As Biden falters, Europeans seek to preserve NATO

WASHINGTON (AP) Growing skepticism about President Joe Biden's re-election chances is driving European leaders to the NATO summit in Washington, facing the prospect of the military alliance's most prominent critic, Donald Trump, returning to power over its most powerful military.

NATO, made up of 32 European and North American allies committed to defending each other against armed attack, will emphasize strength through solidarity as it marks its 75th anniversary at the summit that begins Tuesday. Host Biden, who brought together allies in a global network to help Ukraine fight off Russian invasion, called the alliance the most united it has ever been.

But behind the scenes, a dominant topic will be preparation for a possible split, as the power of far-right forces hostile to NATO grows in the United States and other countries, including France, raising concerns about the strength of support for the alliance and the military aid its members send to Ukraine.

During the presidential debate, Biden asked Trump, “Are you going to stay in NATO or are you going to withdraw?” Trump shrugged and tilted his head.

Biden's poor performance in the debate sparked a frenzy over whether the 81-year-old president is fit for office or should step down as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Even before the debate, European governments were consulting on what they could do to ensure that NATO, Western support for Ukraine and the security of individual NATO countries would continue if Trump regains the presidency in November and moderates American contributions.

Some Americans and Europeans see it as a matter of “protecting NATO against Trump” or “preparing it for the future,” when one takes into account the political advances of the far-right political blocs in Europe.

This week's summit, held in the city where the Mutual Defense Alliance was founded in 1949, was once meant to be a celebration of NATO's resilience. Now, one European official says, the outcome is looking grim.

The gloom is due to two factors: Russian advances on the battlefield in the months that Trump-allied Republicans in Congress have been holding up U.S. arms and money shipments to Ukraine. And the possibility that far-right governments hostile to NATO could come to power.

The official spoke to reporters last week on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations between governments.

Rachel Rizzo, a senior NATO fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank, has a clear message for Europeans: Panicking about a second Trump term helps no one.

For allies at the summit, she said, the key will be to resist the temptation to dwell on the details of unprecedented developments in U.S. politics and focus on preparing for Western military aid to Ukraine and preparing for any decline in U.S. support.

Trump, who before and after his presidency spoke admiringly of Russian President Vladimir Putin and harshly of NATO, often focuses his complaints on the share of the alliance’s costs borne by the United States. Biden himself, when he was a U.S. senator in 1997, warned that if other NATO allies had any sense of playing the United States for fools, the alliance’s future over the next century would be very uncertain.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led the West to believe that the Russian threat had been neutralized, leading to cuts in military spending. Today, NATO allies are building up their forces to confront a possible broader aggression by Putin, and a record 23 NATO members are meeting their defense spending targets.

One of Trump’s former national security advisers, John Bolton, has said that in a second term, Trump would work to pull the United States out of NATO. Congress passed a law last year making that task harder, but a president could simply stop cooperating on some or all NATO missions.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The French elections saw Marine Le Pen's far-right, anti-NATO party gain a significant number of seats in parliament. Far-right forces are also gaining ground in Germany.

Some European officials and analysts say this is simply a shift in voter confidence in democracies, something NATO has seen before. They point to Poland, where a right-wing party lost power last year and whose citizens are among NATO's strongest supporters. They also point to Italy, where right-wing populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been hailed as an ally.

Partly in response to political upheaval in the United States, Europeans say they want to institutionalize support for Ukraine within NATO, reducing dependence on the United States.

European allies have also failed to provide enough weapons to Ukraine because of a delay in the delivery of a U.S. foreign aid package, outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged during a visit to Washington last month.

“This is one of the reasons why I believe NATO should play a stronger role in providing support,” Stoltenberg told reporters.

One initiative expected to be approved at the summit is for NATO to take on more responsibility for coordinating training and military and financial assistance to Ukrainian forces, replacing the United States. The Europeans are also talking about giving Ukrainians a greater presence in NATO bodies, although there is no consensus yet on Ukraine joining the alliance.

The Europeans say NATO countries are coordinating their statements on Ukraine for the summit to make clear, for example, that further Russian escalation would lead to substantial new sanctions and other sanctions from the West. And that is even if the United States, under Trump, does not act.

In terms of NATO security as a whole, in addition to increased defense spending by European allies, they are regrouping on defense strategies that are not as dependent on the United States. There is also a growing emphasis on ensuring that each country is capable of deploying armies and fighting wars, the European official said.

The possibility of a less reliable U.S. partner under Trump is sparking discussions about whether Europeans could play a larger role in NATO’s nuclear deterrent, according to the Center for Eastern Studies, a Poland-based security think tank. The United States now plays a key role in deploying nuclear weapons in Europe.

But European countries and Canada, with their smaller military budgets and economies, are years away from filling a U.S.-sized gap in NATO.

If a U.S. president comes into power and says, “We're done with this,” there will certainly be a willingness in Europe to take over from the Americans, said John Deni, a senior security fellow at the Atlantic Council. The British would jump at the chance.

But even they will admit that they don’t have the capacity or the means, and they can’t do it at the speed and scale that we can do it, Deni said. This idea that we’re protecting the American commitment to Ukraine or NATO from Trump or from the future, I think that’s mostly fantasy.

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