The headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in Brussels, is designed with eight glass and steel suites, similar to a group of interlocking fingers-indicating what the architect called “coming with all countries in one common area.” Inside, the customization of this space reflects some geopolitical facts. The delegation consisting of nine people from Iceland, the only member of the coalition without a permanent army, occupies half of the offices of offices; France has a full floor. Germany has two. The American mission, with employees of more than one hundred, represents a global force spread in nearly one hundred and fifty countries, takes a full wing of five floors.
One morning this spring, on an external corridor that leads to what is known as the building of the building, passed a twisted steel contract, which is the remains of the northern tower of the World Trade Center that was collected after the terrorist attacks in 2001. NATO It is called Artifack The 9/11 and Memorial Article 5, and it is a testimony of the only case in the history of the alliance, as its leaders called for the collective defense condition in its founding charter. Article 5 is the primary principle of the alliance, indicating that “the parties agree that the armed attack against one or more in Europe or North America is an attack against them all.” During the next two decades, twenty -nine other than the United States NATO Al -Giash has deployed soldiers in Afghanistan, more than a thousand of them died.
when NATO The building was officially unveiled, in 2017, Donald Trump, as the recent US President -elect, delivered a dedicating speech in the memorial of Article 5. During his presidential campaign, he had seized the fact that, though, though, though, though, though, though, though, though, though, though, NATO Members committed to spend two percent of GDP to defense, only five of them were hitting this goal. Trump described the situation as “unfair”, saying in one of the gatherings, “We protect countries that most people in this room have never heard of it.” In Brussels, he referred to the “obligations that bind us together as one”, but he did not explicitly support Article 5. NATO Building itself. John Bolton, at the time, recalled Trump’s National Security Adviser, the president, saying: “All this glass-a bullet of a tank, the entire matter will collapse.”
In 2022, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NATO Russia has officially defined it as “the most important and direct threat to the security of the Allied, peace and stability in the European Atlantic region.” In response, its members pledged hundreds of billions of dollars in additional defense spending and the deployment of tens of thousands of forces on what the coalition calls its eastern wing – near the borders of Russia. The United States alone transported twenty thousand additional soldiers to Europe. But Trump often expressed a more complex view of Russian aggression, sometimes he seems to treat Russian President Vladimir Putin, as a possible partner than a threat. On the campaign path last year, suggested that, if a NATO A small ally of defense, the United States will not provide military support in a Russian attack. “I would like to encourage them to do everything they want against hell,” he said. “You don’t pay your bills, and do not get protection. It’s very simple.”
Since his return to the presidency, Trump has sought to rewrite the conditions of America’s great commitment to European security. It now pushes the spending of member states on five percent of GDP on defense. In February, during a visit to NATODefense Minister Beit Higseth said that European leaders “must bear the basic responsibility for defending the continent.” This spring, NBC News reported that the Trump administration was preparing to transfer a large part of the American forces stationed in Europe to Asia and other regions, and that it may not fill the position of the supreme allied leader in Europe, or Sasuerand NATOThe supreme military position, which was occupied by an American since the establishment of the coalition.
Anders Vogue Rasmussen, former Prime Minister of Denmark, who was NATOThe Secretary -General from 2009 to 2014 told me that the alliance is at an “existential moment”, on an equal footing with what he went through at the end of the Cold War. Just now, he said: “Tectonic paintings move under our feet first and foremost in Washington, DC.”
Large axis in Trump in NATO He is the Secretary of this year, Mark Root, who took office in October, fourteen years after the Netherlands Prime Minister. Rot is fifty -eight, with glasses without edge, a sweeping side part, and a wide politician smile. He has long planted a photo as a modest government employee and worked hard. Upon his arrival in Brussels, he refused to live in the Grand Town home, which was the headquarters of the Secretary -General since his eighties, and it is preferable to stay in an apartment elsewhere in the city and use the official residency of meetings and reception. Roti’s relationship with Trump is informed of his instincts due to cautious disagreement and diplomatic ingenuity. One of his advisers told me that the Secretary -General believes that his basic responsibility is “preserving the family together.” “He is one of the family members that we all need to stay safe,” the United States continued.
Root agreed to talk to me at the city’s house this spring, where he was preparing to hold a meeting with Kaja Class, the best diplomat of the European Union. Join it on the creamy sofa in a sunny room facing a garden. A selection of cookies has been set. The coffee was poured from a silver caravan. Root asked how he planned to satisfy an American president who seems to make fun of the idea of complete collective security. It was, as usual, in a double mood. After taking the self in his own job (“I always laugh at myself when anyone calls me the Secretary-General-and this is the title usually dedicated to Communist Parties”), repeat a line that he uses several times, in various forms, during the past few months. “Trump is completely committed NATO“
The president continued, it is just something that Roti himself said NATOMember States: “If we want to stay safe from threats and opponents such as Putin, China, North Korea, or Iran, we must spend more.” Roti said that pressure from Washington is a “opportunity” NATO Members to build the defensive capabilities they have neglected for decades. “There is an awareness in Europe that we must transform some burden between what the United States does and what Europeans can do more than themselves.”
In late June, Rotti will head a summit NATO Leaders in The Hague, his hometown. The main topic will be new goals for defensive spending, but European leaders hope that the Americans will clarify their alliance’s obligations. In official housing, Rutte told that many of them had expressed their concerns about the speed and size that the Trump administration might reduce the forces in Europe. “We agreed with the White House that there will be no surprises,” he said. “We will do it in an organized way.” He added: “I am not responsible for everyone’s concern. I can take it into account, but I am not leading them.”
However, Rutte tried to reduce the chance of the drama at the top-the maximum paths will be kept, and the final banking will be limited, expressing an agreed conclusion, on a few paragraphs. The narrow focus is the Rutte method to recognize the dangers that change the world. “This will be one of the most parties NATO He said: “To use the peaks since the fall of the Berlin Wall. To use Trump’s” huge “language,” he said.
The idea of the defensive alliance linking the United States and Europe began to hang the World War II. European cities were destroyed, and their population spread; The entire economies were on the brink of collapse. However, across the Atlantic Ocean, the United States has become dominant in Europe. In 1946, Winston Churchill talked about the United States as “at the top of the world world”, a position with “amazing accountability for the future.”
The following year, President Harry Truman explained the principles of what will be known as the Truman doctrine, and called for “the United States to support free peoples who resist the attempt to be subjected by armed minorities or by external pressure.” The Soviet Union, in the confusion and wreckage of the war, was lost a little time to confirm the customer’s systems in Eastern Europe. Truman expressed his hope that the American military and economic continent, with American military and economic support, could achieve peace and stop the Communists. General Himings Esmai, the chief military adviser in Churchill during the war, which became NATOThanks to the first Secretary -General, in a note that acquired the initial goals of the coalition: “Keep the Soviet Union outside, the Americans, and the Germans.”
