V. Defence and Security in Northern Europe: A German Perspective

Abstract

In recent years, NATO has been confronted with a number of political and military game-changers that have demanded the most fundamental adjustment of its role and self-image since the end of the Cold War. Three developments are particularly striking. First, in 2014, Moscow shattered the European peace by using military force to aggressively assert its great-power ambitions. Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and its support for the rebels in Eastern Ukraine have forced NATO back into the world of Article 5, where the Alliance must back up its commitments with credible military forces. Second, at the same time, upheaval in the Middle East and North Africa has escalated into sustained violence by state and non-state actors. Countless groups, including Islamists – supported by various regional and external powers – are fighting each other with the utmost brutality. This has led to an export of religious violence beyond these regions and in 2015 sparked a huge flood of refugees into Europe, especially into economically strong EU states such as Germany. Never before have European societies been so directly and visibly affected by destabilising developments far from their national borders. Third, US President Donald Trump has already fundamentally altered the basics of transatlantic security relations and thereby affected the foundations of NATO. Through inexperience in foreign affairs, reliance on misleading information, and inconsistent reasoning, he has profoundly undermined the US as a moral authority and leader of the West – in other words, of the international community of liberal democracies. Moreover, he has weakened the US’s traditional role as the ‘benign hegemon’ within