Czech president Petr Pavel warned that Donald Trump’s recent comments questioning the role of Nato have damaged the alliance’s credibility more than the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has done in several years.
Pavel, a retired Nato general and former chair of the Nato military committee, also said that Trump’s criticism of the alliance over the Iran war was “to put it mildly, unfair”.
“The moment we begin to question the alliance as a single, united entity, ready to act together and very decisively then, of course, its role is lost,” he warned.
He said that Trump ‘s criticism appeared to miss the fact that Nato is a defence alliance, and “not an alliance that will automatically help in wars waged outside its territory”.
Yes and no. Putin has shined a light on the flaws of NATO’s unanimity clause. The idea was that if someone is going to enter into (and gain the protection of) a collective defense deal, everyone actually needs to agree to defend each other. It can’t simply be a majority vote where some countries vote “No” but are compelled to follow along anyways.
Because asking another country to send their citizens to defend a country halfway across the world is already difficult. Trying to compel it would be a lesson in frustration, and would have objecting member states circling the wagons and abandoning the entire agreement as soon as Article 5 was invoked. But it means that a single holdout can stall the process indefinitely.