Anticipating the NATO Summit in The Hague: Ambushes and Canaries

 Today, we held an event at Carleton to discuss the upcoming NATO summit at the The Hague. We were asked by the Dutch Ambassador to do so, and it was our pleasure.  Both the Dutch and Polish ambassadors spoke about what they are hoping for, and the academics, encouraged or baited by me, largely focused on the Trump of it all.

Ambassador Vonno of the Netherlands spoke about the 80 years of freedom as we just passed the anniversary of Canada (and the US) liberating the Netherlands and of the important role of NATO in guaranteeing that freedom.  Ambassador Dzielski of Poland spoke of the Ukraine war and its impact on Poland and the need for NATO to stay steadfast in Europe.  

Amb. Vonno

The three speakers were Frédéric Mérand of the Université de Montréal, Aaron Ettinger of Carleton, and Stéfanie von Hlatky of Queens.  I was originally just the emcee but our moderator, Robert Baines of the NATO Association of Canada couldn't make it.  Each had a lot of sharp things to say.  Frédéric focused on more on the European dynamics, Aaron on the US-Canadian relations, and Stéfanie more on the NATO-ness of it all.  

Key points along the way:

• Frédéric:  
• Europe needs more contingency planning, 
• The French were right--that we can't count on the US.
• Aaron: 

• 

  Amb. Dzielski

  Time is a big factor here--how do we avoid wasting time.  That muddling through is an approach but it might not get us very far.
• Canada should continue to be "boring."
  
• We can't count on Trump being "transactional" as that is too rational.  He reneges on deals all the time. 
• The donut strategy may be what Canada has to do again--focus on everyone else in the US and their interests in/with Canada and not focus on Trump.
  
•  Stéfanie:
• The NATO summiteers will probably be focused less on advancing an agenda and more on protecting past agreements.  Try to keep various initiatives alive.  But Ukraine is probably not going to like the outcome as consensus on that will be very hard to reach.
• Maybe have fewer summits to provide Trump with fewer triggers.   

I mostly just asked questions, but I did chime in here or there, including arguing that Trump is an uncertainty engine and that NATO for so long reduced uncertainty ... until now.   I did discuss how the Europeans hadn't really taken the 51st state thing seriously, but perhaps they mi

ght see us as the canary in the coal mine--that Trump might have some limits to how awful he is.  But if he continues to beat up on Canada, then Europe will know that they have be far warier and be better prepared. The bad news is that canaries in coal mines are often ... dead.  So, Canada might end up paying a huge price before Europe gets serious and united on this stuff.

Finally, Hannah Christensen, who works for us but used to be the key staffer running SFU's NATO Field School (and she often co-runs their podcast), had some concluding remarks.  The big one: she noted that Vance essentially ambushed Europe at the Munich Security Conference, that Trump ambushed Zelensky in the White House, so they might set up a trap at the NATO summit.  Given that I see the 5% discussion to be a pretext to reject NATO, I can't say that Hannah is wrong.  I think she nailed it.  

And that will make for an interesting trip for Stef and me, as we are going to be going to the NATO Expert Forum, which is a side party that happens next to the summit. We have done this a few times before including Warsaw in 2016, Brussels in 2018, and DC last year.  So, look for a blog post or two in late June as we go into very blue rooms and watch as the communique comes out (or not?), specifying what gained consensus.

 

Oh, and the Dutch embassy was very generous with its gifts--orange stuff including chocolate in orange wrapping paper.