It took NATO seven years to formulate a holistic and comprehensive response to the annexation of Crimea by Russia. The new military planning now defines how the Alliance will react to attacks by the Kremlin, be it with tanks or with hackers. A few strategy documents are not enough to refocus an alliance that had already focused on operations outside its own territory during the Balkan wars, and especially with the Afghanistan mission, towards a collective defense of the alliance’s territory. This requires different equipment, different operational plans, and a different organizational structure.
But no sooner has the alliance clarified at the meeting of defense ministers in Brussels how it intends to counter the increasingly aggressive Russia in the future than it has to address two other pressing questions about its future direction. A new basic document, the strategic concept, is to be adopted as early as next summer. In it, the allies must define the relationship between the North Atlantic Alliance and China. And at the same time clarify how much autonomy and independence from the USA the European allies will claim for themselves in the future.
The alliance would do well not to put China on a par with Russia
NATO did not position itself for the first time on the emerging great power China until December 2019 – rather late. Now the Europeans fear whether they will be drawn into a confrontation between Beijing and Washington if President Joe Biden promises to defend Taiwan, even if Biden’s Defense Minister Lloyd Austin tried in Brussels to tone down his boss’s remarks. Like the EU, NATO cannot avoid reacting to the challenges posed by China.
It would do well not to put China on a par with Russia, which will continue to pose a military threat of a completely different dimension to the alliance and its European members for a long time to come. However, it cannot pretend that cyber capabilities or the armament of China in terms of strategic nuclear weapons do not shift the global balance and also threaten Europe. As a political alliance of democracies, it cannot watch Beijing systematically undermine the international order and transform it according to its taste.
Quite a few Europeans fear that the US focus on China will ultimately mean that their interests will become less important in Washington. This also feeds the call for more independence and independence from the USA, which is being heard above all from France. The main barriers to the Europeans’ ability to act, however, are the lack of their own military capabilities. That’s why they had to get out of Kabul with the Americans, and that’s why the French-led operation in the Sahel is not possible without the USA.
Neither NATO nor the US will have anything against the Europeans actually taking on more responsibility for their own security and arming themselves for it – as long as new capabilities are also available to the alliance. For the Americans, this would give them more room for maneuver vis-à-vis China. But nobody in Europe can or wants to do without the protection of the greatest allies – especially not those states that see themselves threatened by Russia.