With its future strategy concept, NATO is reinventing itself. Economic and technical superiority take precedence over the military. A comment.
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People don’t just want to survive. They want to live, have fun, be carefree. To do this, they need security, both on a small and large scale, from Corona and terror, Russia and China. In dealing with the pandemic, vaccinations, tests and hygiene concepts take the place of ad hoc prevention. The joys of everyday life are returning.
The heads of government of the western democracies faced a similar task at G-7 and NATO summits. How does the state strengthen the broken basic trust that it guarantees its citizens a life in freedom, democracy and security? The attacks that shake this feeling of security have reached a variety that dissolves the classic division into internal and external threats.
Cyber attacks stop the supply of water, electricity and petrol
Twenty years ago, the hijacked aircraft attack on New York briefly brought the global economy to its knees. Today, a foreign hacking attack on a pipeline company, like recently in the US, can cut millions of people off gas and wreak havoc with panic buying at gas stations. Cyber warriors can paralyze the supply of drinking water, electricity and heating energy. And anyone who breaks into the Bundestag’s data networks can also manipulate elections.
Perhaps the most momentous attacks on Europeans’ sense of security in recent years came from within: US President Donald Trump threatened to terminate the guarantee of assistance. Boris Johnson led his country into Brexit. Trump called NATO obsolete, and Emmanuel Macron diagnosed her brain death.
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Who and what can you still rely on? Vladimir Putin is forcibly drawing new borders, imprisoning dissidents or having them killed. Nevertheless, the NATO ally Turkey buys weapons systems from him. Head of state Erdogan gets one before meeting Joe Biden Milliardenkredit in China, as if he wanted to sabotage the G7’s warning of such dependence. How does the West intend to contain Beijing in the face of such allies?
From Trump to Biden: Allianz is taking off again
Here, too, the western democracies need time to move from ad hoc measures against the new dangers to a systematic response. Current main threats such as cyber weapons and climate change will only appear in NATO’s future strategic concept. In the old one of 2010 they were still missing, Russia was a partner and China was not a strategic challenge.
Thanks to Trump’s move to Biden, Europeans and Americans are back on their feet. Four years of Trump taught them that the more united they act, the greater their security. Trust in the reliability of the partner is the key resource. NATO is alive again, that was felt at the summit.
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As with Corona, the rapid countermeasures also helped to prevent worse security issues. Air traffic was safe again shortly after 9/11. The sanctions imposed by the West after the occupation of Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014 have deterred Putin from further wars of conquest. They are not a permanent solution. Biden will talk to Putin about common interests: the limits of cyberattacks, nuclear disarmament, the Iran deal.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan and new priorities
Other responses to attacks have turned out to be costly mistakes, such as NATO’s military intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11. NATO is now ending it largely unsuccessfully and fearing that the Taliban will soon take power again.
At the same time, the concept for the future is now taking shape. G7 and NATO currently do not define security issues primarily in military terms, but as a question of economic, technical and alliance-political superiority. Sure, the military has to be strong enough to deter potential adversaries. Incidentally, China is not one of them for NATO; it wants to remain a transatlantic alliance.
