Nato’s power is waning and a new world order over security is emerging

On both sides of the Atlantic, the direction seems to be towards separation on security in one way or another, writes Mary Dejevsky. Though how complete and how soon remains to be seen

The Aukus deal between the US and UK to supply nuclear submarines to Australia was announced seemingly out of the blue last month (Australian Defence Force via Getty)

When old orders pass, it is rarely clear what the new order will be. It is more than three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and coming up to 30 years since the Soviet Union passed into history. Aside from hailing Europe as “whole and free”, with the unification of Germany and the integration of the former Eastern bloc states into the European Union and Nato, many might observe that little more has actually happened than the shift of the east-west border further east. The wider security implications flowing from the sudden demise of the second superpower, coinciding with the growing assertiveness of China, are still not fully clear.

That may be starting to change. One trend that seems to be accelerating is the redefining of the US role. From his election to his dramatic departure from office, Donald Trump was widely seen as an anomaly, to put it mildly. But that seems less and less true as his presidency recedes into the past. Europe’s hopes that his Democrat successor, Joe Biden – a political veteran who forged his career in the shadow of the Cold War – would live up to his Atlanticist credentials have so far been frustrated.

Although he came to power professing that “America is back” – by which he appeared to mean back in Europe and back as a world leader – Biden’s actions have not lived up to that billing. He has done little, if anything, to soften Trump’s hard line on China; tensions with Beijing over Taiwan are only growing. And while he struck a collegiate note both at the G7 summit in Cornwall earlier this year and at Nato, he gave the allies little, if no, notice of his decision to honour Trump’s agreement on ending the 20-year US involvement in Afghanistan.

The Nato-led mission in Afghanistan, as it had been defined, ended with the Taliban seizing back power and an unseemly scramble by the Western allies to evacuate themselves and their proteges. While what happened looked, and was, chaotic, it was in fact the implementation of a policy of disengagement from the region and a so-called pivot to the Pacific that dated back not just to Trump, but to Barack Obama before him (except that Obama had been persuaded by his top brass that it was a bad idea).

Nor should there be any illusions about the US commitment to Europe. The US has been critical of what it saw as Europe’s inadequate contribution to Nato since long before Trump. One of the most forceful complaints was made by Robert Gates a full decade ago, when he was Obama’s secretary of defence, having stayed on in the job after serving George W Bush – thus spanning a Republican and a Democrat administration.

The only difference between then and now is that Trump – and now Biden – seem to have fewer qualms about Europe starting to look more to its own security arrangements. Time was when any mention of EU defence structures was met with indignation in Washington (which could be accused of wanting it both ways: more money from Europe, but no more say in what was done with it). US hostility to separate EU defence arrangements was shared by the UK. Both Labour and Conservative governments vowed to exercise a veto if any plan for European security autonomy, popularly referred to as a European army, threatened to get off the ground.

However, this long-standing US hostility seems to have evaporated – and it has been helped on its way by the UK’s departure from the EU, which has also encouraged Emmanuel Macron to give a new push to what is now called Europe’s “strategic autonomy”. On both sides of the Atlantic, therefore, the direction seems to be towards separation in one way or another, though how complete and how soon remains to be seen.

What was in effect the unilateral US exit from Afghanistan – an exit that the other allies had no choice but to follow – will undoubtedly be seen with hindsight as a big contributory factor if the US and Europe eventually go their separate ways on security. But so will the Aukus agreement between the US, the UK and Australia, which was announced seemingly out of the blue last month, though it may also be seen in retrospect as a manifestation of the incipient separation.

There is some disagreement on whether Aukus, which provides for the US, with some UK involvement, to supply nuclear submarines to Australia on a long-term contract, is anything like a security pact, or whether it is rather a military trade deal dressed up as something more significant. The message, on the other hand, is clear.

The strongest members of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement between the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, which had stood somewhat awkwardly partly inside, but aloof from, Nato, may be transforming themselves into a new Anglo-Saxon military and defence alliance that has its sights set on constraining China.

It can surely be only a matter of time before this formation starts to supersede Nato outside Europe, for all US protestations to the contrary. For if the US and the UK, Nato’s two largest contributors, are increasingly otherwise engaged, it is hard to see how the commitment to Europe’s security will be able to continue exactly as before. Not only that, but with Germany preoccupied with its internal affairs as it emerges from 16 years of Merkel-ism, and with the East and Central Europeans having lost the hawkish support over Russia that the UK afforded them within the EU, Macron’s time may have come. If he wins re-election next year – which is likely, though not a foregone conclusion – the stars could be aligned in just a way that allows him to pursue his ideas for European defence, even as Nato – at least as a transatlantic alliance – starts to wither away.

The question then would be where such a project might go. Any softening towards Russia would be fiercely opposed by those countries who see themselves as being on the post-Cold War frontline. But there could possibly be movement in the stance of Russia. With large parts of Europe (including Germany) still reliant on Russian gas, and climate change concerns starting to bring Russia more into the mainstream, a rapprochement with Europe cannot be ruled out. Nor can the further prospect – down the line and perhaps post-Putin – of European security arrangements that could perhaps include, rather than be designed to exclude, Russia.

Something along these lines has long been sought by Russia – in fact since before the Soviet collapse, with Gorbachev’s vain hopes of a “Common European Home”. And this is one reason why such a possibility would have to be stage two, rather than stage one, of any pan-European security project. But it is hard to see any future in which the days of Nato, at least as we know it, are not numbered.

There are all sorts of reasons why the alliance should have been disbanded, or rethought, at the end of the Cold War, and all sorts of reasons why it wasn’t. But its quest for a purpose over the past 30 years has made Europe less, rather than more, secure and led the US and a changing cast of allies into military adventures that have been, to say the least, unwise. When the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, announced earlier this year that the alliance would add Pacific security to its concerns, that was yet another nail in the coffin of the old Nato. In substance, Trump was right when he declared Nato obsolete. Aukus is an early sign of how the configuration of global security is going to be transformed.