2025-06-23 17:30:30
This brief analyzes the alignment of China and Russia and the impact of 2022’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on their relationship and the system of global governance. The first section assesses the general state of China-Russia relations and the second examines whether this political engagement impacts the two states’ policies at the UN and their visions of the organization. The third section traces the recent transformations of BRICS as a result of Chinese and Russian efforts.
This paper analyzes the alignment between China and Russia, focusing on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine’s impact on their relationship and the broader system of global governance.
It is organized into three sections. The first defines and outlines the expectations of the China-Russia political “friendship”. The cooperative relationship that they uphold encourages bilateral trade, symbolic gestures, regular diplomatic engagement, and a proclaimed “friendship with no limits”. However, many aspects of their relationship remain unclear to the international community leading to mixed conclusions, an inability to measure their cooperation, and an insufficient understanding of the implications that their alignment poses to global affairs. Their reluctance to form an official alliance suggests a shared desire to maintain strategic autonomy while still coordinating efforts on the international stage. Nonetheless, this friendship has ensured their international influence and their ability to pursue their political and economic objectives.
The second section examines how the Russia-China alignment shapes their relationship with the United Nations, while also pointing out key differences in political positions they have with respect to the UN, Western liberal democracies, and broader strategic priorities. Despite their frequent coordination, their approaches to issues such as the Russia-Ukraine war, Africa, and UN reform often diverge, limiting the depth, cohesion, and international standing of their partnership. Being UN Security Council members, China and Russia maintain significant power over policies in the UN and together they are able to pursue their international political agendas.
The last section focuses primarily on recent efforts of Beijing and Moscow to transform BRICS. In recent years the two countries spearheaded the expansion of the international organization to bolster BRICS’s global recognition and also advance their own geopolitical agendas. While the UN Security Council still provides an opportunity for them to influence global affairs, BRICS is becoming another method of leverage that will likely impact the actions and dynamics of the UNSC, the future of their political friendship, and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
While many observers struggle to define the China-Russia alignment as an alliance or a patron-client relationship, the best definition is offered by the two states themselves — it is a good old political friendship. This type of relationship does not require perfect alignment or automatic coordination, but it does entail a notable increase in attentiveness to one another’s priorities —particularly actions with the potential to affect the other’s global standing. This increased coordination goes well beyond the diplomatic engagement either country maintains with other partners, outside the circle of their satellites, while leaving room for divergence of opinion and even some distrust.
Beijing and Moscow have both declared their commitment to the UN-centered global order and an intent to cooperate across global platforms. This cooperation is framed by the proclaimed friendship of the two nations and implies coordination at the UN, the UN Security Council, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.1 This report investigates the way such framing has impacted their cooperation since 2022, while stressing the limits political friendship can sustain.2
China-Russia relations received an important boost with the signing of the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation in 2001 — an early and strategic investment by the newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, each side has stressed distinct aspects of friendship to avoid the undesirable connotations of this political relationship, including possible inequality and domination.3 In the weeks leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the two countries elevated their political ties to a “friendship with no limits.”4
This identification has not been taken seriously by observers, who attempt instead to conceptualize the relationship in terms of alliance or dependency. Chinese officials did their part to add to the confusion, sometimes dismissing the “no limits” language as purely rhetorical.5 As a result, observers sought to argue Russia is no longer a global contender, and is becoming China’s junior partner.6 The logic of describing it as a China-Russia alliance presumes the goal of balancing the US-led Western alliance — primarily to protect their domestic regimes.7 Yet many found the nature of this “alliance” perplexing, characterizing it as the pursuit of self-interest through parallel actions rather than coordinated strategies.8
Measuring the institutionalization of the relationship yields similarly mixed conclusions about its political nature.9 Research has noted that relations between the two countries intensified in the second half of the 2000s, and were marked by more frequent visits, summits, consultations, and vote convergence at the UN.10 Other observers argue that the degree of engagement reached a “high” or “enhanced” level already in the 2010s. Having achieved this level, relations did not grow exponentially, even after the 2014 annexation of Crimea.11 Such approaches to analysis are limited to stating the obvious, that the two countries intensified their relations over the years, stopping short of a formal alliance.12
Making sense of the alignment at such an enhanced level of engagement requires a shifting of definitions, paying attention to symbolic gestures and the dos and don’ts of the relationship. Since 2022, Russia has increasingly turned to China as its closest friend, principal trading partner, and strategic neighbor. In the context of Moscow’s deepening isolation, Chinese support has served as a means for it to preserve its international status. Currently, both states are heavily invested in this bilateral friendship, scaling up high-level diplomatic contacts to pre-pandemic levels. This includes personal meetings between presidents Putin and Xi Jinping, making Russia the most visited country for the latter. Xi visited Moscow for the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe in May 2025, allowing the Kremlin to present the celebrations as a major diplomatic event.
Political friendship between China and Russia means prioritizing the concerns of the other party, public gestures of goodwill, and willingness to coordinate on key global issues. These attitudes show themselves in the way both countries manage global public opinion, trying not to undermine each other’s efforts, and have developed most conspicuously in the context of hosting mega-events, which both countries understand as status projection vehicles. In 2008, China held its first Olympic Games, an event of great significance for the country, and Russia invaded Georgia on the opening day. The message of displeasure from Beijing that followed was clear — and the lesson likely absorbed. When Russia annexed Crimea in February 2014, it waited until the Sochi Olympics ended, and President Xi had left the country. Similarly, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine did not begin until the Beijing Winter Games closed on February 20. These timelines point to the possibility of diplomatic coordination.13
Signals and gestures during Russia’s war with Ukraine have become matters of strategic importance. For instance, in February 2025, after US President Donald Trump’s early initiative to negotiate a ceasefire in Ukraine, Putin held a call with Xi, updating him on the negotiations and receiving confirmation of China’s commitment to the relationship. Later, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explicitly dismissed “speculation” about Russia pivoting away from the East because of the alleged euphoria over renewed Russia-US dialogue.14 In this context, Russia demonstrated receptiveness to political requests from China. Similarly, when Beijing asked Moscow to de-escalate its nuclear rhetoric in 2023, Russian officials softened their messaging.15
As friends, Russia and China have made statements in opposition to non-UN sanctions, Trump’s pressure strategy on Iran and his “Golden Dome” defense project.16 However, joint declarations need not synchronize with joint action. Russia’s military actions have done little to help China build international prestige, particularly through the UNSC, which has become virtually ineffective. Moreover, Russia has declined some Chinese proposals, such as the 2024 China-Brazil peace initiative for Ukraine. The freedom to pursue an independent course of action is a key advantage of political friendship, but it is also an important limitation to unity between the two states and the influence they can exert on each other.
While proselytizing multipolarity, both China and Russia have remained consistent in their commitment to the UN-based system (a commitment reiterated during Xi’s visit to Moscow in May 2025). Although the two emphasize different forms of engagement with the UN, this has been the strategic line. Diplomats from both countries take pleasure in attacking the Western neologism “rules-based order,” implying that these “rules” extend beyond the UN Charter and serve only those who created them. Yet neither state has indicated any desire to depart from the UN’s own loose system of rules.
The difference lies in Russia’s diminished enthusiasm for the UN following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the use of UN institutions by other states to articulate condemnation of the war and Moscow’s broader conduct. As a result, Russia’s focus has narrowed to the work of the UNSC. China’s priorities and interests in the UN are more comprehensive, and its willingness to participate in the full spectrum of UN institutions is greater. Moreover, China actively promotes the work of the UN, for example initiating a dispute with the US in the World Trade Organization over additional duties imposed on Chinese goods by Trump in April 2025.17
The friendship between the two states has a strong impact on their voting patterns at the UN. In most cases, this voting is perfectly aligned, though there are important areas of divergence that highlight the limits of friendship and discrepancies in strategic priorities. Below are three areas at the UN where China and Russia diverge, and where their friendship has less bearing on their BRICS allies.
The key test for China and Russia’s friendship came immediately after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. At the time, four BRICS members were on the UNSC – China and Russia (permanent), and Brazil and India (non-permanent). Russia was alone in voting against, and as a result vetoing, resolutions concerning the war. For instance, Russia vetoed draft resolution S/2022/160 in February 2022 on convening an emergency special session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), while China and India abstained. Brazil supported the resolution.
A Brazilian representative said: “A line has been crossed and the Council cannot remain silent.”18The Hindu, an influential Indian newspaper, also rejected Russia’s narrative as imperialist and dismissed its claims about a Nazi regime in Kyiv as false. It said the Indian government should urge Russia to observe the 2021 BRICS New Delhi Resolution, which affirmed the inadmissibility of using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.19 In September 2022, Russia was again the only permanent member to veto draft resolution S/2022/720, condemning Russia’s referendums in the occupied territories and violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, proposed by Albania and the US. This time, the other BRICS members of the UNSC – China, Brazil, and India – all abstained.
These voting results underscored the lack of support for Russia’s invasion and the limits of its ability to leverage friendships on the global stage. It managed to secure favorable votes from a few of its satellite states and allies in the UNGA – Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, and Syria voted with Russia against the draft UNGA resolution condemning the invasion and calling for an end to Russia’s unlawful use of force. India abstained, while Brazil voted in favor.
Previous research has shown that the China-Russia alignment and the BRICS alignment are usually reflected in voting patterns at UNGA, but BRICS countries have refrained from offering even symbolic support to Russia for the war in Ukraine.20 Since 2022, China has abstained on UNGA resolutions condemning Russia’s aggression, even when, in 2025, the US voted against such a resolution. China’s UN mission has consistently explained that it advocates for the restoration of peace, and at no point has it expressed support for Russia’s policy towards Ukraine. Chinese ambassadors to the UN have repeatedly said that, while “the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be taken seriously,” the sovereignty and territorial integrity of other states must be respected.21
Moscow’s BRICS leverage has also appeared limited in the UN Human Rights Council, which adopted Resolution A/HRC/RES/51/25 appointing a special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Russia. The rapporteur has since produced two annual reports documenting the deterioration of human rights protections in the country. Brazil and India abstained on the resolution, while China voted against, in line with its commitment to the principle of non-interference in the domestic political affairs of states.
Both China and Russia regard their permanent seats on the UNSC as central to their global roles. For the Kremlin, this status has become part of the state ideology and it is used to uphold the legacy of victory in World War II and justify its ambition to shape global affairs. Both states use UNSC votes to project their perspectives on contemporary international issues and governance more broadly. In recent years, Since 2000s, their voting alignment has been nearly complete — whether in support of resolutions or expressing discontent with specific framings through abstention. This pattern has remained unchanged since 2022. They even jointly vetoed several resolutions, although China, unlike Russia, is more restrained in wielding its veto power. They vetoed a US resolution on North Korea in 2022, and US-sponsored resolutions on Gaza in 2023 and 2024. This pattern illustrates a significant level of diplomatic coordination in asserting the two states’ global aspirations.
While coordination is strong, important divergences in voting have occurred. Closer scrutiny of these instances reveals nuance in Moscow and Beijing’s positions that reflects distinct strategic and normative concerns. Most are related to Africa and reflect both countries’ interest in expanding their influence on the continent. The voting on resolutions on Mali, Somalia and Sudan illustrates the issues on which the two states diverge.
In its efforts to win support among African states, Russia has used “protectionist” logic to shield its “allies” from international scrutiny.22 In August 2023, for example, it vetoed a draft resolution on the situation in Mali (S/2023/638). The resolution proposed maintaining the sanctions regime and renewing the mandate of the Panel of Experts, a UN mechanism supporting peace efforts. Moscow objected, citing the demand of the Malian government, which was actively collaborating with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries. China abstained and Brazil voted in favor of the resolution.
China’s position often echoes Russia’s stance toward African states, emphasizing non-interference and the importance of national sovereignty. But China also seems to expect more from governments and insists on a greater role for the African Union (AU) in regional crises. On several Somalia-related resolutions the two states voted similarly, but in October 2022 diverged when China abstained and Russia voted in favor of Resolution 2657, which extended the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia’s mandate. The Chinese representative said Beijing wished to see more effort by the Somali government in capacity building to enhance humanitarian action, protect vulnerable populations, and manage weapons. The Russian representative, speaking after China, briefly acknowledged the humanitarian dimension but avoided discussion of governance. This example also pointed to a difference in the way the two states approach climate adaptation: while Russia occasionally notes climate impacts, China elevates the issue, blaming developed countries for insufficient financial contributions, as it did during discussion of the Secretary-General’s report on Somalia in 2023.23
Several Sudan-related resolutions further illustrate the logic pursued by both states. In 2023, Russia abstained on a resolution to terminate the UN mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), while China supported the Sudanese government’s request to end the mission, underscoring its belief that UN operations require host government consent. Brazil also supported termination, albeit reluctantly. Russia’s abstention did not reflect opposition to ending the mission, which it supported, instead it expressed discontent with the resolution’s authorization for the Secretary-General to submit regular reports on the situation — an arrangement that would have kept Sudan’s warring factions under international scrutiny. 24
As Russia appeared to shift its support during the conflict — from the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) — it opportunistically prioritized weapons supply routes and a prospective naval base in Port Sudan. 25 These considerations shaped its abstention, while China voted in favor, on Resolution 2736 (June 2024) calling on RSF to halt fighting, on the grounds that this could empower a nonstate actor on issues of national sovereignty. The Russian representative also urged others not to “over-dramatize” famine conditions, just when famine was raging in the country. 26 In November 2024, Russia vetoed a draft resolution on the protection of civilians in Sudan (S/2024/826), despite support from African UNSC members and international condemnation of one of the world’s most egregious displacement crises.
In contrast to Russia, China wants international organizations to have oversight and conflict engagement functions. While emphasizing respect for sovereignty, Beijing does not treat it as an absolute constraint on multilateral action. It also does not have stakes in Mali, Sudan, or Libya comparable to Russia’s, which might help explain Beijing’s “mildly” interventionist posture. At the same time, China is clearly invested in preserving the UNSC’s credibility among countries in the Global South, particularly in the face of growing frustration over abuse of the veto.
Ensuring the UNSC remains engaged in African crises contributes to China’s reputation on the continent. China also continues to promote the African Union’s role, inviting its deeper involvement in managing regional affairs and supporting the organization at the China-Africa summits. While Russia also hosted an Africa summit in July 2023, it fell short of the scale and development pledges of its Chinese counterpart.
The divergences in UNSC voting behavior point to a fundamental contrast: China’s more substantive commitment to development — particularly in climate policy — compared to Russia’s opportunistic approach. Russia appears less capable or willing to match China’s effort, and its ad hoc policy toward the continent ultimately weakens its ability to formulate a coherent global agenda at the UN.
Both China and Russia consider their permanent membership of the UN Security Council as central to their visions of the global political order, even though they have also expressed support for reforming the UN system to “democratize” multilateralism and embrace multipolarity. In this context, both countries committed to reforms that would make the UN more responsive to contemporary global realities. However, there are clear limits to the scope and direction of change that Moscow and Beijing are willing to endorse, making UN reform a litmus test for the countries’ ideological alignment.
For example, China supported the principles laid out in the Pact for the Future, a long-debated reform initiative adopted by UNGA in September 2024 (Resolution 79/1) which includes proposals to reform veto power, pen-holding practices, and representation on the UNSC.27 In contrast, Russia opposed the adoption of the Pact, arguing the draft had not been discussed in an intergovernmental format and claiming it represented an attempt by the “collective West” to impose new obligations on the Global South. Russia even tabled its own amendment (A/79/L.3), which was promptly opposed by a group of African states and subsequently voted down by most Global South countries, including Brazil and India. China, along with Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, abstained.28 Russia continued to oppose the Pact in 2025, while China publicly endorsed it — marking a significant instance of ideological non-alignment between the two capitals.29
These divisions reflect broader disagreements over the future of global governance. Within the BRICS grouping, Brazil and India — key members of the bloc — have expressed their desire for more ambitious reform than China and Russia are prepared to support, especially concerning institutional practices and UNSC membership.
Despite BRICS’s growing prominence in recent years, its members have not shied away from public disagreements over UN reform. India has openly criticized “a non-Western power” for obstructing reforms, including the expansion of UNSC membership, and accused China of shielding its rival Pakistan. 30 China responded by saying UNSC reforms should not cater to “the selfish interests of a few,” a veiled reference to India. 31 Russia, for its part, expressed rhetorical support for Brazil and India’s bids for permanent membership, but China remained opposed —particularly to India’s inclusion. 32 China also opposed a Brazilian proposal that suggested expanding the permanent membership to include Japan, Germany, India, and Brazil.
China and Russia have championed BRICS as an alternative to the G7 and a platform for amplifying the voices of emerging powers on global political and economic issues. Moscow has increasingly viewed BRICS as a vehicle for rehabilitating its international image, particularly after the condemnation in the UN General Assembly for its aggression against Ukraine. It has also attempted to frame BRICS as a geopolitical counterweight to the West, positioning the bloc as sympathetic to Russia’s global narrative. While China does not share this need for validation, it has not obstructed Russia’s efforts, occasionally recalibrating the rhetoric to maintain balance.
Between 2023 and 2025, BRICS underwent a significant transformation, expanding its membership to include five additional states. The initiative was proposed by Xi during the 2022 virtual summit and was operationalized through invitations issued in 2023, which resulted in four countries joining in 2024 and one more in 2025. Although China and Russia strongly supported expansion, Brazil and India received the proposal with caution. Brazil was concerned about BRICS becoming a China-dominated platform, but eventually gave in to the idea of expansion while trying to keep a say in the selection of new members by blocking the inclusion of Venezuela and Nicaragua.33 India voiced similar concerns about unchecked expansion and the bloc’s potential tilt toward Beijing. As the expansion proceeded, the rhetoric of a pole forming around China became so abundant that members felt compelled to clarify BRICS was not an anti-Western coalition.34 Notably, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was among the first world leaders to visit Donald Trump after his inauguration.
Despite being a political grouping, BRICS remains a mixed bag ideologically and, while it is impossible to ascertain if Moscow ever sought to use it to leverage support for its war in Ukraine, the declarations of all three summits from 2022 to 2024 demonstrated none was forthcoming. Instead, all three key documents use vague language about adhering to the principles enshrined in the UN Charter, including the principle of state sovereignty. The declarations contain a clause that points to the diversity of views on the war: “We recall our national positions concerning the conflict in and around Ukraine as expressed at the appropriate fora, including the UNSC and UNGA,” the declarations said, but they did not go as far as condemning or supporting either party.
That members of the grouping refrained from antagonizing Russia was a diplomatic achievement for Moscow, showing that UNGA condemnation did not translate into isolation by the key rising powers. However, BRICS did not become an amplifier for Russia’s anti-Western and anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, leaving the permanent seat on the UNSC as Russia’s only international tribune on the issue.
The ideological diversity of the bloc has neither prevented political efforts to intensify joint policy-making nor slowed its organizational development. Both China and Russia seem to have realized that seeking ideological alignment across a broad set of issues would be counter-productive, and that the global image and impact of BRICS could best be enhanced through less contentious policy initiatives that work for a broad coalition. The last three years have seen a stronger push for such initiatives and their institutional development and, as a result, BRICS has demonstrated an outstanding degree of policy convergence among members across various issues. 35
The increase in cooperation between BRICS states after 2021 can be seen in the scope of the declarations from annual BRICS summits. While the 2021 New Delhi and 2022 Beijing declarations included 74 and 75 articles respectively, the 2023 Johannesburg Declaration grew to 94 articles, and the 2024 Kazan Declaration to 131. The growth in cooperation is a result of the intensification of ministerial meetings, expert groups and sub-summits, which laid the ground for further advances in trade, finance, climate, and cultural policies. Developing common cause between ideologically diverse members became a more pronounced practice after 2022, and amounted to building a political bloc through logrolling and prioritizing issues that would be less politically divisive than the war in Ukraine or anti-Westernism. 36 This approach also created room for tweaking issues to advance member state’s own agendas.
One example of such an approach can be seen in BRICS members’ visions of sustainable development and climate policies. Member states converged on supporting the UN’s COP climate goals, emphasizing commitments by developed countries to support the transition of developing countries and stressing different national circumstances. However, 2022 marked a change in rhetoric in BRICS declarations, which started objecting to “green trade barriers”.
In 2024, this opposition increased in intensity and yielded new initiatives. The Declaration that year denounced the European “carbon border adjustment mechanisms” (CBAM) as environmental pretexts and discriminatory measures, and Russia saw this as an opportunity to mobilize BRICS in opposition. On Moscow’s initiative, the grouping adopted a memorandum of understanding on the BRICS Carbon Markets Partnership and Framework on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, and established the Contact Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. 37 This represented visible movement in the coordination of positions in a grouping responsible for more than 40% of crude oil production and half of global CO2 emissions.
Russia seeks to minimize its own global climate responsibilities by investing in its own research and monitoring systems, providing “independent” assessments of its absorption capacity and emissions, and advocating for the responsibilities of developed nations. China, the largest global emitter, rejects the idea of CBAM and aligned with this initiative, despite investing heavily in the green transition. It is a good example of BRICS becoming an alternative platform for the mobilization of the developing world, which could exert greater pressure on developed countries, including through UN institutions and conferences.
Following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia soon found itself on the brink of international isolation and had to turn for help to the countries it considered friendly or allied. This diplomatic effort required the activation of bilateral ties and the pivoting of international institutions and groupings to its support. Isolated from the West, Moscow particularly sought support from China, as its neighbor, friend, and a global power. Staking everything on Beijing, to save supply chains and support its war more generally, could have greatly increased Russia’s dependency on China, with the real prospect of it becoming the latter’s client-state.
While Russia’s economic dependency on China has indeed increased, it has managed to preserve its independent status and posture through its multi-platform diplomatic effort. And, although the two countries have entered a new stage in their history of complex and multi-platform cooperation and coordination, it does not seem they are actively seeking for its transformation into a formal alliance.
The type of political friendship the countries currently maintain creates a strategic vagueness and ambiguity for their opponents while offering flexibility for the two countries to pursue their distinct global goals. In this setting, it is beneficial for China and Russia that the latter is not a dependent and client state. While there is a strong sense of coordination between the two capitals, Moscow enjoys freedom to put forward international initiatives, testing norms and world public opinion, which Beijing can choose to distance itself from or endorse.
Although Russia’s effort to persuade international forums to support its war largely failed, its presence on these platforms, with tacit support from China, helped it save and maintain its international status as a power with global aspirations. This outcome is largely in China’s interests, as Russia is its only friend with a global role and authority, even though the freedom in relations often reveals divergence in the two states’ priorities for global development. China’s vision is broader and more ambitious than anything Russia can match ideologically or materially, including the promotion of a development agenda and multilateralism.
Evgeny Roshchin is a Visiting Scholar at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a commentator on Russia’s foreign policy and international politics. He is the author of book “Friendship among Nations” (Manchester Uni Press), many academic articles and media commentaries.
Dr. Evgeny Roshchin received his PhD in social sciences from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) in 2009. Until March 2022, he was the Head of School of Politics and International Relations, RANEPA St. Petersburg. He resigned from his position at RANEPA in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and RANEPA St. Petersburg’s pro-war statement. From 2022 to 2024, Dr. Roshchin was a research scholar at the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University.
Special thanks to CEPA’s Democratic Resilience Intern, Alexandra Pugh, for assisting with research for this project.
CEPA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public policy institution. All opinions expressed are those of the author(s) alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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2025-06-23 12:01:00
Let us not be lulled by the illusions sometimes perpetuated by the conventional and polite language of diplomacy: the presence of the United States within the Atlantic alliance has become increasingly problematic.
This is undoubtedly just as true of countries such as Hungary and Slovakia, but (and apologies if this is rude), they don’t really matter. The United States matters a lot. It is central to the functioning of the alliance, beyond even its enormous military weight. It dominates certain key technologies on which the other 31 NATO states, or the integrated command system, are dependent. It is often said that it would be simply impossible to imagine NATO without Washington.
This is the dilemma facing most European countries: they all consider that the soon-to-decline US presence creates an enormous dilemma, but they have not yet figured out how to “manage” it within the alliance.
Meanwhile, others, openly like Chancellor Friedrich Merz, or perhaps more subtly like President Emmanuel Macron, would like to see a broad overhaul of the organization.
Shortly after his party being declared the winner in the parliamentary elections, but before taking office, Merz stated that “an alternative to NATO in its current form” must be found in order to achieve independence from the US. As for Macron, anxious that France should not appear to be the gravedigger of the organization, he continues to show his attachment to it with increased military deployments, but is working to strengthen a European defense that is autonomous from the US, remaining agnostic for the time being as to the structure that would host it.
And yet the broad outline is clear enough — a NATO where the US has left or stepped back, or an organization linked to the European Union’s common security and defense policy (CSDP), but extended beyond the EU 27 to include countries like the UK, Norway, and possibly Turkey.
The dilemma regarding Washington is linked to its extreme complacency, to say the least, toward Russia. The erratic behavior of Donald Trump, of which the latest G7 summit provided yet another illustration, can only deeply disrupt the world’s main democratic alliance.
The allies need strategic stability among themselves just as much as they need to create strategic uncertainty in the mind of the enemy. It is an understatement to say that the United States today does not offer this. No one can be sure that Washington would provide the security guarantees defined in Article 5 if Estonia, Latvia or Finland were attacked. Admittedly, this is not entirely new: many had doubts about the resolve of the Biden and Obama administrations, and this was also the case outside NATO, for Japan and South Korea, and of course Taiwan.
At that time, there was already doubt. Today, there is near-certainty that the US Air Force and Marines, who would be on the front line in such a scenario, would remain in their barracks. Or perhaps will already have departed back to the US.
At NATO’s Vilnius summit in July 2023 and the Washington summit in July 2024, the United States, with the support of Germany’s previous government, effectively blocked any commitment to a date for Ukraine’s membership.
Today, under Trump, opposition to Ukraine is even more entrenched, since US military support for Kyiv appears to be doomed — indeed, aid appears to have dried up altogether. As the US position has hardened and mistrust has grown, even European intelligence sharing with the US has become increasingly considered unsafe and therefore limited.
The main question is not whether Washington will leave the organization. This seems unlikely despite Trump’s previous statements about its obsolescence. Nor is it certain that he will seek to repeal the law passed on the eve of his presidency that prohibits the US from doing so.
On the other hand, under various pretexts, the Trump administration may decide to cut the organization’s funding and oppose the use of specifically American equipment, particularly in the field of military intelligence, for certain operations, notably in Ukraine. It may slow cooperation programs. In short, it can easily block, hinder, delay and thus undermine an organization that, more than ever, needs responsiveness, rapid decision-making and ambition.
Admittedly, the United States is not the first country to pose serious questions of compatibility with the values expressed in the North Atlantic Treaty Charter, which is far too rarely mentioned in official statements, but a country that has become illiberal can only cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the alliance at a time when it is indispensable to counter revisionist countries.
Officially, therefore, Germany, and more unofficially France, have now given up on the United States. The United Kingdom is still struggling to formalize the end of the special relationship, but given its increasingly strong rapprochement with the EU, including the new defense and security agreement signed in May, this will be the condition for London’s return as a major power.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is still taking care, even if it means devaluing his position, to make certain decisions dependent on US policy — as when he seems makes the sending of British troops to Ukraine conditional on a backstop from Washington.
Poland and other Central and Eastern European states are following the same path, despite a less close relationship. But they are sufficiently aware to understand that the relationship between Trump and Putin is neither accidental nor temporary. Yet they are in a bind — no country, especially those that do not produce any weapons, wants to replace dependence on the US with dependence on France, Germany, or the UK.
This is undoubtedly why, before imagining a decision-making and operational structure capable of breaking free from the US if necessary, the first step towards progress is not the question of burden sharing, but of benefit sharing, of a European defense.
This would also mark a return to Europe’s roots: pooling resources to achieve the best possible outcome for all. In short, it will be necessary for small European countries to benefit as much as large countries from the massive rearmament that Europe is now undertaking.
The ambition to devote 5% of GDP to defense (likely to be agreed at the NATO summit in The Hague from June 24-25, but without a clear time commitment) is a considerable opportunity for Europe to catch up with the United States and China, especially in technology. It will also be a major source of growth and employment. There can be no question of these advantages being pocketed by countries that already have a strong industry and derive significant benefits from exports.
Without cooperation in this area between European and national authorities, and industry, to define the terms of technological cooperation, location, and value sharing, European defense will be stillborn. This begins with industry, not structures.
However, Europe will need to quickly achieve strategic autonomy, and it does not really matter whether this is within NATO, in a broader European framework, or in an ad hoc framework bringing together several countries in a kind of “coalition of the willing” with a broadly shared structure.
This idea of strategic autonomy has often been misunderstood: it does not aim to destroy NATO, let alone exclude the United States if its policy coincides with that of the Europeans, and certainly not to seek an impossible third way that is complacent towards Russia, China, Iran, or their allies.
It consists of giving a group of European countries the ability to act if they so wish and if the US does not want to follow suit. This was the case in 2013 in Syria after Obama refused to enforce the red line on the regime’s chemical weapons he himself had defined. It was ultimately deemed preferable to seek a so-called agreement with Russia, which in reality did not lead to the destruction of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons, which were used again a few years later.
This autonomous policy must now be the core of the approach to Ukraine, where Europe alone has the will, albeit still imperfect, to confront Russia. The same is true of Africa, where Europe, and France in particular, will find itself increasingly alone.
The farcical and only partly hidden debate over whether President Zelenskyy should be invited to the summit is revealing — his presence was reportedly opposed by the administration and then resolved by his inclusion in the final state dinner. This despite the fact that he had been systematically invited since Russia’s all-out war against Ukraine, speaks volumes. Great damage is being done to an organization that seems incapable of resisting the arbitrariness and indecency of its leading member. This cannot continue.
Nicolas Tenzer, non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, is a guest professor at Sciences Po Paris and writes an international politics blog, Tenzer Strategics. His latest book on Russia’s war against Ukraine, Notre Guerre. Le Crime et l’Oubli : pour une pensée stratégique (Éditions de l’Observatoire, 2024) was awarded the Nathalie Pasternak Prize and has just been released in paperback. His latest book, Fin de la politique des grandes puissances. Petits et moyens Etats à la conquête du monde, was published on April 23 by the same publisher.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Date: June 5, 2025
Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm CET
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2025-06-21 03:16:38
It’s an area of agreement across the Atlantic Ocean: the internet harms children, and regulation is required. The problem is determining what to do. Companies and regulators are squabbling over what measures will be effective and who should be responsible for verifying age controls.
What’s indisputable are the widespread concerns over online safety. Nine out of ten EU citizens “consider protecting children online an urgent concern,” according to a March Eurobarometer survey. In the US, 46% of American teens between the ages of 13 to 17 report being bullied or harassed online, a 2022 Pew Research survey found. A recent all-day Federal Trade Commission workshop on kids’ online safety emphasized a clear message: The internet has become dangerous for kids, and strict new laws are required to protect them.
Regulators are rushing into action. The European Commission is rolling out an age verification app this summer. It recently published guidelines for how online platforms should verify users’ age, set children’s accounts to private by default, set child-friendly reporting support, and how content should be recommended to children.
In the US, the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. The Senate approved it last year by 91-3, though it died in the House amid concerns from Republican leadership and digital rights groups that it would lead to censorship. The bill would hold social media companies responsible for taking “reasonable” care to avoid product design features that put minors in danger of self-harm, substance abuse, or sexual exploitation. It would also require online platforms to activate their strongest privacy settings by default for minors and allow them to disable “addictive” product features.
In Europe, child safety groups and national governments are pushing Brussels to go further and faster. Denmark’s wellbeing commission recommended prohibiting social media in schools and limiting children under 13’s access to smartphones or tablets. France’s President Emmanuel Macron wants to ban children under 15 from social media.
Tech companies are divided on how to respond. While Apple supports the proposed US law, a fight over who should be responsible for checking children’s age has erupted. Meta says companies running operating systems or app stores, not platforms, should be accountable: Google’s Android, Microsoft’s Windows, and Apple’s IOS. The Facebook owner is vocal about its stance, placing ads on bus stops across Brussels.
A similar debate is playing out in the US. Congress and several states are eyeing age-verification laws requiring app store operators to identify minors. Not surprisingly, Google and Apple disagree. They point out that Europe’s Digital Services Act requires all online platforms to offer age-appropriate experiences. In a blog post this month, Google said that Meta’s proposal “fails to cover desktop computers or other devices that are commonly shared within families” and “could be ineffective against pre-installed apps, as Meta’s often are.”
The tech companies are divided on other issues, too. Apple has published a white paper and rolled out child safety features that include the ability for parents to select their child’s age range when they set up the device – information that they can then choose to share with apps that want to restrict access to certain content. Meta, in contrast, champions a ‘child safety curriculum’ targeting children and young people with the goal of teaching them about how to recognize grooming, sextortion scams, and online exploitation. YouTube leverages artificial intelligence to estimate a user’s age to “help provide the best and most age-appropriate experiences and protections.”
Although tech companies agree that online child safety must be addressed, they fear legislation is too stringent. Meta has led the opposition to KOSA, arguing that it limits freedom of speech. “The proposed legislation fails parents because it won’t help a single child with online safety or address parents’ concerns,” argues Amy Bos.
But the lobbying may backfire. KOSA now has a new lease on life: Apple recently sent a letter to the Senate cosponsors expressing support for the proposed law, and House Speaker Mike Johnson has promised to get it passed. The White House has yet to support the legislation explicitly, though Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. have expressed support. First Lady Melania Trump pushed ahead with the Take It Down Act, which criminalizes non-consensual intimate imagery online and requires online platforms to remove it quickly.
It will be a test: child safety will be a thermometer of how far Washington and Brussels turn the heat on big tech. Europe has pledged to simplify onerous tech regulations, and the Trump administration vows to pursue deregulation. Yet, both could impose strong new rules on how tech treats teens.
William Echikson is a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Tech Policy Program and editor of the online tech policy journal Bandwidth at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Elly Rostoum is a Google Public Policy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She is a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
CEPA Europe’s Tech & Security Conference in Brussels.
The post A Glimmer of Transatlantic Tech Consensus: Child Safety appeared first on CEPA.
2025-06-20 22:57:26
It’s a nice little café, with a sign that says “I love Kyiv” at the entrance, and primitivist flowers painted across rough “cottage” walls. The morning is quietly sunny, and I’m waiting for a meeting I had been looking forward to. Now, my mood has changed.
I’m going to meet the mother of my friend. I miss the guy — he’s such a funny, adventurous teddy bear who worked with journalists in the army for many years. We had been hoping to get him freed from Russian captivity one way or another, along with other seriously ill prisoners of war, who should be repatriated or accommodated in a neutral country according to the Geneva Conventions that Russia routinely ignores.
We meet, hug, she shows me pictures from his childhood, and a postcard he sent her from the war. All I can manage is a neutral expression, a poker face.
She notices and reassures me. “It’s going to be alright, Lera,” she says. “He’ll come back, and we’ll . . . we’ll have a barbecue!”
I want to believe in that barbecue with the fervor that people reserve for God. The problem is that last night, when I was trying to get to sleep ahead of an early start for this meeting, a colleague contacted me.
It was a message that, like many others, had been pieced together, jigsaw-like, from information gleaned by contact with freed prisoners lucky enough to be exchanged. It’s the only way we get news about those being held by the Russians.
It was short and stark: “He’s dead. I’m sorry.”
And now I’m sitting in front of his beautiful mother, with all her warmth and optimism, despite this nightmare. And I say nothing.
There’s no body — so there’s always at least a 1% chance it’s a mistake. There’s no body — so she can still smile and feel at least partly alive for another month. A year. I don’t know how long she can still hold on to hope. There’s no body — so I don’t have anything close to the moral right to say otherwise. So I smile back. We’ll organize a barbecue.
For many, many days to come, this will haunt me like a PTSD flashback — I’ve been a soldier, so I know a bit about flashbacks. I’ll space out and find myself back on that mild sunny morning, with my probably-dead friend’s mother sitting in front of me saying, “It’s going to be alright. He’ll come back and we’ll have a barbecue.”
But he won’t. Not alive anyway. Perhaps his body will be one of those repatriated by Russia in recent exchanges of the dead — some 6,057 have arrived home this month, although the Kremlin’s indifferent minions have seemingly included some of their own men among the body bags.
We Ukrainians live our daily lives with some element of horror and gut-wrenching uncertainty. Take my own lover. He’s on the frontline, an infantryman, and for 15 days, there’s been no word from him.
He usually jokes that he’s Schrödinger’s partner — alive and dead at the same time during his times away. He will come back to the safe house on day 15, emotionally numb, and will say it was very hard, and that he can’t feel anything at all at the moment, but he knows he loves me.
Then, after a few more days, it’ll all be fine again. He will go, not back to normal, but on another mission. And I will start feeling numb too, as if there was any other way to survive. It’s a kind of Schrödinger’s love — I know it’s there, I know he’s the man I want to live my life with, but I can’t feel too much for him while he’s protecting a hole in the ground from Russian attack.
Facing my emotions would mean breaking down, and Ukrainians can’t afford to do that. It would be a constant state, with no space for work, raising children, or walking the dog — all of which we still have to do.
It’s night, and I slept through the air raid alarm. I missed a lot of explosions, but woke to one nearby. They are expected but always unexpected.
I roughly rush my six-year-old son out of bed: “Come on, come on, quickly, go to the hallway.”
The hallway has no windows, so it’s slightly safer. Though I’m usually calm, this time I’m visibly stressed, and he doesn’t want to go. He’s sleepy. Carrying a blanket and whatever else we need, I yell: “Don’t you understand? We could die. Move!”
He looks at me and translates into words what I seem to have conveyed through years of calmness and my fake carefree vibe amid all the missiles and drones.
“It’s OK, Mom. It’s alright if we die. Chill,” he says.
But he moves, and we quickly fall asleep in the hallway. Work and school tomorrow.
Later, I’m on a call with foreign colleagues, and at the very end, as if apologizing for this not being the sole topic of our discussion, one asks: “How are things in Ukraine? How are YOU?”
“We’re good, I promise. We are used to all this happening. We really are,” I tell her.
“I can’t imagine getting used to something like that,” she says, and I softly smile in return. Without any bad intention, I reply. “We couldn’t either, but we did.”
I immediately regret this answer, as I think of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s warning just a few days earlier that Russia could be ready to attack the alliance within a few years. I don’t want to scare her. I don’t want to scare anyone.
I want to remain the person who smiles at my friend’s mother and talks about barbecues. Who jokes and laughs when the man I love vanishes into the trenches again. Who shows my son the kind of zen where it’s OK to die, but not OK to be scared to death.
Any other way, and we wouldn’t be able to go on.
Lera Burlakova was a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She is a Ukrainian journalist and former soldier who served as an infantrywoman from 2014-2017 after joining up following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary ‘Life P.S., received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021. She lives in Kyiv and works as the Media and Campaigns Coordinator for the new Amnesty International Ukraine team.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Date: June 5, 2025
Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm CET
The post Ukraine: ‘Chill Mom, It’s OK If We Die’ appeared first on CEPA.
2025-06-20 22:09:00
After 80 years of military restraint, Germany marked a watershed moment in May with the first permanent foreign deployment of a German unit since World War II. In the coming years, there are likely to be many more historic milestones as the country rearms to deter and possibly to fight Russia.
The new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, attended a military parade in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius — which was occupied by the Soviet Union, the Nazis and finally again by the Soviets during and after World War II — on the creation of the new, 5,000-strong 45 Armored Brigade.
“We are taking the defense of NATO’s eastern flank into our own hands,” Merz said in a May 24 speech. “Anyone who threatens any ally must know that the entire alliance will jointly defend every inch of NATO territory.”
Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz may have launched Germany’s military Zeitenwende, or historic turning point, in 2022, after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But Merz has added muscle to the skeleton by ending Germany’s debt brake to allow unlimited military spending. Merz vows to transform the Bundeswehr into Europe’s most powerful conventional armed forces.
The starting point for this is President Donald Trump, who has shown that Europe can no longer rely on the US. This point will likely be underlined at the NATO summit in The Hague on June 24-25, where alliance leaders will commit to higher spending even as European members prepare for discussions later this year on a pullback of US forces from the continent.
From a German perspective, there is a need for focus and swift action. The Bundeswehr’s needs have been much-discussed and include more of almost everything from soldiers to tanks to drones/anti-drone systems, air defenses, and aircraft.
Less noticed is Germany’s “to-do” list beyond conventional military spending to make the country kriegstüchtig or war-ready. This list is daunting but it is possible for Berlin because — as illustrated by the scrapping of the once sacrosanct debt brake — Germans are at their best in a crisis when they tear up the rule book. The country is far better than its current Sick Man of Europe image. There’s a reason that Germany, despite the present gloom, is the third biggest economy in the world.
There are, however, many issues to be considered:
Regardless, Germany can no longer rely on things remaining the same, and must now put its defenses in order.
Here are some of the measures that Germany needs to take:
Spying: The temporary US halt to intelligence sharing with Ukraine gave a brutal demonstration of why Germany needs an expanded spy service. Berlin can start by reactivating large-scale spying inside Russia. Counter-terrorism desperately needs beefing up: Over the past 25 years more than a dozen major terrorist attacks in Germany were prevented only due to initial intelligence being passed on by Washington; as the head of Britain’s MI5 said, Russian intelligence is now reckless in the extreme and has “gone a bit feral.” Berlin must produce this intelligence itself even if it means dirtying its hands.
Hybrid warfare and disinformation: Vladimir Putin’s attack on Germany is already in “pre-war” amid the severing of undersea data cables and pipelines, cyber-attacks, drone flights at sensitive security sites, and disinformation campaigns. Berlin needs far more robust responses and must boost public awareness.
Civil defense: The deficit is shocking. Most of Germany’s civil defense bunkers and shelters date back to the Cold War, and hundreds have been dismantled. There is currently space for less than 1% of the 83 million population. In contrast, Switzerland has space for 100% and Finland 80%.
Infrastructure and logistics: There’s an urgent need for bridges and roads to support tanks; transport systems to move forces from west to east; and roads and railway tunnels big enough for military equipment. The loss of Cold War military airfields in eastern Germany has been vast: many have been converted to solar or industrial parks or planted with trees. A strategic reserve of truck drivers is necessary given that many truck drivers in Germany are from Central and Eastern Europe: In a crisis, they are likely to go home.
Countering demographics: Germany had 495,000 soldiers prior to 1990, with about 800,000 reserves. Today, the Bundeswehr has some 182,000 soldiers with 40,000 to 60,000 reserves. The defense minister says as many as 60,000 additional troops are needed. Restoring conscription was blocked in Merz’s government by his Social Democratic partners. This must change.
Nuclear deterrence: Germany is banned under the 1990 2+4 Treaty from having nuclear weapons. Here, the answer is “Pay-to-Play” (see here). France and the United Kingdom get German money, and Germany and Europe get some form of Franco-British nuclear shield, with Berlin hosting nuclear weapons and supplying delivery systems, as it does now with US nuclear weapons.
Europe’s coalition of the willing: The EU, with its 27 members and awkward squad of Hungary and Slovakia, isn’t the forum to swiftly bolster Europe’s defenses. A Big Five Coalition of the Willing is the better model: Germany, France, the UK, Poland and the Nordic-Baltic Eight. Yet coalition of the willing talking-shops aren’t enough. They need concrete projects like building a drone/anti-drone wall protecting NATO’s eastern border; ensuring a massive naval presence in the Baltic Sea; creating a task force for a post-peace treaty Ukraine; or guarding the Suwałki Gap.
The United Kingdom: Improved security is mutually beneficial for Europe and the UK, so that the sour legacy of Brexit can be overcome. Upgrade the UK’s role in European security with its nuclear weapons, battle-tested armed forces as well as its intelligence services and diplomacy. The EU-UK defense and security deal in May marked a good start.
Like-minded nations and laggards: Forge closer security and economic ties with non-EU members, including Norway, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, and India. Oh, and try to shame Ireland, Austria, and Switzerland into not being such blatant free riders.
United States: Do everything possible to preserve the transatlantic relationship, but realize that Europe can never again depend on the US. Europeans need to “rebalance” NATO by investing in strategic enablers (intelligence, air transport) to overcome dependence on Washington and assume more alliance leadership positions.
Change the German domestic narrative: Germans need to focus on national interests and stop pretending their country should just be a benign moral, environmental, and economic example for the world. They must grasp that Germany’s holiday from history, what Thomas Enders and Hans-Peter Bartels dub “that luxury of geopolitical escapism,” is long over.
And this last point may be the most difficult.
In 2011, Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski famously said: “I fear German power less than German inaction.” Today, the growing fear among at least some allied countries is there is something even worse than inaction. It’s the fear that Germans still don’t “get it.” That Germany is an unreliable partner where too many people cling to naïve ideas about being a virtuous, exemplary world citizen even as the global rules-based order crumbles; Russia wages war in Europe; China threatens Taiwan and Asia; and President Trump allows the Western alliance to wither.
“Military defense capability remains central — or rather: it must again be perceived as central,” says Bartels, the former chairman of the Bundestag’s defense committee and parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, who is now president of the German Society for Security Policy (GSP).
Chancellor Merz’s biggest challenge may be to change this narrative. To speak truth and force Germans out of their comfort zone. To warn them that the best way to prevent blood, sweat, and tears is to ensure that Berlin becomes Europe’s geopolitical leader. If it does, Germany’s allies will applaud, because a serious European defense without Berlin is an impossibility.
Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven is a German diplomat. He was deputy director of Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service between 2007 and 2010. He served as NATO’s first Assistant Secretary-General for Intelligence and Security and Germany’s ambassador to Poland. He is the author of‘Putins Angriff auf Deutschland: Disinformation, Propaganda, Cyberattacken’ [Putin’s attack on Germany: disinformation, propaganda, cyberattacks], published September 2024.
Leon Mangasarian worked as a news agency reporter and editor in Germany from 1989 with Bloomberg News, Deutsche-Presse Agentur, and United Press International. He has a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and is now a freelance writer in Brandenburg, eastern Germany. Leon Mangasarian worked as a news agency reporter and editor in Germany from 1989 with Bloomberg News, Deutsche-Presse Agentur, and United Press International.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Date: June 5, 2025
Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm CET
The post Fixing Germany’s Defenses: Some Proposals appeared first on CEPA.
2025-06-18 03:25:00
Fighting on multiple fronts simultaneously is a mistake, as Europe well knows. Napoleon lost his throne because his armies were spread thin from Madrid to Moscow. In two world wars, Germany thought it could win simultaneous campaigns in the East and West, and ended up being squeezed into defeat.
So why is NATO talking about going into Asia? Doesn’t the alliance have enough to do in Europe as it confronts a belligerent Russia?
Frustrated by Chinese and North Korean aid that is sustaining Russia’s war in Ukraine, NATO leaders appear to be seriously considering getting the alliance involved in the Pacific region. “It shows you that we cannot think that there is one theater, which is the Euro-Atlantic theatre,” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in a June 9 speech at Chatham House, a British think tank. “Yes, of course, that’s the main theater we are focusing on. But we have to be conscious of the fact that this is all interconnected with what is happening in the Pacific.”
Naturally, that idea was immediately denounced by China. “Countries in the Asia-Pacific do not welcome the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the region, and the region certainly does not need an Asia-Pacific NATO,” a Chinese government spokesman said. (In fact, such ideas are being discussed, but as an Asia-Pacific-only grouping).
Some of China’s neighbors would welcome NATO involvement. Taiwan would be ecstatic to have alliance support. So might the Philippines, which is embroiled in a territorial dispute over islands that has seen Chinese ships ramming Philippine vessels. What happens in Asia does affect NATO economies, including everything from trade, commodity prices, and the availability of goods from cell phones to children’s toys.
No doubt there would be satisfaction in spiting China. If Russia’s war economy is funded by selling oil to China, and Russia’s war machine is sustained by Chinese components and increasingly by Chinese experts, then why shouldn’t NATO retaliate with weapons and security guarantees for Taiwan?
The problem is that after decades of post-Cold War cuts in military spending, NATO can barely fight on one front, let alone two. Russia is far less powerful than China economically, and except for nuclear weapons, militarily. Yet it’s not even clear that NATO could stop a Russian invasion of the Baltic states, Poland or Finland. NATO amies are understrength, and munitions are in short supply or are being diverted to Ukraine. For example, with just 73,000 soldiers, the current British Army is the smallest it has been since the Napoleonic Wars.
A Pacific conflict — say, over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan — would primarily be a naval and air war (as Japan and the US discovered, fighting a land war in Asia is not recommended). Thus, any NATO contribution to Pacific security would mostly be ships, aircraft, and missiles.
With more than 22,000 military aircraft — including more than 3,000 fighters — and 1,100 warships of various types, NATO possesses a formidable amount of sea and air power. However, barring radical change in Russian policy, NATO would have to retain the bulk of these forces in Europe.
Nor would all of this equipment be suitable for the Pacific. For example, Europe has numerous small warships — missile boats, corvettes, diesel subs — better suited for coastal warfare than the vast expanses of the Pacific. Far easier would be deploying an array of highly capable fighters — Typhoons, Rafales, Gripens, F-16s and now F-35s — to Asia. But those jets would require aerial tankers and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities that are mostly provided by the US, which likely will need them to support its own forces as well as Asian allies such as Japan.
Just finding adequate bases for a NATO expeditionary force — and sustaining with appropriate munitions and spare parts — would be difficult enough. But there is little sense in sending — or threatening to send — ships and planes that aren’t even operational. Germany’s armed forces have grappled with readiness issues: in 2018, just a handful of Luftwaffe jets were fully functional. Some advanced Royal Navy destroyers have spent more time being serviced than at sea. NATO armed forces lack sufficient stockpiles of artillery ammunition and guided missiles, and none are really prepared for the masses of drones that China would likely use.
And what would be the purpose of NATO expanding into the Pacific? The alliance has more than enough problems defending its doorstep, whether protecting the Baltic states from Russian invasion or convincing Russia to end its war of aggression against Ukraine. The thought of Taiwan or the Philippines joining the alliance — and receiving Article 5 defense guarantees — boggles the mind.
For NATO to play a meaningful role in Asian security, the alliance must be credible. This requires more than military power. There must also be the perception that Europe has the political will to use force in a region more than 5,000 miles away, and is willing to endure the economic pain of a war with China. Entanglement in Asia could also split NATO: America’s interests in the Pacific may not always align with Europe’s.
The real question isn’t whether NATO can exert power in Asia. The issue is where best the alliance can focus its limited resources. NATO was originally formed to keep the Soviets out of Western Europe, and while NATO did support US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in a less-contested era, there is good reason why the alliance has centered on the European region for 75 years.
The biggest contribution that NATO could make to Asian security is to restrain Russia. If Putin is victorious in Ukraine, this will only reinforce the perception that the West is weak and embolden China and other nations to take advantage.
For NATO, charity begins at home.
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
Date: June 5, 2025
Time: 9:00 am to 12:00 pm CET
The post NATO Should Stay In Europe — And Out of the Pacific appeared first on CEPA.
