Birthday celebration or last supper? As Nato leaders gather in Washington to mark the 75th anniversary of the world’s most durable military alliance, they face a daunting array of challenges from both outside and within that could make the coming decade its hardest yet.
Chief among them is whether President Biden, perhaps the alliance’s most strident advocate in Washington, will remain in the race for the White House and whether the election will herald the return of the arch Nato-sceptic Donald Trump.
In Europe, backing for Nato support for Ukraine is being rocked by the cosying up of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, to China and Russia, both of which he visited immediately before boarding a flight to Washington.
The decision of President Macron to call a snap election has destabilised French politics and handed new influence to Kremlin-friendly figures on both left and right in the forms of Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine le Pen.
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The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is languishing in the polls, and last week President Erdogan of Turkey, while on a trip to Kazakhstan, mused that he would quite like to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Chinese and Russian-led security forum, even as Beijing wades deeper into Nato’s backyard — holding military exercises with Belarus right on Poland’s border, the first such joint manoeuvres between the two.
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The most immediate task for the Nato summit will be to solidify the next phase of its support for Ukraine, a process that some in the Biden administration see as “Trump-proofing” Washington’s backing for Kyiv. At last year’s summit in Vilnius, President Zelensky expressed grave disappointment that the alliance did not outline a timetable for Ukraine’s admission.
This year Nato is expected to describe its path to membership as “irreversible”, an acknowledgement of the difficulty of admitting Ukraine while the war is still continuing, thus binding the alliance to its active defence under Article 5, while signalling to President Putin that he cannot hope to block its accession simply by prolonging the war. Both the US and Germany strongly oppose admission while hostilities continue.
The summit will also endorse a plan for Nato to take over coordination of military aid for Ukraine from the Pentagon, which now accounts for only 40 per cent of the total compared to 60 per cent from Europe. It is hoped that the new Nato command will ensure the long-term supply of arms, ammunition and defences to Ukraine even if Trump pulls back.
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With all eyes on Biden’s disastrous debate performance last month, throwing his candidacy into jeopardy, little attention was paid to Trump’s renewed threat to not defend Nato allies who do not increase defence spending. More than 20 Nato members have now reached the goal of spending two per cent of their GDP on defence, a development Trump takes credit for but which has at least as much to do with the shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Preparing for his last summit as Nato secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg issued a warning of what must be done if the alliance was to reach another milestone birthday. “Nato has never been, and is not, and will never be a given,” he warned. “We have done so successfully for 75 years, I’m confident that we can do so also in the future. But it’s about political leadership, it’s about political commitment.”
Not only Moscow but also Beijing will be watching closely to see if the alliance’s resolve remains firm. “The war in Ukraine demonstrates how closely aligned Russia and China and North Korea and Iran are,” Stoltenberg said. “China is the main enabler of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. They all want Nato, the United States, to fail in Ukraine and if Putin wins in Ukraine it will not only embolden President Putin, it also would embolden President Xi.”
