Diplomacy and International Politics

Former ambassador: We're safer in NATO than outside it, but Donald Trump doesn't seem to realize that and is separating us from our closest allies

If Europe's leaders, diplomats and security professionals had a vote in the 2020 US presidential elections, it doesn't seem likely they'd give it to President Trump. At least, that's how it seemed at the 2019 Munich Security Conference.

The U.S. is at odds with not only its great power rivals Russia and China, but also with its allies in Europe and elements of the international system that Washington itself was largely responsible for building.

As the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approaches, the world’s oldest and most successful military alliance of democratic nations faces serious and complex challenges to its purpose, effectiveness, and unity in 2019. In a new report to be launched at the Munich Security Conference February 15, 2019, former U.S. Permanent Representatives to NATO Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns highlight ten major challenges to NATO in a new report, NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, and offer recommendations to bolster this critically important alliance.

Approaching the seventieth anniversary of its founding in April 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) remains the single most important contributor to security, stability and peace in Europe and North America.

NATO allies, however, are confronting daunting and complex challenges that are testing both their purpose and unity. Based on extensive discussions with current European and North American leaders, former senior officials, academics and journalists during the past six months, this report argues that NATO needs to come to grips with ten major challenges this year. The list is long, with simultaneous challenges from within the alliance, from beyond NATO’s borders and looming on the horizon. Most significant is a challenge NATO has not faced before: the absence of strong American presidential leadership. NATO’s leaders need to act decisively in 2019 to meet these tests and heal the widening divisions within the Alliance before it is too late.

Sensing that NATO’s role as an enduring multinational defense alliance may be slipping toward “crisis,” two Harvard affiliates and former U.S. ambassadors to NATO, Nicholas Burns and Douglas Lute, say they want to “ring the alarm” about the difficulties they believe pose a grave danger to NATO at a time when the public also seems to be underestimating its importance.

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Nick Burns says President Trump is the weakest American president in the last 70 years in dealing with Russia and standing up to Vladimir Putin. He discusses with MSNBC’s David Gura.

GRAND RAPIDS, United States, Feb. 8 (Xinhua) -- While the United States and China may compete in economy and trade, they should also work together to combat global challenges, said a former senior U.S. diplomat here on Friday.