Insight
Europe’s NATO balancing act by Sophia Besch 22 May 2017
This week in Brussels, Europe’s leaders must not only convince President Donald Trump of NATO’s value, but also push for Europe’s NATO priorities. The NATO summit this week will be short, yet the stakes are high. Over the last year Trump has been highly erratic and unpredictable in his approach to NATO. He called it obsolete on the campaign trail and “no longer obsolete” shortly after taking office, only to threaten a week before the summit to withdraw from the alliance altogether, if allies did not step up their defence efforts. At the summit, Europeans will try to contain Trump, keep statements and meetings short, impress him with a new (if much delayed) headquarters, and scramble to present their defence spending and counter-terrorism achievements – the two topics Trump cares about most. The importance of preventing Trump from making any more destructive comments cannot be overstated. If European or Russian leaders doubt American commitment to NATO’s Article 5 mutual defence guarantee, then the credibility of the alliance, which is dependent on US commitment to defend the other members, will be damaged. But even if Trump does not say or tweet anything in Brussels that actively undermines NATO, the absence of American leadership is a loss to the alliance. Rather than just waiting for Trump to tell them what to do, European allies should work to create a distinctive European approach to the security challenges the alliance faces, and thus give meaning to the idea of a ‘European pillar’ in NATO. They should pay particular attention to improving NATO-EU co-operation. Trump is right that many European allies need to increase their defence spending. In 2016, the United States accounted for 46 per cent of the alliance’s combined GDP and 68 per cent of NATO’s combined defence expenditure. Only three NATO countries – the United States, Britain and Poland – met NATO’s targets of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence and 20 per cent of their annual defence expenditure on major new equipment. At the summit in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg will be eager
CER INSIGHT: EUROPE’S NATO BALANCING ACT 24 May 2017
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