The best NATO is the dormant NATO

In Planning for a Post-American NATO, Phillips P. O’Brien and Edward Stringer attempt to address the security vacuum they foresee will arise from a second Trump administration. In particular, they highlight my “sleeper NATO” proposal, in which I lay out an organizational structure under which the United States would withdraw its ground forces from Europe to shift the burden of defending the continent from Washington to Washington. the region’s own governments. According to O’Brien and Stringer, a dormant NATO could quickly become a dead NATO, as the alliance would struggle to survive unless the United States showed a clear commitment to Europe. Without this commitment, the authors argue, the old divisions will return, with Central and Eastern Europe becoming more militant while Northern and Western Europe continue to give free rides to Washington. “The European security alliance,” they write, “may collapse under the weight of such incompatible views.”

O’Brien and Stringer are mistaken in their assessment of my proposal. A sleeping NATO is not a destructive withdrawal from Europe. Instead, it is based on three correct assumptions: that structural forces will push the United States to prioritize Asia over Europe, that continued NATO expansion is diluting NATO’s core geographic interests and turning a defensive alliance into an ideological one, and that Western European freedom of movement is the result of an overwhelming American presence . Under my system, the United States will continue to support the security of the continent by providing a nuclear umbrella and deploying its naval resources. This proposal never calls for complete staff reductions. What he does demand is a better and fairer division of labor, with Washington shifting the burden of logistics, armor and infantry to the wealthy Western European powers.

But more importantly, O’Brien and Stringer are wrong about European security as a whole. The authors argue that NATO can survive the withdrawal of US troops if it makes leadership changes and unites. They argue, in particular, that the continent should hand over NATO military command to an Eastern European state such as Poland and develop a joint nuclear deterrent. But their proposals ignore the central puzzle they have openly posed to themselves: Europe’s strategic incoherence. They fail to recognize that the continent’s “incompatible visions” are not the product of bad design, but the result of geography, culture, threat perceptions, offensive capabilities, industrial strength and a host of other variables. Such differences are irreconcilable. Without Washington there can be no coherent European security alliance, because there is no united Europe and there never has been.

On the contrary, Europe is an artificial formation consisting of states with completely different interests. It makes sense, for example, that Germany and the Netherlands would invest less in aid to Ukraine than Estonia or Poland, because each of those states’ defense priorities depends on its geographic distance from Russia—and the former two countries are much further away than the latter. The overall architecture of European security, on the contrary, is unnatural. This is supported by American hegemony, which has encouraged Europe’s traditional great powers to spend less on their militaries than they otherwise would have, while also discouraging traditional nationalist violence on the continent. Therefore, imagining European unity without the United States—as the authors try to do—is absurd.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONS

O’Brien and Stringer are trying to deal practically with the complex security issues that Europe will face if Washington abandons it. They weigh the resources and ideologies of the continent’s largest states to determine which might be the best leader. Ultimately, they come to the conclusion that France, Germany and Great Britain are incapable of leading the continent, but that Poland can be, given the country’s recent rearmament. They also argue that Europe will need to consider creating a continent-wide nuclear deterrent. In the near future, they suggest that London and Paris could offer such a shield, giving other European states some power over their launch protocols. In the long term, they argue that the continent should develop a nuclear arsenal that is jointly owned.

These ideas would make for a good scientific discussion, but they are unrealistic. Let’s look at the nuclear issue first. The idea that France or Britain would allow another state – let alone some unelected bureaucrat in the European Union – to dictate its nuclear position is fanciful. So does the idea that European countries would coordinate to develop a common nuclear arsenal.

At the same time, the authors’ assertion that France, Germany and Great Britain would agree to a common foreign policy direction defies logic: peace among the great powers in Europe is due to the overwhelming majority of the Pax Americana, and not because its countries have suddenly become benevolent. Even if Europe’s major powers are now inherently more peaceful, it is unlikely that the continent’s three most populous states will abandon their competing strategic and economic interests and agree to be led by a hawkish and paranoid Eastern European country that is far less powerful, financially or materially. than any of them.

Thus O’Brien and Stringer seem to have European history wrong. NATO’s mission for more than 70 years has not been solely to defend Europe. It was also done to mitigate the European national outbreaks that contributed to the two world wars, in part by removing the ability of one country to dominate others. The only plausible way that Europe can achieve what the authors envision is to transform the European Union into a supranational empire, with all the attendant repression that comes from creating such an entity. By centralizing Europe from a federalized trading bloc into a formal imperial state, policymakers would naturally encourage and encourage centrifugal social forces. These forces, in turn, will initiate a cycle of political and economic repression and undermine democratic rights – as has happened in the past.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Fortunately, there is a moderate version of a new European strategic architecture that avoids a complete US troop withdrawal without pushing Washington to the point of insolvency. Instead of trying to provide security for a continent that is largely at peace and rich enough to fund its own defense, the United States can act as an offshore balancer. Washington will no longer seek primacy in the European theater of operations. Instead, it would allow for European rearmament and, as a consequence, European burden sharing. It will withdraw soldiers and equipment from Europe and allow Western European states to return to their pre-1990 state of strength. But the United States will continue to provide a comprehensive nuclear umbrella for NATO members and prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons on the continent, a core American goal for more than half a century. His formidable Second Fleet will protect sea lanes, support the continent’s major naval powers and continue to provide extended deterrence, satiating Europeans who fear being abandoned during Russian revanchism.

This approach, unlike that of O’Brien and Stringer, is based on reality. It recognizes that not all states will face such threats, and that if a distant hegemon provides complete security, the chances of impunity increase among states that are distant from their main rival power. In addition, the larger the alliance, the more equal all states become, regardless of their size and contribution, leading to a decrease in the relative strength of the protector hegemon. None of these forces are beneficial to Washington.

A sleeping NATO solves these dilemmas. It keeps the United States anchored to the continent, curbs nuclear proliferation, and suppresses nationalist and imperialist impulses among European powers. It curbs populism on both sides of the Atlantic through fairer defense spending and provides security to European states that, for historical reasons, cannot trust their fellow European powers. But this still forces Western Europe to do more to defend the continent than the region is doing now. The simple fact is that France, Germany and other Western European nations will never seriously invest in their militaries until they can no longer ride for free on the protection of the United States. They need Washington to partially back down before they can better coordinate with Central and Eastern Europe.

Europeans will certainly be unhappy with the partial reduction in US spending. But in the long run, a dormant NATO will benefit all its members. If Europe better shared the burden of logistics, armor, intelligence, and infantry, the United States would be better able to guarantee European peace and unity with its overwhelming nuclear and naval power. And NATO will finally become closed, minimalist and defensive, as its founders originally intended.

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