“China, climate change, and cyber” are three of the greatest national security challenges facing the West, NATO Secretary-General and former Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told us this morning. He was speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations Zoom session moderated by retired Admiral James Stavridis, the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who readily agreed with Stoltenberg’s claim.
No thinking human being would disagree with the proposition that these three mega-issues are among, say, five of the most serious security threats confronting the United States and the West. I would add to the list Russia fueled by Putin’s malevolence, an enormous factor in the cyber threat, and hate-filled, right-wing terrorism of the domestic or foreign variety.
On China, Stoltenberg said “they do not share our values.” He added that our “rules-based order is being challenged” by Beijing, which poses an enormous threat to “our security and our way of life.” Stavridis asked Stoltenberg straight out whether it will be possible to avoid war with China. It was an awkward question, but its genesis was clear in that Stavridis’ new novel entitled “2034: A Novel of the Next World War” imagines a naval clash between the U.S. and China in the South China Sea thirteen years from now.
Stoltenberg was asked whether NATO should come to the defense of Pacific powers such as Australia, Japan, and the U.S. to protect freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The Secretary-General said he did not feel free to answer the question for fear of being misinterpreted, though he did add that NATO members such as Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, and United States already conduct naval operations in the Pacific.
When asked earlier in the discussion about NATO intervention in opposing China, Stoltenberg seemed to stand in two different camps. On the one hand he said, “I strongly believe that NATO should remain a regional alliance.” He added, however, that NATO nonetheless must “recognize that China’s impact is global” and that the “full alliance will respond” in the case of war or certain crises.
The Secretary-General is a capable and intelligent leader, but he’s in a difficult spot as NATO considers how to position and promote its role in the 21st Century. No wonder he said toward the end of our session that, “It’s time for a new strategic concept for NATO." The last such review was conducted in 2010, and Stoltenberg said that he has an “open mind” on the subject.
NATO needs to exist for many reasons. Safeguarding Europe on Moscow’s western front with Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania provides sufficient historic evidence. Holding right-wing reactionaries running NATO nations such as Hungary in check and within the alliance seems darn useful, too. Beyond Europe, NATO member nations will need to decide how committed the alliance should be to concerns emanating in the Pacific, Middle East and around the globe. After all, major challenges outside NATO’s traditional orbit will quite quickly find their way to Europe and North America anyway. Isolationism from any and all of it can be a dangerous illusion.
Image courtesy of BM.GE.