After the Cold War, the organisation went from being a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union to an expansive one aimed at European peace and stability. Now it’s trying to do both.
leaders’ summit in Madrid this week is only the second time an Australian prime minister has joined the trans-Atlantic alliance’s 30 leaders at the conference table.
The North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 drew a line in the sand, telling Moscow that an attack on any of the original dozen members would be “considered an attack against them all”, and would be met with a collective, and potentially military, response. Bathed in this new mindset and confidence, NATO saw it as natural that the rest of Europe – that is, the former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet republics – should come under its umbrella.
Where the West saw NATO’s expansion as a flowering of democracy and stability, Russia saw a hubristic and presumptuous challenger marching into its sphere of influence, almost right up to the backyard fence. Other countries have sporadically knocked on NATO’s door. But from an alliance perspective, letting them join would be too risky.
But the alliance also requires candidates to have a modicum of democracy and a minimum of corruption, and Ukraine was found wanting on both counts. Now, Russia’s invasion has made Kyiv’s NATO dream all but unattainable.Moldova, Azerbaijan and Georgia might also have NATO aspirations, depending on where they are in their oscillation between pro- and anti-Russian regimes. But all have Kremlin-fomented instability on or within their borders, which would preclude membership.
Meanwhile, US president Donald Trump majored on locking horns with China. When he did look towards Europe, he would publicly question the worth of NATO, shower praise on Vladimir Putin, and browbeat his allies for their trade policies and their allegedly inadequate defence spending. But his invasion of Ukraine has had precisely the opposite effect. NATO is energised and purposeful, its founding mission rediscovered and reinvigorated.
It unsurprisingly majors on Russia – “the most significant and direct threat to our security”, Stoltenberg said. But the Trump legacy lives on: the document will tackle China for the first time, setting out “the challenges that Beijing poses to our security, interests, and values”.It’s at this point that Australia, and Albanese, enter the picture.
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