The NATO Secretary General is Failing NATO

Journalist Ted Snider on the farcical Mark Rutte.

Ted Snider is a contributing editor for The American Conservative. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and other outlets.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been very publicly aggressive in expressing his anger at NATO. He told NATO members they will “have to start learning how to fight for yourself” because “the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us.” Asked if he would reconsider U.S. membership in NATO, Trump replied, “Oh yes, I would say [it’s] beyond reconsideration.”

Trump is also considering punishing NATO members that were not helpful in the U.S. war on Iran by moving troops out of those countries and into countries that were more helpful.

On April 8, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte held a two-hour “frank and open” discussion with Trump to try to heal the rift. Rutte may have failed to soothe the angry Trump, who, following the meeting, posted “NATO WASN’T THERE WHEN WE NEEDED THEM, AND THEY WON’T BE THERE IF WE NEED THEM AGAIN.”

But Rutte may have failed in more than that mission as Secretary General of NATO. He may have failed in that role to represent NATO members and NATO values.

On a CNN interview following his meeting with Trump, Rutte failed to defend his member states. Saying that Trump “is clearly disappointed with many NATO allies,” Rutte said, “and I can see his point.”

Rutte tried to get Trump to see NATO’s contribution in a more nuanced way by arguing that NATO did not respond in a monolithic way. He said that “it is true that not all European nations lived up to [their] commitments, and I totally understand that he is disappointed about it. But, he argued, “the large majority of European nations [have] lived up to their commitments” and have done “what they committed before they would do in a case like this.”

Lived up to what commitment? The NATO charter spells out no such commitment. Article 5 of NATO’s North Atlantic Treaty states that “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” The U.S. was not attacked by Iran and, so, has no legal recourse under Article 5.

Article 5 also mandates that any “armed attack and all measures taken… shall immediately be reported to the Security Council.” The bombing of Iran was not referred to the Security Council, and, even if it had been, Article 2.3 of the UN Charter demands that member states “settle their international disputes by peaceful means.” Article 2.4 requires all members to “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.” Article 51specifies that wars can only be fought in “self-defence if an armed attack occurs” or if it is “immediately reported to the Security Council.” The NATO members had no such commitment as the one Rutte says they were committed to live up to.

But Rutte went beyond implying a fictional commitment. He said that the majority of European countries helped the U.S. “with basing, with logistics, with overflights” because “they know that when it comes to NATO, it’s there to protect the United States…. But it is also there to, of course, make sure that that… Europe is safe and to be this platform of power projection for the United States.” He added that “what the U.S. did in Iran, they could do because so many European countries lived up to those commitments.”

There is absolutely nothing in the NATO charter that characterizes NATO as a “platform of power projection for the United States.” The North Atlantic Treaty clearly identifies NATO as a defensive organization established “for collective defence and for the preservation of peace and security.”

When reminded of the defensive identity of NATO, Rutte replied only, “Ya, but you cannot defend yourself without being lethal.”

After stressing that “I really admire [Trump’s] leadership”—an odd characterization since Rutte is supposed to be NATO’s leader--Rutte insisted that “NATO allies are with him when it comes to the aims of taking out, as I said, degrading the nuclear and the ballistic missile capacity of the Iranians.” Though it is surely true that they supported the aim, it does not entail that they supported the means. Rutte dismissed Europe’s diplomatic desires with the irrelevant reminder that “we run the risk that that would lead to the North Korean moment where you talk so long that at a certain moment it’s beyond the point where you can still get this done because then they would get their hands on the nuclear capacity.”

Talks were not going on so long that Iran was about to get their hands on a nuclear bomb. Instead, the Omani foreign minister, whose country was mediating the nuclear talks between Iran and the U.S. when the bombs began to fall on Iran, said that “A peace deal is within our reach if we just allow diplomacy the space it needs to get there.”

Rutte also placed NATO on Trump’s side with the insistence that NATO members do not see the war on Iran as illegal. When asked if the view that the war was illegal was prevalent among NATO allies, Rutte replied, “No. No. No. Because NATO has always taken the position that degrading these capabilities of nuclear and ballistic missiles is crucial…. There is widespread support for that point of view.”

Rutte’s answer is not an answer to the question of whether NATO members assess that the war is illegal. It also did not accurately represent the member states he is meant to represent.

Several NATO members, including Germany, Spain, France, Belgium, and Italy, have stated, at least publicly, that one of the core reasons they were not answering Trump’s call to join the war was that the war was illegal.

Toward the end of the interview, Rutte was asked whether he was bothered at all by Trump’s threat to kill a whole civilization. That should have been an easy one. But Rutte refused to comment, saying only that “I support the president, and I know large parts of Europe do when it comes to taking out the capacity of Iran to export chaos… to the whole world.” “The whole world,” Rutte said, “is safer for the president degrading those capabilities. And this is by many in Europe acknowledged, and they understand that continuing talking to get this done would have brought us potentially past the moment when we can still deal with it.”

That answer is morally deplorable and a failure of the Secretary General to represent the members or the values of the organization he is charged to represent.

It is time for Rutte to return to his assigned role of representing NATO members, and it is time for NATO to return to its values and role.