International security

Does NATO Still Exist?

Treaties are made to turn a will into an obligation. But what happens when this will changes? British voters have just given one example — however ill-informed — by dismissing the idea that European Union treaties deliver value to their country. Discomforting as it may be, there’s reason to take a critical look at an even older accord that binds the nations of the West: the NATO treaty.

Signed 67 years ago, the treaty holds the promise that an attack on one of the organization’s member states will be regarded as an attack on all. This solidarity clause, Article 5, was written by politicians of another generation, one with harsher experiences in a much simpler world order. Of course, you can never know until it is tested, but it’s worth asking: Is the thought that keeps the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alive already dead?

Sure, it was only a drill. But when Poland called on its NATO allies last month to help fight off hypothetical invaders who poured into the country from the east, Germany was, well, annoyed. The exercise, called Anakonda — with 25,000 troops from more than 20 countries, the biggest since the end of the Cold War — was intended as a message to Moscow, a show of force ahead of the alliance’s summit this week in Warsaw. Berlin sent a message of its own to Poland, contributing a total of 400 soldiers, none of them combat troops.