NATO debates about Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan missions and the role of the European Union
Since yesterday, Brussels has been hosting a new telematic meeting of the Atlantic Alliance's Foreign Affairs ministers, which will deal with various issues, some of them complicated. This summit, which will last two days, will only be the prelude to the one that will take place at the beginning of 2021, and which will already be attended by Joe Biden. In addition to current issues, the proposals included in the report that a group of experts from different countries – none of them Spanish – has prepared at the request of the Secretary General of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, and the future of the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan will be discussed. NATO is currently experiencing a delicate situation as a result, mainly of two actors: the United States and Turkey.
In the case of the first, the isolationism to which the Trump Administration has directed the United States has resulted, for example, in the withdrawal of US troops from the contingent that it maintains deployed in Germany in the context of the US European Command (EUCOM). During his time at the head of the White House, Trump has also been forceful in criticizing the meager investment of his European partners in Defence, accusing them of pretending that the United States continues to protect European soil while they strengthen their Welfare State. However, in the same way that it has requested greater investment in defense, Washington has been placing obstacles in the way of the European Union, with Germany and France at the forefront, to deepen a greater strategic autonomy, which would affect the US arms industry and its exports to the European partners.
In the case of Turkey, the reasons are increasingly clear. The expansionist policy of Turkish President Erdogan, the interference in regional conflicts such as Syria, Iraq, Libya or that of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the clashes in the Eastern Mediterranean with Cyprus and Greece or the dialectic tension with French President Emmanuel Macron, are the latest events that are damaging Ankara's relations with the rest of the capitals. However, Turkey is an important ally for NATO because of its military strength - its Armed Forces are the second largest in the Alliance - and its geographical position, which allows the Alliance to have a presence in a very unstable region such as the Middle East.
Precisely, another of the points being dealt with, are the missions that NATO maintains in Iraq and Afghanistan, from where the United States announced its progressive withdrawal following the peace agreement between Kabul and the Taliban. The Pentagon and the acting Secretary of Defense, Chris Miller, recently announced one of Trump's last decisions at the head of the United States: the reduction of US troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan by half, that is, to 2,500 troops. This decision was viewed with concern by Jens Stoltenberg, who announced at the time that the consequences could be dire, particularly for the situation in Afghanistan. During the press conference given by the Secretary General of the Alliance yesterday, he reiterated the concern and commented on the need for "European countries to assume more weight in these missions," something that will have to be decided at the next summit with the heads of state.
The last thorny point of the meetings is the so-called strategic autonomy of the European Union, an issue that, especially France and Germany have been putting on the table for several years in the European Union and about which there are many doubts, also within the EU itself. In the joint communiqué of the French and German Foreign Affairs ministers, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Heiko Maas respectively, the issue of European strategic autonomy appears again, a way of increasing the sovereignty of the Union and improving the existing balance between European countries and the United States. According to them, it is not a question of moving towards a European Union to replace NATO, but of consolidating and increasing the community weight within the Alliance itself. In the words of the ministers, it is time to "not only see what the United States can do for us, but what we can do for ourselves".
This strategic sovereignty, which in many aspects has repercussions on a greater autonomy of the European military industry, would undoubtedly have repercussions on commercial relations between the European partners and the United States, particularly in the area of the arms industry. Moreover, the development of this European industry would not only mean a reduction in US exports to this region, but also the emergence of a major competitor on the international scene. Trump's protectionist vision has marked the discourse from Washington in this regard, and it remains to be seen whether the new president, Joe Biden, will maintain it or soften it.
But the United States is not the only country that is not too happy with this Franco-German proposal. Other European countries, mainly the Baltic and Eastern European countries, believe that this European sovereignty could push the United States to reduce its presence in Europe - as it is already doing - which would be, according to them, to the detriment of their security. Many Eastern European capitals prefer the guarantees offered by NATO, mainly because of the military weight of the United States, to those offered by a European Union with greater military and strategic autonomy. They irremediably link their security to the US presence, so anything that could affect the current balance is viewed with concern. The Secretary General of NATO himself stated that "any attempt to move away from the United States will divide the European partners". In this sense, from Paris and Berlin, it is necessary to continue teaching about the possibilities that this European sovereignty would imply for NATO, beginning with its own European partners.
It will be at the beginning of next year when all these issues will be dealt with in depth and when definitive conclusions will be reached. Jens Stoltenberg is optimistic about the arrival of Joe Biden, whom he considers to have a more constructive transatlantic vision than Donald Trump, and who will facilitate agreements between the two sides of the Atlantic.
