The 2014 NATO summit: what can we expect?
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A summit of the North Atlantic alliance will take place on 4-5 September 2014 in Wales. In the light of the unstable international situation brought about by the Ukrainian crisis and the worsening of the Middle East conflict, the NATO summit is attracting increased attention from the international public and prompting a large number of forecasts. What can we expect from this summit of the heads of the member countries in this major military alliance? Mikhail Troitsky, PhD in Political Science, associate professor at the MGIMO University and RIAC expert, comments on the situation.
A summit of the North Atlantic alliance will take place on 4-5 September 2014 in Wales. In the light of the unstable international situation brought about by the Ukrainian crisis and the worsening of the Middle East conflict, the NATO summit is attracting increased attention from the international public and prompting a large number of forecasts. What can we expect from this summit of the heads of the member countries in this major military alliance? Mikhail Troitsky, Candidate of Political Sciences, associate professor at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University) of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Russian International Affairs Council expert, comments on the situation.
The NATO summit in Wales is regarded as a defining point in the light of the Ukrainian crisis, the unstable situation in the Middle East and the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. Which of these issues will the event study most closely?
I believe it would be difficult and scarcely appropriate to give a detailed forecast. It would make more sense to try to predict the extent of change in NATO’s approaches to each of these issues that will emerge when the summit is over. The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the need to destroy the radical armed groups of Islamists in the Middle East is not in dispute among the NATO countries. Up to now the differences that have been observed in the member countries’ positions have been about how to react to the Ukrainian crisis.
NATO summits have traditionally been aimed at overcoming such differences and bringing the members’ positions closer together through negotiations at the highest level and a public demonstration of the alliance’s unity on important issues of security. When the member countries are united in their assessment of a situation, the purpose of the summit is to push the alliance towards working out an agreed reaction. I think that when the discussion of the Ukrainian crisis at the summit ends, we shall see a marked consolidation of the member states’ positions. A statement will also be made to the effect that Russia bears a substantial share of responsibility for what is happening in the east of Ukraine. Neither can it be ruled out that there will be a decision to make a steep increase in financial and technical aid to strengthen Ukraine’s armed forces. At the same time NATO will probably not approve direct supplies of arms to Ukraine, despite the proposal by certain member states to do this.
Is it possible to speak of a possible decision by the summit of heads of the member countries to expand NATO?
I think the summit will take a decision in principle on whether expanding the alliance makes sense as a form of response to the security threats which NATO believes are urgent. Up to now a number of European capitals – especially Berlin and Paris – have had a sceptical attitude towards proposals to accelerate the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to NATO. Moreover, in 2010 Ukraine passed a law confirming its non-aligned status. Nevertheless, in the recently changed circumstances there could quite possibly be a positive response by the alliance to the question of including post-Soviet states in NATO.
In that event the summit in Wales would be most likely to adopt a new and more substantial declaration of the “open door principle”. According to this traditional NATO principle, any state that wants to can apply to become a member of the alliance if, among other conditions, the applicant country has no territorial and border disputes with its neighbours. Now the summit participants may state that they are prepared to take a flexible approach to potential members’ territorial issues, thereby indicating the possibility of Georgia and even Ukraine joining the alliance, if Kiev in the future (for example, after the parliamentary elections scheduled for October) abandons its doctrine of non-involvement in military blocs. At the same time, I believe that no radical steps will be taken at the summit in Wales to accelerate the process of admitting any post-Soviet states to NATO.
What might the consequences of this summit be for Russia?
The likely outcome of the summit is a reduction in the scale of NATO’s cooperation with Russia and a strategic shift by NATO towards curbing Russian influence in the Euro-Atlantic and post-Soviet areas. At the same time NATO will most likely try to avoid steps which might be interpreted by Moscow as preparation for an open confrontation. For example, the alliance is unlikely to abrogate the 1997 Founding Act on relations with Russia, which establishes NATO’s commitment that “in the current (as at 1997 – M.T.) and foreseeable security environment” it will not pursue the “additional permanent stationing of substantial combat forces”. At the same time, the NATO countries will probably declare a change in these terms which requires a marked growth in the military contingents in states which are members of the alliance and have borders with Russia. There will also be an announcement of an increase in the number of rapid and super-rapid response military units and of a certain (not too significant) increase in defence expenditure over the next few years. The USA will also promise to invest almost 1 billion dollars in NATO’s military infrastructure in Europe in the near future. If Russia regards the alliance’s activity as a challenge to its security, Moscow will have to react to these trends by increasing its defence budget and trying to neutralise the strategic consequences of NATO’s growing presence in the vicinity of Russia.
On the whole, the states which for various reasons would prefer not to step up the pressure on Russia in the light of the Ukrainian crisis are unlikely to be able to withstand the toughening of NATO’s strategic policy in relation to Moscow. Unfortunately, in the current international situation it is quite possible that the summit will form a consensus around the idea that “further sanctions and other measures directed against Russia will be expensive for the NATO countries but are nonetheless necessary”.
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