NATO 3.0: A Tagline in Search of a Concept

(John Drennan, Ariane Tabatabai – Lawfare) When NATO leaders gather in Ankara this July, they will do so in the shadow of a recent U.S. announcement that will cast a shadow over the discussions: The United States has moved to reduce its contributions to the NATO Force Model, the framework through which the alliance “organises, manages, activates and commands national forces” to support its core activities, by one-third to one-half. The Pentagon framed the cuts not as a strategic adjustment but as a test of allied commitment, or “an opportunity for allies to demonstrate that they have heard President Trump’s call for them to step up and take primary responsibility for Europe’s conventional defense.” That framing captures the central imperative of what the Trump administration has dubbed “NATO 3.0”: burden-sharing, pursued as an end in itself. Indeed, the administration has successfully identified the same problem that its predecessors did but never resolved: NATO must be reformed for a new era, with the 31 members other than the U.S. taking on a greater share of the burden for Europe’s defense. The administration’s analysis, however, has not led to a positive articulation of what the United States wants the future of European security to look like. Washington has failed to identify a threat that the alliance should organize around, which, in turn, would dictate the nature of each ally’s contributions to defending and deterring against that threat. The administration offers slogans such as “we want partnerships, not dependencies” instead of a coherent strategy. NATO 3.0 fails not because it asks Europeans to do more, but because it never defines what they are supposed to do more of, or why, and because it has made force posture an instrument of political coercion rather than strategic planning. – NATO 3.0: A Tagline in Search of a Concept | Lawfare