‘It’s Always Been About Russia’

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Continental Ops

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What has NATO become? Tim Sayle on old foundations, new members, and the looming questi= on of China.

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Ivy Gould / The Signal

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Neutral since the end of W= orld War II, Finland joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization= last month. Sweden, likewise neutral since the war, has also applied for membership and will likely joi= n soon. After the Cold War, many began to wonder what the point of the alli= ance would be—particularly after its 2011 bombing campaign in Libya l= eft the country in a state of anarchic civil war. In 2019, French President= Emanuel Macron claimed NATO was nearing “brain death.” All tha= t was before Russia invaded Ukraine last year, reviving the organization—as member states pledged incr= eased spending and commitments, and Helsinki and Stockholm petitioned to jo= in. But what exactly is this revived NATO?

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Tim Sayle is an a= ssistant professor of history at the University of Toronto, the director of= its International Relations Program, and the author of Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar= Global Order. To Sayle, the war in Ukraine has effectively brough= t NATO back to its original purpose—even if the original enemy has a = new form: to deter and protect against incursion from Moscow. The assault o= n Ukraine has also renewed the alliance’s goal of preventing Russia f= rom using its military to coerce other countries to follow its dictates. An= d with the additions of Finland and Sweden, NATO now appears to be the only= option for European countries looking to protect themselves. But with memb= er states increasingly focused on security concerns around China and the As= ia-Pacific, Sayle says, it’s an open question what role NATO will pla= y in defense issues beyond the borders of Europe.

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Michael Bluhm: NA= TO had been relatively dormant since it led airstrikes on Libya in 2011. No= w it’s expanding, with Finland joining and Sweden likely to, on accou= nt of the war in Ukraine. Has NATO returned to being fundamentally an anti-= Russia defense system?

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Timothy Sayle: I = see a lot of continuity in NATO’s post–Cold War history. It was= founded in 1949 as a way for the United States and its Western allies to c= ounter the threat of Soviet encroachment into Europe. When the Cold War end= ed, policy-makers in NATO countries talked about the need to maintain the a= lliance on account of uncertainties about what post-Communist Russia would = do. At the same time, Eastern European countries’ concerns about thei= r relationship with Russia led them to look to NATO for security. Those que= stions across the West and into Eastern Europe explain the continuity and e= xpansion of the alliance.

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It’s had a difficult time in= the post–Cold War era, in the sense that it’s been hard for it= s leadership to make the case outwardly for why it remains important and ne= eds to grow. That reason has always been to hedge against Russia, which is = why the invasion of Ukraine has led directly to NATO getting a major boost = in public and political support, along with defense spending, across member= countries.

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So even though NATO has experiment= ed with other uses or functions, it’s always really been about Russia= . The purpose of countering Russia is the most important function keeping t= he alliance alive and vital—and the key to understanding its entire 7= 0-year history—even through times when it wasn’t talking public= ly about Russia.

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Bluhm: Globally, = China appears a much stronger challenger to the global order than Russia. M= any countries in the Asia-Pacific region are moving closer to Washington for military protection against= an aggressive posture from Beijing. In a strategic blueprint published las= t year, NATO leaders spoke extensively about the threats posed by China, th= ough they didn’t make any specific commitments to action. But NATO an= d Japan confirmed in early May that NATO’s planning to open a coordin= ation office in Japan next year. How do you NATO’s role developing in= the Asia-Pacific—and in confronting China in particular?

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Sayle: It’s= an important question. There’s always been a push and pull within NA= TO about what it should be doing outside Europe. Throughout the Cold War, a= lot of European states were trying to get the alliance involved in their c= rises of colonialism. The Americans hoped for NATO support in Vietnam, dipl= omatic and otherwise. So it’s very much in keeping with NATO’s = history for there to be questions about what role it should play around the= world.

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The U.S. is doing the most to enco= urage NATO allies to think about that role in the Pacific and in relation t= o China. Part of that is an awareness-building exercise, so the diplomats o= f NATO states can understand the American position in Asia and exchange vie= ws on the issue, even if NATO as such isn’t going to take any particu= lar action there.

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At the same time, NATO and China a= re both in the Arctic, where they’re in closer contact than you might= assume. There’s worry in NATO countries, several of which are Arctic= nations, that China sees itself increasingly as an Arctic power. So in the= Arctic region, it’s not a question of NATO going to Asia but of Chin= a coming to NATO borders.

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Bluhm: Do you thi= nk NATO might take any action in the Asia-Pacific?

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Sayle: The organi= zation has always been a forum for allies to talk about global problems. Bu= t I wouldn’t expect NATO to start taking significant positions, let a= lone to do military planning, in Asia. It’s very tough to get an alli= ance this large based in the West to see complex problems over in Asia in t= he same way.

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The Americans would meanwhile pref= er to develop their own diplomatic arrangements and alliances for managing = their interests in Asia. They don’t necessarily consider NATO to be t= he best way at that.

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But fundamentally, NATO does play = a role in U.S. calculations about the Asia-Pacific and China. Which is anot= her example of continuity in NATO. In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, = when U.S. President Richard Nixon was preparing his opening to China, he sa= id that NATO, by ensuring Europe was peaceful and stable, allowed the Unite= d States to do what wanted to in relation to China.

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So the two things are inseparable:= Peace and stability in Europe, maintained through NATO, are extremely impo= rtant for what happens elsewhere in the world. The limit would be NATO beco= ming an alliance that takes on global responsibilities for itself. That isn= ’t likely.

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Andrew Neel

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More from Tim Sayle at The Sig= nal:

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“A British ambassado= r to NATO during the Cold War said that every time the organizatio= n gets into trouble, the Russians come along and save it. He was referring = to the Soviet-led invasions of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 196= 8, but the same thing’s happened here. Russia’s actions in Ukra= ine—first when it annexed Crimea and backed pro-Russian separatists f= ighting the Ukrainian military in the Donbas region, and then in 2022 when = it invaded full-scale—have saved NATO. They’ve gotten all membe= r states to appreciate the most pressing, common danger they all face: war = in Europe. All NATO countries now see the alliance back in its original for= m, as a means of keeping peace in Europe.”

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“In the minds of NAT= O’s European members, it’s first and foremost an allia= nce that protects them from Russian blackmail. Nobody thought that after in= vading Ukraine, the Russians were going to launch an invasion of Europe. Bu= t everybody worried about what the Russians had previously done to Finland = and other countries, when they rolled weapons up to their borders and said,= We’d really like your policy to be this. Many think that NATO was fo= unded in the Cold War because a hot war was imminent, but it was really fou= nded to defend against this kind of blackmail.”

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“The biggest impact = of Finland and Sweden joining NATO is that it takes away other pos= sibilities for a European security architecture. As long as those two count= ries were outside NATO, they could be champions and symbols of a different = way to achieve security for Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, many hav= e asked, Are there alternatives to NATO? Could the Organization for Securit= y and Co-Operation in Europe be strengthened? What role does neutrality hav= e in shaping European security possibilities? The Finnish and Swedish appli= cations mean that NATO is the only security game in town. In the global dis= cussion about the idea of a new Cold War, this is a significant point. Two = states that had avoided formal alliances during the original Cold War have = now put their flags with NATO in this new iteration.”

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