A Russian drone lost in the Romanian sky, and NATO finds itself suddenly reminded of its primary vocation: to protect its members against external aggression. After Poland, it is therefore Romania’s turn to suffer intimidation from the master of the Kremlin and the incident is anything but trivial. It illustrates Moscow’s proven strategy: provoke and play with limits to test the solidity of the Western umbrella. The affair could remain an epiphenomenon, but it highlights a more global question: after all, is NATO still credible in the eyes of the world?
We often forget that NATO, in 1949, had two clear objectives: to contain Soviet expansion and to keep Germany under American supervision. The words of the first secretary of the alliance, Lord Ismay, summed up this mission perfectly: “Keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. But today, the USSR no longer exists, Germany no longer has an imperialist vocation, and the United States is tired of being the policeman of the globe. NATO’s primary objectives are therefore falling into disuse as the world changes.
Today, several elements illustrate the limits of the alliance. Starting with NATO’s dependence on Washington. The United States, when counting direct contributions and indirect military spending, represents the bulk of the alliance’s military investment. No European country has an equivalent capacity. The war in Ukraine, paradoxically, demonstrated this: without American weaponry, intelligence and logistics, the Ukrainian army would not have held out. Europe saw its ammunition stocks empty in a few months. This dependence is a major strategic fragility: what would remain of NATO if tomorrow Donald Trump decided to completely abandon allies deemed too cautious to finance their own defense? The security of Europe should not rest on the mood of the tenant of the White House.
What would remain of NATO if tomorrow Donald Trump decided to completely abandon his allies?
Second limit: internal divisions. NATO, supposed to be a united political and military alliance, sometimes resembles a Spanish inn more than a homogeneous and united collective. Like Turkey, a historic member, which today plays the sniper: purchase of Russian defense systems, ambiguous posture towards Moscow, maneuvers in Syria contrary to the interests of the other allies… On the strategy to adopt against Putin, here too, the alliance lacks coherence. While some Central European countries see NATO as an instrument of escalation against Moscow, others fear precisely the opposite effect. This cacophony weakens the Alliance and reinforces the idea put forward by Emmanuel Macron: NATO suffers from a state of “brain death”for lack of real inspiration in the face of the challenges of the world.
Third criticism, perhaps the most worrying: the illusion of virtue. NATO readily presents itself as a defensive shield. But, in the eyes of Russia, the successive enlargements towards the East had the appearance of aggressive expansion. Without giving in to Moscow’s discourse, we must recognize that this strategy has fueled the Kremlin’s paranoia and contributed to the tragic spiral that we are experiencing in Ukraine. The Alliance has sometimes played arsonist fireman. By multiplying its promises of enlargement, it has fanned the fire that it intended to calm.
Tearing NATO out of its torpor
Should we therefore bury NATO? Not necessarily. But he must be roused from his torpor. The alliance can no longer be a machine exclusively turned against Moscow, at the risk of missing the essential: global security. This requires fully integrating new battlefields – cybersecurity, space intelligence, protection of critical infrastructure – as much as conventional defense. Next, we must put an end to the permanent ambiguity on enlargement. Either we assume a frank opening to Ukraine and Georgia, or we close the door; but this “neither yes nor no” exposes everyone to the worst.
Above all, we must rebalance the transatlantic relationship. Europe must constitute an autonomous pillar within NATO, capable of acting even if Washington fails. This rebalancing requires larger military budgets, an integrated European defense industry, and political coordination between nation states and without the technocrats of Brussels. From this point of view, France has a decisive role to play. With its experienced army, its nuclear deterrent and its diplomatic tradition, it can be the locomotive of a credible European defense. On condition of convincing its partners that the autonomy of the old continent represents the condition of our collective survival.
France has never stopped thinking about European security outside the paths marked out by Washington. De Gaulle, in his time, had already chosen to leave the integrated command to better defend national independence. Today, it is no longer necessarily a question of slamming the door, but of weighing on the alliance. NATO must become the tool of a sovereign Europe and France, working with America but capable of defending itself without it.
