Reimagining NATO: Can Europe Stand Alone?

I’ve had time to think about the future of NATO after this week’s summit. NATO matters to me personally, hugely. It represents a constant in my life and almost anyone born since 1949 living in the democratic and free West, as it was then and as it is now.

At one time in the not too distant past in 2019, the entire organisation was declared ‘brain dead’ by no less a figure than President Macron. Turkey was acting independently without even referring to NATO, Trump was acting like NATO barely existed and despite his best efforts the then Secretary General struggled to be heard or seen by Trump’s isolationist administration.

In February 2022 Vladimir Putin changed everything. He galvanized a European response to aid Ukraine even while many in the organisation had written Ukraine off. The paper tiger of Putin’s modern, hyper-effective but ultimately Potemkin army, transformed our understanding of the potential enemy we had long feared for 70 years.

Relatively quickly NATO understood the political and military threat, as did the Biden Administration, but led by outdated notions of nuclear escalation ladders and Cold War sensibilities, the American’s tamped down NATO responses. Eventually every line that the American’s said should not be crossed because the Russians would do x or y, proved to be a too long-held restraint on aid. We quite probably extended the war’s duration.

All of this is now history, but there were lessons quickly learned fundamental to NATO’s existence as an effective, fighting force – because if it cannot fight effectively and is not perceived to be able to fight by its enemies, then its deterrence effect ceases to operate and war is instantly more likely. We arm to deter war, not conquer others. If we are not convincing, enemies will knock on our door and test our resolve.

What we found out with alarming clarity, was that all of us, the US included, had come to a point where we had lost what the military call ‘depth of magazine’. In essence we had guns and no shells, aircraft with no missiles, ships with no weapons. The German Bundeswehr was in such an atrocious state it could barely last a day in the field. The British Army was shocked to find it had just three days of fighting capacity on the ground and barely a four day supply for its Air Force. The navy was short of everything.

As we looked at what we could send to Ukraine, in the first year we suddenly realized we just didn’t have anything much left. Some weapons such as Spain’s Leopard-2 tanks were in such a state they took a year to reactivate. Belgium’s F-16 fleet was retired but they had been allowed to deteriorate even before that, to such a degree some will take 2 years to refurbish and some were beyond it. Across all of NATO the same problem was, in one way or another, an embarrassing highlight. Things were so bad that there was literally nothing to send to Ukraine that hadn’t been sent.

Even more horrifically it was quickly realized that even if we suddenly poured money into shell production, the industrial capacity wasn’t there to produce it. There were a few manufacturers but they all worked at a ridiculously low level producing between them less in a year than Ukraine was using in a couple of days.

It was from this excruciatingly low level of production – which applied to every aspect of the US and European industrial base – that made NATO wake up to its realities. Many doubted it had the willpower or the inclination let alone the means. But they were proved wrong. Across the board the ammunition issue hasn’t just been resolved, at least when it comes to artillery, its been exceeded and is on the cusp of over supply, allowing the NATO nations to restock and supply Ukraine.

All through the Biden years restraints coupled to the aid or no aid argument strained relationships and resolve. Trump’s return saw a landslide of prior norms collapse almost overnight. Nobody has done more damage to Western defence principles and unity than Donald J Trump as his circus of uneducated, uninformed, power hungry incompetent loons. These people are so unqualified for their roles and so incapable of understanding the world and its realities, it’s truly hard to quantify how appallingly bad they are. I don’t have to gloss over the realities for diplomatic or professional niceness. They’re unprincipled nut jobs, fools, idiots, morons and a bunch of psychophantic yes people. Opportunists and delinquents one and all.

Europeans know it, because like it or not the Europeans are generally well educated, politically savvy and belief in a democratic process is generally a cornerstone of their service. Are they perfect no, do they have many separate agendas, of course they do, but they’re not for the most part planning on a wholesale dismantling of western ideals and culture.

It’s not just NATO either, it’s the European Union that understands this as a collective and as a political entity. It’s the EU that has done more to finance, organize and agree a process to rearm its member nations – almost all of which are NATO members. The two have become almost synonymous.

And that brings us to the fork in the road we have before us, because we haven’t quite reached the point of making a choice over which route to take. They are fundamentally different, epoch changing, and once chosen there is no going back.

This NATO has understood two choices exist and that it doesn’t have to choose right now, but that moment cannot be long put off.

One the one hand there is a powerful lobby who believe that NATO involves America Trump or no Trump. They believe that we Europeans cannot build or supply enough weapons of the right type that are technologically advanced enough to go it alone. They think that we don’t have the combat capability of the US Air Force and land forces, let alone the navy, to deter a Russian attack let alone fight one off. They believe that we don’t have the willpower or the capacity. The only way is to obsequiously demean ourselves as Mark Rutte did for the greater good of keeping Trump on side.

Managing the fools around Trump and his ego means you say or do whatever it takes to get the job done, because in four years he won’t be around and there’s nobody with his bizarre attraction that can replicate the Magaverse. When he goes and when he dies, it will die with him. They believe we will walk out of the shadow into a new enlightened world and everything will go back to how it used to be. I beg to differ on that score.

The other path takes us into a very different brave new world. It’s the difference that frightens them the most, never mind the work, the energy and the consistent policy and support it will need to work for decades to come. The EU is leading it in many ways, dragging NATO’s political leadership in a direction its not overly willing to go – and what’s more doesn’t know how to manage with America so embedded in the NATO structure.

Yet there is a growing and increasingly vocal understanding that America has changed forever. It doesn’t have our values, it’s becoming alien to what we believe and we must find our own path. America especially under this mal-administration is untrustworthy, cannot be relied on and doesn’t understand the importance of Ukraine. Its obsession with befriending Putin and getting Russia back in the fold is both worrying and sickening. Russia we all know is our enemy. An America that threatens Greenland and Canada to the point the later is clearly making itself a leading member of the Europe+ bloc – well that’s just an earth shattering move that was not just unlikely, it was almost impossible to imagine even two years ago.

The issue is how much do we think we can survive technologically without America when it comes to dealing with Russia – and to that I say we can do it if we really put our minds to it. There will be a transition phase. But after what we’ve seen from Russia I’m not afraid that we can deal with what they have if we chose to. And we must. On top of that the industrial boost in technology research and development would be huge.

It is though, going to require reform of how we buy equipment and contract services. We cannot have 27-30 or more defence ministries all doing their own thing – they have to work more closely and together to make economies of scale. And they all have to be willing to learn from each other and appreciate best practice. The advantage America has is its a single body, economies of scale come naturally, Europe has to learn from that.

Europe+ has to extract America from NATO or set up a competing structure which would be lunacy and expensive duplication. America wants to stay because it has extraordinary leverage – the tactical nuclear weapons program alone is one of its most important.

I believe Europe+ which to clarify, is the EU plus the UK, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Ukraine and Turkey, is more than capable of dealing with Russia. Combined they are more than a match, even more so when re-armed and re-equipped.

Let America concentrate on the Pacific and China – it would probably be geopolitically better for us if it did, because we won’t have to be involved at such a fundamental level. No more stupidly sending half the Royal Navy across the planet to achieve absolutely nothing of military value and little of any political meaning.

I do believe Europe+ has the ability to go it alone. It just needs the willpower and time to develop the capabilities the US has been allowed to monopolize because of its global interests. We have for too long relied not on ourselves but on America – Trump was always right about that. What he didn’t understand was that reliance was America’s power over Europe, it’s what kept us allied, willing to go along with almost anything it did. It wasn’t weakness or us being freeloaders, it served America’s best interests in keeping its enemies at a distance.

Turning what was basically American power on its head and saying we were taking advantage of poor little America, when it was absolutely key to America’s defence we behaved that way, is a deeply flawed view of America’s role. Stupid useless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan drained the American treasury and added some $3 trillion in debt – for nothing at all to show for any of it. The defeat in Vietnam was hard to take, the defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan has weakened Americas view of itself and dampened its desire to police the world. Even the bombing of Iran was a second strike opportunistic semi-success, rather than some kind of new American crusade.

Without us to worry about America is free to do as it wishes – and so are we. Our self reliance is good for us as a continent, as a power centre and as an economic hub. Our willingness to pay for our defence and manage it alone is exactly what no Russian leader wants to face.

Would it be hard to go it alone? At first everything is new, everything is hard. We would relearn what we knew 100 years ago. Europe matters, it has a say in the world and should not be afraid of making sure everyone knows it. We will cooperate with any friends, anyone who appreciates our values.

We can defend Ukraine and it can defend us. Together we can do it if we decide we should. There has never been a better time.

Which path will we take? The one of least resistance of course. It will take Trump just a few words to change history, some stupid statement, some belittling of a European nation, and European institution. It will be a step too far. The fork in the road is a little way off yet, but its not so far that the debate on direction isn’t already under way.

Choose wisely, not easily.

The Analyst

militaryanalyst@bsky.social