Over two days at the end of June, the leaders of NATO member states met at a summit in Madrid amid a palpable sense that the alliance they were there to discuss had suddenly become a lot more important.
The heads of state and government were in the Spanish capital to discuss the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s most pressing security concerns and endorse its new Strategic Concept – a key guiding document that was last updated 12 years ago. All acknowledged the new security environment, in view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine war, and agreed that it merited serious reflection of NATO’s posture going forward.
According to the official Summit Declaration, now that war had returned to the European continent, the need to stay committed to upholding the rules-based international order was now greater than ever. “We face a critical time for our security and international peace and stability,” it read. “We stand together in unity and solidarity and reaffirm the enduring transatlantic bond between our nations.”
The Declaration reaffirmed that NATO is a “defensive” alliance and “poses no threat to any country”, but that it “remains the foundation of our collective defense and the essential forum for security consultations and decisions among Allies”. In other words, NATO is still the West’s principal security alliance. There are no other games in town.
“Our commitment to the Washington Treaty, including Article 5, is iron-clad,” the Declaration continued, highlighting the allies’ mutual assurance that they would ride to the aid of any other member under attack. To many, this is what NATO is best known for, but the famous guarantee had, just four years earlier, been called into question by the then US President Donald Trump, who also threatened to withhold weapons from Ukraine if its president did not investigate the son of a political rival. To the Alliance’s other states, the word “iron-clad” must have been reassuring.
Attendees in Madrid were clear that today’s geostrategic theatre, particularly Europe, amounted to “a radically changed security environment”, and said the Summit “marks a milestone in strengthening our Alliance and accelerating its adaptation”. Gone is the Trump era NATO skepticism. Arguments over defense spending now seem like distant memories. Today’s NATO is enlarging and refocusing. Having spent most of the last decade in an identity crisis, NATO is now on a comeback.
Fueling all this, of course, is Russia’s war in Ukraine, which was itself primarily inspired by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s need to rival the Western alliance, which - ironically – has breathed new life into NATO. Nor did the Madrid summiteers hold back in their denunciations of Russia’s expansionist policies and Putin’s revanchist behavior, while expressing their firm support for Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has emerged as a war hero, but whose calls for NATO to enforce a no-fly zone went unanswered.
What was extraordinary about the Madrid summit was the welcoming of two new NATO members – Sweden and Finland. The last country to be invited to join NATO was Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2010. With Helsinki and Stockholm beginning their accession processes, NATO’s “open door policy” once again seems real.
Turkey was initially worried about the duo’s invite, and the legitimate security concerns of all Allies should be “properly addressed” in any accession process, NATO said. To that end, members welcomed the conclusion of the trilateral memorandum between Turkey, Finland, and Sweden to that effect. Having the two Scandinavians as part of the Alliance “will make them safer, NATO stronger, and the Euro-Atlantic area more secure,” they said, adding – perhaps as a warning to Putin - that the security of Finland and Sweden “is of direct importance to the Alliance, including during the accession process”.
Russia could not have invaded Ukraine without consequence and, as might have been predicted, the impact has been felt on both sides economically, resulting in Russian isolation and a European energy crisis, due in large part to European states’ over-reliance on Russian gas. Western sanctions against Russia have therefore not been as effective as they might have been, because Europe cannot fully halt its Russian energy imports. Perversely, Moscow stands to make more money than it did last year from its gas and oil sales thanks to the skyrocketing energy prices. Now more than ever, European and transatlantic unity and resolve are crucial in defeating Vladimir Putin’s regime, with NATO’s revival a key factor in this newly complicated security environment.
NATO’s responsibilities are huge, not least the protection of the one billion citizens living under its security blanket, and there are signs from Madrid that it is taking its role more seriously. “We want to live in a world where sovereignty, territorial integrity, human rights, and international law are respected and where each country can choose its own path, free from aggression, coercion, or subversion,” read the 2022 Strategic Concept. “We work with all who share these goals. We stand together, as Allies, to defend our freedom and contribute to a more peaceful world.”
According to the document, NATO will aim to fulfill three core tasks: deterrence and defense; crisis prevention and management; and cooperative security. Moreover, it will do so while being realistic about the situation on the ground. “The Euro-Atlantic area is not at peace,” the document says. “The Russian Federation has violated the norms and principles that contributed to a stable and predictable European security order. We cannot discount the possibility of an attack against Allies’ sovereignty and territorial integrity. Strategic competition, pervasive instability, and recurrent shocks define our broader security environment. The threats we face are global and interconnected.”
Unsurprisingly, much of the document is devoted to underlining just how significant the Russian threat is to NATO’s collective security. Russia is “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”, it says, adding that Moscow “seeks to establish spheres of influence and direct control through coercion, subversion, aggression, and annexation… using conventional, cyber and hybrid means against us and our partners”.
Russia’s “coercive military posture, rhetoric, and proven willingness to use force to pursue its political goals undermine the rules-based international order”, NATO says, before warning that the Russian Federation “is modernizing its nuclear forces and expanding its novel and disruptive dual-capable delivery systems, while employing coercive nuclear signaling”. The aim, NATO leaders write, is “to destabilize countries to our East and South”, while in the High North, “its capability to disrupt Allied reinforcements and freedom of navigation across the North Atlantic is a strategic challenge to the Alliance”. Further challenges to NATO’s security and interests can be found in Moscow’s “military build-up, including in the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Sea regions, along with its military integration with Belarus”.
Be that as it may, NATO says it still seeks no confrontation with Russia and poses no threat to Moscow. The Allies’ preferred posture vis-à-vis Russia and states like China is one of “proportionate” defense and deterrence, they said, adding that this was “based on an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities, complemented by space and cyber capabilities”.
Noting the Alliance’s international commitments, they said: “We will employ military and non-military tools in a proportionate, coherent, and integrated way to respond to all threats to our security in the manner, timing, and in the domain of our choosing.”
NATO Allies say they want “a 360-degree approach, across the land, air, maritime, cyber, and space domains, and against all threats and challenges,” adding that NATO’s role in the fight against terrorism “is an integral part of this approach”. The document adds that the Allies “have committed to deploy additional robust in-place combat-ready forces on our eastern flank, to be scaled up from the existing battlegroups to brigade-size units where and when required, underpinned by credible rapidly available reinforcements, prepositioned equipment, and enhanced command and control”.
That enhancement includes a new NATO Force Structure, a new generation of military plans, and collective defense exercises, “to prepare for high intensity and multi-domain operations and ensure reinforcement of any Ally on short notice”. In other words, member states are going to be more joined up and more ready to move in if needed. “This will help to prevent any aggression against NATO territory by denying any potential adversary success in meeting its objectives,” they say.
Some analysts suggest that Putin has, until now, used NATO as a phantom threat behind which to hide his desire for violence and bloodshed. Yet his actions mean that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization may now have morphed into the formidable challenger he always portrayed it as - just as his regime’s expansionist ambitions peak.
Symbolically, NATO members will next meet in Vilnius, just miles from the Russian and Belarusian borders. It will be another uncomfortable reminder for Putin that NATO has not turned its back on Baltic members, nor does it see them as a liability.
Major challenges loom before that Vilnius summit, however. War is ongoing in Ukraine and Russia is gaining ground. The sanctions are having effects but not on Putin’s war effort. Both sides are hemorrhaging resources and personnel, such that it is becoming a war of attrition. In some ways, this is not the only war of attrition that Putin is fighting. He is testing NATO’s endurance. Who can hold out longer? The Russian people bear the brunt of the sanctions and international isolation but the regime itself remains financially stable while its armed forces are making gains in the Donbas. On the other side of the fence, Western unity and resolve is strong – for now. Whether a winter of energy supply shortages changes all that remains to be seen.
*Maia Otarashvili is a Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Her research is focused on geopolitics and security of the Black Sea-Caucasus region, Russian foreign policy, and the post-Soviet protracted conflicts.
