Joe Biden is right to want to strengthen NATO. But Biden would make a serious error by abandoning President Trump’s pressure campaign to see NATO allies spend more on defense.
I note this in light of the media speculation that one of Biden’s first acts will be to cancel planned U.S. military redeployment out of Germany. Announced by Trump back in July, the plan would see thousands of U.S. forces move from Germany to other European NATO member states such as Belgium and Italy. There are problems with this plan (notably its rewarding of Belgium, which spends even less on defense than Germany!). Still, I believe the United States has too many forces in Germany. NATO’s deterrent value against prospective Russian invasion would be better served by the permanent relocation of some U.S. forces in Germany to Poland and the Baltics.
We need to remember that NATO isn’t ultimately supposed to be a feel-good group of friends. It’s a defensive alliance that faces rising Russian efforts to dominate the Arctic circle, absorb Belarus into the Russian federation, undermine the alliance’s nuclear deterrent posture, and degrade NATO’s air defense network. These concerns should be foremost on Biden’s mind. After all, the NATO alliance benefits Americans and the democratic world and has supported a prosperous peace in Europe since the end of the Second World War. But no alliance can rest on unfair burden-sharing by just a few of its participants. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening at present. And that’s why, although his questioning of NATO’s Article Five mutual defense commitment is dangerous, Trump is right to pressure allies to spend more on defense.
Sadly, some experts want to return to the days when America simply turned a blind eye to member-state freeloading. Jorge Benitez of the Atlantic Council told Stars and Stripes that he expects Biden will “return to the traditional U.S. approach of making strong arguments to our allies in private and avoid the public criticism and embarrassing statements made by Trump about NATO.” This would be a big mistake from a U.S. and NATO interest point of view because we know that private lobbying doesn’t work. President Barack Obama and his defense secretary, Robert Gates, tried that approach. It was only when Trump started complaining loudly and often that our NATO allies began to take defense spending somewhat seriously. Even then, the vast majority continue to miss the basic 2%-of-GDP NATO target for defense spending.
Germany stands out as a particularly outrageous example here. Chancellor Angela Merkel, faux heroine of the free world, has systematically starved her military of investment. Today, Berlin spends just shy of 1.4% GDP on defense. At the same time, Germany provides the crucial diplomatic linchpin for Vladimir Putin’s energy blackmail strategy in Europe. This activity from a NATO member should be as unacceptable to a U.S. president as are Turkey’s S-400 antics. NATO’s secretary-general agrees. In a January 2019 interview with the Washington Examiner, Jens Stoltenberg pledged to keep pushing Germany on defense spending.
So, yes, Biden is right to want to strengthen NATO. But if he’s serious about doing so, a softly-softly strategy won’t cut it.
