Deterrence 101

Deterrence has worked very well for NATO. This is because it has been backed by enough military power to make its response something to fear. Second, potential aggressors believed that there was a high probability that NATO (as is — more or less — provided in Article 5 in its treaty) would react to an armed attack on any of its members with military force. The higher the probability of a military response from the alliance, the lower the likelihood that the potential aggressor would risk attacking any one of its members. Deterrence preserved the peace in Europe throughout the Cold War, something that benefited the U.S. politically and economically and saved countless American lives.

The lynchpin of NATO’s ability to deter an aggressor is, obviously, American military might — and America’s willingness to use it. For someone who may be the next president to cast doubt on whether the U.S. would hit back in the event of a Russian attack on a NATO member risks increasing the chance that the Kremlin will be tempted to risk taking a bite (or worse) out of one of the alliance’s smaller members such as, say, Estonia, a nation that is a long-standing irritant to Russian revanchists.

Given the above, this (via CNN) made for unsettling reading:

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.

“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a rally in Conway, South Carolina. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”

Trump said “one of the presidents of a big country” at one point asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”

“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

While running for president in 2015–16, Trump criticized the way that a good number of NATO states were freeloading off the U.S. They were taking advantage of (ultimately) the American nuclear umbrella but making no serious effort toward reaching the agreed goal of spending 2 percent of their GDP on defense by 2024 (a goal that was revised in Vilnius last year to at least 2 percent). Trump’s criticism was fair, even if the language in which it was expressed risked emboldening the Kremlin and alarming our allies, a dangerous strategy after Russia had, in Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014), shown that it was on the move militarily.

In the end, however, Trump’s distinctly undiplomatic approach (together with the reality that the threat from Moscow had become impossible to ignore) worked. Some of NATO’s European laggards finally increased their spending, and, perhaps aware that someone unpredictable (and probably unwilling to accept the humiliation of a disaster in Europe) was in the White House, Russia refrained from any military adventurism against NATO members (cyberattacks were a different matter).

In September 2020, Politico’s Jacqueline Feldscher noted that:

Since becoming president, Donald Trump has overseen historic increases in defense budgets, fawned over military equipment, installed a number of defense industry insiders in top Pentagon positions and made a major push to sell weapons overseas.

These were not the acts of a president who wanted America to withdraw into its shell.

Since Trump left office, Russia has, of course, massively deepened its war in Ukraine. It was a move that made a mockery, above all, of Germany’s belief that it could pursue a business relationship with Moscow independent of geopolitical reality, and it is to Germany (I would guess) that Trump was, above all, referring in his remarks about what he had said in the past. Since then, Angela Merkel’s policy toward Moscow has been shown up for the farce — remarkably, both cynical and naïve — it always was.

Even then, German defense spending was rising from a trough of around 1.1 percent of GDP to perhaps 1.5 percent today and is meant (maybe) to reach 2 percent this year. That’s progress, although there are doubts about whether that can be sustained for more than a couple of years, not least because of Berlin’s current budgetary mess. It goes without saying that this is the bare minimum that Germany should be doing, and it also (so far) has done little to soothe worries about how well that money is being spent.

Meanwhile, to Germany’s north and east, the Nordic and Baltic countries have boosted spending and are developing a model of regional defense cooperation that should, as this Center for European Policy Analysis report suggests, be an example to other parts of NATO. These efforts have benefited enormously from Finland, far more formidable militarily than its size would suggest, joining the alliance. Sweden, trapped in NATO’s waiting room by Hungary, already appears to be acting as a de facto if not de jure member, adding considerable strength to the Western defense of Europe’s northeast.

Further south, Poland, under its previous government, is building itself up as a local superpower. Defense spending is set to reach 4 percent of GDP this year. So long as the new government’s europhilia does not lead it astray, the emergence of Poland as a bulwark of the west in the east should continue.

In summary, many more of Europe’s NATO members are making a real contribution to the alliance’s defense than in the past. More needs to be done, and there are still far too many countries that are not pulling their weight, which, at least in part, is why Trump is raising this issue again, albeit by referring to what he has said in the past.

But while putting pressure on NATO’s laggards to mend their ways is the right thing to do, it should not be done in a way that risks encouraging Russia to try its luck or, for that matter, encourage some other countries — who might believe that America is not as reliable an ally as they had once thought — to hedge their bets by getting closer to Moscow.

The world is looking like an increasingly dangerous place. The Pax Americana shows clear signs of crumbling, with consequences — as the Houthis have reminded us — that will be as unpredictable as they are unwelcome (something, incidentally, to remember as we debate the next moves on Ukraine). Talk that we have arrived at 1913 or 1938 is overdone, but now is not the time to give our adversaries a script that they can use in their attempts to unravel an alliance — NATO — that has served the U.S and the West so well.