With Russia’s Ukraine build-up, NATO faces existential crisis of coherence

With Russian President Vladimir Putin knocking on Ukraine’s door, NATO heads of state “stressed the importance of unity” on a recent phone call. But Joshua Huminski of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs argues in the op ed below that their actions show that the threat to Ukraine has exposed fissures in the alliance that could not have come at a worse time.

The Russia-manufactured crisis in Ukraine is as much a test of Europe’s security architecture as it is anything else. Unfortunately, this crisis is exposing the fact that while the NATO nations can remain firm on the idea of collective defense of member territories, trying to organize the alliance as a unified political body is nearly impossible.

To date, the NATO alliance facilitated cooperation and integration, joint exercises and unit rotations, and more, but so much of the strength of the alliance was and remains largely implied. Moscow has made moves that tested the allies resolve, first with the invasion of Georgia of 2008 and then the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

While the focus of the alliance shifted from third country operations such as the mission in Afghanistan after 9/11, to collective defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, until now it hasn’t truly faced an existential crisis of confidence and coherence. And though Ukraine is not a NATO member, how the alliance responds here will have ripple effects for both the alliance’s long-term credibility, but also confidence in America’s commitment to its partnerships in other arenas.

By mobilizing along Ukraine’s border, Russian President Vladimir Putin is now challenging a collective political response from the NATO nations to a crisis outside its borders — and thus far, NATO is found wanting. Instead, what has emerged is a patchwork of individual security interests, laying bare the fault lines within the alliance.

On the positive side, there are the United Kingdom’s willingness to transfer anti-tank guided munitions (ATGMs) to Ukraine and the United States’ clearance for Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to transfer US-made munitions to Kyiv. Estonia is providing a field hospital and cyber defense support to Ukraine, as well; that the Baltic nations have been actively supportive of Ukraine should be no surprise, as they represent the alliance’s front-line eastern border with Russia.

However, Germany and France — two of Europe’s largest and most important countries, key partners of the NATO alliance, and some of the world’s largest arms exporters — are proving unwilling to provide support. In fact, Germany is actively preventing support from passing through to Kyiv, blocking Estonia from transferring German-made D-30 artillery shells to Ukraine. Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister said, “Our restrictive position is well known and is rooted in history.” To be sure, Germany has its cultural and historical reasons for its unwillingness to support the present aid to Ukraine, but such recalcitrance is undermining NATO unity.

For its part, France’s advocacy of a separate EU-Russia policy is further undermining both the appearance and reality of NATO unity — hardly the first time France has been accused of such an effort. Given Paris’ presidency of the EU, this support is unsurprising, but it is horribly misguided in the present crisis. Speaking to the European Parliament, France’s president Emmanuel Macron said, “It’s good that Europeans and the United States coordinate, but it’s necessary that Europeans conduct their own dialogue.”

While Europe’s security architecture runs on US resolve and commitment, the investment and participation of member countries forms the backbone of the alliance. Some states have energy and financial interests that often make them more vulnerable to Moscow’s influence, and that brings with it a muddied and muddled information environment, making it even more challenging to confront Russia.

Will several thousand ATGMs or German munitions turn the tide against the expansion of Russia’s invasion in Ukraine? Likely not. It will certainly raise the cost for Moscow, but it is an insufficient tactical deterrent to what is ultimately a strategic challenge and threat. It is a low-cost signal of the UK’s (and by extension America’s) support to Ukraine, and is done in a manner that does not give Moscow a reason to pull the trigger.

What those munitions transfers mean and what coordinated policy on Moscow symbolizes is NATO’s unity, support and collective defense in the face of Russia’s aggression. Germany’s intransigence and France’s separate path sends the precisely wrong message at precisely the wrong time.

Russia’s approach to Europe aims to split the alliance politically, deal with countries individually, and play one off another. Where demonstrations of unity are needed, Berlin and Paris are feeding into Moscow’s narrative that NATO is a paper tiger and lacks the necessary unity to stand up to its predation.

In the near-term, this feeds into Putin’s strategic calculus as it pertains to Ukraine — a dangerous prospect. In the longer-term, it risks splitting the NATO alliance into a two-tier structure where the United States, United Kingdom, Baltic States and Poland (perhaps, one day, with newly added Sweden and Finland) are unified, while Germany, France, and others are barely dues-paying members of this critical alliance.

This crisis is a time for deep reflection on what the NATO alliance means, what it stands for and what the future security architecture of Europe should look like. A future NATO cannot be divided against Russia. Now, more than ever, the NATO alliance needs collective action and coordination, and it cannot afford the obstinacy of Berlin or Paris. Such behavior only emboldens Putin and supports Moscow’s narrative.

Joshua C. Huminski is Director of the Mike Rogers Center for Intelligence & Global Affairs at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, and a George Mason University National Security Institute Visiting Fellow. He can be found on Twitter @joshuachuminski.