The hottest topic will not be on the formal agenda of this week’s annual confab of leaders of the 32 NATO states. It may not even come up in open sessions or toasts to NATO’s 75th birthday.
On the minds of everyone, however, the question will be how long NATO can survive in its present form if — or perhaps when — one of its most formidable critics, Donald Trump, returns to the White House early next year.
In the world of realpolitik, to which all NATO members are scrupulously attuned, it is possible that this week’s gathering may be more a farewell than a celebration of the organization’s 75-year existence.
Moscow, the heart of the communist dictatorship of the old Soviet Union, remains NATO’s chief enemy as the capital of modern Russia. The fact that a non-communist dictator, Vladimir Putin, now rules Russia underscores the continuity of history, the standoff between western Europe and Moscow and the crisis that NATO leaders will face with Trump again in the White House. Like it or not, President Trump may well take up where he left off after his first term, asking why other countries aren’t investing much more in their own defense.
The answer is not that difficult to come up with. In the first place, 11 of the 32 member states have indeed increased their defense spending up to, and in some cases beyond, the 2 percent of GDP that they had all agreed on. Poland, historically afraid of Putin’s aggressive instincts, led them all, last year pouring nearly 4 percent of GDP into defense — well ahead of second-place America’s 3.5 percent. Britain in 2023 invested 2.28 percent. France hovered at slightly less than 2 percent, and Germany, an economic powerhouse, held defense spending to 1.66 percent.
More significant, perhaps, is what Trump means when he says he would reach a deal with Putin in a day to end the years-long war in Ukraine. Allowing for hyperbole, we can be pretty sure he would tell the Russians to keep the land they’ve got and let it go at that. Neither side would be happy, but Putin could walk away thinking more good will come of improved relations with Washington — including easing, if not full suspension, of sanctions.
The heads of state converging on Washington are well aware of the need to “Trump-proof” NATO — that is, do all they can to save and preserve the alliance through a second Trump term. Presumably, their aides have been scurrying for months thinking of ways to strengthen NATO, maybe with a central headquarters in Kviv, more advisers on the ground and improved communications and transportation networks to get the shells and other weaponry Ukraine has needed, fast.
For the current NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, this conference will be his last chance. He’s being replaced by the outgoing prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, who has said that NATO remains “the cornerstone of our collective security.”
No one doubts both the old and new secretaries-general believe completely in the need to defend Ukraine. But the question that the assorted leaders will be asking one another is basic. “Could NATO survive a second Donald Trump administration?” asks Brookings senior fellow Steven Pifer. “Most likely not—at least not with the United States as a committed ally and alliance leader,” he quickly responds, predicting “serious challenges for the European part of the alliance.”
Trump-proofing is a term we’re likely to be hearing a lot this week. President Biden should love it, putting his name to a few words drafted by others. That NATO members have boosted defense spending is “a hedge against a Trump decision to downgrade the U.S. commitment,” writes Pifer, but he doubts Trump will be impressed. “NATO absent a strong U.S. commitment in a second Trump administration would be a very different — and considerably weaker — organization.”
That’s a topic that potentates and small potatoes alike will be discussing all week, albeit in private, not in public speeches and statements.
Donald Kirk, a journalist for 60 years, is currently a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs.