Transatlantic Shift: NATO, Ukraine, and the Future of Transatlantic Relations

A Response By Tim Morrison

When the heads of state of NATO member states convene in Washington this summer for the 75th anniversary of the most successful military alliance since FDR and Churchill, much will be on their minds. Congratulations will be in order: 75 years—–the diamond anniversary. This anniversary was by no means certain at its founding in that same city.

At the Wales Summit in 2014—when NATO was 65 years young and 28 members strong—three members were meeting the commitment to spend at least two percent of their GDP on defense.¹ Ten years later and with 32 members, the alliance now includes 20 members at two percent (despite two years of proxy war between NATO-backed Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s Russia).

Peter Rough rightly focuses on Putin’s methodical campaign to challenge NATO and the West today, in Ukraine and elsewhere. And he focuses on a key element of the alliance—or “Axis”—that is rising in support of Putin’s campaign. He points out that Russia has been proliferating key technologies to Iran, North Korea, and even Belarus. This is a key point in his paper that merits more focus given what it portends for the larger forces at play now in Ukraine—and perhaps in the near future in the Taiwan Strait.

NATO was founded to keep Russia out, the United States in, and Germany down. Is its purpose as clear today? Can it defeat Russian aggression in Europe? If it cannot do that, what will it do in the face of aggression by Xi Jinping, who will likely not act alone or in one theater?

NATO, led by the United States, failed to deter Russia from invading Ukraine in 2022, despite promises of crippling economic sanctions. At every step of this latest conflict, Putin has wielded his nuclear saber to deter necessary U.S. and NATO actions to reinforce Ukraine. Is this why Xi’s China is running in its own nuclear arms race today?

NATO has armed Ukraine and done so commendably in some cases—but often too little, too late. Russia may still win in Ukraine as a result.

Russia has also largely been able to insulate its economy from sanctions, and its energy revenue appears to be almost untouched over more than two years of conflict and punishment—the U.S. Department of Defense itself is still a customer of Russia, buying its energy to power U.S. bases in Europe.²,³ One has to wonder what Putin thinks when he sees his energy supplying Ramstein and Aviano and sees a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels making an announcement about a new security assistance package for Kyiv. The intelligence reporting must be fascinating.

Energy, like military force, is a key tool of global competition; it is traded on a global market. Having a vote in that market, whether with domestic energy or security assistance and guarantees, is a key enabler for the U.S.- led West in the Middle East’s decision making, or in Europe’s.

It will continue to grow more important. Withdrawal from those theaters in the name of the first island chain grows less sensible (not more) given what we are learning from our experience in Ukraine. Senator John McCain called Russia a mafia-run gas station with nuclear weapons.

As the war has dragged on, Europe, to its credit, has made some progress in cutting its reliance on Russian energy. But China has backfilled with the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline, jumping crude oil imports and tens of billions of cubic meters of natural gas per year. Russia is increasingly Xi’s gas station to fuel Putin’s war in Ukraine, fielding North Korean shells and Iranian ballistic missiles and drones. China has played the situation masterfully, helping to satisfy its energy needs with Russian energy at a discounted rate.⁴

But Beijing has provided Russia real, hard currency to insulate its economy—and military—from what sanctions the NATO-led West has imposed. Indeed, Russia has almost completely reconstituted its military, according to one senior State Department official.⁵ It has not done this alone. But NATO and the West have not reacted as rhetoric would suggest.

North Korea is producing millions of shells for Russia’s army in Ukraine, shipping them in more than 10,000 shipping containers—this is not a low-profile or clandestine effort.⁶ And then there is Iran, already home to the most prolific short- and medium-range ballistic program in the world, which has been providing munitions and armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to support Russia’s campaign in Ukraine.⁷,⁸

And then there is China. Recently, during the “Worldwide Threats” hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) spoke about China’s burgeoning support for Russia’s war effort:

“China’s provision of dual use components and material to Russia’s defense industry is one of several factors that tilted the momentum on the battlefield in Ukraine in Moscow’s favor, while also accelerating a reconstitution of Russia’s military strength after their extraordinarily costly invasion.”⁹

These include dual-use drone and rocket technology, satellite imagery, and machine tools needed for its defense production.

Arming Russia in Ukraine was a red line China was not to cross without dire consequences. Sounds a lot like the original threat by the United States and the West to Russia not to re-invade Ukraine in February 2022. Is the West at risk of creating a parallel between Russia-Ukraine and China-Taiwan?

A recent issue of The Atlantic referred to an “Axis of Autocracy” and stated that that axis is on the march. Our friend, Matt Pottinger, calls it an “Axis of Chaos.”¹⁰,¹¹ That describes the present situation as well as anything I have come across.

NATO has added new allies, and those allies themselves have real military capability. But the United States has a defense budget proposal this year that appears to show one percent growth—but in reality, as anyone who buys eggs and milk knows, that budget is actually down about 2.5 percent in real terms over the Fiscal Year 2024 budget that was passed last year.

A colleague of ours, Seth Jones at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), just released a new report that describes how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has put its defense industrial base on a war footing.¹² Earlier this past spring, one of the key facilities in the United States for making the 155mm artillery shell for the U.S. Army and the armies of many friends abroad—built in 1908—caught fire.¹³ Likewise, nearly every class of new ship under development and construction by the U.S. Navy is now late.¹⁴ Our defense industrial base and acquisition system is unable to keep up with China’s military modernization because of Ukraine: they are unable to keep up with even Russia’s because the Axis of Chaos is on war footing and we are not.

Why do we think the same Axis of Chaos that is out-building us in Ukraine will allow us to prioritize one theater over the other in the next phase of the present conflict to reshape the world America and NATO built 75 years ago? Why do we think losing in Ukraine will not be the spark that lights the match of conflict in the Taiwan Strait? These are the questions that the North Atlantic Council should confront this summer in Washington.

Rough makes clear in his paper that Putin has a plan. We know Xi has a plan. Do the West’s leaders have a plan to stop them?