OPINION:
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization — NATO — began in 1949 with 12 members. In 10 rounds of expansion, many of the former Warsaw Pact nations have joined to benefit from the NATO Treaty’s Article 5, which pledges that each member nation will defend every other.
In 10 rounds of expansion, NATO has enlarged itself to 32 members, including Sweden and Norway, which joined this year. Other nations — Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ukraine and Georgia — are all aspiring to NATO membership.
As the NATO website points out, a 1995 study on new membership concludes that any nation that meets five criteria should be able to join. Those criteria are (1) the nation has a democratic political system based on a market economy, (2) it treats minority populations fairly, (3) it is committed to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, (4) it is able and willing to make military contributions to NATO operations and (5) it is committed to democratic civil-military relations and institutional structures.
Those criteria have been violated by the admission of certain members. Montenegro, for example, has — for those who remember “The Mouse That Roared” — the military capabilities of the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
In its 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO agreed that Georgia and Ukraine would become NATO members. As this column has also pointed out, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg unwisely said a few months ago that NATO was trying to agree on an irreversible path to membership for Ukraine. Former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who will succeed Mr. Stoltenberg as secretary general in October, should reverse that position and bring about a more rational approach to new nations’ membership.
The most critical questions must be: What does the prospective member bring to the fight, and what is its strategic value?
Mr. Rutte’s reputation is that of a man who can generate consensus, which will be as difficult in NATO as it is in the European Union. He has supported former President Donald Trump’s demand that the NATO members spend more on their own defense.
Mr. Trump’s demands have been effective. In 2024, 18 of NATO’s 32 members will spend the agreed-on 2% of their gross domestic product on defense. One of the worst laggards is Canada, which — under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — will spend only about 1.4%.
The genesis of NATO was the threat to Western Europe by the former Soviet Union. Russia, without its former empire, is still a significant danger to the NATO nations. Both Georgia and Ukraine border Russia. In the case of Ukraine, Russia’s 2014 invasion and subsequent annexation of its Crimean Peninsula, coupled with its 2022 invasion, brought war to Europe in a magnitude unseen since the Second World War.
Obviously, Ukraine cannot become a NATO member while that war goes on. It will probably continue — despite any interim peace agreement — as long as Russian President Vladimir Putin is alive.
Mr. Putin has hinted that, like Kaiser Wilhelm did of Germany before World War I, he believes Western nations are trying to surround Russia to deny its rightful place in the world. The addition of either Ukraine or Georgia would heighten Mr. Putin’s anxiety.
The only answer to the NATO membership issue is to stop NATO’s expansion at this point. There is no pressing need for nations such as Georgia or Ukraine to become members.
That doesn’t mean NATO’s expansion should stop entirely. Why shouldn’t Israel, Japan or Australia be members? Each has considerable military capabilities from which NATO would benefit. Each is strategically placed and — in the cases of Australia and Japan — could mean a strategic deterrent to China. In the case of Israel, NATO membership would be a clear deterrent to Iran.
The reason, unfortunately, is simple. The European members of NATO and Canada have neither the political will nor the military capability to defend any nation in the Pacific. In the case of Israel, they have an antipathy that has grown from the war with Hamas that has assumed an enormous ideological importance that Europe will not soon overcome.
What would Mr. Trump do to (or with) NATO if he is reelected in November? Rumors abound that he would take radical action, perhaps keeping the NATO nations under the U.S. nuclear umbrella but taking U.S. troops out of Europe. Whatever he does, he should lead NATO into the future while still encouraging the laggards to spend more on defense.
Any new member nation should have more military capability than Montenegro and more strategic value.
NATO was and can be again, a cornerstone of our deterrent strategy if it is led properly, which President Biden hasn’t done.
Under Mr. Biden, American deterrence has become ineffective. U.S. military spending is enormous, but much of the defense budget is being spent on the wrong things, which will be discussed in a future column. The ineffectiveness of our deterrence is best exemplified by the Houthis of Yemen, who — despite Mr. Biden’s efforts — are still attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
Deterrence is measured by the ability and willingness to use force for defense. We need to do a lot better, and NATO could be one good way to do so.
• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and contributing editor for The American Spectator.
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