NATO's North-South Divide
- Karl Johansson
- 31 mars
- 3 min läsning
Uppdaterat: 6 apr.
Now should be the time for unity in NATO, and yet northern and southern Europe are on completely different pages as the US is pulling back.
NATO is under more pressure than ever. Not from the Russians, but from its internal contradictions. While top US politicians are caught up in a scandal where their blatant contempt for Europe and Europeans was leaked by adding a journalist to a group chat, the European members of NATO are struggling to get their armies up to task. Spain and Italy are reportedly fudging numbers to hit spending targets while Poland and the Baltic states are preparing to leave arms control treaties. It is obvious that NATO members are not on the same page regarding how dangerous Russia really is; ostensibly the reason for being in NATO.
As I’ve detailed at length on the blog, I don’t think NATO can work as it is currently structured. Distrusts will bloom when there are members who seem completely disinterested in the Russian thereat while others are trying to rearm post haste. According to a poll by DN/Ipsos only 35% of Swedes believe “USA would probably support Sweden militarily” in case of a Russian armed attack against Sweden. I expect the faith in the alliance's capstone, article five, is declining similarly rapidly across the continent.
The only real way for the alliance to survive is to make painful and drastic moves. I’ve argued before on the blog that if we assume tabula rasa and try to create a new anti-Russian defence alliance in the 2020’s many of the current NATO members would not make the cut. Spain and Italy clearly does not fear Russia, and thus it will be in their interest to freeride on the members closer to Moscow. Freeriding undermines the sense of camaraderie and unity of purpose a strong alliance needs, so if you want to save NATO then the Trump administration’s policy of trying to tamp down on members who don’t pull their weight is a good one. But it would be better to just exclude member states which cannot or will not contribute.
For the US, the cure might be worse than the disease though. Expelling members of what American policy makers and think tank types love to call “the most successful alliance in history” is not a good look. The prestige loss of publicly admitting that it can’t get minnows like Portugal to meaningfully contribute to NATO would be crushing. This aversion to change is a structural issue for the alliance, and there are strong incentives to keep trotting out the empty phrase that the alliance is as strong as ever as admitting it isn’t working risks making you seem vulnerable. The inherent contradictions in NATO’s current form then gets to fester, and the whole edifice will collapse at some point. The reason it has not yet is, in my view, mostly down to the fact that the organisation employs a lot of people and that having a senior position at the NATO organisation is viewed by the media as prestigious.
As doubts about other member states’ commitments to the alliance start mounting, and the risk of an embarrassing collapse of NATO grows larger. I’m not saying this is happening next week, but the fact that NATO has not been able to reform into an effective alliance means that it is currently on the path towards obsolescence. As states realise this they will take actions to secure themselves independently of the alliance which will further rot the foundation of NATO. The US’ and Southern Europe’s actions are good examples. Putting pressure on Europe is a way for the US to get more room for manoeuvre geopolitically, and responding by using accounting tricks not to have to pay for protecting against a state they don’t find threatening are both logical actions which have the unintended effect of undermining NATO.
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I've always been interested in politics, economics, and the interplay between. The blog is a place for me to explore different ideas and concepts relating to economics or politics, be that national or international. The goal for the blog is to make you think; to provide new perspectives.
Written by Karl Johansson
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Cover photo by Mihis Alex from Pexels, edited by Karl Johansson
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