NATO: "Europe are walking a tightrope"

Well before the start-up of NATO’s signature arctic exercise Cold Response, organisers learned that the United States would pull its F-35 fighter jets. This was to support what has now blossomed into a war with Iran.

The US is still sending nearly 4,000 soldiers to the exercise, but whether this is simply inertia or a true commitment remains unclear, says Jennifer Bailey. She is a professor at NTNU’s Department of Sociology and Political Science.

“The US under Trump has signalled that it doesn’t view NATO as anything particularly important in itself – that is, as an alliance of democratic states pursuing a common good. Instead, Trump has taken an instrumental view of the alliance. He suggests that the US pays for European defence while getting little in return,” she says.

Without the F-35 fighter jets, the exercise will continue as planned with the remaining forces, according to an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Espen Solemdal in Fremover, a Narvik-based newspaper. 

Nevertheless, the American withdrawal has consequences for the exercise, in that it will make for less realistic training for air defence, he says.

At the same time, the exercise illustrates the dilemma that European countries continue to grapple with when it come to NATO, Bailey says.

“It does raise questions about what role NATO plays in the world now. If Trump takes a narrow ‘America first’ position, where does that leave Europe? Trump does not seem to recognise the contributions of its European allies or Europe as integral to the US defence perimeter,” she says.

Changed attitude towards Russia

One of the big questions regarding the Trump administration and the Arctic is America’s changed attitude towards Russia.

“Russia is clearly a competitor, but no longer an evil fiend. In addition, the Trump administration’s new national security strategy presents a sphere of influence view of the world, where the US will – or should – have dominion over the western hemisphere, but Russia might well have its own sphere of influence elsewhere, such as in Eastern Europe,” says Bailey.

This creates concern in Europe. The reason is that Europeans now see Russia as a clear and immediate threat to all of Europe.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has tried to reinforce the importance of Norway and NATO to the security of the United States in direct talks with Trump and in international forums.

At the Arctic Frontiers conference in Tromsø in February, Støre described a meeting with Trump in April last year.

“I said that; ‘Mr. President, 100 kilometres from my border is the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, the submarines – the strategic capacity of Russia. And it is not directed against me, but probably against you’. We are ‘the eyes and ears of NATO’ in the north. We work together with the US on this. It matters for US homeland security,” Støre told the gathering.

Bailey isn’t certain that reality will affect Trump’s attitudes, however.

“Russia has become just another country that the US can deal with, while European allies are seen as weak free-riders who fail to see that the greatest threat to them lies in their own inability to protect their own civilisation,” she says.

“Trump’s view of security seems to be very simplistic: establish direct control of strategic areas and resources in the Western Hemisphere, including the Arctic,” she adds.

Greenland won’t go away

Even though the United States is now fully occupied with the Middle East, Bailey does not believe Trump will give up his desire for Greenland.

“I think the idea that the US should have Greenland is very central to Trump’s thinking and that this idea has not gone away. Whether the Trump administration is truly ready to sacrifice NATO to this is not clear,” she says.

The war with Iran could underscore how important European allies are for the United States.

“European bases were no doubt important for staging the attacks on Iran, and some European powers have bases in the Middle East and elsewhere. Trump would probably like to continue having access to those bases,” she says.

Although many have pointed out that the US already has a long-standing agreement with Denmark that allows it to increase its military presence on Greenland, Trump himself has repeatedly said that he feels the US should own the island.

“The need for direct control over Greenland suggests a belief that the US can only really count on itself. It has a definite ideational side,” she says.

Could NATO countries get dragged into the Iran war?

On March 4, NATO defences shot down a ballistic missile launched from Iran. It was headed towards Turkish airspace. The Iranian government denies that the missile was aimed at Turkey. At the same time. Turkey has said it will not allow its airspace to be used for attacks on Iran.

But the reality is that “the US has dragged the Europeans into a situation in which they don’t want to be involved, even though many will welcome the end of the oppressive Iranian regime,” Bailey says.

The situation is complicated by the fact that Trump did not inform or consult NATO allies before launching missiles into Iran.

“You shouldn’t really treat your allies that way,” she says.

Europe's problem

So can NATO nations refuse to help if the US asks?

“Technically, yes,” Bailey says. “The US has not called for application of NATO’s Article 5, by which NATO allies are pledged to help each other in the event of an attack.”

However, as recently reported in The New York Times, NATO allies such as France, the UK, Italy, and Germany are all “walking a tightrope” as they try to avoid being dragged into the war.

“In practice, however, the new attitude in Washington means that a refusal of a clear request for help would be risky. Europe is highly dependent on the US for its defence and European militaries are deeply integrated with the US military – as the Cold Response exercise clearly demonstrates,” says Bailey.

“The nasty truth here is that the European members of NATO spent almost 80 years relying on the US, so they can’t simply stop doing that now,” she says.

Another problem is that the United States is a major arms supplier to Europe.

“Europeans might not like the Trump administration, but they are in a difficult situation. Europe is not able to replace the services that the US provides – including but not limited to certain weapon systems. It will take years for the Europeans to build up militarily to the point that it could operate substantially independently of the US,” the researcher says.

NATO’s changing role

NATO was formed in 1949 largely as a response to the Soviet Union and threats to democratically elected governments in Europe.

However, the alliance’s official history emphasises that its creation also had other purposes: to deter Soviet expansion, prevent the re-emergence of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence, and encourage European political integration.

NATO has evolved over the decades, but the charged political landscape in the United States right now poses an unprecedented dilemma, according to Bailey.

“NATO was once an alliance of democratic states with the mission of deterring the threat of Soviet-type totalitarianism. The end of the Cold War left the alliance in search of a mission. Should it continue? Should it expand the concept of security to include new threats such as human security and environmental issues? Should NATO forces serve to enforce international law around the world?” she asks.

The 2001 9/11 attacks on the US, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan turned out to be a turning point. NATO allies invoked Article 5 for the first time ever and sent troops far from home to support the US.

But it also marked the beginning of a gradual distancing between the United States and Europe, when the US embarked on the global war on terror and then launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The potential for a rules-based international order began to recede as the US acted more unilaterally and power politics began to reassert itself, she says.

Now, Trump sees NATO as “a bunch of countries dependent on us, that damn well better do what the US tells them to do,” says Bailey.

She also believes that Trump’s continued push to expand presidential power, combined with threats against the integrity of the upcoming US midterm elections, threatens the US liberal democracy at home.

“This authoritarian turn in the US is not just in sharp contrast to the foundational goals of NATO, it leaves NATO allies shackled to a US that is actively reaching out to authoritarian forces in Europe,” she says.

“The United States may well cease to be a democratic country under the Trump administration. That means that the whole idea that NATO has banded together defend democracy becomes a big problem,” she says.

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