Last look: NATO’s shifting center of gravity

And now for the last look. More than 20 years ago, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, poised to helm the American invasion of Iraq over vociferous French and German objections, dismissed the outcry as coming from old Europe, he said. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. Rumsfeld was wrong about Iraq, but right about Europe more than ever before, Political power and energy is shifting eastward towards new Europe, As historian Timothy Garden Ashe told the New York Times, the voices of Central and Eastern Europeans are being listened to more and taken more seriously. In the councils of Europe, NATO is growing and deploying resources eastward. The catalyst is, of course, Eastern Europe’s belligerent neighbor, Russia. Look at Poland. It has beefed up its own defenses, pledging far more than the NATO target of 2% of GDP. In fact, its president proposes a new 3% target for all NATO members. This year, Poland will spend around 4% of its GDP on the military. It also plans to nearly double its land forces to 300,000 soldiers. It’s spent billions of dollars on state-of-the-art weapons. As The Economist noted, Poland intends to field more tanks than are operated by the armies of Germany, France, Britain, and Italy put together. And Poland’s leadership goes beyond defense spending. Most arms that reach Ukraine from the West come through Poland. It has granted temporary protection status to nearly 1,000,000 Ukrainians since the invasion, more than any country in Europe except Germany. For Eastern Europe, the conflict with Russia is existential. But as the FT notes, because of the shift in the continent’s attention, Eastern Europe has never been more safe. Last week, Poland and Lithuania conducted joint military drills around the Sowalki Gap. That’s a 60 mile strip of land between Belarus, essentially Russia’s vassal state, and Kaliningrad, a Russian territory off the mainland sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland. The gap has historically been the greatest weakness of the Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. If Russia captured the Sowaki Gap, it would cut off those three former Soviet states from the rest of NATO. But the danger posed by a Russian occupation of the Sowaki Gap diminished when NATO expanded to include two northern neighbors, Sweden and Finland. Now, as Ingrida Shimoniche, Lithuania’s Prime Minister, told the FT, the Baltic Sea has become a NATO lake. The three Baltic states have a maritime border with NATO members. The Siwaki Gap is no longer a fatal weakness. In fact, the Baltic states, traditionally the most vulnerable in the alliance, appear. Newly energized by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed in January to build hundreds of concrete bunkers on their borders with Russia and Belarus, according to the FT. Historically, NATO’s plan for the Baltic countries should Russia have invaded them, was to allow it to happen before fighting Russia off some months later. Now the strategy is to defend these countries from the first meter, deterring Russia from attacking in the first place. In 2017, NATO sent battalions of troops to the three countries, each battalion comprised of about 1000 soldiers. It is now increasing those numbers three to five fold. And take a look at this map from Politico of NATO defense spending last year. The countries nearer to Russia devote more of their GDP to defense. Old Europe, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have chronically underfunded armies. By comparison, perhaps no country is more emblematic of the way the Russian invasion is shifting focus in Europe than Sweden. Russia’s invasion prompted the country to give up its 200 years of neutrality and join NATO In September, in advance of the acceptance of the NATO bid, it announced a 28% increase in military expenditure for 2024, adding that the country is facing the most serious security situation since the end of the Second World War. Old Europe nurtured trade and diplomatic ties to Russia and saw them come to nothing when Russia invaded Ukraine. New Europe could never afford that optimism. Now the most vulnerable countries in NATO, all those closest to Russia, have begun to take a leadership role in the bloc. This could change the nature of European defense and foreign policy for decades.