President Trump said yesterday that the key component of the NATO treaty - Article 5 - "depends on your definition...there's numerous definitions of Article 5, right?"
This of course is heresy to Western politicians and media, who have always assumed that the definition is clear that "an attack on one of us will be met by all the rest coming to our defence militarily". I recently listened to a podcast produced by Deborah Haynes for Sky News called The Wargame. There are five episodes and the scenario of an attack by Russia on the UK is acted out by a number of recently active politicians - Ben Wallace as Prime Minister, Jack Straw as Foreign Secretary, Amber Rudd as Home Secretary, Jim Murphy as Chancellor and others - and military experts. They meet in one room and a group representing Russia in other. Action takes place in real time.
The scenario starts with an attack on the Murmansk naval base in Northern Russia, probably by Chechen rebels but perhaps even by the Russians themselves. Russia of course accuses the Brits of doing it and threatens reprisals. And so on. Once Russian ships fire missiles at us, we naturally assume article 5 will be evoked and the Americans, French, Germans will weigh in with their planes, ships and special forces. But no. The American President calls on both sides to stop their "aggressive" actions. Eventually the Norwegians and Poles offer some kind of air support. And that's it.
I'm not going to bore you with anything more about the podcast except to say that it has (political?) agendas which become apparent:
- The UK's military is woefully weak
- Article 5 isn't worth the paper it's written on
To be fair, Haynes says right from the start that the situation has a 1% chance of actually happening. So we can take it with a pinch of salt, or we can consider the "truth" it exposes.
Let's have a look at the actual text of Article 5:
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 and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.
So it's "each of them...will assist...by taking...such action as it deems necessary". Not a very solid commitment. I suppose it comes down to trust. In previous US presidential incarnations there was an implicit confidence in Europe's reliance on the Americans to come to our rescue. I'm not sure there's any such confidence in the future after Trump's two terms are over; even a Democrat president might well think differently about Europe than we might imagine.
Then there's "in Europe or North America". So Iran's attack on a US base in Qatar doesn't count, nor would an attack on our aircraft carrier if it's in the Pacific, off the coast of Taiwan.
It makes you wonder whether Trump is right; it's all in the interpretation.