The NATO summit will be held at the height of uncertainty

This year’s meeting of NATO leaders in Washington (Tuesday to Thursday) has coincided with numerous political and military crises, from the continuation of the war in Ukraine to the US presidential elections and the rise of the extreme right in Europe.

The American media reported that the heads of NATO will attend their annual meeting in Washington this week as they intend to increase their strength and unity in the 75th year of the establishment of this military alliance, but they are overwhelmed by various concerns. .

According to the Washington Post, this year’s NATO meeting will be held in the shadow of the 2024 US presidential election, a competition in which not only Joe Biden may lose to Donald Trump, but Biden may even withdraw from the competition before the election begins. step down! During the first round of his presidency, Trump criticized NATO several times, and now with Biden’s poor performance in the first election debate, European leaders are planning for the possibility of Trump returning to the White House.

Europeans do not think that Trump will completely withdraw the United States from the NATO military alliance, but they believe that the security and military commitments of the United States to NATO members will be reduced in the Trump administration.

According to this report, Trump’s nationalist speeches and Biden’s poor performance in the first debate have caused concern among many of Washington’s European allies. A historian from John Hopkins University says that the current American elections will harm the interests of this country and will please China and Russia. He says that probably after this election, the world will see America not as a global leader, but as a country in decline.

On the other hand, in the recent European elections such as the European Parliament elections and the French parliamentary elections, populist and far-right currents have gained power; Currents that have a friendly relationship with Russia and do not have a good view of NATO. Although the French voters prevented the far-right from gaining power in the parliament with their maximum participation in the second round of elections on Sunday, the political atmosphere in Europe is still inflamed and these tensions will be felt in the upcoming meeting of NATO leaders in Washington.

A US official told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that the summit was originally supposed to be just a planned gathering and demonstration, but now it has turned into one of the most worrying meetings of Western heads of state in decades.

According to the Washington Post, the war in Ukraine will be the main issue on the agenda of NATO leaders. Kiev wants full and immediate membership in NATO, but this military alliance has clearly stated that Ukraine will not achieve this demand in the near future. Nevertheless, NATO member countries are concluding bilateral security agreements with Ukraine.

Diplomats of the Biden government know very well that Trump may cut off the funding for military support to Ukraine. They also fear that Trump is implicitly supporting Russia’s efforts to consolidate its control over parts of Ukraine seized by Russia during the war. In this regard, European countries and the American government are trying to ensure long-term support for Ukraine as much as possible before the 2024 elections.

At last year’s NATO summit in Lithuania, Zelensky’s frustration at not receiving an official invitation to join NATO had widespread reactions at the global level. Although such tensions may not be visible at this week’s summit, some in Washington believe that Biden should make more efforts for Ukraine’s membership in NATO and provide more support for the country’s membership in NATO.

According to the American media, now that the status of long-term security commitments for Ukraine is unclear, NATO officials are trying to change their point of view. Jens Stoltenberg, the current Secretary General of NATO, whose term of office will end soon, emphasized the joint economic and military power of NATO countries in an article in “Foreign Affairs” and reminded that the European members of NATO constitute half of the world’s military and economic power. And they can have more effective deterrent power.

The former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, who is going to become the Secretary General of NATO after Stoltenberg, also invited European leaders to try to cooperate with different leaders in the United States. He said in a security conference that Europeans should stop complaining about Trump and cooperate with whoever is in power in America.

The situation surrounding the war in Ukraine is complicated. A new survey by the think tank “Council of European Foreign Relations” shows that there is a growing gap between Ukrainians and other European citizens, and nearly 60% of Ukrainians believe in winning the war with Russia. On the other hand, only 30% of them think that this war will end diplomatically.

Meanwhile, based on the results of this survey, citizens of other European countries do not hope for Ukraine’s victory and are against sending military forces from European countries to Ukraine. They want a negotiated solution to this conflict and are pessimistic about Ukraine’s performance on the battlefield.