NATO summit faces unexpected challenges. Doubts about Biden top the list.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg throws out the ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the Washington Nationals and the St. Louis Cardinals, in Washington, July 8, 2024.
Nick Wass/AP
WASHINGTON
As NATO leaders gather in Washington this week to celebrate the alliance’s 75th anniversary, politics has already crashed the party.
French President Emmanuel Macron arrives weakened by the prospect of weeks of political deadlock at home after national elections Sunday delivered no clear path to a new government. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has rising far-right (in some cases anti-NATO) parties nipping at his heels.
But nothing compares to the doubts swirling around the summit’s host, U.S. President Joe Biden, and his mental fitness for reelection in the wake of his alarming performance in the June 27 presidential debate.
Why We Wrote This
Joe Biden’s leadership of NATO in addressing the challenges posed by Russia and its war in Ukraine has reassured U.S. allies and been a centerpiece of his presidency. His debate performance raises uncomfortable questions.
The summit was supposed to be a 32-nation high-five to NATO’s postwar successes. (Read more about those in this Monitor cover story on the alliance’s anniversary.) Highlights this week include the recent addition of new members Finland and Sweden and possible confirmation of Ukraine’s path to membership.
Yet what, from the White House’s perspective, was also to be a testament to Mr. Biden’s global leadership threatens to become three days of intense observation and judgment of the host’s physical and mental capacities.
Moreover, the president’s weakened political prospects can’t help but sharpen concerns among NATO members over what a possible return of NATO-bashing Donald Trump to the White House would mean for the alliance and for American leadership of the transatlantic security structure.
“All the leaders are aware that all eyes are going to be on President Biden in a way they haven’t been before. Every journalist is going to be asking any leader who meets with Biden or has a simple passing conversation with him how he seemed to do,” says one European official, who requested anonymity to comment on a sensitive topic.
“But the bigger question hovering over the summit will be whether this is a kind of high point, to be followed by more contentious relations or even a U.S. departure from NATO,” the official adds. “Those worries were already there, but Biden’s weakness makes them seem more likely and something to prepare for.”
The summit will still have its celebratory high points. Mr. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will welcome NATO leaders and other invitees to the White House Wednesday evening for a flashy 75th anniversary party.
On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg threw the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
But the looming question of how NATO members will deal with the prickly question of Ukraine membership in the alliance is now overshadowed by anticipation of Mr. Biden’s formal press conference – his first since November 2022 – at the end of the summit Thursday afternoon.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will attend the summit knowing the invitation to NATO membership he seeks is off the table, yet hoping for a stronger commitment than what alliance members agreed to at their summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year.
Some members are pressing for the word “irreversible” to be used in the summit’s final communiqué to describe Ukraine’s path to membership.
White House officials say the communiqué’s wording on Ukraine accession is still being negotiated. But they add that a commitment to building a “bridge to membership” is already agreed.
That “bridge” will consist of steps to enhance training of Ukrainian forces to prepare them to work better with NATO counterparts, as well as steps to help fight corruption and strengthen democratic governance.
A five-step plan will also include establishment of a new special command in Germany to manage international support for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
Some Ukraine supporters see any talk of eventual membership as too weak and deferential to an aggressive Russia, while others worry that even imprecise language on Ukraine membership will put the alliance on a slippery path to a step that could put NATO closer to war with Russia.
“A ‘bridge to NATO’ seems to be the phrase du jour for Ukraine membership, but I see that as a semiserious or unserious proposal ... [that] shows once again how the alliance is engaged in a creeping process towards membership,” says Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
“We’re seeing a pattern where the alliance says, ‘Let countries in, expand, and we’ll consider the costs later,’” he says. Seeing no NATO country as willing to enter the war to fight on Ukraine’s side against Russia, Mr. Wertheim says it is dishonest to dangle NATO membership, which would commit alliance members to defending Ukraine.
For his part, Mr. Zelenskyy will attend the Washington summit not so much interested in debating processes but focused on pressing the urgency of receiving more defenses now against Russian aggression.
That need was underscored by a particularly intense barrage of strikes Monday against Ukrainian cities that left scores of civilians dead and included a hit that partially destroyed a children’s hospital in Kyiv, killing 20.
For some, it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s grim tip of the cap to NATO’s Washington celebration.