NATO – The largest military alliance in the world | DW Documentary

NATO – The largest military alliance in the world | DW Documentary

[Applause] NATO the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed 75 years ago its aim to prevent war between Sovereign Countries 75 years of European history without a war that’s the ultimate expression of a successful Alliance then on February 24th 2022 Russia launched a fullscale invasion of Ukraine war had returned to Europe Ukraine itself is not a NATO member but Russia’s actions have prompted the question is the Western

Military Alliance capable of Defending itself how strong is NATO among European members especially there are some glaring weaknesses European security is B Ally 90% dependent on the US that’s 27 armies that can’t handle medium-sized missions on their own couldn’t in this documentary we’ll hear from people who know NATO from the Inside we cannot guarantee that we could protect Munich Frankfurt Berlin can’t do it founded in the aftermath of the second world war NATO achieved the unimaginable over time former enemies became Partners I think this is fascinating there were also German officers who were part of NATO’s command structure who had

Been fighting against the Americans and the British in the second world war 75 years after its founding NATO’s importance is now greater than it has been since the Cold War around the world there’s an increasing focus on Military might and it’s not just Russia but also China

And the Middle East I think Saudi Arabia has tripled its Ground Forces since 2010 and what about NATO we took a holiday from reality and now we’re dealing with the consequences of that this is mon in Belgium it’s a city of about 100,000 residents 70 km from the capital Brussels

It’s home to one of the most well-protected buildings in the world NATO’s military headquarters the Supreme headquarters Allied Powers Europe or shape for short it’s a central hub for Vital security information Around the Clock everything from movements near the defense alliance’s borders to suspicious activity worldwide Admiral Rob Bower chairs the

NATO military committee he acts as a link between the political world and the military the alliances there now for 75 years and we went from 12 to now almost 32 members so that in itself I would say is the proof that this Alliance adds value otherwise so many nations would not have

Joined when it was founded after World War II NATO consisted of 12 countries its goal during the Cold War was to contain Communism and prevent the Soviet Union and Eastern block from expanding their influence over time 20 more countries have joined NATO including former Eastern block States today the alliance

Stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to turkey’s border with Syria in the Southeast and from the Baltic states on Russia’s border across the Atlantic to the US and Canada it is the world’s largest defense Alliance providing security for 1 billion people and yet NATO itself has no troops of its Own the way it is constructed is that uh NATO is basically three things it is command and control it is standardization uh and it is exercise sizes and the troops come from the Nations the sovereign states all 31 soon to be 32 and so once Nations give their troops to Nato for an

Exercise for an operation or for Collective defense once that has been done then the Supreme Allied Commander Europe General cavoli is in command of those forces and he can use them within the mission that he’s been given the traumatic effects of military conflict were a key factor in establishing

NATO I think that it’s essential to recognize that NATO is created and founded in the aftermath of the second world war and so the war and its destruction Loom over all of the people involved in these decisions so many of these men and they’re almost all men in

This story early in NATO’s history had fought in either the first or second world war or played a role and so part of NATO’s founding uh is about making sure that war doesn’t happen again so many of the people believe that what they’re doing in creating NATO is

Preventing a return to war in Europe when the alliance was founded it had no military structure no command center first and foremost NATO was a promise I think it’s important to recognize that when the treaty was signed in 1949 it was a symbolic treaty it was a political

Symbol that these 12 states were going to protect each other and work side by side on April 4th 1949 heads of government foreign ministers and Senior diplomats from 12 countries gathered to sign the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington DC the agreement had just 14 articles for us if there is anything

Certain today if there is anything inevitable in the future it it is the will of the people of the world for freedom and for [Applause] peace just a few months later in August 1949 the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb with that the US no longer had a monopoly on nuclear weapons

And the arms race gathered speed the Soviet Union became the West’s number one enemy with nuclear weapons in use any provocation could have meant the End of the World As We Knew [Applause] It And yet at the time the greatest fear of NATO’s Founders wasn’t a direct attack by the Soviet Union it was what Canadian historian Timothy Andrew sale calls the weakness of democracy the particular worry in the late 1940s was that the experience of the second world war had been so devastating

And so traumatic for the people of Europe that they would not be willing to fight for their state or for their national interests in the future the worry was that if the Soviet Union were to mobilize its forces or stage exercises or somehow Flex its military muscle then perhaps citizens in European

Countries would ask their leaders to give in to whatever the Soviet demands were the millions of deaths during the second world war were front of mind and according to the historian’s theory democracies leave themselves open to Blackmail because they try to keep the peace and all costs they tend to offer

Compromises and give in to pressure By being a part of NATO and by being a part of the alliance the leaders felt that they could go to their people and say we’re part of something bigger um and in the aftermath of the war When leaders did not think that their people would ever be willing to fight again it

Was very important to show this group strength today 75 years after NATO was founded war is once again being fought in Europe the world’s biggest military Alliance has had to ask itself if worse came to worst how well would it be able to defend Itself All Nations have to make sure they can defend themselves that’s article three and we have basically neglected that for many years for example Britain has greatly reduced its land forces Germany does have land forces but they’re not necessar compatible with other Armed Forces France has nuclear weapons but far too

Few of them compared to Russia’s nuclear Arsenal nuclear after the Cold War the emphasis on Collective defense faded more and more NATO’s Focus shifted to operations in Afghanistan and Libya and the so-called war on terror we had overseas missions that required small and mobile units of armed for

These were sent abroad for very very specific tasks in the crisis response operations time is on our side we decide are we going to Afghanistan and when and with how many forces and for how long but in collected defense an adversary might attack you and then you are ready or you’re

Not the alliance’s weaknesses are now becoming apparent native has grown to include 32 countries that’s 32 sovereign states which means a whole lot of bureaucracy being able to deploy and move troops quickly can be decisive in war but in Europe that’s a big job despite the EU and the shenen free movement Zone from 2014 to 2017 Lieutenant General Ben hajes was the Commanding General of US troops in Europe Europe I said you know you could take a truck load of apples from Poland to Portugal never be stopped he could drive all the way through I can’t do that with

Military and and I had troops that were up in the Baltic countries in Poland small numbers and um and I noticed that my Aviation helicopter unit U was their maintenance Readiness level was going down and I asked my Comm my Aviation Brigade Commander from ansbach I said uh

Why are they not repaired what’s taking so long and he said sir we we cannot get the maintenance parts from ansbach to larda it takes weeks I said what I was naive I just assumed driving from ansbach to larda would be like um being on Interstate 95 in the US

From Florida to Virginia I mean you’re it’s all NATO countries all EU countries what’s the problem and that’s when we realized that there was a problem moving military equipment across borders through the different nations you had to have permission NATO is aware of the problem since 2021 it’s been operating what it

Calls joint support and enabling command or jsac based in the southern German city Of jx’s Main role is to cut through the bureaucratic red tape when it comes to troop deployments its Commander is Lieutenant General Alexander zran looking to 2024 looking back at 2023 we have a federal structure that means you have to get states with different governments working together there are forms that need

Filling out which are very thorough still vary from Nation to Nation that’s something we’re working on then you have to consider things like Customs regulations for example or animal disease prevention but to move tanks across Germany you have to put them on a train

Quickly or put them on the back of a uh one of these large trucks we don’t have enough of these trucks to carry tanks so you need Doan but in peacetime Doan is not just going to stop they shouldn’t just stop doing and take tanks so having to work

Through these process this is very tedious it’s not sexy this is the obal barracks in Bavaria Southeastern Germany tomorrow the soldiers are traveling to Lithuania on behalf of NATO the tanks will be transported to Lithuania by train even the trip to the railway station requires meticulous coordination the route is along the highway they have a precise window to make the journey from the barracks to the train station everything must happen before rush Hour across Europe there are bridges that were built in the recent Decades of peacetime so little thought was given to whether they could bear the weight of heavy military equipment the tanks must cross this bridge one at a time every German our age uh remembers and can still see in Western Germany the

Yellow sign that has the weight this bridge will hold and I mean everywhere in West Germany you had these signs you don’t have that as you go further to the East each unit being sent to NATO’s Eastern flank in Lithuania takes its own Equipment that way procedures and movements can be practiced and Internalized I know my vehicle I know what faults it has or doesn’t have and our maintenance partner Hill can do things like send us spare parts the tanks from the previous rotation belong to other comrades it’s like having a car you drive your own you don’t just swap it with someone

Else’s the aim of JC is to create a kind of common military zone akin to Europe’s border-free shenen area in the future NATO wants to be able to deploy 100,000 soldiers in 10 days right now it takes 15 days to deploy less than half that number and it’s not just about the soldiers

Themselves we’ve just seen this with the war in Ukraine a land War eats up incredible amounts of resources Ukraine supporters are really struggling just to produce enough ammunition they’ve scoured all the existing stock PS and used everything up according to calculations an average of 50,000 artillery rounds are currently being

Fired per day in the Russia Ukraine war those Munitions have to be produced they have to be on hand so German ammunition needs to also fit in Dutch barrels has to be distributed to Depot somewhere in Europe in a logical way hopefully we’ll never need it but it’s part of having credible

Deterrent JC is also responsible for ensuring sufficient ammunition supplies in case of a direct attack Lieutenant General zran and his international team use simulations to practice for that eventuality how much equipment is a available to troops in a given place where are their shortfalls how much fuel

Is needed which roads and bridges can they use and where might the team have to improvise where are the most strategic locations for weapons Depot here at JC headquarters every conceivable conflict scenario is played out most importantly everything that’s planned here has to be achievable at any

Time deterrence only works if our plans preparations are credible in other words it has to work in the event that we have to defend ourselves in order to do what we all want to do namely prevent War I have to for example be able to manage this redeployment of large bodies of troops

In peacetime so before the first shot is ever fired I can make it clear to the opponent that they are going to fail at first everything goes to plan for the soldiers from Bavaria on their way to Lithuania the loading process is completed but then there’s an unexpected

Delay due to a rail strike the train is only able to travel a few kilometers 3 days later it’s still in Bavaria NATO headquarters in Brussels where crucial political decisions are made in the event of an attack on a NATO member State this is where leaders would decide whether to invoke Article 5 in the NATO process Article 5 of course is the Article of the Washington treaty that is most wellknown armed

Attack on one shall be considered an armed attack on all everybody knows Article 5 but that’s not a a laser beam like if you go to a a store and and the door automatically opens up there is no automatic trigger for Article 5 there be a consultation in which all NATO member

States would have to agree to officially consider Article 5 accept it and put it into effect such decisions must be made unanimously by all members in countries such as Germany and and the United States military operations also have to be approved by Parliament or congress you remember last year there

Was a missile that landed inside Poland and killed two poles and uh if this was an automatic thing that you somebody could have said missile hits It’s a Russian missile hits inside Poland Article 5 well of course the the the people involved in the process involved

Are mature enough to say wait a minute we need let’s let’s check and see what happened in the beginning that idea that article 5 would compel other allies to fight to defend one Ally was the hope of the British and the French and the Canadians that that’s what they wanted

Article 5 to say um but the United States would not have that because it took away the power of congress to declare war the problem is that the more countries there are the more individual interests come into play if just one m State refuses to consent Article 5

Falters we have 3.2 million soldiers that need to know what to do so it’s not enough to say no uh and in a war in a crisis if you are attacked you can say no but we’re still attacked so we need a solution so if somebody

Says no Then we expect from that nation that says no an alternative yes NATO allows for what’s called constructive exstension this means that the alliance can be invoked even if not everyone agrees but a no vote would be a problem in the case of an attack if if

One nation says this is we do not support that this is Article 5 uh then the other nations can still act in a multilateral way but it won’t be under a NATO construct so this this will be a problem and yet the foundational ideas behind NATO are community and

Solidarity in the 1950s and into the 60s there was a real effort to try and connect the people of the NATO countries with each other and so things like educational exchanges and Study Tours and professional associations were considered to be very important in building up that solidarity uh within

The alliance and so a lot of American officials spend a lot of time thinking about how to build those relationships not just between leaders but between people in that era such exchanges often began with presenting the typical customs of a given Country milk butter eggs and cheese cheese made by special formulas and skills passed down through generations of peasant cheese makers producing Delicacies like Paul LEC and Kam bear famous throughout the World archival material like this shows NATO’s early years educational films from a pre globalized era made by the organization’s own press office the focus wasn’t on weapons or military Maneuvers instead individual member states were introduced through their traditions and culture these films weren’t intended for the public they were shown to soldiers

Before they were stationed in a different country part of pre-employment training to help answer questions like what are they like over there what can we expect and I think this is fascinating there were also German officers who were part of NATO’s command structure who had been fighting against the Americans in

The British in the Second World War so these men had fought beside each other in some cases had fought against each other and then worked to build this Alliance together during the Cold [Applause] War NATO bases already existed in federal Germany and at one of them an international Jet Pilot School men from the United Kingdom from Western Germany from the United States and the Airmen of France and those of Italy work and train together in 1955 just 10 years after the

End of the second world war West Germany was admitted to Nato but despite the emphasis on community the fear of being abandoned by one’s own allies is as old as NATO Itself this idea that maybe some of the Allies would just sit back in a war was constantly on the mind of of leaders uh throughout the Cold War would the United States really defend Western Europe if in response the Soviet Union would fire nuclear missiles at the United States

And so it’s from the late 1950s on that this Balancing Act becomes extremely difficult the very same year that the Federal Republic of Germany joined NATO then Chancellor Kad adwa asked experts for a legal opinion he wanted to know how binding Article 5 really was in other words what was Washington’s

Obligation if Germany were to be attacked the lawyer’s assessment both the question of whether an attack has occurred and the question of the nature and the extent of the assistance to be provided are at the discretion of the United States which suggests that any country is free to decide whether or not

To stand by an ally at first glance Article 5 makes you think oh so if I attack a NATO member State then all the other 31 are going to come and smack me down but if you really read it in detail what it says is each member promises to see an attack on

Another NATO member State as an attack on themselves it doesn’t say they’ll then send tanks or war planes they might just say yes I see it as an attack on me but I still won’t do anything then Chancellor Kad Adenauer did not want to rely on Article 5 he

Opted for a different kind of guarantee the stationing of US soldiers on West German soil for anawa they were the real Safeguard one of the reasons it was so important to have uh American British and Canadian Forces in Europe uh was that they served as something of a

Tripwire for Article 5 or for the other allies to come to the aid of Europeans or Germany especially uh if it if the federal republic was attacked is a very important political signal because no American political leader is going to allow some American troops to get caught

Up uh in a war or a small conflict without the totality of us power coming um to join that fight this is rukla in Lithuania soldiers from several Nations have been stationed here since 2017 they’re a part of NATO’s multinational battle groups after Russia annexed Crimea from

Ukraine in 2014 these small mobile units were set up under permanent NATO command they’re stationed along NATO’s eastern border in Estonia lvia Lithuania and Poland the strength of each battle group is 1,000 to 2,000 soldiers and further battle groups have been added since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 in Slovakia Hungary

Romania and Bulgaria Germany is responsible for a battle group in Lithuania near the suaki Gap a 100 km stretch of the Lithuanian Polish border between bellarus and the Russian exclave of kaliningrad NATO believes it’s where a Russian attack would be most likely colonel house paba is in command

Of the German contingent stationed here in Lithuania objectively speaking forces from Russia and Belarus are no longer present in the kind of strength we saw before the war in Ukraine many forces have been withdrawn and deployed in Ukraine so objectively we can say that we’re not currently under any acute

Threat the German soldiers from the barracks in Bavaria have now arrived by plane but their tanks are still in Transit in the evening there’s a flag ceremony symbolizing the changeover of troops while some are heading home after 6 months the others are left with an important task demonstrating loud and clear that NATO won’t abandon Lithuania in the event of armed conflict [Applause] so if Lithuania is attack it’s not

Only Lithuania but it is our soldiers that are working there and therefore uh it is maybe not seen by people as Dutch soil and Dutch uh or German soil but it is our soldiers that work there and are going to be attacked it’s the same principle that Conrad adow RI on security isn’t

Guaranteed by the famous Article 5 but by the international makeup of a military presence the German Armed Forces here are ready for action but at the same time they’re showing the Lithuanian people look we’re here standing alongside you shoulder toh shoulder we can’t forget that it wasn’t only the Americans who guaranteed our

Security during the Cold War it was several Allied countries you could say we’re now repaying the favor we’re helping to pass on what we experienced in the past in terms of security and protection to make sure that our comrades here in Lithuania and in the other Baltic states are supported in

Protecting NATO’s Eastern flank NATO’s defense policy is seldom popular before Russia’s war in Ukraine approval of NATO in the United Kingdom was 59% in Germany it was 54% and in France just 39% even more dramatic were polling results regarding Article 5 and the obligation to defend

Allies prior to the war in Ukraine only 32% of French respondents were in favor of providing military support to Nato member Romania if it were to be attacked by Russia and just 14% of Germans said they would want to stand by NATO member turkey in the event of a Russian

Attack but the truth is support for NATO has always fluctuated even during the Cold War in West Germany for example the 1980s saw a big peace movement that that led other NATO countries to wonder just how reliable the Germans were as allies the leaders who uh built NATO and

Then the leaders who maintain NATO are frequently talking behind closed doors about Germany and their worries about what Germany will do in the world and this takes one of two paths so one argument earlier in the cold war is this that Germany is going to try and establish itself as an independent

Strong power in Europe and that this will be a return to the first half of the 20th century and that motivates a lot of fears in the 1950s and 1960s and then there’s a switch uh from the 1960s on there’s a fear and a worry that perhaps Germans no longer wish to be

Powerful at all this is a period when there are major demon ations in Germany against nuclear weapons against NATO against United States forces in Germany and that sentiment still persists in parts of the population Today I think a whole lot of people in Germany have very happily been in an intellectual political and economic Comfort Zone The Motto has been whatever Russia is doing in Syria or Georgia or Ukraine isn’t nice but it has nothing to do with us a lack of solidarity and no common

Vision in 2019 the year of the alliance’s 70th Anniversary French president Emmanuel Macon went so far as to say nato was experiencing brain death France’s problem with NATO has always been that they want more from it not less that’s how ‘s comment must be understood France has consistently been

One of the Allies saying we all must do more than what we’re doing maong criticized what he saw as a complete lack of common strategy within nato in for a long time Germany had a kind of blinkered attitude towards anything involving conflict I think that’s why Mong gave a wakeup call it’s

Not just about money or soldiers it’s about asking can you even imagine the worst case scenario because if not you’ll be truly helpless if it happens two days later than planned the tanks arrive in Lithuania but before they finally reach the barracks there’s one more hurdle to

Clear a few kilometers shy of their destination the tanks have to be reloaded onto another train the tracks in some Eastern European countries have different gauges and aren’t compatible with those in Western Europe in a defense situation the trains would have been here on time the strike wouldn’t have happened and the German

Rail operator would have gotten them here on schedule it’s not until the next morning that the tanks finally head to where they’ll be stationed for the next 6 months they drive the last few kilometers along Country Roads soon there will be German kindergartens schools and supermarkets

Built in the region that’s because a new German Brigade will be permanently stationed in Lithuania operational by 2027 about 5,000 soldiers and their families will live here the move is part of NATO’s defense strategy to prevent Russia from attacking other former Soviet countries after Ukraine that’s especially a concern in

The Baltic states unlike in Ukraine here it would constitute a direct attack on NATO territory there are also conflicts between Russia and NATO on the Cyber level an investigation published in 2020 23 revealed the Vulcan files leak and the existence of hacking centers working for the Russian government the

Revelations showed how Moscow was trying to destabilize the West via the Internet NATO’s response to this new threat can be found in the Estonian Capital Talon close to the Russian Border this is the Cooperative cyber defense center of Excellence so n in general has acknowledged the significance and importance of uh cyber cyber attacks and declared in 2021 that in certain cases so cumulative effects of cyber uh cyber effects cyber attacks against the NATO Nations can trigger NATO Article 5 that means Collective defense and response uh

Might not be limited to SP cyber space only the alliance’s top cyber professionals meet here regularly to practice for emergency situations the annual lock Shield simulation involves defending a fictitious country from a Cyber attack so uh it can be called like a world championship or Olympics of cyber

Defenders every year and the purpose of it is um is to have this multinational environment where uh the most complex uh and advanced um simulat environment is used like in real case when a nation is under a Cyber attack another annual simulation Crossed Swords took place in December

2023 it involved responding to a threat with a Counterattack those taking part had to disable a power plant hack surveillance cameras and obstruct a rail network points were awarded for each hacked server and a winner was determined at the end Ukrainian experts also took part in the simulation meanwhile just over a th000

Km to the South Russian hackers actually shut down Ukraine’s biggest telecoms operator for several days after the Soviet Union dissolved Eastern European countries left the Eastern block and gradually joined NATO in 1999 Poland the Czech Republic and Hungary became members 5 years later Estonia lvia Lithuania Bulgaria Romania Slovakia and

Slovenia followed Albania and Croatia joined in 2009 in 2017 came Montenegro and in 2020 North Macedonia became the last country to join NATO before the war in Ukraine why is it that so many nations that were that are former Soviet Republic republics such as Estonia lvia and Lithuania or former members of the

Warsaw pack like Poland why did they seek to join NATO as soon as they possibly could why does Ukraine want to do it now and it’s because they know what it’s like to be under that Russian control some people say that by expanding NATO toward Russia that we were uh committing

A form of aggression that we were threatening Russia I can tell you because I was there in the George HW Bush Administration uh when the Warsaw pack collapsed and then when uh the Soviet Union Union disintegrated Central and Eastern European countries were pounding on NATO’s door asking admission

They had been dominated by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II they wanted to be free and they wanted to be with what they saw as like-minded countries in the West we didn’t do any recruiting to add to Nato membership all of the countries that joined uh opened the process

Themselves Russian President Vladimir Putin viewed the Eastern expansion of NATO as both a threat and betrayal of a purported promise in Putin’s eyes it was a breach of trust that justified Russia’s attack on another country he made that clear in an address to the nation 3 days before Russian troops invaded Ukraine for

Not one in Eastward that’s the much qued promise NATO is said to have made to Russia so did the West betray Russia historian Mary E sarati has spent most of her academic life focusing on that exact question she’s conducted more than 100 interviews and scrutinized countless transcripts letters and

Documents and ultimately she found a clear answer what I would really like would be if the Russians would lay down their weapons and go home I can’t make that happen but in a certain sense Putin is trying to use history as a weapon to justify what he’s doing and I am a

Historian and so in my own little way it’s very minor compared to what the ukrainians are doing but in my own little way I can perhaps take that weapon away from him by showing in a serious reproducible scholarly way the the true narrative the actual Narrative of what

Happened the story begins shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall Germany was on the brink of reunification but there was a challenge Germany had surrendered unconditionally after the second world war so the four Victor Powers the US France Britain and the Soviet Union still had Undisputed legal rights over

Divided Germany and particularly over divided Berlin so in order for Germany to unify all four had to give those Powers up the three Victorious Western Powers asked themselves what the fourth power would demand what would the Soviet Union’s last leader mik gorbachov want in return for allowing the reunification of

Germany the former West German foreign minister Hans dietr genscher was was certain that gorbachov would want the security of knowing in gard’s words that neither Poland nor Hungary is going to join NATO so genter thought that was reasonable and felt strongly that the Western allies so America Britain France

And West Germany should offer that to gorbachov genser proposed the idea to US Secretary of State James Baker he too thought it was reasonable on February 9th 1990 Baker visited gorbachov at the Kremlin and he says roughly the following how about you let your part of Germany go

And we say that NATO NATO and its jurisdiction will move not one inch eastwards after the meeting Baker flew back to the US to report back to his boss and good friend President George HW Bush Bush however was anything but impressed with the proposal Bush says

I’m disappointed in you I don’t think we should negotiate about the future of NATO I think NATO just won the Cold War I think NATO is great just the way it is so we’re not going to do that and you need to let people know so one of my

More interesting discoveries was a letter that Baker then wrote to the West German foreign Ministry at the end of February saying I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that I’ve caused confusion we need to stop talking about this and after that this offer disappears from the American negotiating

Position 2 weeks later Bush invited West German Chancellor Helmut Cole and his wife to Camp David the US president’s country Residents Bush said to Cole pretty much the same thing that he’d said to James Baker we’re not going to negotiate over the future of NATO to hell with that right that’s a direct quote to hell with that and Cole responded okay but gorbachov is going to want something in exchange for his bargaining

Chips and go Cole thought about it and said perhaps it will be a question of money and Bush responded you have Deep Pockets and the later defense minister Bob Gates who was basically taking notes around this time he Bob Gates later wrote in his Memoirs at that moment the

Strategy became clear we were going to bribe the Soviets out but with money not with promises about NATO enlargement the 2 plus4 negotiations dragged on until September 12th 1990 by then nothing stood in the way of German reunification and the line not 1 in Eastward was not in any Treaty this was not a Amateur hour these were professionals negotiating this was the a team as we say in America and at the end what actually was in the contract explicitly allows NATO to enlarge across the former Cold War Front Line that I believe is what is most

Important and the Soviet Union not only signed that Accord not only ratified it but also cashed the associated check for billions of marks that Putin doesn’t mention so what Putin does is he mentions the early phase of the negotiations where that was a possibility but then he ignores what actually happened at the

End months later the Soviet Union collapsed the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved the Soviet flag over the Kremlin was lowered NATO and the West had won suddenly the question arose what should NATO do next so there are a number of reasons for keeping in nato in place one is the idea

That geopolitical realities had not evaporated just because the Cold War ended there was no guarantee that the Soviet Union or later Russia were going to be uh a peaceful state after 1990 there was this idea of the peace dividend all states in Europe in the west but also Russia and other

Former Soviet States reduced their arms the idea was if everyone had P weapons it signaled nobody wanted conflict and for a few years at least the idea seemed to work relations between Russia and the West improved in 1997 leaders of NATO countries and Russian president Boris yelson signed a

Cooperation agreement called the NATO Russia founding act German Diplomat vulang isingo was at the negotiations in the first half of the 1990s the relationship was by no means confrontational or hostile Russia needed cooperation with the West Russia was later admitted to the G7 so suddenly we were the

G8 the NATO Russia founding act literally States NATO and Russia do not consider each other as Adversaries in the founding act the West made concessions to [Applause] Russia we agreed that no nuclear weapons would be deployed on the territory of future Eastern NATO member states period no if buts we also accepted that the deployment of troops from NATO member states in those countries would only be

Allowed to take place in a very limited Way and NATO honored that agreement says Andre kortunov academic director of the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow I agree that between 2014 and 2022 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization showed a certain restraint a restraint in deploying new troops and heavy weapons to its eastern flank this was evidently done to avoid

Any accusation of violating the provisions of the NATO Russia founding act the ACT does not allow the parties to station large arals of weapons along the Russian border on the other hand Russia is doing things very differently we have to assume that there are nuclear capable missile systems in

Kenrad which wouldn’t give much warning to us sitting here in Berlin a lot is happening there we haven’t done any of that we haven’t done anything in this domain that didn’t already exist before reunification or during the Cold War even when Putin came to power in 1999 the relationship between Russia and

NATO was peaceful the old enemy seemed to have become a friend meanwhile while a new adversary had emerged terrorism to this day the alliance’s Article 5 has only ever been invoked once following the terrorist attacks of September 11th 2001 today our fellow citizens our way of life our very Freedom came under

Attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts the pictures of airplanes flying into buildings fires burning huge huge structures collapsing have filled us with disbelief at the time Stephanie bobst was a NATO security adviser at headquarters in Brussels watching as events unfolded during the attacks but also

Afterwards there was a sense that we should expect further attacks and we didn’t know where I remember very well how unsettled we felt as employees at NATO headquarters we thought we were also targets within a very short time a meeting of the North Atlantic Council was Convened the US ambassador started out by outlining the events that had happened before our very eyes he tried to explain how the government had made sense of it in those few hours after the attack what they knew especially in terms of intelligence and then the Secretary General George Robertson said that there

Was a consensus among the Allies so to speak that we were standing in solidarity with the United States the affected country and that was happening under Article Five of the Washington Treaty the council agreed that if it is if it is determined that this attack was directed from abroad against the United States it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article Five of the Washington treaty in that regard there was a considerable risk in invoking Article 5

Because nobody knew what the situation would be like in a week’s time and whether the Americans would suddenly demand immediate military support from their allies nobody could know that 48 hours after the attacks in response to the attacks US President George W bush declared a war

On terror in 2001 70 Nations took part in the subsequent War in Afghanistan including all NATO countries and Russia a few days after the attacks Putin speaking German addressed the German Parliament in Berlin Putin Putin was one of the very first to express his condolences and a willingness to help after

911 relations were still stable back then for the politic Putin supported nato in Afghanistan in the fight against Al-Qaeda some of NATO’s Logistics were routed via Russia at the time Putin even considered the prospect of Russia joining NATO both Russia and NATO member states benefited from the cooperation economically and Politically there was a very good cooperation between the west and Russia especially in the early 2000s the best example is probably the transportation options that Russia offered NATO during the war in Afghanistan the so-call northern transport Corridor worked well for several years it proved to be very effective from 2002 onwards

Representatives of Russia and NATO met regularly in the NATO Russia Council the mood among leaders was playful and Upbeat the slippery slope the up Ed to go downhill with the US decision to intervene in Iraq if not before then because Moscow of course had the feeling that a red line had been crossed if the Americans were going to start that kind of war with thousands of

Tanks and soldiers and as it turned out based on false information then where would it end it was the beginning of the end of good relations between Russia and the West Russia like China and France voted against the invasion of Iraq at the UN Security Council the US invaded anyway without a

Un mandate in 2007 4 years after the US invaded Iraq with its Coalition of the Willing Putin spoke at the Munich security conference he took the United States and its allies to task over their Policies in the west the fact that contact was maintained between Moscow and Brussels was very often seen as some kind of favor from NATO towards Russia the council was almost exclusively considered a mechanism for exchanging information but one which had no serious decisionmaking functions and of course those two

Approaches were bound to clash sooner or later For come with we probably reacted unwisely the reaction was basically to assume he just needed to let off some steam and that the next morning it would be back to business as usual that turned out to be a miscalculation we found that out in 2008 at the latest when Russia responded to

The Georgian uprisings with massive military after that things really went downhill in 2014 Russian forces occupied Crimea pro-russian insurgents in eastern Ukraine were supported with arms supplies Logistics and irregular forces the official line was that Moscow was protecting the Russian language and culture in reality it was probably also

About preventing Ukraine from joining NATO after all no country involved in a conflict is allowed to join the alliance Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine would follow in 2022 one week prior Russia’s foreign minister essentially declared that the NATO Russia Council was no more they want to go back to the borders of 1997 they sent a concept treaty text to Nato in December 2021 and that means that uh uh basically all the members that since 1997 have

Become a member of NATO would sort of become a second uh class member of course that is unacceptable Putin wants less of NATO instead he’s getting more of it Finland joined the alliance in 2023 Sweden applied for membership in 2022 but wasn’t admitted at first for 20 months Turkish president

Reb T erdogan blocked Sweden’s membership bid Hungary opposed it even longer all NATO members have the right of veto for example when it comes to new member states Sweden had been preparing for over a year they’d made an incredibly important really quite historic decision they had

To get it through Parliament which was a difficult political feat from there they were more or less dependent on two people Mr Orban and Mr erdogan so they were on the doorstep and they basically had to beg erdogan’s objection was that Sweden was doing too little with than its own

Borders against groups associated with the Kurdistan Workers Party or pkk which is banned in turkey and which the EU considers a terrorist Organization my former boss NATO Secretary General Yen Stenberg made frequent trips to anchora with a view to expanding the alliance to include Finland and Sweden to convince Mr erdogan that works based on appeals persuasion to a certain extent also deals researcher yazar Iden says erdogan has deliberately used NATO to make

Profitable deals for years in his role at the German Institute for international and security Affairs Iden has observed turkey’s foreign policy there’s also a tactical reason for the Turkish position turkey wants to extort more benefits out of the US if you want to put it that way it’s about acquiring F-16 fighter jets

For example turkey isn’t going to make it easy the country is negotiating meanwhile NATO once again faces an age-old question how United would the alliance be in the event of an attack polling suggests that nearly 3/4s of Turks now see its NATO partner the United States as their greatest threat

NATO itself now has just 23% support in Turkey erdogan meanwhile has fostered a friendly relationship with Russia for years while the West imposes sanctions anara and Moscow have traded extensively in 2023 after the invasion of Ukraine erdogan said he considered Russia to be just as trustworthy as the West the relationship between turkey and Russia is characterized by cooperation

On the one hand and conflict on the other turkey doesn’t support sanctions on Russia it holds talks with Russia which is also very important on the other hand turkey didn’t recognize the annexation of Crimea for example turkey has supported and continues to support Ukraine years ago Russia began to

Intensify its strategic partnership with turkey the countries coordinate on energy policy and economics they have a close exchange when it comes to military matters and also intelligence none of that is good for the alliance I haven’t heard of Any Nation or government seriously considering threatening to expel

Turkey in other words trying to find its own leverage and signaling to Anchor that NATO membership isn’t set in stone the issue is NATO needs turkey more than turkey needs NATO geographically it offers the alliance access to the Black Sea and it’s a doorway to the Islamic world but above

All NATO relies on it militarily to Mark the 100th birthday of the Turkish Republic the country has been demonstrating its military strength In terms of troop numbers the Turkish Army is the second strongest in the alliance after the US by a wide margin France comes in third with less than half the number turkey Has that means turkey is not actually dependent on nato in military terms and yet p there has not been a debate in Turkey in the past or now about leaving NATO the government hasn’t engaged in talks like that my assumption is that strategically it’s much more advantageous for turkey

To have one foot in the west while also being a regional power that gives them twice the security they project their own power regionally for example playing Ukraine and Russia against each other they focused on their position Visa the Black Sea and Syria and at the

Same time they have the security of NATO and the West it’s a strategic Advantage for turkey to give that up would give them less room to maneuver they’re doing The Balancing Act very skillfully right now so I don’t think it’s a realistic option for turkey at the moment or at least for

Adan who plays that game very well erdogan is a sober and calculating person as part of NATO he can weigh in on global issues that gives him leverage against Russia and also Europe he’s sitting alongside the strongest countries in the world why give that up NATO’s most important member was is

The US it’s key to the alliance’s strength and its future we assembled here today our issuing a new decree to be heard in every city in every foreign capital and in every Hall of power from this day forward a new vision will govern our land from this day forward it’s going to

Be only America first First America First the United States plays an extremely important coordinating role in NATO the president is the most important person in the alliance and without uh an American president and all of that means in terms of American Military and nuclear power um the the alliance itself

Would be just a shadow of itself this is it would be very different if say Italy decided not to be involved it really is a dramatic turn of events that the biggest fear of a NATO member leaving in recent years has been about the United States in July 2018 NATO Secretary

General Yen stolen and US president Donald Trump clashed on camera at a NATO Summit in Brussels differences on the different views Germany is just paying a little bit over 1% whereas the United States in actual numbers is paying 4.2% of a much larger GDP so I think that’s inappropriate also you know we’re

Protecting Germany we’re protecting France we’re protecting everybody and yet we’re paying a lot of money to protect now this has been going on for decades and then numerous of the countries go out and make a pipeline deal with Russia where they’re paying billions of into the coffers of Russia and I think

That’s very inappropriate and the former chancellor of Germany is the head of the pipeline company that’s supplying the gas in 2014 NATO member states agreed to spend 2% of GDP on defense but apart from the United States hardly any country stuck to it John Bolton was US National Security

Adviser for around 18 months under Donald Trump until the president forced him to resign when when I took the job as National Security advisor I believe that uh the weight of the decisions that the president had to make in the national security field the gravity of the responsibility would weigh on Donald

Trump and discipline him in the same way it had for 44 American presidents before him Bolton was there on the second day of the NATO Summit when Trump nearly caused a major Incident well I was in a car over to our uh Embassy uh residents in Brussels where the president was staying and he called me in the car and said uh I think we should do something historic today I think we should withdraw from NATO uh and I said uh somewhat surprised by that

I said well let’s discuss it I’m almost there uh as soon as I hung up with the president I called Mike Pompeo the Secretary of State I called John Kelly the white house chief of staff I tried to reach Jim Mattis the Secretary of Defense uh to basically say all hands on

Deck I think this is very serious for the first time in NATO’s history a US withdrawal seemed a real Possibility Well I was very worried that uh the Trump would actually announced withdrawal right there not that we had considered it not that we had discussed it at the NSC uh but because Trump once he started talking about something uh often just went ahead and did it uh and

At one point Trump said to me uh that basically he was going to replace me with someone who didn’t argue with him but who just said yes when he said things like I want to get out of NATO the last conversation I had with him he was literally sitting at the big table in the NATO meeting room he called me up and said well shall we do it and I said uh go right up to the line but don’t go over the line and then I went

And sat back down and when I sat down I had no prediction what he would do I think um with a normal president it would have been seen as a bluff because people know that come on the United States needs NATO just as much as NATO needs the United States so

Nobody would have taken him serious he comes across as not truly appreciating the significance of the alliance or what it even means or understanding the history or why do we do what we do for he understands the world in a transactional sense quid proquo if I give you security what do I

Get in return why do I have a worse deal when it comes to Nato he didn’t appreciate that NATO was important for the US in order to create global stability and security for him it’s just a deal you give me this and I’ll give you that that’s not what NATO is

About nothing came of Trump’s threats but NATO allies especially those in Europe were concerned Berlin July 2019 a simulation was carried out by London’s International Institute for strategic studies and the kba foundation Security Experts from Germany France the UK Poland and the US took part everything happened in secret neither

The location nor the participants were disclosed no Mula is executive director of international Affairs at the kba foundation by for these scenario exercises we invite government officials but also people from the academic worlds and from think tanks they come from various countries that are relevant for the scenario we’re playing

Out and a very important requirement in the simulation gam is that the list of participants remains absolutely Confidential the fictitious scenario was this during a second Trump presidency the US announces its withdrawal from NATO it wasn’t a military scenario it was a political one what concessions would the remaining member states be prepared to make would NATO even collapse under the strain of a US threat

The German team was quite prepared to throw the issue of trade policy into the equation the Polish team was relatively quick to enter into talks with the Americans along the lines of hey what can we do Beyond nato in terms of a bilateral security policy agreement and that of course was a big

Concern for the other players in because if we start making bilateral security agreements with the US the structure of NATO will be undermined the simulation ruthlessly exposed the alliance’s weaknesses a US withdrawal would massively weaken NATO and set off a race for bilateral treaties considerations about the

Consequences of a US withdrawal can also be found in NATO’s history and what they expected would happen was a return to a series of bilateral alliances alliances between two states maybe three states in Europe and what they saw was the return to a rickety system of alliances like those

That had existed in Europe before the second world war and in in some cases before the first world war too and they worried that this would be a very unstable and dangerous situation where States would have a series of different security obligations that could activate a whole

Uh series of dominoes if you will if a conflict were to begin the scenario secretly played out in Berlin in 2019 became relevant once more in 20124 Trump has repeatedly made NATO an election issue in his campaign appearances And we don’t get so much out of it and you know I hate to tell you this about NATO If We Ever Needed their help let’s say we were attacked I don’t believe they’d be there I very much fear if he becomes president again he will withdraw

From NATO uh he will probably also abandon Ukraine and who knows what else he will do I think it will be very destructive very counterproductive I think that uh Trump will withdrawal from NATO because he has felt for so long that it was something he wanted to do I

Think he uh feels frustrated that he wasn’t able to do it in his first term uh he probably blames people like myself and several others uh and in in a second Trump term he will not be burdened by people like me I can tell you they asked

Me that question one of the presidents of a big country stood up said well sir uh if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia will you protect us I said you didn’t pay you’re delinquent he said yes let’s say that happened no I would not protect you in

Fact I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want you got to pay you got to pay your bills and the money came flowing in we were like the stupid country of the world and we’re not going to be the stupid country of the world any longer we’re not going to

Be the the real danger isn’t an official US withdrawal from NATO that’s something that Congress made clear again in 2019 with legislation the president does not have the power to break the North Atlantic Treaty treaties have to go through Congress the real danger is a lack of

Political will to do anything in the case of an ally being attacked whether the president in the White House is Trump or someone else even if Trump is reelected and doesn’t officially withdraw from NATO because the US Congress doesn’t allow him to he can still decide to do nothing if an attack takes

Place the US Congress would still have the power to declare war but the US president as military commander could simply not send troops could the world’s largest military Alliance and its famous Article 5 be undermined by just one person and that’s not the only threat to Nato Global power dynamics have been shifting

For Years for one thing us Society is changing but also in recent years there’s been a dramatic increase in the perception that China is a threat the only Global player that could take on the US Russia in a completely different category when it comes to that according to the Global Firepower

Index China is ranked just after the United States and Russia when it comes to military strength worldwide modernization of beijing’s military is set to be completed by 2035 plus China already has the largest Navy in the world satellite images from recent years show how China has built up huge

Military bases on small undeveloped atoles in the South China Sea China is taking an increasingly aggressive stance towards Taiwan and other Asian States those states are in turn also hoping for assistance from the US and NATO we’re also seeing this with Ukraine increasingly the question is can we be equally active in both these theaters in both regions what we now spend on Ukraine in terms of weapons and support shouldn’t we already be supplying that to Taiwan too in case of a

Conflict that debate is going on in the US I was part of a delegation to the US in 2019 during our discussions the Americans told us Russia’s your problem it’s a European problem now not ours anymore you have to take care of it that’s not going to change even if in 10

Or 20 years we have better relations with Russia until then Europeans have to come to terms with the idea that the US May simply not be able to act in a conflict because they may be busy elsewhere the fundamental challenge for Europeans in the future will be to show

How they can also be useful and not just a beneficiary of US security or is there a need for a plan B like a unified European Army after all Article 4 two of the treaty on European Union contains its own Mutual assistance guarantee similar to NATO’s Article 5 needless to say the US wouldn’t be the military power it is today if it wasn’t centralized and that’s exactly why a European Army under a unified command structure is so unlikely because we’re not one country like the United States the European Union is made of 27

Countries they will never let a Central Command in Brussels for example take military decision making out of their hands in February 2024 European commission president Osa felion supported a proposal to appoint an EU defense commissioner in the future but the idea of a European Army would have to be approached over the long

Term that’s European what the Europeans can do is align their armies so that they’re complimentary so that they work together they still wouldn’t achieve the necessary level of deterrence against Russia but at least they’d have a foundation on which they could carry out small to mediumsized missions on their

Own small to mediumsized missions are unlikely to discourage Russia in the long term in January 2024 NATO began its largest troop exercise since the end of the Cold War named steadfast Defender 990,000 soldiers practicing their reaction to a simulated attack over several months the hypothetical opponent Russia United Kingdom Diplomat had said essentially every time NATO gets into trouble the Russians come along and save it NATO is now in fact returning to the reason the North Atlantic block was founded in 1949 keeping Moscow at Bay whether Putin likes it or not Russia’s war in Ukraine has reinvigorated [Applause] [Applause] NATO think as Europeans and of course as Germany it’s the biggest test that we have faced since the end of the second world war this is not some minor crisis that we can manage from the sidelines manage and regardless of external pressure the looming Rift between Europe

And the US is unmistakable Europeans are facing completely new Challenges because the military power of All European States put together is simply too small compared to what the US has creating a European defense policy that could function without NATO would take decades not to mention require much more than the 2% of GDP that’s being demanded today just providing the money isn’t

Enough things have to be produced Weapons Systems would have to be made the kind Europe can only dream of today the postc Cold War peace dividend seems to have been used up defense is once again part of everyday political discourse I have a family a lot of us

Here are fathers and mothers we don’t want war it’s the very thing we want to prevent so how can it be prevented by preparing for something like it and by sending a message to somebody who just over a year ago carried out an attack on a neighbor by saying that won’t work

Here after 75 years NATO is once again confronting the task it faced when it was founded preventing a War

Since 1949, NATO has shaped Europe‘s security policy like no other organization. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty outlines the principle of “collective defense”. But is the world’s largest military alliance ready to defend itself?

Marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, this documentary looks at the past, present and future of NATO. Among other things, it sheds light on vulnerabilities. For example, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty is anything but binding. Unanimity among the member states is a prerequisite — but by no means a certainty. And there are only partial guarantees in place when it comes to the speed with which troops and supplies must be delivered in extreme situations.

The film embarks on a journey across the Alliance’s territory. The filmmakers visit Tallinn, in Estonia, where NATO’s Cyber Defence Centre is located. From here they travel on to Ulm, in Germany, where the deployment of troops and supplies is organized. The next stop is NATO headquarters in Brussels, where political decisions are made. The film hears from high-ranking current and former NATO generals and security experts along the way.

With the help of international historians, the documentary also looks back on the 75-year history of NATO. Founded after the devastating experiences of the Second World War, the alliance’s architects wanted to deter enemies. But even more importantly, they wanted to secure peace among the alliance partners – not least out of fears of Germany regaining strength.

The documentary draws on previously unseen archival film material: NATO portraits of member countries filmed in the 1950s to give soldiers a better understanding of one another’s countries and thus enhance cohesion.

Important eyewitnesses, including Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton and diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger, are featured. They provide context for recent NATO developments: How close was the US to leaving NATO in 2018? And what would the consequences have been? Was a promise really made not to expand NATO eastwards after the collapse of the Soviet Union? The film seeks an answer to this question, which continues to shape Russia’s relationship with NATO to this day.

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