The 75th anniversary of NATO is a momentous occasion, marking one of the longest-lived international partnerships in history. Yet its Washington Summit showed that the Atlantic alliance has forgotten its purpose.
NATO must answer two fundamental questions. First, what will the structure of European security look like in light of the Ukraine war? Second, what capabilities are critical to deter Russia?
Neither question was answered in Washington this week. The longer both questions hang unanswered, the more the West’s adversaries will gain political advantage.
The specter of a second Trump administration has revived fears that the U.S., in a fit of pique, might quit the Atlantic alliance, as Trump allegedly threatened to do in 2018. The first Trump administration focused on a long-standing American gripe with NATO, that its European members free ride on American capabilities.
NATO formalized its 2 percent-of-GDP spending target in 2014. However, a decade later, only two-thirds of its members have met this benchmark. A year ago, only 10 of the Atlantic alliance’s members met this benchmark. As of 2014, only three did.
There is obvious merit to demands for higher European defense spending. The events of 2014-2015 (Russia’s annexation of Crimea, first invasion of Ukraine and intervention in Syria, alongside the rise of ISIS in the Middle East) generated a far more threatening international environment to Europe.
Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine intensified this threat. The Kremlin has geared up for a long-term struggle with the West, directing the Russian economy towards military production, and transforming Russian society with an eclectic variant of fascism. It is only sensible for the European powers to increase their defense capabilities.
Moreover, the Russia threat comes alongside an increasingly ambitious China, aggressive Iran and a North Korea with a modernizing nuclear arsenal. The American political climate and budgetary realities make a force posture shift away from Europe probable in the next administration, regardless of who wins the election. Demands for higher European defense spending are thus sensible.
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Seth Cropsey is the founder and president of Yorktown Institute.
