The development of the NATO summit held in Madrid has been a faithful reflection of the renewed cohesion of the allies as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The content of the new Strategic Concept essentially translates the objective set in advance by Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to the President Joe Biden, and shared by the 30 full members, plus Sweden and Finland, in the process of integration: provide the organization with “a more robust force position, more credible in combat, more capable and more determined”.
Vladimir Putin’s challenge to the international order did not admit the development of another line of argument. Never since the episode of the Soviet missiles in Cuba, in October 1962, the risks inherent in a crisis between superpowers had the scope of those associated with the war in Ukraine, always with the threat of escalation, with the repeated Russian references to its nuclear arsenal and with the possibility that Russia decides to extend its territorial claims to other former Soviet republics. If NATO seemed like a clueless organization – brain dead, said Emmanuel Macron three years ago – the invasion of Ukraine has given it a new reason for being.
This does not mean that the mobilization of resources on the eastern flank, the desire to pay more attention to the southern flank and the increase in the military budgets to which the European partners have committed themselves should postpone the defensive nature, dissuasiveness of adversaries , which defines NATO. The complexity of a multilateral world in which China wants to challenge the United States for global hegemony and the challenges posed by hybrid wars, the energy transition and the technological race require that the dissuasive factor prevail over the threats and entrenched crises. It seems that the time has come for NATO to rescue the old containment doctrines of the adversary – now, Russia and China – through a balanced mix of strength and diplomatic realism, so useful and guarantor of security during the Cold War, even in the most difficult moments.
For Spain, the NATO summit has been an important outdoor Projection Instrument, but, at the same time, it has served to highlight once again the difficulties in articulating true State policies that have the support of the bulk of the forces represented in Parliament. The importance of the renewed guarantees obtained to preserve the security of Ceuta and Melilla and control the terrorist threat originating in the Sahel, especially when it refers to the management of migratory flows, they cannot take for granted the usual division in the Government as far as foreign and defense policies are concerned. A State policy cannot have two souls, but everything indicates that the debate in Congress about the installation at the Rota base of another two American destroyers –they will go from four to six–, agreed by Pedro Sánchez with Joe Biden, will give rise to the umpteenth division of the government coalition, contrary United We Can to support the President of the Government and decided the People’s Party, and maybe vox, to exploit the contradictions of the Executive through a vote in favor of what was agreed by Sánchez. Not expected, it will be less serious for such a thing to happen.