Post-NATO Reckoning: The Future of Multilateral Organizations

Heading into the NATO meeting in London this week, key players renewed their skepticism of the health of the transatlantic relationship. The organization's 70th anniversary was marked by accusations of suffering “brain death,” illustrating growing calls to reexamine the alliance in a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape.

In a recent blog post Mike Watson breaks down the myth of the Cold War consensus, writing:

"Coating the past in a nostalgic haze can make the present’s trials seem harder than they are and can threaten our future: imagining that previous challenges were less difficult than they were can make today’s feel more daunting and lead to demoralization. A closer look reveals that NATO has had a series of severe ruptures before, and from its inception leaders needed to compromise and cajole and rub shoulders–and occasionally make threats–and it is dangerous to erase this history."  

In an Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal, Walter Russell Meade considers how a growing global focus on the Indo-Pacific region and China's increasing malign activity may shake-up U.S. relations with Europe: 

"The convergence between European and U.S. views on China is far from complete. France has refused to exclude Huawei from its 5G program, and other European governments as well as many European companies still see China through rose-tinted lenses. But opinions are changing. Like Americans, Europeans sympathize with Hong Kong’s democracy movement, and are horrified by Beijing’s treatment of the Tibetans and Uighurs."

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"The real question isn’t whether the U.S. will take the problems of the Indo-Pacific too seriously and write off its old allies in Europe. It is whether Americans and Europeans will recognize the global nature of the challenge before us."

Peter Rough explains what actions NATO must undertake in order to counter Russia and China's growing global reach, while also keeping U.S. leadership at its center, writing:

“To sustain U.S. support for the alliance in the coming decades, NATO must not rest on its laurels. Principally, allies need to address the imbalance in the distribution of the military burden. The United States accounts for two-thirds of all defense spending in the twenty-nine-member alliance, despite the near economic parity between the United States and Europe. This makes it too easy for U.S. administrations of all stripes to cast the Europeans as de facto free riders. Burden sharing constitutes the most serious U.S. objection to NATO."

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 "As NATO’s largest member, the United States has a special role in directing the focus of the alliance on a revanchist Russia and an authoritarian China. It should be able to count on all members to reciprocate in supporting the West against its challengers. These external responsibilities, rather than internal political standard setting, are the proper focus of a military alliance. And by distributing responsibilities for great-power competition across the alliance, NATO’s popularity would only increase in the United States, which has grown weary of the organization’s long combat missions in the Middle East and Central Asia."

Hudson Highlights

Commentary

Middle East

At the Jewish Leadership Conference, Michael Doran spoke about the enduring importance of the U.S. - Israel relationship and the growing threat of Iranian aggression throughout the Middle East. 

Douglas Feith argues in National Review that Israel's West Bank settlements are primarily a political issue and agrees with Secretary Pompeo's decision to overturn longstanding opinion about the West Bank:

"Recalling Reagan’s February 1981 statement that the settlements are not illegal, I concurred and said, 'The issue is properly a political question, not a legal question.' The U.S. government 'has recognized no country’s sovereignty over the West Bank since Britain controlled the area under the Palestine Mandate.' The sovereignty issue 'is open and will not be closed until the actual parties to the conflict formally consent to a peace agreement.' In the meantime, 'there is no law that bars Jews from settling on the West Bank' and no one should be excluded from living there 'simply on account of his nationality or religion.'"

China

In an interview with CNBC, Rob Spalding discusses the latest developments on the trade talks between the U.S. and China. He also discussed the current threat to U.S. global leadership posed by Chairman Xi's leadership in a documentary for the BBC. 

Seth Cropsey writes in The Hill that Taiwan can learn from the recent protests and elections in Hong Kong:

"The economic and political freedoms of Hong Kongers so threaten the Chinese Communist Party that it has deployed more than 12,000 People’s Armed Police — essentially an army dedicated to internal security — to the island, where they have waged a multi-month campaign to suppress protesters. Any distinct way of life — whether grounded in faith or cherishing individual freedom, political deliberation and representation — is viewed as an existential threat to a Chinese regime which relies on information control, political centralization and theft to survive."

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"Based on these grounds, Taiwan presents an even greater threat to China than Hong Kong or Uighur identity."

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