IS NATO REALLY NECESSARY?

 

NATO's many enlargements since 1952.

Since its founding after World War II, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has known many expansion phases, from 1952 to 2020, but its usefulness may be seen as less than before, since the countries that form the European Union (EU) are collectively more populous, more developed economically and more powerful military than NATO's apparent adversary, which is to say the Russian Federation, the main fragment of the old Union of Soviets Socialists Republics (USSR).

The expansion phases has occurred before the fall and dissolution of the USSR (at the juncture of the 80' and the 90') and after. For most of its history, its main defensive axis was along the line Germany/Alps/Italy, with a northern wing (through Denmark and Norway), and a southern one (through Greece and Turkey), both wings actually bordering parts of the territory of the Soviet Union at their respective extremity.

Since the collapse of the USSR and as the result of the subsequent expansions of NATO toward the East (contrary to verbal engagements made by American representatives on that subject), that main north-south line of defence has shifted many hundreds of kilometers eastward, till it reached the following axis: Poland/Carparthians/Romania, again with (slightly different) northern and southern wings.

It must be said that, through all that expansion process, many inside the Russian Federation have seen it as a provocation and a possible threat, coming nearer and nearer as time went by. Last year, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, caused in a large part by that series of enlargements, had the effect of hardening the new defensive axis and fixing it in place, at least for the moment.

It is possible that the northern wing of NATO got beefed up with the addition of two new members, Sweden and Finland, because of the war. But then, two NATO's members, Hungary and Turkey, seems to relay one another to delay the addition of those two Scandinavian countries to NATO for as long as possible, in a way that may possibly have been planned beforehand in the case of Turkey and that may simply be opportunistic in the case of Hungary.

at this point, the countries that are part of NATO can be divided in three large categories:

1) the countries that are part of the Anglosphere (United States, Canada, United Kingdom);

2) the countries that have long been members of NATO on the European continent, more precisely in Western Europe (France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, etc.); and

3) the countries added since the break-up of the USSR, in Central and Eastern Europe, whether they are ex-Soviet republics or ex-independent republics that used to be involuntary members of the Warsaw Pact.

The respective attitudes of the three groups, regarding Russia and the current geopolitical situation, are quite different. The members located in Central and Eastern Europe have mostly bad memories of the old Soviet domination and are often quite anti-Russian. The members who are Anglo-Saxons countries, on the other hand, tend to perceive China as a growing threat and to see NATO to contain Russia while America reorganize itself in order to concentrate its efforts on the Far East. Lastly, the members located in Western Europe tend to be less anti-Russian than their Central and Eastern European neighbors.

The giant manifestation that happened on the 25th of February, in Berlin (Germany), with thousands of participants, is one of many signs that a large part of the population of that part of the continent see things differently and is at odd with the public position of their governments.

The shape of NATO, and possibly its very fate and existence, is likely to be impacted by the issue of the invasion, and the realignments that it may occasion, one way or the other, with all the consequences that would ensue in the relations between the US, the European countries, Russia and China, among others. It may be the start of a popular opposition to the way things have been run up to now, by those governments.

For many, what the European continent really need is to learn to defend itself, and, at the same time, cease to do the bidding of Anglo-Saxon countries, through NATO and other institutions of the sort. They feel that continental Europe doesn’t need NATO to deter a Russia that, in truth, is puny relative to it, both economically and militarily.

It is undeniable that the USA needs NATO to protect its eastern flank, while it tries to contain China on its western flank. At the same time, it is less evident that the European Community needs NATO the same way. The whole situation begs the question: Will the Europeans start to think by themselves and for themselves and stop being pawns in the hands of the anglophone countries?

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https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-change-war-ukraine-russia-defense/

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/02/23/a-year-after-he-promised-a-transformation-olaf-scholz-has-done-too-little