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“U.S. President Joe Biden pledged to forcefully defend Ukraine against Russia's invasion at the NATO summit in Washington on Tuesday… The U.S. president has made restoring traditional alliances abroad the centerpiece of his foreign policy after Trump challenged allies as part of an ‘America First’ approach. The election winner in November could have a substantial impact on the future of NATO, Europe and the rest of the world.” Reuters
Many on both sides call on Europe to play a larger role in NATO’s defense:
“Today, more than half of all NATO members are spending either less than or just barely more than the alliance’s 2%-of-GDP target. All members pledged to move to this target in 2014. That was 10 years ago. That this is the situation more than two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underpins NATO’s challenge with freeloading…
“Nine NATO members will spend less than 2% of GDP on defense in 2024… Canada will spend just 1.37% of GDP on defense this year… Or how about Spain? Madrid was allowed to host the 2022 NATO leaders summit but went from 1.24%-of-GDP defense spending in 2023 to only 1.28% of GDP in 2024. Then there’s Belgium, which will spend just 1.30% of GDP in 2024 but continues to have the honor of hosting NATO headquarters.”
Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner
“Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme allied commander Europe, felt strongly that his mission was to get Europeans ‘back on their military feet’ — not for American troops to become the permanent bodyguard for Brussels and Berlin. ‘If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States,’ he wrote of NATO in 1951, ‘then this whole project will have failed.’…
“[Today] some 90,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Germany, Italy, Britain and elsewhere… It is now becoming increasingly clear that Europeans need to shoulder more responsibility for their own defense. That’s not just because Donald Trump and an isolationist wing of the Republican Party complain bitterly about having to defend wealthy countries…
“It’s also because U.S. officials are becoming more focused on the challenges posed by China, which will require an increasing amount of attention and resources in the years ahead, especially given the growing cooperation among China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The United States simply can’t do everything everywhere all at once, by itself. The future requires well-armed, capable allies. The indispensable nation has to be a bit less indispensable.”
Farah Stockman, New York Times
Other opinions below.
“With Trump’s possible return looming, the best way to ensure Ukraine’s long-term security is to give Ukraine more capability to actually defeat Russia. That means speeding up delivery of air-defense systems, fighter planes, longer-range rockets, and helping Ukraine develop its own defense production to reduce its dependence on the West. Biden should also use the NATO summit to explain to the American people why Ukraine’s success matters for U.S. national security interests.”
Josh Rogin, Washington Post
“Worries about the future of American leadership and the durability of the transatlantic alliance are such common NATO themes that they ought to be part of the organization’s mission statement. Europeans are always fretting about America’s reliability, just as Americans are always peeved that the Europeans aren’t pulling their weight in providing for the common defense… [Nevertheless] This week’s appalling Russian missile strike on a children’s hospital in Kyiv is a grim reminder of why NATO matters.”
David Ignatius, Washington Post
“We are closer than ever to fulfilling the pledge that alliance members made 10 years ago, after Russia’s illegitimate annexation of Crimea, to spend 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense. Twenty-three NATO members, out of 32, are expected to meet or exceed that target in 2024, compared with just nine in 2020, and five in 2016…
“[Moreover] Our Indo-Pacific allies have come to Ukraine’s aid, while our European allies are taking a more active role in the Indo-Pacific region. Britain is helping Australia build nuclear-powered submarines. European and Indo-Pacific allies are cooperating closely with the United States to protect sensitive technologies critical to national security from being used by China against us… We must continue to deepen our alliances and strengthen deterrence."
Jake Sullivan, New York Times
Some argue, “NATO doesn’t look prepared to bring Ukraine into the alliance, and there’s a good case to be made that bestowing membership status on Kyiv would be bad policy…
“Why would Putin consider a ceasefire or diplomatic settlement with Kyiv if he knew that NATO membership for Ukraine was just around the corner? Far from promoting a settlement, this idea could make the war’s termination virtually impossible for Putin, who explicitly called on Ukraine to drop its aspirations to join NATO as a core condition of any peace negotiation…
“The best Ukraine is likely to get from NATO is more air defense batteries and missiles, a stronger training program for its troops and a commitment to help Kyiv hold the line. Biden should tell Zelensky point-blank that NATO membership is a fool’s errand — and while he’s at it, he ought to apologize to all Ukrainians, for waiting so long to state the obvious.”
Daniel R. DePetris, CNN
“We cannot know if the war would have started had countries such as Germany, France, Spain, and Italy altered course after Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea and invested robustly in their defense. However, it’s clear that these countries’ failure to meet NATO’s defense-spending threshold emboldened Putin. The Russian leader looked west and did not see legitimate conventional deterrence from Europe’s largest nations…
“For decades, much of Europe had simply wished war away, ignoring the reality that peace is the aberration and conflict is, unfortunately, the norm. War, namely great-power war, can be deterred only through military strength and an emphasis on developing innovative tools and strategy… For there to be any lasting peace after the conflict in Eastern Europe, our allies, particularly those with the greatest economic potential, must value and invest in hard power.”
Pat Fallon, National Review
