National Interest: What is NATO’s real problem?

US power is exhausted, and the future of NATO and Europe itself depends on the European continent’s ability to adapt, according to an article by Ramon Marks at the National Interest newspaper.

In the wake of NATO’s 75th anniversary, the alliance appears threatened by growing American isolationism.

Critics say former President Trump might withdraw the United States from NATO if he is re-elected.

Controversy in Congress has delayed $60 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine.

Trump said he would encourage the Russians to do whatever they want to allies who fail to meet their defense spending pledge of 2% of GDP.

The European Union, made up mainly of NATO allies, is the world’s largest trading bloc.

However, the United States remained the military backbone of NATO, despite the massive accumulation of European wealth and resources since World War II.

Europe’s dependence on the US military has increased further since the end of the Cold War in 1989.

The Allies accordingly reduced their defense budgets in the following years, diverting that money to finance social programs, the so-called peace dividends.

Over two decades, Europe gave up 35% of its military capabilities.

On the other hand, the Allies remained optimistic that the United States would continue to provide the greatest protection for Europe’s democracies, an assumption that turned out to be accurate.

So far at least, US defense budgets have been consistently higher in terms of percentages of GDP than most European allies since the collapse of the Soviet bloc.

As a result, when conflicts broke out in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, the United States had to assume military command of NATO.

Western European armies weren’t up to the task, even in the face of enemies far less powerful than the former Soviet Union.

Even to lead a NATO military coalition, American diplomats had to first wrestle with the reservations of European allies who were reluctant to use any armed force to wage a conflict in the heart of Europe without first obtaining a UN Security Council resolution authorizing NATO for military action.

In 1992, EU members agreed under the Maastricht Treaty to establish a common foreign and security policy to frame a common defense policy, leading to a common defense.

In 1999, the member states of the European Council issued a declaration calling for a common and independent European policy on security and defense outside NATO.

Javier Solán became the first High Representative of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.

To their credit, European allies rose to the occasion after 9/11, invoking NATO Article V and supplying AWAC aircrews to operate along the US Atlantic coast in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

But the allies were cautious when it came to fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and refrained from engaging in offensive action against the Taliban alongside the United States.

With Brussels creating a new defense cooperation structure under the EU flag, Washington hoped that these initiatives would help accelerate the achievement of greater European self-sufficiency in defense, however, this didn’t happen.

Since 2023, the majority of Allies have still not met NATO’s agreed target of spending at least 2% of real GDP on defense.

While it’s likely that more countries will reach this target in 2024, the reality is that most of these countries will be from Eastern Europe and former members of the Warsaw Bloc, not Germany, Spain or Italy, for example.

Europe is finally beginning to realize that Washington has limited resources, while facing increasing military demands around the world, including China, Taiwan, the Philippines, Korea, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Syria, and the Red Sea.

A Biden administration official was quoted as saying that the United States had reached its limit.

Even without Trump, the United States can no longer realistically be expected to play an important future role in Europe as it has done over the past 70 years.

The issue today is how NATO, having accepted this changing reality, must adapt to the future.

The other key step, demonstrated by Ukraine, is that Europe must urgently build its own army.

Even 2% of the GDP budget requirement will not be enough to achieve this goal, as American power is exhausted, and the future of NATO and Europe itself depends on the continent’s ability to adapt.