Trump has stated that he is considering the possibility of the US withdrawing from NATO. This statement comes as a result of the deep disagreement between the US and European states over the war with Iran. The main European NATO powers have not only opposed their participation in this war, but have often refused to make their bases available to American aircraft.
Writes: Blerim Latifi
We are accustomed to seeing NATO as a unitary military alliance, but its history speaks otherwise. At times, this alliance has experienced deep divisions that have led to its near paralysis.
The earliest case is what is known as the Suez Canal Crisis, of 1956, just 7 years after the founding of NATO.
When Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, Britain and France intervened militarily against Egypt without the support of the United States. Washington strongly opposed the intervention, and this situation escalated into a major rift within NATO. Had the Soviet threat not been on the horizon, NATO might have ended long ago.
Ten years later, another major quarrel would tear the alliance apart. This time, the protagonist of the rift would be France.
In a surprise decision, then-French President Charles de Gaulle would remove France from what is known as NATO’s “integrated military structure.” This decision in France was justified by the demand that France have its independence from American influence in the alliance.
Although France had been liberated from Nazi occupation with the help of American armies (the Normandy landings), the post-war years in France would be characterized by a very strong anti-American climate, and De Gaulle, the historical ally of the Americans, would fall under the influence of this climate. France's withdrawal from NATO military command was followed by a major internal division.
The next crisis would come in early 1983.
After the death of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet Union, in a show of force, began stationing medium-range nuclear missiles in the communist countries of Eastern Europe that were under Soviet tutelage. The Americans, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, would retaliate by stationing nuclear missiles in Germany, Italy, and Britain. A huge wave of protests that erupted in Western Europe would have a profound impact on NATO unity.
The collapse of the Soviet Union would be followed by a major debate within NATO members over the reason for its existence after the disappearance of the enemy that had been the fundamental reason for its creation. But this debate did not bring any practical results and in the 90s NATO appeared united in many events. It approved the enlargement plan with the countries of the former communist bloc in Eastern Europe, participated in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, intervened in the Bosnian war (albeit belatedly) and in 1999 intervened against the regime of Slobodan Milošević to stop his genocidal campaign against the Albanians of Kosovo. Thus NATO was closing the 20th century as a unique military alliance.
In 2001, NATO would once again appear united around the US in the attack on the Taliban's Afghanistan, but two years later, it would be deeply divided when the US invaded Saddam's Iraq. France and Germany came out openly and strongly against this invasion.
In the following years, there have been other serious tensions between allies, such as the tension between the US and Turkey, when the latter decided to purchase an air defense system from Russia.
With the coming to power of Donald Trump, a new series of disputes began between Washington and the European members of the alliance. These are known as the disputes over the financial burden of maintaining NATO. Trump accused the Europeans of not paying enough and that America would not continue to pay for their security, which it had been doing since the days of the landing on the beaches of Normandy in France.
The latest crisis of NATO unity is related to the War with Iran.
European opposition to joining America in the war has sparked strong reactions in Washington, the latest of which is Trump's threat that he is considering withdrawing the US from NATO, which, according to him, without the US remains nothing more than a paper tiger.
If these threats become reality, the first thing that will end is security and peace in Europe. This will be Russia's greatest historical chance to implement its long-standing plan to destabilize Europe, from which it hopes to gain a new hegemonic role in the former Soviet sphere.
So, of all the crises of disintegration that NATO has gone through, this last one carries the greatest risk of its disintegration.
Europe is facing the risk of great chaos, which, in the absence of America, it will not be able to cope with successfully. The reasons are known.
Meanwhile, we have no idea how to act in the face of this danger. Because we don't have time to think about this. Because we have focused all our time and energy on hiring someone for the position of president of Kosovo, and if we don't succeed, we will go to new elections, from which no solution is expected to come out that would end the vicious political circle in which we have been trapped for so long.
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