French President Emmanuel Macron has called on European allies to "wake up" to the realities of the transatlantic alliance before it's too late.
"What we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO," Macron said in an interview published Thursday by British news magazine The Economist. Alliance members "should reassess the reality of what NATO is in light of the commitment of the United States."
Macron criticized NATO member Turkey's military operation against the Western-allied, Kurdish forces that helped defeat the "Islamic State" in Syria and the US decision to withdraw troops from the region without consulting NATO allies.
"You have partners together in the same part of the world, and you have no coordination whatsoever of strategic decision-making between the United States and its NATO allies. None," Macron said. "Strategically and politically, we need to recognize that we have a problem."
Read more: Majority of Germans want Turkey kicked out of NATO: survey
'Moderate' commitments
When asked whether he still believed in "collective defense" as outlined in Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, he replied: "I don't know."
Article 5 stipulates that an attack against a member is considered an attack against all members and has only been triggered once, in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.
US President Donald Trump has threatened to "moderate" Washington's commitment to NATO if members fail to meet a 2% of GDP defense spending target. Alliance members had agreed in 2014 to "move towards the 2% guideline within a decade."
Read more: Germany plans military spending hike, but is it enough to appease NATO?
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
Trump on NATO: A war of words
Even before taking office, US President Donald Trump's relationship with NATO has been a tumultuous one, to say the least. He has disparaged the trans-Atlantic alliance, once describing it as "obsolete" and a relic of the Cold War. Here are Trump's most memorable quotes about the military alliance, even if they are at times false.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'Days of the Soviet Union'
While on the campaign trail in 2016, Trump made clear that he saw NATO as a relic of the Cold War. "You know, we're dealing with NATO from the days of the Soviet Union, which no longer exists. We need to either transition into terror or we need something else." But his remarks didn't account for how the alliance backed the US well after the collapse of the Soviet Union, especially in Afghanistan.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'Germany owes vast sums'
Trump has made defense spending his main talking point on NATO. But he has falsely accused member states of owing money to Washington, saying: "Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO, and the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany." The problem is NATO doesn't work like that. No money is owed to the alliance for defense or otherwise.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'Obsolete'
Days before his inauguration, Trump caught NATO members off guard when he claimed the alliance was "obsolete" and threatened to withdraw support. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems: Number one, it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago." Months later, he retracted his statement, citing changes within the alliance. "Now they fight terrorism," he said.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'Doesn't sound very smart'
Trump had tended to lump trade between US allies with how much Washington spends on defense. "We are spending a fortune on military in order to lose $800 billion (in trade losses). That doesn't sound very smart to me," Trump said. The problem is that while NATO members have agreed to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense, the alliance has nothing to do with international trade.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'We are the schmucks'
During a 2018 rally in Montana, Trump hit out at European allies, saying: "They want (us) to protect against Russia, and yet they pay billions of dollars to Russia, and we're the schmucks paying for the whole thing." Trump was referring to Russia as Europe's primary source for oil and natural gas, but he created a false dichotomy between energy reliance and NATO's defense spending goal.
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Donald Trump on NATO: Top quotes
'Congratulations, you're in World War III'
In an interview with Fox News, Trump was asked why the US should jump to the defense of NATO ally Montenegro if it was attacked. The president said he asked himself the same question, a remark that appeared to undermine the alliance's collective defense clause. Trump went on to describe Montenegrins as "very strong" and "very aggressive," and that that aggression risked starting World War III.
Author: Lewis Sanders IV, Elliot Douglas
Europe's elusive destiny
The French president warned that Europe will "no longer be in control of our destiny" if it fails to recognize its strategic relevance as a geopolitical power.
Macron's remarks are a long way from those made by German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer a day earlier, in which she described the alliance as a cornerstone of modern Europe.
"NATO is and will remain the anchor of European security," Kramp-Karrenbauer said at a private event with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg. "But it is also clear that Europe must increase its own complementary ability to act."
The German defense minister has pledged to bump defense spending in Germany to 1.5% by 2024 and 2% by 2031. If Germany goes through with the pledge, it could become the third-largest defense spender in the world, behind the US and China.
Read more: NATO looks to outer space as modern warfare evolves
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Germany's NATO missions
Germany's role in NATO
West Germany officially joined the trans-Atlantic alliance in 1955. However, it wasn't until after reunification in 1990 that the German government considered "out of area" missions led by NATO. From peacekeeping to deterrence, Germany's Bundeswehr has since been deployed in several countries across the globe in defense of its allies.
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Germany's NATO missions
Bosnia: Germany's first NATO mission
In 1995, Germany participated in its first "out of area" NATO mission as part of a UN-mandated peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the deployment, German soldiers joined other NATO member forces to provide security in the wake of the Bosnian War. The peacekeeping mission included more than 60,000 troops from NATO's member states and partners.
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Germany's NATO missions
Keeping the peace in Kosovo
Since the beginning of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, some 8,500 German soldiers have been deployed in the young country. In 1999, NATO launched an air assault against Serbian forces accused of carrying out a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists and their civilian supporters. Approximately 550 Bundeswehr troops are still stationed in Kosovo.
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Germany's NATO missions
Patrolling the Aegean Sea
In 2016, Germany deployed its combat support ship "Bonn" to lead a NATO mission backed by the EU in the Aegean Sea. The mission included conducting "reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance of illegal crossings" in Greek and Turkish territorial waters at the height of the migration crisis. Germany, Greece and Turkey had requested assistance from the trans-Atlantic alliance.
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Germany's NATO missions
More than a decade in Afghanistan
In 2003, Germany's parliament voted to send Bundeswehr troops to Afghanistan in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). Germany became the third-largest contributor of troops and led the Regional Command North. More than 50 German troops were killed during the mission. Nearly a thousand soldiers are still deployed in Afghanistan as part of Resolute Support.
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Germany's NATO missions
German tanks in Lithuania
Forming part of NATO's "enhanced forward presence" in the Baltic states, 450 Bundeswehr soldiers have been deployed to Lithuania so far in 2017. The battalion-size battlegroups there are led by Germany, Canada, the UK and US to reinforce collective defense on the alliance's eastern flank. It forms the "biggest reinforcement of Alliance collective defence in a generation," according to NATO.
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Germany's NATO missions
Taking over the leadership
The Bundeswehr is due to take over leadership of NATO's multinational Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) at the start of 2019. The rapid reaction force has been set up to counter potential Russian aggression on the alliance's eastern flank.
Author: Lewis Sanders IV
ls/sms (AFP, Reuters)
