NATO’s foreign ministers ended the first day of their two-day meeting in Brussels, yesterday which in effect announces that “NATO is back” in the post-Trump era. “We are meeting in Brussels to reaffirm the enduring transatlantic bond between Europe and North America, with NATO at its heart,” the statement declares at the outset. “We are bound together by our shared democratic values, and by our adherence to the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter.” [https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_182648.htm]
“NATO is the strongest alliance in history, guaranteeing the freedom of a billion people, the integrity of our territory, and the protection of our values,” the statement goes on. “NATO is a defensive Alliance and poses no threat to any country. In response to a more dangerous and unpredictable security environment, we are considerably strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defence capabilities, posture and resilience...”
The statement didn’t mention China by name, rather focusing on that other “threat” which provides the alliance with its raison d’être. “We face rising threats and systemic competition,” it says. “Russia’s aggressive actions constitute a threat to Euro-Atlantic security; terrorism in all its forms and manifestations remains a persistent threat to us all. Assertive and authoritarian powers, and non-state actors, challenge the rules-based international order, including through hybrid and cyber threats, the malicious use of new technologies, as well as other asymmetric threats.” And of course, “The transatlantic partnership remains the cornerstone of our collective defence, central to our political cohesion, and an essential pillar of the rules-based international order.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken assured Secretary General Jens Stoltnberg, in a bilateral meeting ahead of the foreign ministers’ gathering, that NATO is indeed back and that the U.S. is back in it. “The Secretary reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the NATO Alliance and its essential role as the premier and indispensable vehicle for ensuring Transatlantic peace and freedom,” the State Department readout reports. “The leaders discussed the importance of continued consultation on Afghanistan, concern over Russia and China’s malign activity and disinformation efforts as well as arms control and regional security matters.”
In Moscow, Leon Slutsky, chairman of the Duma Foreign Affairs Committee, took great exception to the NATO statement. “NATO statements on threat and aggression from Russia are yet another mantra to justify the Alliance’s existence. Meanwhile, assurances of purely defensive nature of NATO’s activity are a blatant lie,” the lawmaker said, reported TASS. “Whom were the NATO member states ‘defending’ against in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and partially in Syria? From regimes, undesirable for the collective West?” he wondered.
Slutsky stressed that Russia threatens no one. “We continue to advocate the creation of a 21st century peaceful architecture and the supremacy of international law, not some ‘rules-based world order,’” he said.