In his memoirs, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger described the tense atmosphere: “Western leaders treated Nixon with the respect one would have for a terminally ill man.”
A similar mood is likely at NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington this week. President Biden has been one of the most effective leaders in NATO history, rebuilding the alliance and galvanizing member states to support Ukraine. But with Biden facing serious political challenges and former President Donald Trump poised to return to the White House, Europeans told me they are deeply worried about the future of U.S. leadership.
The historical resonance of this week’s gathering is haunting and, perhaps, oddly reassuring. Concerns about the future of American leadership and the durability of the Atlantic alliance are such prevalent themes for NATO that they should be part of the organization’s mission statement. Europeans have always worried about America’s credibility, but Americans have also always been angry that Europeans have not played a sufficient role in providing for the common defense.
NATO was founded with what Secretary of State Dean Acheson, who drafted the founding treaty, described in his memoirs as “fundamental problems that NATO had never been able to solve.” NATO was a “headless organization” that could not force its member states to do anything. And NATO’s collective defense required “strength buildup by member states,” but many European countries refused to contribute their fair share from the start.
Atcheson noted that at the 1949 signing ceremony of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Marine Corps Band played two songs from the musical “Porgy and Bess,” unintentionally highlighting the flaws in the alliance’s bold promise: “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin'” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
As NATO waged the Cold War, its core challenges remained. When Kissinger became Nixon’s national security adviser in 1969, he identified three major problems: the “flexible response” doctrine for U.S. nuclear retaliation against Russian aggression, the alliance’s formula for defense cost-sharing, and the number of U.S. troops needed in Europe. These problems persist to this day, even though NATO remains the world’s most successful alliance.
Panic is epidemic in Washington, and in this anxious environment, the NATO summit may seem like a 1960s TV rerun, but a closer look shows why the NATO alliance is no more fragile than it seems in the current political climate on both sides of the Atlantic.
The White House had planned this week’s summit as a celebration of NATO as a guarantor of collective security and Biden’s role as a steward of that relationship. These arguments may seem shaky now, but I would argue that they both remain true no matter what happens at the polls in November. As for Trump’s lead in the polls, voters can surprise us, as the recent victory of a left-wing party over a far-right one in France proved.
Biden’s NATO honors are well-deserved, despite his political troubles. He helped rebuild the alliance after four years of Trump’s scorn. He shared U.S. intelligence intelligence, warned Europe that Russia was serious about plotting to invade Ukraine, and mobilized NATO to help brave Ukrainians defend their country. Some argue that in hindsight Biden did less than he should have, but a more aggressive U.S. stance may have weakened NATO cohesion.
The truth is that Biden has managed to thwart Vladimir Putin while avoiding a direct conflict with Russia, which is no easy feat.
Biden also deserves credit for rebuilding support for NATO at home. He remained steadfast during a six-month delay caused by House Republicans’ attempts to block $61 billion in vital military aid to Ukraine. By the end of that bitter debate, more Americans, even House Republicans, had a deeper understanding of why European security and U.S. security are intertwined.
“Russia’s horrific missile attack this week on a children’s hospital in Kiev is a stark reminder of the importance of NATO. When Americans and Europeans watch the footage of the hospital’s ruins, they see vivid evidence that Putin is a ruthless and relentless enemy. Without NATO opposition, Putin will redraw the security map of Europe with lasting consequences for the United States.
A similarly ominous message was conveyed in September 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear weapon just as the Senate was debating the North Atlantic Treaty. “Russia once again helped a bipartisan foreign policy in crisis, healed its wounds, and united a divided Congress,” Acheson recalled.
Biden has managed NATO successfully, and in my opinion, now is the ideal time for him to win (at a slow pace, of course), and then he should ask the Democratic Party to choose a new presidential candidate who can represent the United States in the long fight against all its enemies, both foreign and domestic.
Mr. President, your campaign has been won. Now it is time to pass the baton to us, as our allies and friends applaud.
