Is NATO 'obsolete' or not? Trump and military alliance aim to work out differences

BRUSSELS –  After months of tension, President Trump and leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization come face-to-face Thursday for meetings likely to revolve around two issues: Washington's commitment to the military alliance that has defined western political unity for nearly seven decades, and military contributions from the rest of its members.

While Trump has retracted his often-repeated campaign claim that NATO is "obsolete" in the modern age of terrorism, the still-new president who views himself as dealmaker-in-chief is expected to demand that NATO countries make good on pledges to increase its defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, a heavy lift for some European countries.

Yet NATO leaders making progress toward this 2% goal say they want something from Trump in turn: A public recommitment to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the common defense pledge in which members agree that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all.

In a remarks before his first foreign trip, Trump complained that the U.S. is bearing too much of the load of global defense. "Our partners must show that they’re partners, they must show that they’re friends, and they must contribute financially to the tremendous cost, the money that we’re spending," he said in a weekend address.

Optimistic, Trump added that U.S. allies "have to help – and I’m sure they will."

Trump arrives in Brussels after visiting Saudi Arabia, Israel and Palestinian territories, and Rome – and just days after a suicide bomber attacked concert-goers in Manchester, England, meaning terrorism will likely play an even bigger than expected role in talks among members of the military alliance. The issue of Russia also looms over the visit, as an array of Western governments accuse Moscow of trying to destabilize their democracies – while Trump is open about seeking warmer ties and his associates are under investigation at home for possible collusion with Russia during the American presidential campaign.

During his four months in office, Trump has already exhibited a tendency to shift and even change his opinions as he meets with world leaders. So far, NATO has been no exception.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg had with he called "an excellent and very productive meeting" with Trump at the White House in April, and told Bloomberg TV that the president repeatedly stated to him "that he’s strongly committed to NATO ... And that’s also been the message from his security team."

It was at that meeting that Trump expressed new-found confidence in NATO, telling reporters that that "I said it was obsolete; it's no longer obsolete."

Still, Trump's trip to Belgium is fraught with anxiety in Europe. While Vice President Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis have said the U.S. maintains its commitment to common defense of NATO members under Article 5, Trump himself has not made such a specific pledge – a source of consternation to some NATO officials, and some American ones as well.

So Trump's words here will be highly scrutinized by NATO leaders, some of whom he'll be meeting for the first time. The stakes are high: Trump's support, or lack of it, could fundamentally decide the future of NATO, the 68-year-old military alliance forged from the embers of World War II, nurtured during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and expanded in the age of terrorism.

"There is this unease about what will this visit mean about future relationships and visits," said Julianne Smith, director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank.

European officials had some heartburn last week when a senior administration official was quoted in news reports saying that Trump "is not going to stay in NATO if NATO doesn’t make a lot more progress much quicker." The official was giving a background press briefing under condition of anonymity. After the stir, another Trump aide said that official's comment was mischaracterized and that the president is pleased with NATO's response to his demands for reform.

Trump's quick visit to Brussels – in Wednesday afternoon, out Thursday night – features ceremonial events. The schedule includes a working dinner and dedication of part of a new NATO headquarters complex that will not open for at least another year.

The atrium of a new NATO building features artifacts from major moments in the alliance's history. One is a piece of the Berlin Wall, symbolizing victory in the Cold War. The other is part of the wreckage of the World Trade Center destroyed in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001 – the first and only time NATO has invoked Article 5.

As part of their counterterrorism mission, NATO members are expected to stress to Trump their role in post-9/11 operations in Afghanistan, from training missions to contributions of troops and money.

NATO members, meanwhile, have reportedly been told to keep their comments to Trump brief to accommodate the president's notoriously short attention span.

Asked what Trump could do to re-assure NATO allies, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters: "Talk about his commitment to NATO – that would be an opener."

But many expect Trump, meanwhile, to focus on member countries' contributions to the alliance, what he might call the "2% solution" – though some analysts wonder if he really understands the concept.

Under an agreement reached during a 2014 summit, NATO members agreed to contribute 2% of GDP to their own defense budgets. But Trump sometimes casts these commitments as dues owed to the United States. After a recent meeting with a key NATO ally, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Trump tweeted in March that "Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!"

Only five of NATO's 28 members spend at least 2% of GDP on defense: Greece, Poland, Estonia, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States.

Terrorism will also be a topic at NATO attacks, especially in light of Monday's attack at a pop concert in Manchester, England. Trump is expected to push NATO to join an organized global effort to defeat the terrorist designs of the Islamic State.

While in Brussels, Trump will also meet with leaders of the European Union, another multilateral organization that Trump has criticized, mostly over trade rules.

Meanwhile, there's Russia.

Trump is under fire at home as an FBI investigation continues into his campaign's possible ties to the Russian government. The Justice Department just last week appointed a special counsel to take over the ongoing probe into whether associates of the president colluded with Russian who carried out a campaign of cyberattacks, propaganda and fake news to try and influence the 2016 election. And abroad, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have expressed concerns about similar efforts to undermine elections in their countries.

Trump has denied any links to Russia and has called the inquiry a "hoax" and a "witch hunt." But the president has also welcomed a closer relationship with Moscow.

That was on full display one day after firing his FBI director, when Trump took an Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kisylak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S. on May 10. The Washington Post later revealed Trump divulged highly classified intelligence in that meeting about a terror plot.

With the alliance possibly at another crossroads, the main goal for NATO and perhaps the White House this week may be a simple one: Avoid a public argument.

After all, Russia is one of the reasons NATO even exists.

As the old Soviet Union began to take over governments in Eastern Europe in the wake of World War II, American officials began pushing for a military alliance with nations in Western Europe and on the edges of the burgeoning Soviet empire. President Harry Truman signed the NATO treaty in 1949, the first military alliance the United States joined since the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1789.

The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, described its objectives succinctly: "To keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down."

Originally 12 members – from Iceland to Italy, Canada to Denmark – NATO upped the ante when it admitted West Germany into the alliance in 1955. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, had formed its own military alliance, a "Warsaw Pact" that included East Germany.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, heralding the end of the Cold War and the re-unification of Germany, NATO has added a dozen more countries.

After the end of the Cold War, the new Russian government constantly criticized NATO enlargement, particularly when it took in eastern European countries like Poland and Latvia. Russian President Vladimir Putin is notably critical of NATO, and all but taunted the alliance with military moves in Ukraine and Georgia over the past decade.

Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution, said that "NATO is really worried about this trip," and as a result shortened the visit to a few hours that include dinner and a building dedication.

"They want to keep it less on the long statements and more on activities," he said, "which I guess is not a bad idea."