In view of alleged Russian acts of sabotage, US expert Benjamin Schmitt is in favor of invoking NATO Article 4. This applies below the threshold of an attack.
Everyone knows the guarantee of assistance from NATO from Article 5 of the treaty: A military attack on one member state is considered an attack on all, and all members must respond. This is the so-called alliance case. Article 4 is less well known: It provides for consultations between all members on security threats below the threshold of a military attack.
According to Benjamin Schmitt, US expert on democratic resilience at the think tank Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), the passage could currently help to find common answers to the growing threat of hybrid warfare and to acts of sabotage by Putin’s Russia against NATO, including in Germany.
“I think we have reached the threshold set out in this article in some cases,” says Schmitt in an interview with IPPEN.MEDIA“There have been so many acts of sabotage against critical infrastructure across Europe, whether attributed to anyone or not. And we continue to see threats, to offshore energy infrastructure, for example.”
In the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding document of NATOArticle 4 is the shortest of the 14 articles. It states very succinctly: “The Contracting Parties shall consult each other if, in the opinion of one of the Contracting Parties, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of one of the Contracting Parties is threatened.” The discussions initiated when Article 4 is invoked in the North Atlantic Council – NATO’s most important political decision-making body – can then lead to joint decisions or measures.
Article 4 of NATO: Invoked seven times – including in the Ukraine war
While Article 5 has been invoked only once – after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States – members have invoked Article 4 seven times since NATO was founded 75 years ago, most recently in February 2022. At that time, eight members requested consultations following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In November 2022, NATO ambassadors also debated Article 4 at an emergency meeting. At that time, a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile had killed two people in Poland near the border with Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stressed at the time that the incident was Russia’s fault, not Ukraine’s. Poland’s then Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki considered declaring Article 4 at the time, but ultimately did not consider it necessary.
Turkey invoked Article 4 most frequently, three times during the civil war in Syria alone. In 2014, Poland invoked Article 4 following the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula. Crimea Article 4. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, seven other NATO members joined Poland in requesting NATO consultations under Article 4.
Sabotage by Putin’s Russia: NATO members sense threat
Now NATO members, especially in the east and north of Europe, are worried about their security in light of the increase in acts of sabotage. Even if it is not always easy to identify the perpetrator, EU-Security politicians and governments of several member states have already publicly expressed their suspicion that several acts of arson, vandalism or planned actions against US troops in Europe were carried out by Russian agents and their henchmen. But no one wants to invoke Article 4 yet, possibly out of fear of Russian retaliation.
Schmitt therefore proposes another joint declaration, like in 2022. He believes that concerns are exaggerated. “We are not talking about a collective military response, we are not talking about Article 5. It is about raising the problem to a level where it is publicly recognized that there is a constant security threat to the entire alliance – regardless of whether it concerns questions of national sovereignty or not.” Article 4 allows for a joint response, even if the existence of entire states is not threatened.
It is still unclear whether one or more NATO states will decide to invoke Article 4 if the hybrid threat continues to grow. Without Article 4, however, a collective political response from NATO would be difficult, according to Schmitt. “Individual governments take sabotage very seriously in terms of law enforcement and security. But we also have to address it politically so that the public can see that NATO fully recognizes these processes.”
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