NATO at 75: An Evaluation

Ambassador (Retd) Jeitendra Kumar Tripathi writes about the role and importance of NATO, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in Brussels.

On 4th April, NATO celebrated its 75th anniversary in Brussels, its headquarters with much fanfare. Foreign Ministers of the 32-member organisation, which covers around one billion population on both sides of the Atlantic, gathered to laud the organisation which, in the words of its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, has gone "bigger, stronger and more united than ever…all because of its solemn promise; that we stand together and protect one another as we have for 75 years". Monuments in Brussels were suitably decorated for the occasion, even the famous 'Manneken Pis' statue got a special NATO attire for the day.

Membership and Objectives of NATO

Established originally by twelve countries namely Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States by a treaty signed on April 4, 1949, in Washington D.C. The organisation added eighteen members till 2022 of which Greece, Turkey (now Turkiye), Germany (FRG) and Spain were the only members from West Europe, the rest 14 were from Eastern Europe, thus expanding it exponentially and covering the entire Eastern Europe ignoring the concerns regularly expressed by the Russia. Finland (2023) and Sweden (2024) are the latest entrants of NATO bringing the membership to 32.

The declared fundamental tasks of NATO, according to its charter, were security, consultation, deterrence and defence, adding that crisis management and partnership were also essential to enhancing security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. NATO’s stated core values are democracy, liberty and the rule of law. Its following four arms- North Atlantic Council, the apex body represented by the NATO ambassadors of the member countries, takes decisions unanimously. Military Command which is the Allied Command for operational purposes. Integrated Military forces comprising the contingents from member countries. It has participated in 200 military conflicts including 20 major ones. Secretary General like the SG of UNO.

Evaluation

No doubt that formed during the height of the Cold War, NATO was able to safeguard the interest of its members from the Warsaw Pact countries throughout the duration of the Cold War. NATO was established to defend its members "against possible Soviet attack on Atlantic and European nations" and the collective force of NATO as well as the nuclear deterrent did not allow escalation of tension to war despite the Cuba crisis. Thus, NATO successfully ensured that the war remained 'Cold' only during the entire Soviet era.

However, the situation (and perhaps the goalposts also) changed for NATO at the end of the Cold War due to the collapse of the Soviet system. Now, the world has become unipolar with no country in a position to challenge NATO under the leadership of the U.S. of America and there was no justification for the continuation of NATO which should, therefore, have been dismantled. But this did not happen at all!

The preamble of the NATO charter says that the parties"seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area," thus restricting the scope of NATO to the North Atlantic area only. However, the organisation's attempt to land at the doorsteps of Russia in the east belies the preamble itself.

Further, according to Article 1 of the NATO Charter, “The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”. But NATO had done just the opposite! Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan are glaring examples where the US-led NATO had, in blatant violation of the UN Charter, waged war in the name of peace even though the security of none of its members was threatened.

But NATO's biggest misadventure came in the form of its eastward expansion despite assurance to Russia that NATO would not expand eastwards beyond the unified Germany. According to the declassified State Department's official write-up of the meeting between the then U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Russian President Eduard Shevardnadze on 9th February 1990, the former assured that “the Americans understood that, not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well, it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction,”. Though Baker later retracted from this, the then US Ambassador to Russia re-corroborated the veracity of assurance.

Moreover, on May 17, 1990, Manfred Woerner, the then Secretary General of NATO said in Brussels "The fact that we are ready not to place a NATO army outside of German territory gives the Soviet Union a firm security guarantee.” In his Munich address in 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin, specifically referring to Woerner’s statement, went on to ask: “Where are these guarantees?”

Thus, despite Russia's objections, NATO kept on expanding eastwards and Russia had to react when the expansion reached its eastern neighbour Ukraine. Now NATO is suffering from its biggest nightmare with the solution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict nowhere in sight.

Conclusion

In conclusion, though NATO had been successful during the Cold War 1.0, it miserably failed after that in taking military actions in stark contravention of the UN charter. If NATO doesn’t learn a lesson now from the Ukraine crisis, it is going to learn it the hard way at the cost of its relevance in view of the already diminishing power and prestige of the USA.