the ironies that seem to increasingly define the modern world, France joined last week with Russia and China to veto a United Nations resolution sponsored by the United Arab Emirates to use force to secure the Strait of Hormuz, that is a former imperial power allied itself with two would be imperial powers against the former protectorate of another former imperial power, Great Britain, citing only “principled opposition to any language authorising force.” Setting aside the obvious colonialist dynamics, France is a longstanding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization which recently celebrated its 77th birthday. As everyone knows, the alliance was originally designed to serve as a bulwark against the imperial ambitions of the Soviet Union and is currently claimed to be standing against Russian aggression, meaning France allied itself with an adversary Russia allied with perhaps the biggest adversary of all, China, and they didn’t stop there. After the veto, they appeared to have entered an arrangement with the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism and another ally of both China and Russia, Iran to allow at least some of their ships to pass through the Strait unmolested, and sure enough French-linked container ship, the CMA CGM Kribi sailing under a Maltese flag passed through without harm. When French President Emmanuel Macron began claiming that the Strait can only be reopened “in concertation” with Iran shortly after the war began, I am not sure anyone imagined a secret deal in defiance of regional partners such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, both of which who have suffered hundreds of unprovoked missile strikes from Iran itself. Nor has the rest of NATO conducted itself with much in the way of either commitment or honor. France, Spain, and – according to some reports, admittedly in dispute – Italy have all variously blocked the United States from using their airspace and bases during the five week conflict, believing that their alliance with the US does not obligate them to participate in what they perceive as an American war of choice.
To justify these actions, supporters of NATO are arguing that the alliance is purely defensive and has no role in offensive operations taken by member countries on their own. For example, President Alexander Stubb of Finland, a recent NATO member, said specifically that “NATO is a defensive alliance. So basically, our job is through defence Article 5 to protect when attacked. NATO has not been attacked. That’s what we did in 9-11, and of course now NATO has not been attacked. The Strait of Hormuz has been closed by bilateral not unilateral action, Israel and the United States attacking Iran, and then Iran attacking pretty much 13 states in the region. I think those countries bilaterally that have the capacity or will to help the United States can and should do so. As far as Finland is concerned, we take care of the security of the northeastern corner of Europe. That is our task.” In yet another irony, President Stubb and others who have made this argument seem completely unaware they are actually arguing against the usefulness and ultimate future existence of NATO rather than for it, at least from the US point of view. Unless you believe the military resources that Finland, Estonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and others can provide would prove essential to any hypothetical defense the US might be forced to mount should we be attacked, what’s the point of the alliance from our perspective? Instead, what they are really saying is that NATO members, especially the smaller ones, must be protected by the United States at little or no cost to them and they are obligated to provide absolutely nothing in return. To use President Stubb’s own example. If Finland is indeed responsible for securing part of the Russian border, what would Finland or any of the other countries actually on the border be able to do to prevent a Russian invasion except call upon the US to do so? By any objective measure, this is not much of an alliance. It’s a US obligation to defend 31 countries who cannot effectively defend themselves, and are therefore capable of providing little if any aid in defense of the United States.
In a third irony and hopefully final irony, claims that NATO rushed to the defense of the US after the 9-11 attacks can also serve to illustrate the scale of the disconnect rather than highlight the essential nature of the alliance in the first place. Even if you set aside that these events happened two decades ago in what might as well have been a different world, NATO and other partner countries provided around 42,000 troops in Afghanistan, less than half as many as the US mustered. In Iraq, NATO did even less. While the United Kingdom committed significant forces, some 46,000 troops and Poland stepped up with 2,500, NATO as a whole sent only 300 or so trainers that didn’t participate in combat operations. Though any contribution is welcome and should be respected – soldiers from these countries lost their lives the same as us – the hard truth is that the United States would likely have fared the same without them or could have secured the same through bilateral agreements rather than large alliances, as they were in Iraq itself. Thus, President Stubb’s argument fails on all levels. As a defensive arrangement, NATO is essentially useless to the United States, the one time NATO was called upon to defend the United States in its 77 year history, it did so by providing significantly less manpower than we did, and as he himself said, bilateral agreements between individual countries can be secured in any event. In that case, what purpose does NATO serve for the US?
Sadly, it is not unreasonable to broaden that question to the entire world. Even if we limit the purpose of NATO to being a strictly defensive alliance designed primarily to thwart Russian aggression, a non-super power Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union has somehow managed to annex Georgia, Crimea, and mount a four year long war across Ukraine over the course of the past 18 years all while NATO countries – some of which border Ukraine itself – have been powerless to deter or stop it. If, as Democrat Representative Don Bacon posted to honor the founding of NATO over the weekend, “Today marks 77 great years of @NATO, the most successful alliance in history. The U.S. is stronger when NATO is strong and cohesive, something I saw firsthand while serving in NATO. We need our allies to counter threats from China, Russia, and Iran. We cannot do it alone,” how can anyone say the alliance is successful when Russia is an aggressor right now and NATO countries are simultaneously refusing to help in Iran? Why would anyone reasonably believe they will fare better with China? Incredibly, the Secretary General of NATO itself, Mark Rutte, appears to share at least some of these concerns. In an interview on Face the Nation last week, during which host Margaret Brennan repeated the defensive alliance canard several times, he commended President Trump for taking action in Iran, saying that “what the President is doing here, taking out the ballistic missile capability, taking out the nuclear capability from Iran, is crucial,” “What the President is doing here, which is taking out- degrading Iran’s capability to be, again, an exporter of chaos, sheer chaos to the region, to the world,” defended the President’s need to keep the initial strike secret, “for reasons of security and safety, they could not share with European allies and allies around the world and partner countries what they were doing,” and claimed to understand his frustration that partner countries have not yet stopped up, saying that “I understand the president’s frustration that it takes some time.”
In his view, these countries will step up in the near future, but will it be enough? As ever, President Trump was a lot more blunt when he said, “I think NATO is making a very foolish mistake. And I’ve long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this is a this was a great test, because we don’t need them, but they should have been there.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio echoed these sentiments, noting “We’re going to have to reexamine the value of NATO and that alliance for our country.” “If NATO is just about us defending Europe if they’re attacked, but them denying us basing rights when we need them, that’s not a very good arrangement. That’s a hard one to stay engaged in,” he added. Though I am personally inclined to agree with George Washington, who famously warned about the potentially corrosive nature of permanent alliances in general in his farewell address, any alliance, however sprawling or long-standing, must be judged on its usefulness to all of the members and its overall effectiveness. By this standard, NATO is clearly failing. As a defensive alliance, its usefulness to the United States is questionable at best and as an effective one, it has proven incapable of advancing its own core mission. If it cannot do better, the alliance might as well be an expensive social club for the establishment class and the last thing the world needs is another one of those. Unfortunately, as NATO turns 77, it appears poised to go down with the ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
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