Consider This from NPR - NATO Positions Itself For War

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

When Russia's war in Ukraine began over two years ago, neighboring countries feared that they could be next.And NATO asked itself - was it prepared to defend its territory if war arrived on its doorstep?The answer was no.So, its military chief decided it was time to ramp up NATO's strategy and revive its military headquarters. And for the first time this spring, NATO will exercise brand new war plans to prepare for the worst. The plan comes as Donald Trump makes another run at the White House, and expresses skepticism about NATO along the way. Can NATO take on Russia if American support for the alliance doesn't hold?For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

On April 4th, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands... More simply, NATO was formed. The alliance came together in the aftermath of World War II, and as Russia became increasingly more threatening toward its neighbors. Famed journalist Edward R. Murrow explained the purpose of the Allied countries in this NATO archival film. They were sworn to stand together against aggression. An attack against one would be an attack against all. And that all for one and one for all mentality is codified in NATO's Article 5.

When war is waged on NATO territory, all the Allies must agree to respond. But things at NATO's military headquarters in Belgium, which is called the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, or SHAPE, had been pretty quiet since the Cold War. Until now. We have to change the shape of our headquarters so that they're fit for their new purpose. That's General Christopher G. Cavoli, NATO's military chief, speaking last fall. And once again, NATO is being spurred to action by a menacing Russia seeking to expand. Certainly coming out of 2022, the alliance has made it absolutely crystal clear that we have to get back to collective territorial defense.

We've got two named adversaries, terror groups and the Russian Federation. Both are active enough to put a fine point on the fact that we need to get back to this. Back to reviving NATO's military strategy and its headquarters. Shape is in the midst of transforming back into a proper war command center. NATO is growing its response force by eightfold. And just last week, it added its 32nd member. This is an historic day. We welcome Sweden into NATO

at the critical time for our shared security. Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg. 32 flags flying together. They represent 32 nations working for a common purpose. To protect one billion people, prevent war, and preserve peace. But no matter how powerful NATO's war command center grows, political will, especially on the behalf of the United States, is necessary for NATO to actually exercise its powers in the face of war on its turf.

And that could prove difficult if Donald Trump heads back to the White House. NATO was busted until I came along. I said, everybody's going to pay. That's Trump speaking just last month at a rally in South Carolina. One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, well, sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us? I said, you didn't pay? You're delinquent? He said, yes, let's say that happened. No, I would not protect you.

In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills. Consider this. With a growing Russian threat at its borders, NATO is ramping up its forces. But will it have the political support to act if war does land at its doorstep? From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. It's Friday, March 15th. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. When Russia's war in Ukraine began over two years ago, neighboring countries feared that they could be next.

And NATO asked itself, was it prepared to defend its territory if war arrived on its doorstep? The answer was no. So its military chief decided it was time to ramp up NATO's strategy and revive its military headquarters. And for the first time this spring, NATO will exercise brand new war plans to prepare for the worst. Jack Detch is a national security correspondent for foreign policy and has spent time at SHAPE and with NATO officials to observe its revival. I spoke to him about what that transformation looks like. So first of all, you've recently visited SHAPE in Belgium. How would you describe the place? SHAPE is not like any American military headquarters you'd visit. You don't see army troops training. You don't see artillery fire. You don't see sort of any hustle and bustle

in the way that you'd see in American military headquarters elsewhere. What you do see is a multinational headquarters, a 32-nation headquarters. You see uniforms from all stripes. And the hallways are getting a little bit busier since they've begun to make these changes and to get on more of a war footing that had been really put aside during the years of the post-Cold War era. You see people flighting up to build war plans. You see a command center that hasn't existed since the Cold War really coming back together to be able to communicate from shape all the way to the eastern flank of NATO where a potential war could break out. And this is a piece that's about the restructuring and reorganizing of operations at a specific building, right? But it's about a lot more than that. I feel like this gets

to the basic questions of how NATO sees itself and how it sees its role in any future conflict. Yeah, that's really right. And sort of in the years of the post-Cold War era, you sort of had NATO military strategy kind of go to sleep. If you go back all the way to the founding of NATO in 1949, when 12 allies signed the North Atlantic Treaty, there was only a military chief. It was Dwight D. Eisenhower in a U.S. Army uniform. But over the years, and particularly after the Cold War, you saw the civilians kind of begin to call the shots, and the military headquarters really did this 180, where they were reporting all the way back up to Brussels. Now they're in

the process after Ukraine, after seeing that the Russians could indeed be on NATO's doorstep of beginning to do the job of commanding again, getting shape to be able to communicate all the way down range to do the job of commanding, really, to map out military targets on Russian soil, to tell bombers, fighter jets, all sorts of military assets what to do in case things really do go awry. One of the interesting things that you noted in the article is how reluctant people of shape were to specifically pick out targets inside Russia to strike if there ever was a direct war? Why was there that reluctance? And how has that changed? And just can you explain? I guess

it's pretty straightforward if you're if you're at war with a country, but but why that is such an important thing here? Yeah, I mean, I think dating back to the 1990s. And even further, there was this hope you could have a rapprochement with Russia. You had NATO beginning to build out NATO countries in former Soviet satellite countries, and you also had a partnership with Russia itself. So at that point, it was a hard no in terms of actually identifying military targets that were in the Kremlin's backyard. I think now what's changed is you just have a lot more resolve within the alliance. Remember, NATO operates under unanimity. So you have to have all 32 allies now with Finland

and Sweden in agreeing to delegate more authorities to shape if they wanted to take out military targeting. And we saw last summer, the alliance actually giving shape the authorities to map out military targets on Russian soil. So there's much more alignment in terms of actually being prepared to do this if there's an Article 5 scenario, because there's an image in Europeans' minds that this could really happen. And with that current concern, there's also two trends to talk about here. Let's talk about the trend in the direction of NATO getting stronger. You mentioned those two new members, Finland and now Sweden.

How much of a real difference does that make, especially Sweden, the most recent member? It makes a significant difference, Scott. I mean, particularly when you look at the maritime map of the Baltic Sea, before you had a huge gap in NATO's defenses with Finland and Sweden out of the picture. So you have much more coverage of Russian vessels, much more intelligence in terms of what the Russians could do, and the potential for that intelligence to be used for targeting to deter the Russians. The Finns and the Swedes bring in significant capability in geography. So Russia's border with NATO is now significantly longer. And they have to contend with the Swedes in particular, bringing in an enormous arsenal

in terms of the ability to produce ammunition, the ability to produce submarines, the ability to produce all sorts of weapon systems that now can be in NATO's arsenal. So let's talk about a trend or a possible trend in the other direction. Then you've talked so much about the resolve of NATO members right now. This is coming at a time when Donald Trump could return to the White House. And Donald Trump has made it very clear how skeptical he is of NATO, how on the fence he seems to be about Article 5. You had that moment at a rally in recent weeks where he said, I'd tell Russia to do whatever the hell they wanted if a NATO member had not paid the full amount into its national security funding that NATO requires. Can that resolve withstand Donald

Trump coming back into office? And how much of these plans that we're talking about would be irrelevant if Donald Trump were in the White House again? Yeah, you flag the central weakness of the alliance, Scott, which is that there's always going to be the problem of political will. NATO can't defend itself until 32 members actually agree that there's an Article 5, no matter if there's an invasion, no matter if there's an attack. The problem of another Trump administration for NATO is certainly something that's central on the minds of Europeans right now, because the alliance effectively can't defend itself without the Americans coming to bat at some point in a

Russian invasion scenario, potentially 45,000 to 90,000 troops actually coming over the Atlantic to fight alongside the Europeans. If you don't have that, not just the troops, but the nuclear umbrella, it's difficult to see how these war plans work. A lot of the changes that you're reporting on, you make it clear, probably going to take decades to really fall into place. So what happens if there's a direct immediate threat from Russia before then in the next few years? NATO officials I've talked to have expressed that there's medium confidence they could actually carry out these war plans if there were an Article 5 scenario today and you had political agreement to take a response. You do see, again, with these steadfast defender exercises, 90,000 troops on the European continent, only a quarter of them are Americans, doing a high degree of complex exercises.

These range from amphibious assaults all the way to parachuting into Poland. But there's still some questions within the alliance, particularly on the eastern flank, of how solid those war plans are, especially since we see Russia potentially mobilizing to put more troops in place. So there's a lot of consternation about how quickly you can get this done, especially, as you mentioned, the timeline of developing out all these units, developing out all these plans, and actually putting sort of the nuclear backstop behind them just takes a lot of time and a lot of money. And it's not in the hands of every single ally. It's Jack Datch, a national security correspondent at Foreign Policy. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Scott. This episode was produced by Janaki Mehta with audio engineering from David Greenberg. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Thanks so much.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.