The nervous new world of NATO | Washington Monthly

I recently returned from Europe, where I met with political leaders, diplomats, military and civil society leaders as part of a Council on Foreign Relations trip on NATO and the transatlantic alliance . The trip could not have been more timely. Ukraine is losing its valiant war against Russia, Europe is on the brink of despair, and Donald Trump’s inauguration is just weeks away.

Everywhere I went, there were deep concerns about what Trump’s unchecked second term would mean for Ukraine as an independent state, for NATO, and for the broader transatlantic relationship.

Trump blithely claims he can end the war between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. Transactional, he salivates to return from a Putin summit with an agreement, his favorite word. Instead of Peace with Honor, Richard Nixon’s 1973 bromide on Vietnam, it might end up being “Peace in Our Times,” Neville Chamberlain’s slogan after the 1938 Munich Accords which, far from ending the conflict in Europe, inaugurated the Second World War. a year later.

No one, of course, knows what Mar-a-Lago Metternich has in mind in terms of a deal, but we can guess that it means he will get Putin to agree to a ceasefire and that he will prod Zelensky to sign whatever the border. are that day. Good luck. Security and economic guarantees cannot be part of the package since Putin will never accept Ukraine joining NATO. And Trump, rightly, would never commit to bilateral US guarantees of Ukraine’s security.

After Munich, Winston Churchill said: “You had the choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor and you will have war. Will Putin’s next move concern Moldova and, at some point, whether he is convinced that Trump has neutralized NATO, or even Poland? The outlook is like that of the 1930s.

Allies conclude that a rushed deal is a breathing space, giving Russia time to regroup and attack Ukraine as Putin did in 2014 when he annexed Crimea and then waited eight years to invade Ukraine again. Barack Obama’s response and that of the West was so lax that Russia attempted to take over the entire country in 2022. If that wasn’t enough. Putin has violated numerous agreements with his neighbors. His words make no sense, and Zelensky knows it.

The same goes for the Finns, today numbering 5.6 million people, whose democracy is based on strong and compulsory military conscription. They went to war against Russia twice in the 20^th century before joining NATO in the 21^st.

Helsinki could send 900,000 highly qualified soldiers into the field. My meetings there made it clear that Finland is determined to make a significant contribution to NATO, well beyond the 2 percent guideline, as one of its two new members along with Sweden .

Finland considers itself threatened by Russia, not only because of Ukraine, but also because of its geopolitical position. I spoke with brave Finnish paratroopers at a military base near the Russian border. They are ready to react in the event of an attack.

Finland shares a heavily forested 833-mile border with Russia and harbors an age-old fear of Moscow. Russia attempted to annex Finland in the 19^th century and, as noted, Finland fought against the Soviets twice in the 20^th.

The Finns had maintained their national readiness long before joining NATO. That it, along with the Swedes, left decades of neutrality behind to join the alliance is a testament to the concern and determination triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO is valuable in all respects. Both countries now benefit from the protection of NATO’s security guarantee, and NATO now benefits from the overall strength and strategic position of its Nordic members.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Finland left conscription in place, maintained high defense spending relative to the NATO average, and continued to prepare a national civil defense against possible attack. from the East. His defense budget for 2024 was $5.8 billion, or 2.33% of GDP, but he promised to increase defense spending due to the “NATO rise.”

Finland considers itself an Arctic state, and rightly so. Armed with advanced icebreakers, the Finnish army is preparing to make the Arctic its new battlefield, knowing that the Chinese are taking advantage of the warming polar ice cap to establish new trade routes in the Arctic, and that Putin also designed on the frozen north.

This brings us to Poland, which, like Finland, emphasizes that it is meeting or exceeding its commitment to NATO. Warsaw spends more than 4 percent of its GDP, or $34.9 billion, on defense, while larger and wealthier France and Germany pay much less.

In Europe, Ukraine is not an abstraction as it may be for some in the United States. Trump’s picks — Marco Rubio for secretary of state and Mike Waltz for national security adviser — each voted in Congress against U.S. aid to Ukraine. For Europeans, the fate of Ukraine is at the heart of their daily lives. Poland has borne the brunt of the influx of Ukrainian refugees and has been, on the whole, quite welcoming. After the start of the war, a first wave of several million Ukrainians entered Poland. Today there are more than a million left. The others returned home or resettled elsewhere. The comment from a 12-year-old girl who had fled Ukraine was poignant. She explained that security meant having a place to sleep, knowing where your parents were and living under the auspices of NATO.

Rzeszów, with a population of 200,000, is the largest city in southeastern Poland and its origins date back to the Middle Ages. There was a large Jewish quarter near the village square, which the Nazis destroyed. It has now been rebuilt.

The city is about 90 km west of the Ukrainian border. Its airport is guarded by a phalanx of Patriot missiles controlled by the US military, as all military aid to Ukraine passes through Rzeszów.

Zelensky called Rzeszów a “saving city”. It has a modern medical evacuation unit to accommodate sick and injured Ukrainians arriving by land through one of the five border crossings.

War wounded wait in wire-mesh cabins to be transferred by air to hospitals in other countries.

Rzeszów has hosted more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, most of whom are productively employed, contribute to the economy and are widely accepted by the local community.

Poland is decidedly anti-Russian and pro-Ukraine. Assessments of Russia’s ability to endure have been contradictory. Some, like US Ambassador Mark Brzezinski (son of the late US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski) and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski (husband of author Anne Applebaum), now a candidate for the Polish presidency, are optimistic.

They estimate that Moscow’s war effort could run out of steam in about a year due to economic and labor market constraints.

Maybe. Other seasoned observers believe that time will not be on Ukraine’s side, endangering its ancient culture. War is now essentially a siege warfarebut whereas previously Russia advanced a few meters every day, now the number of meters is counted in hundreds. The Poles believe it is urgent to maintain the flow of aid to Ukraine. Sikorski launched an offline appeal for funds to purchase urgently needed trucks to be sent to the front at $10,000 per unit.

Everyone knows that Putin only understands force. His contempt for weakness is unprecedented. Only with a breakthrough on the Ukrainian battlefield will it be possible to hope for a diplomatic solution guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty.

China’s support for Russia complicates matters. Moscow counts 500,000 dead or injured during the incursion into Ukraine. Their mercenaries were supplemented by as many as 100,000 North Korean troops that Russia threw into the breach, and whose presence on a European battlefield has raised “grave concerns” among allies, from Germany to Japan via Australia. We know that Trump views China as a more important adversary than Russia. This is why Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, emphasized in her congratulatory call to Trump that continued support for Ukraine was necessary to push back the Xi-Putin axis, which now includes Iran .

The Ukrainians accept that they are unlikely to retake all the territory conquered by military force by Russia, not only since 2014 but even since February 2022 – particularly if Trump reduces or eliminates his military support, as seems likely . So their attention now turns to the question of whether a reduced Ukraine can be prosperous and secure as a smaller state and how to prevent Russia from launching another assault at a later date.

In their view, prosperity comes with a significant and accelerated process towards EU membership. We’ll see if it works this time.

The Europeans are showing ingenuity in adapting their message to Trump. Trump should not let Ukraine become “his Afghanistan.” After a Cold War that kept the Russians out of Western Europe from 1945 to 1991, Trump would not want to go down in history as the president who lost Europe to the Russians. We also heard the argument that a failed state in Ukraine would weaken Europe when the United States needed it to stand up to China. But will these calls work?

On the last leg of the trip, I visited NATO Headquarters in Brussels, located in a magnificent futuristic architectural structure.

But what would be the future of the 75-year-old alliance if the United States pulled out or simply sowed enough doubt about the centerpiece of Article V: An attack on one is an attack on all? We can’t know. If Trump makes a deal, will Zelensky and the Europeans accept it or meekly comply? NATO officials told me that Zelensky would fight to the “last brush” and that NATO and the Europeans would also continue to fight. Zelensky recently said that Russia’s war in Ukraine would end “faster” when Donald Trump takes over the presidency. Perhaps he was being diplomatic towards the US president who was impeached for pressing kyiv to sue Joe Biden.

With all this election-related uncertainty, it’s no wonder Secretary of State Blinken said he would put every aid dollar he has in Zelensky’s hands before the first of the year. And Biden, in a Parthian move, has just taken the plunge by authorizing Ukraine to use long-range American weapons for the first time to defend Ukrainian forces. The weapon systems, known as ATCMS, will be deployed to strike Russian and North Korean troops in the Kursk region of western Russia. It was time.

One thing we know, and I couldn’t help but feel it: a storm is brewing over Europe.

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