NATO at 75

Seventy-five years ago today (yesterday in North America) the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, creating the alliance that we know as NATO. From its original twelve members it has gradually expanded to the current 32 (thirty in Europe, plus the United States and Canada), most recently with the addition of Finland last year and Sweden just last month.

NATO has a good claim to be considered the most successful military alliance in history. It was formed when many people feared a resurgent Germany, but it soon saw off that threat, with West Germany admitted to the alliance in 1955. For the first half of its existence its main antagonist was the Soviet Union, but the two never came to blows and the Soviet Union dissolved peacefully in 1991.

Perhaps at that point NATO could have wound itself up, its mission accomplished. Alternatively – and in practice it might have amounted to much the same thing – it could have followed the German precedent and invited Russia to join; there were some discussions to that effect. But the window of opportunity, if it existed at all, was short-lived. The onset of the Second Chechen War in 1999 made it clear that Russia was set on a course towards imperialism and away from democracy.

In the meantime, NATO had actually engaged in military action for the first time: in Bosnia in 1994-95, followed by Kosovo in 1999 and Afghanistan (a long way from the North Atlantic, but construed as defence of the US following the attacks of 11 September 2001) from 2003 onwards. And starting from 1999, most of the former Soviet satellites in eastern Europe were admitted to membership, committing the alliance to defending their newly-won independence against any Russian revival.

That too has been a success, of sorts. The fact that Russia confined its attacks to non-members – first Georgia, then Ukraine – showed that it took the deterrent seriously. But it also raised the question of whether a different approach in the 1990s (or, for that matter, a different approach to the Soviets in the 1950s) might have achieved the same goals at less cost. Unfortunately there is no easy answer.

The war in Ukraine has presented NATO with one of its gravest crises. For the members on its eastern flank, especially Poland and the Baltic states, it has brought their worst nightmares to life. The threat is not immediate; even if Vladimir Putin can somehow claim victory in Ukraine, it will be a long time before Russia is in any condition for further adventures. But a world in which wanton aggression is rewarded would be a great deal more dangerous for everyone.

Yet it is much safer for NATO to help Ukraine fight Russia than for it to have to fight Russia directly. The resistance from some NATO members to providing that assistance comes not from a different strategic calculation but from political sympathy with Putin and Putinism. Back in the Cold War era, political differences in the west only rarely prevented a united front being offered against the Soviets. We are no longer so fortunate.

War, even for the victors, is a disaster; success for a military alliance is measured not in winning wars, but in keeping the peace on favorable terms. By and large, NATO has done that for 75 years. It has cost untold trillions of dollars that could have been spent on improving the lives of its members’ populations, but maybe there really was no better alternative.