Trump isn’t NATO’s Only Problem

During the last NATO Summit in Brussels in July, the first since the onset of the Trump presidency, observers were carefully watching in anticipation of any indicators about the state of commitment by the US to the alliance. Trump’s antics, such as the insults he levelled at Germany, the impudent demands he made, and the thinly-veiled threat he issued unsurprisingly dominated media coverage. This served as a reminder that the alliance and its members need to work vigorously to safeguard US commitment given that this president’s preoccupation with prodding allies into increasing military spending, though echoed by previous administrations, is much more forceful and borders on the nakedly belligerent. To make matters worse, a skeptical view of alliances that sees them through a transactional prism and portrays them as burdens seems to be a consistent view that President Trump has held for years. This further demonstrates that the risk of a declining US commitment to the alliance is real. But a shaky commitment by a US president is hardly the only source of problems for today’s NATO.

Since the end of the Cold War, the alliance has advanced a two-pronged vision of its raison d’être. These are its conception of itself as a political community of like-minded liberal democratic states and its engagement in out of area collective security operations. What’s more, the peace dividend that the end of the Cold War yielded seems to be dwindling. Tensions between the West and Russia, though not at Cold War levels, are nonetheless significant enough to provoke apprehension among countries on its eastern flank. Moreover, Southern European countries face large scale migration issues. These consequential changes are occurring simultaneously with a decline in unity among the member states of the alliance and a liberal democratic recession that has been plaguing established democracies in Western Europe where far-right parties have made significant gains.

In Germany, for example, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) has siphoned off votes from both the centre-left Social Democrats and the centre-right Christian Democrats, thus eroding the liberal democratic consensus. That a similar trend has taken hold in France has become apparent after the presidential elections of last year. Despite eventually losing, the Front National under the leadership of Marine Le Pen garnered a much wider share of the electorate than it did under the leadership of her father who lost to Jacque Chirac in 2002. A third example is that of Brexit. Despite well-known British skepticism about being part of the EU which predates the vote, there were many in the Conservative Party leadership, including former Prime Minister David Cameron, who supported remaining. In the end, the result of the referendum was seen as a win for the far right. A fourth example is Sweden where the far right Swedish Democrats managed to gain a share of the vote sizeable enough for it to throw a wrench into the political system and render it deadlocked. Despite not being a NATO member, the country’s succumbing to the forces of right-wing populism is further indication of the spread of this malaise within the North Atlantic community.

The best cases that demonstrate the decline in unity among members of the alliance are Hungary and Turkey. At a time when many countries within the alliance such as those in the Baltic and Poland are demanding that the alliance present a united front in the face of Russian encroachment, the two countries have pursued policies that are antithetical to such an objective. Hungary, under the leadership of Orban, has significantly rolled back the democratic reforms it undertook earlier as the state of civil rights there now resembles that of Russia’s. This is coupled with increases in investment ties between the two countries. This cozy relationship has impacted Hungary’s foreign policy making it more pro-Russian. Orban criticized the West for imposing sanctions on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, and multiple reports indicate that Russian intelligence agencies have infiltrated Hungary and may be using the country as an “an intel[ligence] forward operating base in NATO and the EU” according to a former US embassy official.

Turkey is another country that has recently experienced changes that have made it increasingly difficult for it to remain a NATO country in good standing with the rest of the allies. Long held as a model, albeit flawed, democratic country with a Muslim majority, the country’s democratic slide has accelerated after the failed attempted coup two years ago. This has been accompanied by a foreign policy shift that has been detrimental to the continued viability of the country’s membership in the alliance. The most notable example of this is the purchase of the S-400 air defence system from Russia which poses problems for interoperability with allied militaries. Another is the souring of relations between the United States and Turkey over the former’s support of Kurds engaged in the fight against ISIL and suspicions of the latter being involved in abetting the arrival of Jihadi fighters through its territory.

In any case, notwithstanding Trump’s shenanigans, the latest summit had some success in terms of presenting a united front that communicates to member and non-member states that the alliance retains its strength and cohesiveness, as it served to “reinforce priorities and identify some, though not all, of [the alliance’s] challenges.” Ultimately, it is the ability of liberal democracy to survive the current unusual political storm brewing through the North Atlantic community’s core and periphery that holds the key to the alliance’s survival.