Showing posts with label Jens Stoltenberg. Show all posts

Friday, November 8, 2019

ANALYSIS: Emmanuel Macron’s dismissal of NATO

by Elodie Bagnol and Biodun Iginla, The Economist Intelligence Unit News Analysts

Transatlantic ructions
Allies aghast at Emmanuel Macron’s dismissal of NATO

Even French security experts worry about their president’s claim that the alliance is becoming brain-dead

FOR MONTHS, NATO officials have fretted that a summit of alliance leaders in London on December 3rd might be soured by an impolitic remark by Donald Trump. They didn’t count on Emmanuel Macron. In an interview with The Economist published on November 7th, the president of France declared that NATO was experiencing “brain death”. He cast doubt on Article Five, the alliance’s collective-defence clause, and said he was not sure whether America would show up to defend Europe in a crisis.

Mr Macron was saying no more than has been murmured in chancelleries and think-tanks for years, particularly since the election of Mr Trump, who has called NATO “obsolete” and chastised allies for failing to spend enough on defence. But Mr Macron’s willingness to say it out loud worries NATO.

On the same morning as Mr Macron’s bombshell landed, Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary-general, was giving a speech in Berlin. Though not intended as a riposte to the French president, it might as well have been. Mr Macron had boasted that the EU’s new defence schemes showed that “Europe has the capacity to defend itself”. Mr Stoltenberg welcomed those projects, but scoffed at the idea that they could substitute for America’s might, declaring: “The European Union cannot defend Europe.”

Mr Stoltenberg pointed out that once Britain left the bloc, 80% of NATO’s defence spending would come from non-EU allies. Germany would be left as the only EU member leading one of the alliance's four forward-deployed battlegroups in eastern Europe (France has sporadically contributed a handful of troops to the British-led deployment in Estonia). “European unity”, he concluded, “cannot replace transatlantic unity”.

Many countries in NATO agree. Eastern European allies are particularly suspicious about anything that might push America away—or worse, give Russia a whiff of Western weakness. Slawomir Debski, director of the Polish Institute of International Affairs, a think-tank close to the government, says that Mr Macron’s ambition for European defence “is seen in Warsaw as a dangerous mirage”. That view is widespread east of the Oder river. “Macron sees this as a last ditch effort by the EU to be a player in 21st-century geopolitics,” says Jamie Shea, who until last year was deputy assistant secretary-general at NATO. “But the idea of strategic autonomy has not yet taken off.”

Others share Mr Macron’s doubts, but believe that for a leader to express them publicly amounts to diplomatic malpractice. Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor—who herself called on Europe to “take its destiny in its own hands” in 2017 and last year called for “a real, true European army”—admonished Mr Macron for his “drastic words” and “sweeping blow”. She insisted that NATO remained a cornerstone of German security.

Even many French observers sympathetic to Mr Macron have been taken aback. “NATO’s power rests not on tanks or bombs but on the notion that when crisis comes it will act as one. Raising doubt on Article Five is by itself pronouncing it dead,” says Fabrice Pothier, a former head of policy planning for Mr Stoltenberg, and a member of Mr Macron’s political party, La République en Marche. François Heisbourg, a former French defence official who advised Mr Macron’s presidential campaign on national security, says the remarks are “very disturbing”.

The kindest interpretation of Mr Macron’s comments is that, ahead of the NATO summit, he is seeking to deliver a “double wake-up call to both the US and to Europe”, as Mr Shea puts it: telling America to recommit itself to Europe’s defence and Europe to take its own security seriously. The danger is that it will merely push the two sides apart, and strengthen Mr Trump’s belief in “America first”. That could make for a rocky summit.

Dig Deeper

Cover leader (November 7th): “A continent in peril”
Briefing (November 7th): A president on a missionTranscript: Emmanuel Macron in his own words
The Intelligence podcast: “He talked about Europe in almost apocalyptic terms”— Macron's interview

Reuse this content The Trust Project

Thursday, November 7, 2019

ANALYSIS AND BREAKING: Nato alliance experiencing brain death, says Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron at a Nato summit in Belgium, 2018

by Natalie de Vallieres and Biodun Iginla, BBC News Analysts, Paris

President Emmanuel Macron of France has described Nato as "brain dead", stressing what he sees as waning commitment to the transatlantic alliance by its main guarantor, the US.

Interviewed by the Economist, he cited the US failure to consult Nato before pulling forces out of northern Syria.

He also questioned whether Nato was still committed to collective defence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a key ally, said she disagreed with Mr Macron's "drastic words".

Nato, which celebrates 70 years since its founding at a London summit next month, has responded by saying the alliance remains strong.

What else did the French president say?

"What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato," Mr Macron told the London-based newspaper.

He warned European members that they could no longer rely on the US to defend the alliance, established at the start of the Cold War to bolster Western European and US security.

Article Five of Nato's founding charter stipulates that an attack on one member will produce a collective response from the alliance.

But Mr Macron appeared unsure whether it was still valid when asked. "I don't know," he said.

The alliance, Mr Macron is quoted as saying, "only works if the guarantor of last resort functions as such. I'd argue that we should reassess the reality of what Nato is in the light of the commitment of the United States".

The French leader urged Europe to start thinking of itself as a "geopolitical power" to ensure it remained "in control" of its destiny.

Why the doubts over Nato?

President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull most US forces out of north-eastern Syria in October took European Nato members by surprise.

Media captionA Nato military exercise in 2018 - the biggest since Cold War

The move opened the way for Turkey - itself a powerful Nato member - to push into Syria and create what it termed a security zone along its border. Kurdish forces, who had been helping the US fight the Islamic State (IS) group, were expelled from the area.

Mr Macron at the time criticised Nato's failure to respond to the Turkish offensive.

Mr Trump has frequently accused European Nato members of failing to provide their fair share of military spending and for relying too heavily on the US for their defence.

For his part, Mr Macron has already been at the forefront of moves to boost defence co-operation among European countries. However, the European Union's other main military power, the UK, emphasises the importance of Nato to European defence.

What reaction has there been?

Mrs Merkel was speaking in Berlin alongside the visiting Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

Mr Macron "used drastic words - that is not my view of co-operation in Nato," she said.

Mrs Merkel acknowledged there were problems, but said she did not think "such sweeping judgements are necessary".

"Nato remains a cornerstone of our security," she added.

Mr Stoltenberg said the alliance remained strong.

"European allies are stepping up, investing more in defence.

"The US is increasing investments in Europe with more troops, more exercises. The reality is that we do work together. We have strengthened our collective defence. Any attempt to distance us from North America risks not only weakening the alliance, the transatlantic bond, but also weakening Europe."

No longer fit for purpose?

Analysis box by Jonathan Marcus, defence correspondent

With only weeks before the Nato summit, President Macron's comments suggest it might not be an entirely harmonious celebration.

One key fault line has been opened up by President Trump who frequently denigrates his Nato allies. He described many of them recently as "delinquent" for not spending sufficiently on their own defence.

Mr Macron said America was turning its back on Europe. The absence of co-ordination on strategic decision-making between the US and its Nato allies was exemplified by recent unilateral US and Turkish decisions in Syria.

Turkey's actions in particular, he said, raised all sorts of questions about the fundamental security guarantees that Nato gives to all its members. What would happen, he asked, if the Syrian government attacked Turkey due to its incursion into Syria?

With more members than ever and facing much more complex security challenges, Nato seems in Mr Macron's view to no longer be fit for purpose.

This is about much more than one US president. Nato must defend against multiple threats which different countries perceive in different ways. And a number of allies seem less and less keen to espouse the liberal democratic values that lie at Nato's core.

How did Nato come about?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was created in 1949 to counter the threat from the Soviet Union as the Communist country sought to expand its power in Europe.

The Soviet Union, an ally in World War Two against Nazi Germany, became an adversary of the West during the Cold War.

It set up its own Warsaw Pact military alliance, including the then Communist countries of eastern Europe, in 1955.

That alliance was dissolved after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and former Warsaw Pact countries, though not Russia, became Nato members in the years following.

Originally set up to promote "stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area", Nato was faced with finding a new purpose after the demise of the Soviet Union.

From the mid-1990s, Nato forces were deployed on missions in the former Yugoslavia, launching air strikes to push Serbia out of Kosovo, and in Afghanistan, where the alliance took control of peacekeeping operations.

But as Nato has expanded, it has struggled to overcome Russian concerns that the alliance poses a threat on its borders.