NATO is out of shape and out of date

Yet look a little more closely, and the picture is far less rosy. Notwithstanding its apparent unity of purpose since the start of Russia’s war, NATO looks out of shape and out of date. In the run-up to their summit, the allies have been furiously haggling over the language in their new strategic concept, which will frame the alliance’s mission for the coming years and will be unveiled in Madrid. What will it say about Russia? About China? What sacrifices and risks are the member states really willing to accept? Are they willing to pool sovereignty in order to streamline decision-making?

Nothing in recent weeks suggests that these questions will get clear answers. For starters, the 30-strong alliance is unwieldy. In military terms, only a handful of members matter—above all, the United States—but in political terms, even little Luxembourg and Iceland get a voice. Worse, the political divides are huge. Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a semi-authoritarian state that flirts with Russia and fumes at what it considers European meddling over human rights. Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orban is taking a different but downward path, fusing wealth and power into a new system of control at home and undermining U.S. and European attempts to put pressure on Russia and China. Macron’s relentless posturing and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s foot-dragging create constant obstacles and distractions. The two leader’s weaknesses, on glorious display since the start of the war, have already enriched the language: Scholzen is a German neologism for “dither,” while makronic in Polish (and its equivalent in Ukrainian) can be roughly translated as “vacuous grandstanding while doing nothing.”

Macron and Scholz corrode decision-making with their foibles and thus place a big question mark over the alliance’s credibility and cohesion.