It’s no secret that NATO faces challenges: The White House has repeatedly questioned America’s commitment to the alliance and member countries, there are disagreements among allies about defense spending targets and economic sanctions, and Turkey, under the increasingly authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has provocatively looked to Russian missiles and challenged U.S. interests in Syria.
But NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a Washington Examiner editorial board meeting on Sunday, offered an instructive message on recent problems: NATO has been able to work through previous disagreements.
As he pointed out, the first major challenge to the alliance came in 1956, just seven years after it was formed. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and, with the goal of removing him, Israel, followed by France and Britain, invaded Egyptian territory.
It soon became clear that the military action had been coordinated and preplanned without consulting the U.S. And the U.S. forced a ceasefire, handing a political victory to Egypt against its allies.
The betrayal felt by France over that incident would help lead to NATO’s next crisis: French withdrawal from the military obligations of the pact in 1966. As Stoltenberg explained, “France, one of the founding members, where we had our headquarters left the military cooperation of the alliance and NATO had to move from Paris to Brussels.”
France would not rejoin until 2009, under President Nicholas Sarkozy.
The latest significant test of the NATO alliance was the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was controversial among allies with some “heavily in favor” and others “strongly against.”
In each of these examples, however, NATO held together and worked through the conflict, albeit with imperfect compromises.
Indeed, in giving these examples, Stoltenberg explained, “My point is not to, in any way, have an opinion about the Suez Crisis or the French withdrawal from the NATO command structure or the Iraq war.” Rather, his point was that “despite these disagreements and many other disagreements, we have always been able to continue to deliver collective defense and deterrence because it is … in our interest.”
These contentious incidents, which shook the alliance to its core, are a clear reminder that the existence of NATO must not be taken for granted and that maintaining relationships among member states requires constant attention.
Or, as Stoltenberg put it, “There is no guarantee that NATO will survive for the next 70 years.” In order to keep the alliance strong, “we need political will, political decisions to do so.”
As the U.S. faces new aggression from Russia and an increasingly powerful China, that’s an important message. The alliance can overcome its internal conflicts, but it will require investment and compromise.
