The Cold War was won by 26 words contained within article five of the Treaty of Washington, which founded Nato in 1949: ‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.’
There was no wriggling and no qualification. The message to Stalin was perfectly clear: you nibble at one inch of Western Europe and you won’t just get an ad hoc response from war-weary Europeans; you will have to face a nuclear-armed Uncle Sam. The last time Britain held a Nato summit, in 1990, the organisation was triumphant. Little wonder that the newly liberated nations of Eastern Europe flocked to join Nato in the years which followed; membership promised to end any threat of their falling under Russian influence again. A few years later, the Kosovo campaign showed Nato’s relevance after the Cold War.
But its relevance today is harder to ascertain. That Nato’s next summit will be held at a Welsh golf club seems to symbolise the problem. Nato has slipped into a middle-age comfort zone, reminiscing about its past achievements.
Article five remains unchanged in the Treaty of Washington, but it is becoming less and less credible by the day. Where Joseph Stalin had no reason to doubt that the founder members of Nato were serious, Vladimir Putin can be confident that if he causes mischief today, there will be no coherent or strategic response from an exhausted and indebted West. Putin has already helped himself to a chunk of the Ukraine without a single Nato tank being moved. It’s true that Ukraine is not a member of Nato, but common sense would dictate that, as Putin encroaches eastwards, the forces of Nato should not play dead.
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