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European allies and Canada are pouring billions of dollars into helping Ukraine, and they have pledged to\u00a0massively boost their budgets\u00a0to defend their territories.<\/p>\n
But despite those efforts, NATO\u2019s credibility as a unified force under U.S. leadership has taken a huge hit over the past year as trust within the 32-nation military organization dissolved.<\/p>\n
The rift has been most glaring over U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s repeated threats to\u00a0seize Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark. More recently, Trump\u2019s disparaging remarks about his NATO allies\u2019 troops in Afghanistan\u00a0drew another outcry.<\/p>\n
While the heat on Greenland\u00a0has subsided\u00a0for now, the infighting has seriously undercut the ability of the world\u2019s biggest security alliance to deter adversaries, analysts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe episode matters because it crossed a line that cannot be uncrossed,\u201d Sophia Besch from the Carnegie Europe think tank said in a report on the Greenland crisis. \u201cEven without force or sanctions, that breach weakens the alliance in a lasting way.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tensions haven\u2019t gone unnoticed in Russia, NATO\u2019s biggest threat.<\/p>\n
Any deterrence of Russia relies on ensuring that President Vladimir Putin is convinced that NATO will retaliate should he expand his war beyond\u00a0Ukraine. Right now, that does not seem to be the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a major upheaval for Europe, and we are watching it,\u201d Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted last week.<\/p>\n
Criticized by U.S. leaders for decades over low defense spending, and lashed relentlessly under Trump, European allies and Canada agreed in July to significantly up their game and start investing 5% of their gross domestic product on defense.<\/p>\n
The pledge was aimed at taking the whip out of Trump\u2019s hand. The allies would spend as much of their economic output on core defense as the United States \u2014 around 3.5% of GDP \u2014 by 2035, plus a further 1.5% on security-related projects like upgrading bridges, air and seaports.<\/p>\n
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has hailed those pledges as a sign of NATO\u2019s robust health and military might. He recently said that \u201cfundamentally thanks to Donald J. Trump, NATO is stronger than it ever was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though a big part of his job is to ensure that Trump does not pull the U.S. out of NATO, as Trump has occasionally threatened, his\u00a0flattery of the American leader\u00a0has sometimes raised concern. Rutte has pointedly refused to speak about the rift over Greenland.<\/p>\n
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in 1949 to counter the security threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and its deterrence is underpinned by a strong American troop presence in Europe.<\/p>\n
The alliance is built on the political pledge that an attack on one ally must be met with a response from them all \u2014 the collective security guarantee enshrined in\u00a0Article 5\u00a0of its rule book.<\/p>\n
It hinges on the belief that the territories of all 32 allies must remain inviolate. Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland attack that very principle, even though Article 5 does not apply in internal disputes because it can only be triggered unanimously.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of strengthening our alliances, threats against Greenland and NATO are undermining America\u2019s own interests,\u201d two U.S. senators, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen and Republican Lisa Murkowski, wrote in a New York Times op-ed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuggestions that the United States would seize or coerce allies to sell territory do not project strength. They signal unpredictability, weaken deterrence and hand our adversaries exactly what they want: proof that democratic alliances are fragile and unreliable,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
Even before Trump escalated his threats to seize control of Greenland, his European allies were never entirely convinced that he would defend them should they come under attack.<\/p>\n
Trump has said that he doesn\u2019t believe the allies would help him either, and he recently drew more anger when he questioned the role of European and Canadian troops who fought and died alongside Americans in Afghanistan. The president later partially reversed his remarks.<\/p>\n
In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed\u00a0criticism that Trump has undermined the alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stronger our partners are in NATO, the more flexibility the United States will have to secure our interests in different parts of the world,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not an abandonment of NATO. That is a reality of the 21st century and a world that\u2019s changing now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite NATO\u2019s talk of increased spending, Moscow seems undeterred. The EU\u2019s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said this week that \u201cit has become painfully clear that Russia will remain a major security threat for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fending off cyberattacks, sabotage against critical infrastructure, foreign interference and information manipulation, military intimidation, territorial threats and political meddling,\u201d she said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Officials across Europe have reported acts of\u00a0sabotage\u00a0and mysterious\u00a0drone flights\u00a0over airports and military bases. Identifying the culprits is difficult, and Russia denies responsibility.<\/p>\n
In a year-end address, Rutte warned that Europe is at imminent risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile in Russia, Lavrov said the dispute over Greenland heralded a\u00a0\u201cdeep crisis\u201d\u00a0for NATO.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard to imagine before that such a thing could happen,\u201d Lavrov told reporters, as he contemplated the possibility that \u201cone NATO member is going to attack another NATO member.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian state media mocked\u00a0Europe\u2019s \u201cimpotent rage\u201d over Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland, and Putin\u2019s presidential envoy declared that \u201ctrans-Atlantic unity is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is due to meet with his counterparts at NATO on Feb. 12. A year ago, he startled the allies by warning that America\u2019s security priorities\u00a0lie elsewhere\u00a0and that Europe must look after itself now.<\/p>\n
Security in the Arctic region, where Greenland lies, will be high on the agenda. It\u2019s unclear whether Hegseth will announce a new drawdown of U.S. troops in Europe, who are central to NATO\u2019s deterrence.<\/p>\n
Lack of clarity about this has also fueled doubt about the U.S. commitment to its allies. In October, NATO learned that up to 1,500 American troops would be withdrawn from an area bordering Ukraine,\u00a0angering ally Romania.<\/p>\n
A report from the European Union Institute for Security Studies warned last week that although U.S. troops are unlikely to vanish overnight, doubts about U.S. commitment to European security means \u201cthe deterrence edifice becomes shakier.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEurope is being forced to confront a harsher reality,\u201d wrote the authors, Veronica Anghel and Giuseppe Spatafora. \u201cAdversaries start believing they can probe, sabotage and escalate without triggering a unified response.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#Trumps #fight #NATO #Greenland #crossed #line #uncrossed #expert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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