NATO: ANNIVERSARY OR WAKE?

The special summit celebrating NATO's 75th anniversary in Washington from July 9 to 11 was meant to showcase to the world, especially Russia and China, the enduring strength of the alliance of democracies. However, the sudden decline of the host and an unwelcome guest threaten to spoil the celebration, if not turn it into a wake.

First, the host.

The world witnessed last Thursday the sad downfall of a frail Joe Biden during his CNN debate with Donald Trump. Either the ailing leader will be forced to step down, as panicked Democratic Party leaders now demand, or he will be swept away in November by his Republican rival, who is already leading in the polls. Trump, the nightmare of European chancelleries, makes no secret of his intention to thoroughly revise the Atlantic alliance, or even withdraw from it if the Europeans do not pay their "dues." The Alliance would not survive a single day without the United States...

Next, the unwelcome guest: Ukraine.

For Kyiv, joining NATO is fundamental. Now enshrined in the Ukrainian constitution, membership in the Alliance and the guarantee of its famous Article V has been the leitmotif of Ukrainian leaders for two decades: before and after the onset of the war in 2014 and then in 2022. In 2008 in Bucharest, Sarkozy and Merkel, fearing a war, blocked Ukraine's entry desired by W. Bush, but not its principle. Last year in Vilnius, 18 months after the Russian invasion, it was Biden himself who vetoed it, provoking Zelensky's public anger.

To avoid another embarrassing drama, the issue has been carefully prepared this time. Last week in Brussels, Zelensky secured the opening of EU accession negotiations and even the signing of a security agreement between the EU and Ukraine. These are symbolic gestures for now: Ukraine is far from meeting European standards (including the rule of law and corruption); as for security, which is not within the EU's remit, it is hard to see how the EU could help militarily, especially when Ursula Von der Leyen admits they do not know where to find the 500 billion euros needed for European rearmament over the next 10 years!

On the American side, Biden remains firm on "no" to Ukraine's entry into NATO to avoid a generalized war, but a new instrument will be created for the occasion: NSTATU (NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine), based in Wiesbaden and led by an American general, will be responsible for coordinating long-term military aid to Kyiv. A NATO arrangement that Trump alone could not, it is thought, eliminate with a stroke of the pen...

However, it is unclear if these gestures will be enough to calm Zelensky and his generals' concerns, especially if Trump is re-elected at the end of the year. Trump does not like Zelensky, whom he considers a formidable trader capable of leaving Washington with $60 billion. His team has just published, under the names of two of his former National Security Council advisors, Fred Fleitz and General Keith Kellogg, Trump's future peace plan for Ukraine: withdraw all support to Ukraine if it does not accept a peace agreement based on the current front lines, and on the Russian side, threaten Putin to arm the Ukrainians to the teeth if Moscow does not agree to come to the negotiating table...

Anniversary or wake?

Pierre Lellouche VA Column, 30/6/24