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The NATO summit in Washington celebrates the alliance’s 75th anniversary. NATO now has 32 members – and has had to constantly reorganize itself. Even now, the alliance is in crisis mode.
The upcoming NATOThe summit in Washington not only has to clarify sensitive issues – such as military spending or the NATO accession of the attacked Ukraine. It also celebrates the 75th anniversary of the alliance, which has had to endure various crises since its founding after the Second World War: military crises, political crises and, most recently, a kind of existential crisis before the outbreak of the Ukraine war. NATO has repeatedly had to reposition itself or change its doctrine. This could become necessary again after the Ukraine war.
Because NATO is currently in crisis mode: In Eastern Europe, the war led by Russian President Wladimir Putin unleashed War in UkraineAt the same time, trouble is looming within the country. If former President Donald Trump at the US election will move back into the White House in November, the US’s attitude towards the alliance is uncertain. France will be preoccupied with itself for the time being due to domestic political upheavals, even if a victory by the far-right Rassemblement National was staved off in the parliamentary elections on Sunday.
75 years of NATO: A history of crises
A look at the history of NATO: Only five years after the end of the Second World War and one year after the alliance was founded in 1949, communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, starting the Korean War. At the time, the alliance had only twelve members and no military structure to respond. The NATO institutions that we know today were built up by the alliance in response to the Korean War. In 1962, the USA and the Soviet Union (USSR) narrowly avoided a nuclear war in the Cuban missile crisis. At the instigation of the USA, NATO then changed its then deterrence doctrine, according to which an enemy nuclear strike had to be followed by a nuclear counterstrike. Since then, NATO has been allowed to respond to nuclear strikes with extremely hard conventional strikes – a threat that is also being made today against Putin’s Russia.
In 1979, the Soviet Union stationed SS20 missiles with nuclear warheads in Eastern Europe. Many of these were aimed at the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1983, NATO responded by stationing US Pershing II medium-range nuclear missiles in Western Europe, accompanied by stormy protests in West Germany and elsewhere. Disarmament negotiations between the USA and the USSR had failed at the time. It was not until Mikhail Gorbachev took office as head of state and party of the USSR in 1985 that the talks gained momentum. In 1987, the USA and the USSR signed the first treaty on the disarmament of medium-range nuclear missiles, which is now seen as the first sign of the end of the Cold War.
Disarmament brought the crisis of meaning – until the Ukraine war
After the end of the Cold War, Europe in particular reformed its military – away from national defence and towards rapid reaction forces for conflicts all over the world, such as in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 or in Afghanistan after 2001. The operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks on the USA on September 11, 2001 was the only time that NATO activated the mutual assistance guarantee under Article 5 of its treaty, also known as the alliance case. All members had to help the USA.
Military budgets fell so sharply that the 2014 NATO summit decided that each member would spend at least two percent of its economic output on defense. At the time, only three NATO members managed that. Trump declared NATO “obsolete” several times during his 2016 election campaign and, as president, threatened late payers, including Germany. French President Emmanuel Macron also described NATO as “brain dead” in 2019. NATO was facing an existential crisis, and a solution was not in sight.
But then Putin came and invaded Ukraine. NATO was suddenly central to Europe’s security again; the states along its eastern flank see it as a guarantee of existence. Finland and Sweden gave up their neutrality and joined NATO in 2023 and 2024. 18 members will meet the two percent target this year, including Germany. Finland and Sweden joined. Now the question remains: How is NATO preparing for a post-war future, and when can Ukraine join?
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