Adding to a string of high-voltage diplomatic jockeying, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, concluded its annual summit in Washington DC Thursday. The summit, seen as the pinnacle of the West’s alliance-based outlook, created an interesting contrast with India’s adept multi-alignment diplomacy. Most recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s long-awaited trip to Moscow was subtly balanced with a subsequent trip to Austria. The signalling therein gave ample leeway for interpretation to all parties, especially eager commentators.
Two factors made this year’s NATO summit crucial. One, the alliance’s support to Ukraine in its long-standing war against Russia has been haunted by the rising possibility of a Donald Trump comeback in the White House. Two, NATO’s increasing focus on China draws the Indo-Pacific security theatre within the alliance’s purview. This merging of theatres, seeming more inevitable by the day, has not been welcomed by everyone in the region—and understandably so.
The non-Western world has vivid memories of the devastation that occurred when NATO went global the last time—the bloodshed and rampage in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How far the new global avatar of NATO be engaged productively will depend on establishing effective communication pathways with a clear focus on issues of convergence in the Indo-Pacific. From India’s perspective, the biggest convergence is on the question of China. However, instead of a formal engagement with the alliance, which is not even on the table, India should pursue informal dialogue building on NATO’s focus on hybrid threats in the Indo-Pacific.
NATO’s focus China was first iterated in its key policy document, Strategic Concept 2022, and then repeated at the later summits at Vilnius and DC.
That said, the twin dynamics of supporting Ukraine and increased focus on the Indo-Pacific are tied to the question of tight resources, with more than half of NATO’s defence budget coming from the US alone. Today, there are parallel drains to its defence assistance—Ukraine, Israel, and commitments to Taiwan, along with replenishing its own stocks. Trump has publicly reiterated his stand in favour of cutting down on US contributions to NATO, as well as tapering down support to Kyiv.
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Road to Trump-proofing
NATO has initiated transformational changes to not only ‘Trump-proof’ Ukraine but also itself. However, the limitations of what can be achieved in real-time have never been so obvious.
In the shadow of Trump, some key decisions have been taken for bolstering Ukraine and European security.
For one, NATO has committed $43 billion in defence aid for Ukraine, making it the first direct military assistance package. Until now, the military aid was being sent by NATO member states and not the alliance itself. The distribution of this military aid has been spearheaded by the Ukraine Defence Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany, which includes several non-NATO members.
Another step forward is the decision to establish a NATO liaison office in Kyiv, with a dedicated officer overseeing day-to-day matters related to the recently pledged aid.
Additionally, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced that the US has started the transfer of F-16s to Ukraine after Russia’s coordinated air strikes on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, right as Prime Minister Modi was being received by President Putin. That diplomatic discomfort was palpable in the PM’s statements to President Putin the next day, as he condemned the killing of children in wars at large. The timing of the hospital attack could be a setback to the Indian leadership’s ongoing efforts to promote peace-building and a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict.
Nonetheless, whether the new F-16s will really help Kyiv repel air attacks in a significant manner remains to be seen. While Ukraine has revolutionised the use of FPV drones, Russia has also upgraded its electronic warfare capabilities to jam signals. The use of AI-enabled drones that do not rely on jamming signals remains limited in the battlefield. In such a scenario, F-16s could be the most effective to take down glide bombs at the source, provided they are complemented by additional air-defence systems. According to reports earlier this week, the US has announced sending at least five new air-defence systems to Kyiv. That said, the painfully slow addition of a few units of this and that is not enough for a decisive turn in the war even though this is bleeding Russia militarily.
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Europe’s race against time
At last year’s summit at Vilnius, NATO members decided to enter into separate, long-term, and almost identical security agreements with Ukraine. The idea was to create a substitute for Ukraine’s security until its NATO membership sees the light of the day. However, as time passes, heavier clouds of uncertainty hang over those prospects.
That said, Germany and France signed parallel security agreements with Ukraine on the same day earlier this year, with other big powers following suit. The most consequential was the US, which signed a long-term security agreement with Ukraine on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Italy. In addition, Japan became the first non-Transatlantic country to conclude a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine.
The common thread among all these agreements is a long-term focus on defence industry cooperation with Ukraine.
However, the above commitments still do not offset the lack of a commitment to a NATO membership for Ukraine, which currently seems more like an aspirational project than an achievable goal with a clear timeline.
Many in the non-Western world hold the view that it was the pursuit of NATO that landed Ukraine in this existential war of grinding attrition.
A large number of analyses do not accord any real agency either to Ukraine or any other countries of the erstwhile Warsaw pact or the Soviet bloc. They portray only the US and Russia as relevant actors in a game of great power politics. Everything else fades into the background.
But that is not how the world looks when viewed through the Eastern European lens, regardless of what the rest of the world likes to imagine on their behalf.
The onus of supporting Ukraine will fall on the shoulders of Europe, which is quickly putting together new strategies to militarise itself for the long war. The new Labour government in UK has pledged its support to Ukraine and Emmanuel Macron has brilliantly avoided getting locked in an awkward cohabitation with the far right. The new NATO chief, Mark Rutte, is a committed security hawk and the EU Parliament results have shown that Ursula Von Der Leyen is set to be back as the Commission president soon, joined by another pro-European security leader from Estonia, Kaja Kallas.
Doubts notwithstanding, public support for Ukraine and European security has endured even three years after the war.
The crucial element here is time. All of the above will make little difference if Trump-proofing measures are not sturdy enough to hold against a potential MAGA onslaught.
The writer is an Associate Fellow, Europe and Eurasia Center, at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. She tweets @swasrao. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)