Conflict between Western democracies and the communist Eastern bloc was the key reason behind the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) in 1949 and its rival opponent the Warsaw Pact in 1955.
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The alignment of nearly every European nation into one of the two opposing camps – the US-led Western Bloc and Soviet Union-led Eastern Bloc – formalised the global rivalry of the post-World War II period and involved an arms race that endured throughout the cold war. But since the break-up of the Warsaw Pact on March 31, 1991, following the worldwide collapse of socialism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Nato’s reason for being – and its subsequent expansion during the late 1990s to include former Soviet satellite states – has been widely questioned.
However, as member states celebrated its 70th anniversary at a golf resort in Watford on the outskirts of London this month, Nato seemed to have found something to legitimise its existence once more. Another rising communist power is now in its sights: China.
The re-emergence of a semi-alliance between China and Russia will only have encouraged the thought that Beijing can be the common enemy Nato needs to reinvigorate its fading raison d’être. In the past two decades, the 29-member group has become increasingly divided and disorganised due to the lack of a shared strategic goal, but now it appears to have one. Much as Beijing and Moscow forged closer links due to their shared enemy of the United States, so too have Nato members been pushed back together in the face of China’s rise and the emerging Beijing-Moscow axis.
This is despite the fierce bickering between French President Emmanuel Macron and US President Donald Trump over Nato’s role, which had dominated the headlines ahead of what initially looked like it would be a largely self-congratulatory ceremony.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron addresses the Nato summit in London. Photo: AFP
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Nato’s original mission was to counterweigh the power of the Soviet Union and its remit had been largely restricted to North America and Europe, as its name would suggest: the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. Until recently, summits had always been dominated by the threat from the old foe Russia, especially following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
