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The conviction came quickly, but it was not very convincing. Imagine that: Emmanuel Macron, president of one of the most powerful NATO members, a nuclear power, had declared the transatlantic alliance dead. Well, for brain dead. Hirntot is a patient whose circulation is artificially maintained even though his brain activity is completely extinguished. The body of a brain dead still seems to live, in fact, the human is dead and any therapy pointless. So far as France's President on NATO.
The German Chancellor found that exaggerated. Macron had chosen "drastic words", such a "sweep" would not have been necessary, she said. In truth, it was a very dull defense of NATO. For Merkel, too, it is clear that the patient is in critical condition.
Macron's diagnosis, which he made in an interview with British magazine Economist, is indeed devastating. He accuses the alliance partners - meaning the US and Turkey - of "uncoordinated, aggressive action" and doubts that the alliance guarantee of the alliance still applies, so whether the Allies would be ready in the event of an attack on a member, the To defend allies. This is brain death: an alliance that still exists but no longer works.
In an emotional appeal, Macron calls on Europeans to develop their own geopolitical strategies. For him, the consequence of the state of the Alliance is clear: Europe must work towards its military sovereignty and also seek dialogue with Russia. One can call this "neo-zeroullism". Or simply realism. In fact, Macron just kept on thinking, as the German Chancellor had formulated more than two years ago, in that beer tent in Trudering, Bavaria, where she diagnosed in the summer of 2017 that Europe could no longer rely on the US as it had before and therefore its Security "a bit far" even in the hand must.
Macron wants an end to fine-tuning
Macron does that now, with his own drama. "If Europe can not see itself as a great power," he warns, "it will disappear." Obviously, he wants to shake up with his drastic choice of words before the anniversary summit of the Alliance in early December. Europe, which is the true message of the French president, must finally stop to polish the state of NATO. Because that's just dangerous. Precisely because it is true what NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Thursday at an event of the Körber Foundation in Berlin: "The European Union can not defend Europe." All the more so, according to Macron's legitimate demand, Europe has much more to do to change that.
With much benevolence today one can speak of mixed signals from Washington. But the problem with security strategies is that they are better off worst-case than wishful thinking. On the one hand, the US is moving so many troops to Europe as never before since the end of the Cold War. On the other hand, Trump has declared NATO obsolete and declared war on the EU. Moreover, he ignores the vital security interests of Europeans with his Iran policy. The transatlantic relationship is, one must say, in a state that is not compatible with an alliance guarantee.
Those who wish to continue believing in NATO cling to the conventional upgrade of Americans in Eastern Europe. That's right, but only a small part of the security risks for Europe. In talks with representatives of the NATO, it is usually still about 90 percent to Russia. This fixation on the Cold War opponent has something anachronistic about it. For the security of Germany and much of Europe, other threats are likely to be at least as dangerous in the coming decades, such as developments in Egypt, Lebanon or Iran. For these threats, NATO is not designed. At the same time, a generation is growing in the US that is no longer characterized by the Cold War. It will no longer be possible to explain why American soldiers should risk their lives for the safety of Latvia. This generation will be in power in the foreseeable future.
Macron could have remembered Mikhail Gorbachev 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the famous quotation attributed to him: Who comes too late punishes life. What was then for the GDR could become the fate of NATO: Anyone who understands too late that something is fundamentally changing will one day be overwhelmed by the events.
