The Atlantic Alliance seeks reorganization after the Trump presidency

With the Trump parenthesis closed, the Atlantic Alliance seeks internal reorganization, especially financial, to be able to return to being a major player in a world scenario deemed highly unstable. The situation that offers the establishment of the Biden White House appears particularly favorable to stimulate a different approach on the part of the members of the Atlantic Alliance, after the real risk of a downsizing of the main Western defense system with the previous president. . The first proposal that should come from the Secretary General will be to increase the organization’s budget, a solution that only apparently follows what has long been pursued first by Obama and then by Trump. Both Biden’s predecessors failed to do so because the request was for a simple contribution increase, without incentives and fees for European states. The novelty of the new proposal is based, first of all, on a contribution rate fixed on the gross domestic product of each individual country; the total amount will have to finance a common fund from which to draw for the financing of the missions, up to now, however, financed by the coffers of each individual state. Thus, a mutuality would be introduced that would favor greater integration and more consistent participation in the activities of the Atlantic Alliance: this approach would represent a particularly important innovation also with a view to greater sharing of objectives, eliminating organizational difficulties. A greater distribution of costs would allow greater operational participation of each individual state and could allow the carrying out of periodic tests capable of identifying and correcting the weaknesses of the western defensive system. Increasing joint exercises, thanks to overcoming the cost obstacle, would mean greater operational integration between the armed forces of the member countries, also allowing interchangeability, which, according to forecasts, could become an essential element for the supervision of the theaters of operations. . After the cold war where the enemy was only the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe, the evolution of international politics has presented a variety of scenarios that the United States alone can no longer control alone. An increasingly important role will be that of guarding the infrastructures of each member, which in new conflicts, even undeclared ones, increasingly represent potential tactical and strategic objectives, where to strike by opponents. In this perspective, private capital involvement is also considered, precisely because industries with their knowledge represent sensitive objectives. To pursue all these factors, a strengthening of Article 5 of the transatlantic treaty is also envisaged, which provides for mutual defense in the event of aggression: it is understood that for greater security, even beyond the military one, the request for an increase in the budget can be understood as legitimate. There is a potential contraindication to this ambitious plan: the European will for a common force, which, although it must be integrated into the Atlantic Alliance, should also have, at the same time, an independent character; this was thought precisely in conjunction with the Trump presidency, which seemed to want to put aside, or at least reduce, the Atlantic experience. The problem is not only of military integration but of spending on armaments, which Europe has decided to allocate to continental industry, avoiding spending on US industries. Beyond the good intentions of the Secretary General, the themes of the debate cannot deviate from the intentions of where the spending on weapons will be made. Any maintenance of the European will, however, will have to provide for an essential integration of the armament systems, which involves patents and building licenses. The fact remains that the starting assumptions, especially political ones, are extremely positive and this could decisively help overcome the present differences of a practical nature to the advantage of a more shared planning to achieve the set goals of the defensive purposes of the Atlantic Alliance.