More Teslas on the Road Meant Hours-Long Supercharger Lines Over Thanksgiving – The Drive

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Black Friday shopping lines werent the only queues frustrating people this past weekend. A number of Tesla drivers took to social media to vent about extremely crowded Supercharger stations that turned a promised fast stop into an hours-long slog to recharge during one of the year's busiest travel times. With Model 3 mass production in full swing, there are now well over 400,000 Teslas on American roads, and it appears that growth is exposing the Supercharger network's pain points in high-traffic times like this past weekend.

One Facebook clip shows a line measuring roughly a quarter mile in length, consisting of 50-odd Teslas waiting at a Supercharger in Kettleman City, California, just off Interstate 5. To be fair, the station's popularity is compounded by its location about halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but even its 40 stalls aren't enough to accommodate the increased demand, especially when all that simultaneous recharging lowers the speed for everyone. The video's caption"When you regret your Tesla"has got to ring true for some of these drivers. Or maybe a modified version: When you regret bringing your Tesla.

Another video shared to YouTube detailed a similar situation on Thanksgiving Day around 5 p.m. in San Luis Obispo, California. Although it's a bit milder, with about 15 Teslas waiting to charge, it still led to an hours-long wait for some drivers.

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More Teslas on the Road Meant Hours-Long Supercharger Lines Over Thanksgiving - The Drive

Woman Arrested as Suspected Tesla Driver Who Killed Father of 4 in Pico-Union Hit-and-Run – KTLA Los Angeles

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A 35-year-old woman has been arrested in connection with a Pico-Union hit-and-run crash that killed a father of four, Los Angeles Police Department officials said Wednesday.

Vanessa Gutierrez is shown in a photo released by the Los Angeles Police Department on Dec. 4, 2019.

Vanessa Gutierrez surrendered to police about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and was booked on suspicion of felony hit-and-run.

She was previously identified as a person of interest in the Nov. 21 incident that left the victim, Emilio Perez, 34, brain-dead.

Perez died from his injuries a week later on Thanksgiving, according to LAPD.

The victim was walking in the area of Olympic Boulevard and Lake Street at 10:45 p.m. when he was stuck by a white Tesla and thrown about 50 feet.

The driver left the scene and did not stop to help, police said.

The damaged vehicle was found covered up in the 1800 block of South Saint Andrews Place after authorities received a tip. Surveillance video showed a woman covering the Tesla before being picked up by a person in a black car.

Emilio Perez, 34, is seen at the hospital after a Nov. 21, 2019, hit-and-run collision in Pico-Union. (Credit: Los Angeles Police Department)

Investigators determined that the vehicle was a rental and were able to track it to a business, which helped them identify Gutierrez as a person of interest.

If she had remained at the scene, this would have been investigated as a traffic collision, Detective Moses Castillo said in a tweet showing a photo of Perez.

In another tweet, Castillo said police hope to identify and find the driver of the black vehicle that was seen picking Gutierrez up after the suspect abandoned the damaged Tesla.

Destini Williams, who is in her 30s, was also identified as a person of interest. Police did not elaborate on Williams role, or whether she is in custody.

Perez was described by police as being homeless, and investigators said his family didnt find out about the crash until days later. They searched for the victim at local hospitals for days before finding him.

Many of Perezs organs were harvested to be donated, Castillo told KTLA after the victim died.

A Tesla believed to be linked to a hit-and-run was recovered in Harvard Heights on Nov. 22, 2019. (Credit: KTLA)

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Woman Arrested as Suspected Tesla Driver Who Killed Father of 4 in Pico-Union Hit-and-Run - KTLA Los Angeles

Here’s The Main Problem With Tesla’s Supercharger Network – Jalopnik

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For all the crap we give Tesla, they rightfully deserve to be lauded for the Supercharger network of fast-charging stations. You want to drive across the country in your electric car? Easy peasy, thanks to the ability to quick charge up to about an 80% tank of electron juice in about 20 minutes. Unless you and some of the hundreds of thousands of other Tesla owners want to use the exact same Supercharger station at the exact same time.

Ive written whole rants on the topic, but I really do love the Supercharger system. While companies like GM twiddle their thumbs and pen useless op-eds for CNN wondering who, WHO, could possibly build the infrastructure their cars require for them, Tesla just went out and did it. The freedom the literally thousands of Superchargers enables is why, for all of Elons inanity, if I was in the market for an expensive electric car at the moment, Id probably get a Tesla over anything else.

But literally thousands of Superchargers isnt enough. Its not enough for the millions of cars Tesla itself wants to build, and other automakers are still playing catchup, let alone coming close to the number of Superchargers that exist.

Basically, its going to take some brave corporations millions, if not billions, of dollars, to go ahead and start building quick-charging stations on the scale that we have gas stations now.

Until then, well get scenes like this in high-Tesla-ownership areas, shot by a reader named Steve at the San Luis Obispo, California, Supercharger station on Thanksgiving Day:

Build a big restaurant and a Quick-E Mart and an arcade and whatever the hell it is people use to kill 20 minutes, and youll make a killing yourself.

Oh hell, Ill do it. Anyone got a couple billion?

UPDATE 12/2/2019 3:35 PM EST: We spoke over email to Nika, a Tesla Model 3 owner who stopped by the same San Luis Obispo Supercharger station on Saturday night. At approximately 6:30 local time that evening, she said that she had been waiting for well over an hour, with dozens of cars still waiting ahead of her in line.

When she was finally able to plug in, the Supercharger itself was charging at some un-super speeds, with a photo she provided showing a recharge rate of 56 miles of range per hour of charging (more typical Supercharger speeds, in my own personal experience, run into the 300 mi/hour range).

Nearly 20 minutes after she began charging at the Supercharger, Nika said that one of Teslas mobile Supercharging units arrived to help alleviate the line.

But 40 minutes after that update, Nika said that the Supercharger she was charging at died, leaving her Model 3 with a 43 percent charge.Someone is trying to fix it, but damn, this is the worst travel experience so far, Nika wrote. At least my car and the car next to me got the same error message, explaining what a Supercharger failure looks like. A Tesla staffer managed to get the Supercharger back up and running, but Nika showed us a photo of her car reporting an additional two hours to charge:

Even still, Nika said that her Model 3 is a great car, but we should have driven our Mazda for this weekend.

Weve reached out to Tesla for comment, and will update when we hear back.

H/t to Steve!

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Here's The Main Problem With Tesla's Supercharger Network - Jalopnik

NATO needs to change to survive, analysts say – CNBC

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Nato heads of government (front row L-R): Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, US President Donald Trump and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (middle row L-R) France's President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Iceland's Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir, (top row L-R) Netherland's Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Lithuania's Prime Minister Saulius Skvernelis, Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costaa and Montenegro's Prime Minister Dusko Markovic pose for the family photo at the NATO summit at the Grove hotel in Watford, northeast of London on December 4, 2019.

ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images

LONDON As NATO members gather in the U.K. to celebrate 70 years since its inception, there are pressing questions about the organization's future and its relevance on the global landscape.

Leslie Vinjamuri, the head of the U.S. and the Americas Programme at think tank Chatham House, believes there will now be "several years of grappling" to reform the military alliance.

She added that one of the main issues is that the institution is not set up to deal with the current geopolitical landscape. NATO was created in the aftermath of World War II with the overall aim to protect its members against any threats posed by the Soviet Union.

But the rise of the world's second-largest economy, China, has posed new challenges to the West and trade and political tensions between Beijing and Washington have come to the fore in the last two years. The disagreements have involved the tech sector with the U.S. taking steps to ban the Chinese firm Huawei from selling its technology in the United States.

U.S. officials have expressed concern over the company's links to the Chinese government and the security threat it could pose something which the Shenzhen-based tech firm has denied. This issue has sparked division within NATO allies, with Germany and France taking a different stance to the U.S. administration.

"NATO is at a crossroads," Agathe Demarais, global forecasting director at the research firm The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), highlighted to CNBC Monday.

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron said in an interview published last month that the alliance was currently experiencing "brain death." His comments sparked a wave of criticism from other NATO countries and Trump told reporters in London Tuesday that Macron's words were "very, very nasty" and "very insulting."

"The relationship between the U.S. and the EU is under strain in a number of sectors, and the military one is only one of them," Demarais from the EIU, told CNBC Monday.

Trump has criticized his NATO allies on different occasions for not respecting the 2% of GDP (gross domestic product) contribution rule. At the same time, some European leaders have grown hesitant to the U.S.' commitment to the organization, given the president's "America first policy." Their division became even more evident when Trump decided in October to withdraw troops from northeast Syria, without consulting NATO allies.

NATO will need to evolve in the depth of its cooperation, its objectives, and financial contributions of its members to reflect a less dominant U.S. role.

Athanasia Kokkinogeni

Analyst at consulting firm DuckerFrontier

"An implosion of NATO, should it take place, would not happen in the short term. Instead, a gradual deterioration in the levels of trust between NATO members is the more likely scenario," Demarais from the EIU told CNBC.

"This is especially the case with Turkey, which has recently bought Russian-made defense equipment that is not interoperable with NATO standards," she added. Turkey joined NATO in 1952 three years after it was created. However, some NATO members are worried about Turkey's ties with Moscow.

For NATO to maintain its relevance, it will need to strengthen the ties among its own members and extend its agenda, Leslie Vinjamuri, from Chatham House, told CNBC.

"We can't afford to wait (to see NATO reforming) but imagine having to start from the beginning. Working with what we have is easier," she said.

Athanasia Kokkinogeni, a Europe senior analyst at consulting firm DuckerFrontier, also told CNBC that NATO's future is likely to include a broader range of aims.

"NATO will need to evolve in the depth of its cooperation, its objectives, and financial contributions of its members to reflect a less dominant U.S. role," Kokkinogeni said.

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NATO needs to change to survive, analysts say - CNBC

‘Very, very nasty’: Trump clashes with Macron before NATO summit – Reuters

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LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and French leader Emmanuel Macron clashed over the future of NATO on Tuesday before a summit intended to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Western military alliance.

In sharp exchanges underlining discord in a transatlantic bloc hailed by backers as the most successful military pact in history, Trump demanded that Europe pay more for its collective defense and make concessions to U.S. interests on trade.

Macron, the French president, stood by comments he made last month describing NATO as suffering from a lack of strategic purpose akin to brain death, and criticized fellow NATO member Turkey, which he accused of working with Islamic State proxies.

Washington and Paris have long argued over NATOs purpose - France opposed the 2003 Iraq war - but the new tensions will add to doubts over the alliances future that have grown with Trumps ambivalence over U.S. commitments to defend Europe.

Trump said Macrons criticism of NATO was very, very nasty and questioned whether the U.S. military should defend any countries that were delinquent on alliance targets for national military spending.

Its not right to be taken advantage of on NATO and also then to be taken advantage of on trade, and thats what happens. We cant let that happen, Trump said of transatlantic disputes on issues ranging from the aerospace sector to a European digital services tax on U.S. technology giants.

All 29 member states have a target of spending 2% of their gross domestic product on defense and Trump has singled out Germany for falling short of that goal.

But Macron stood by his criticism of NATO and said its real problem was a failure to forge a clear purpose since the end of the Cold War.

If we invest money and put our soldiers lives at risk in theaters of operation we must be clear about the fundamentals of NATO, he said in a tweet at the end of a day overshadowed by tensions between the French and U.S. leaders.

A French presidency official said Trump often makes strident statements ahead of bilateral meetings and cools his rhetoric later. He noted that Macron and Trump exchanged jokes and were very relaxed at a joint news conference in London.

Turkey threatened to block a plan to defend Baltic states and Poland against Russian attacks unless NATO backed Ankara in recognizing the Kurdish YPG militia as terrorists.

The YPGs fighters have long been U.S. and French allies against Islamic State in Syria. Turkey considers them an enemy because of links to Kurdish insurgents in southeastern Turkey.

If our friends at NATO do not recognize as terrorist organizations those we consider terrorist organizations ... we will stand against any step that will be taken there, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said before traveling to London.

Erdogan has already strained alliance ties with a move to buy Russian air defense systems. Trump said he was looking at imposing sanctions on Ankara over the issue.

The uncertainty over the plan for Poland and the Baltic states, drawn up at their request after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, raises issues about security on all of NATOs frontiers.

Under the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations 1949 founding treaty, an attack on one ally is an attack on all its members, and the alliance has military strategies for collective defense across its territory.

The summit, in a hotel in Hertfordshire just outside London, begins on Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening, alliance leaders attended a reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.

The British monarch, in a teal-colored matching jacket and skirt, greeted the summiteers and accompanying partners, including former fashion model Melania Trump, who was wearing a bright yellow dress with matching cape and purple sleeves.

They were then welcomed to 10 Downing Street by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, host of the summit a little over a week before the country faces an election.

Several hundred protesters gathered in Londons Trafalgar Square, holding placards reading: Dump Trump and No to racism, no to Trump. A police line divided them from a small group of Trump supporters wearing Make America Great Again caps, waving American flags and shouting: Build the wall.

In Washington on Tuesday, Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives laid out their impeachment case against Trump, accusing him of using the powers of his office to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election.

Hoping to placate Trump, Europe, Turkey and Canada will pledge at the summit some $400 billion in defense spending by 2024, and agree to a reduction of the U.S. contribution to fund the alliance itself.

The allies will approve a new strategy to monitor Chinas growing military activity, and identify space as a domain of warfare, alongside air, land, sea and computer networks.

Trump said he believed Russia wanted deals on arms control and nuclear issues, and that he would be willing to bring China into such accords.

Reporting by Steve Holland, Phil Stewart, Robin Emmott and Iona Serrapica in London, Ali Kucukgocmen in Istanbul, Joanna Plucinska in Warsaw and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Mark John and John Chalmers; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Peter Cooney

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'Very, very nasty': Trump clashes with Macron before NATO summit - Reuters

It’s Time to Rethink NATO’s Deterrent Strategy – War on the Rocks

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President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron dont agree on much. During a tense joint press conference ahead of the NATO leaders meeting, the two sparred over the fate of captured ISIL fighters, Macrons recent comments about the brain death of the alliance, and Turkey. Some of their disagreements are less important but just as serious. Trump thinks America has better wine than France. Macron, presumably, doesnt. The two leaders do, however, appear to agree on one thing something is wrong with NATO.

Both leaders are right to point out that NATO is ailing, but their diagnoses are wrong. The real issue isnt European shirking on defense expenditures, and neither is it a lack of American commitment. These, rather, are symptoms of a larger disease: NATOs long-lived attachment to a presence-heavy model of deterrence that a new study suggests may no longer be necessary.

Whinging and whining about burdens shared and unshared aside, NATO endures because all parties to the alliance recognize they gain more from the arrangement than they lose. The Europeans get an American security guarantee, while the United States gets a foothold on the Eurasian landmass to prevent threats from emerging and projecting power. The question therefore is much less whether NATO will persist into the future, and much more whether it will do so as an expensive object lesson in inertia or as something more useful.

NATOs deterrent strategy and posture is not well-matched to the contemporary threat environment. It is too focused on presence and not focused enough on mobility. Holding stubbornly to a presence-first approach appears to be a formula for gridlock as the costs it imposes become less tolerable: large financial expenditures on both sides of the pond, wearying grind on U.S. servicemembers and families, and tiresome internal frictions about burden-sharing. It is time for NATO meaningfully to consider alternative strategies that might achieve the same deterrent effect while offering a different balance of costs and benefits. The cure for impending brain death, in other words, is thinking.

Location, Location, Location

NATO is not primarily a warfighting alliance. Its purpose, in fact, is to not fight war. During the bad old days of the Soviet Union, thinking about how to do deterrence in Europe focused by necessity on the balance of forces, addressing such questions as how many military assets and of what type, used either for denial or for punishment, would be enough to persuade Moscow that any effort at encroachment would not be worth the salt.

The collapse of the Soviet Union changed continental power dynamics entirely, yet the U.S. presence-heavy deterrent posture in Europe persisted. Although the permanent stationing of ground and air forces were scaled back, reductions ultimately were, and continue to be, largely offset by heel to toe rotational deployments. In 2008 and 2014, far from jarring NATO into a rethink of the strategic dynamics on the continent, Russias actions in Georgia and in Ukraine non-NATO members, it bears noting instead precipitated a reflexive call to bolster the U.S. footprint in Europe.

NATOs posture thus persisted out of inertia, without the careful tuning successful deterrence requires. Todays Russia is not yesterdays Soviet Union. Its actions in Georgia and in Ukraine arguably have addressed its most acute Cold War territorial complaints, and its other motivating interests are fairly inoffensive by historical standards it is a major power that wants to be acknowledged as such.

The current NATO deterrent strategy is expensive, and there are important areas in which it is unlikely to be useful. The United States and NATO, for example, profess great concern about Russian so-called gray-zone activities behaviors such as information operations and disinformation campaigns that challenge the Wests interests in ways other than outright kinetic action. So too are alarms being raised about the possibility of another fait accompli on the order of Russias maneuver in Crimea. A presence-focused strategy, however, is ill-suited to preventing gray-zone malfeasance, and the lingering agitation about a fait accompli in the Baltics derives primarily from the proposition that such a move is operationally possible, rather than that Russia finds it especially appealing.

So what is NATO buying with its continued commitment to presence, and do alternatives exist? The empirical record indicates that they do.

Mobility, Mobility, Mobility

Effective deterrence depends upon convincing an adversary that one has both the means and the motivation to make good on a threat. During the Cold War, denial by presence made sense the scale of Soviet land forces meant that a late-arriving Western counter simply could not catch up. Today, while a late arrival would make pushing a Russian intervention back costly, it could be done. NATO does not need presence in amounts able to stop a Russian incursion into the Baltics, it just needs to convince Moscow that any such attempt would be met with immediate resistance and rapid reinforcement. The challenge in convincing Russia to keep its powder dry, in other words (assuming it is even inclined in the first place), is not to demonstrate NATOs ability to respond but rather its willingness to do so.

A forthcoming study by the Stimson Center and the University of Maryland Center for International Development and Conflict Management produced statistical evidence that when it comes to conveying ones resolve to an adversary, the most persuasive indicator is the movement of forces from outside the theater of contested interests into it. That is, flowing forces from outside in, whether ground, air, or naval, increases significantly the likelihood of achieving deterrent or compellent policy objectives. This finding, moreover, is consistent and robust across multiple tests of potentially confounding contextual features, including, notably, the nature, type, and size of forces already stationed in theater. Pre-existing presence, in other words, does not seem to answer questions about resolve, but the movement of new or additional forces does.

This insight suggests an alternative deterrent strategy for NATO, one based not on presence but on agility. Such an approach would prioritize continental mobility getting forces quickly forward. In addition to retaining deterrent effect, this shift could have the added benefit of easing ongoing tensions about the contributions made by European partners to the collective defense. Allowing the allies to invest in the roads, bridges, tunnels, seaports, airfields, and rail lines needed to move personnel and material across the continent would constitute a win-win-win scenario. Infrastructure enhancements would increase NATOs capability; Russian awareness of enhanced NATO mobility, and even more so its demonstration, would have a deterrent effect; and such spending is more politically viable for European governments, making the now-infamous 2 percent reach seem not so far from grasp.

Whats more, this adjustment would not cause any degradation in overall NATO, or U.S., readiness. To the contrary, it fits neatly with the new U.S. emphasis on so-called dynamic force employment. The defense community awaits a clear operationalized definition of what exactly dynamic force employment entails, but for these purposes it is adequate to interpret it as a nimbler force, able to move assets quickly either to take advantage of opportunities or, if needed, to respond to threats. In the European context, this would mean holding U.S. presence steady for now, and eventually reducing it, in favor of buying increased continental mobility, and running the drill if ever there are indicators Russia is readying to take its chances.

For the United States, a mobility-based deterrent strategy should have prima facie appeal if for no other reason than that the math works so decidedly in its favor. In 2018, U.S. direct funding for NATO was $6.7 billion, and the cost of the full retinue of U.S. presence in Europe that is, maintaining the current allotment of operating bases was $24.4 billion. In 2019, U.S. spending on its European Deterrence Initiative, designed to bolster post-Crimea presence, reached $6.5 billion, marking a sixfold increase over only four years time. These outlays, or roughly 5 percent of the U.S. defense budget, notwithstanding, fears that Russia will make a move persist, and the ability of NATO forces to move from where they are, with the things they need, to where they need to use them, remains an unsolved problem.

Washington certainly can continue to foot-stomp about the 2 percent goal, all the while increasing its own expenditures and wear-and-tear on servicemembers and families to beef up presence, but it should not expect more return in deterrent effect or force mobility than it has already seen. Or, it can work with its partners to consider alternative deterrent strategies. This one offers the benefits of allowing the United States to conserve money, enhance readiness, and give advice and counsel on NATO construction planning and execution while asking in return only that the United States relax its insistence that NATO partners buy equipment. Other strategies will offer different tradeoffs.

A Better Strategy for NATO

There is great comfort in the familiar, and so the tendency to hold tightly to an understanding of deterrence in Europe as dependent primarily on size and strength is understandable. It also, however, will continue to lead the United States to spend a lot of money and to the continuation of the long-past tedious infighting about partner expenditures, neither of which will achieve more than marginal gains in defense. NATO does not need more eastern presence to convey its resolve; what it needs is for Russia to believe that its forces have the ability, and that its governments have the willingness, to get there fast. In a world where the West continues to see presence as panacea, a smart Russia will poke and prod to induce more, and more and more, of it. In a world where it is the West thats smart, NATO will stop bickering, start thinking, and find new ways to remind Russia that there are some lines that still should not be crossed.

Melanie W. Sisson is senior fellow with the Stimson Center Defense Strategy and Planning Program and editor of the forthcoming book Military Coercion and US Foreign Policy.

Image: U.S. Air National Guard (Photo by Tech. Sgt. Patrick Evenson)

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It's Time to Rethink NATO's Deterrent Strategy - War on the Rocks

NATO leaders gather in London to mark the 70th anniversary of the Alliance – NATO HQ

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Allied Heads of State and Government are gathering in London on Tuesday (3 December 2019) to commemorate the 70th anniversary of NATO. In 1949, the United Kingdom was one of NATOs twelve founding members and London was the home of NATOs first headquarters. Leaders will take decisions to further strengthen the Alliance and continue its adaptation. This evening, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will host a reception for NATO leaders at Buckingham Palace.

Also on Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will discuss the main themes of the leaders meeting at a major public diplomacy event in London, NATO Engages: Innovating the Alliance.

On Wednesday leaders will meet at The Grove Hotel to address current security issues and take decisions to ensure that NATO remains fit for the future. They are expected to agree on a number of measures, including further improvements to the readiness of Allied forces, recognizing space as an operational domain, and updating NATOs action plan against terrorism.

Leaders are also due to have a strategic discussion on Russia, the future of arms control, as well as the rise of China. Allies are also expected to assess the progress being made on burden sharing in the Alliance. This has been the fifth consecutive year of rising defence investment, with European Allies and Canada due to spend $130 billion extra by the end of 2020, with that figure rising to $400 billion by the end of 2024.

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NATO leaders gather in London to mark the 70th anniversary of the Alliance - NATO HQ

NATO meets as challenges, threats and tensions face the alliance from outside, and within – CNBC

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US president Donald Trump is seen during his press conference at the 2018 NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium on July 12, 2018.

NurPhoto | NurPhoto | Getty Images

LONDON As heads of state and government meet in the U.K. for the 70th anniversary of the military alliance NATO, discussions are likely to focus on shifting geopolitical relations and military threats, that thorny issue of defense spending and, crucially, the alliance's future.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier this year that the summit on Dec. 3 and 4 will give members the opportunity to address "current and emerging security challenges and how NATO continues to invest and adapt to ensure it will remain a pillar of stability in the years ahead."

The summit, being held on the outskirts of London, comes at a tricky time for NATO with unsettled relationships and challenges; How to approach a rising military power like China, for example, is countering NATO's older insecurities like its relations with Russia. Furthermore, the commitment of its most powerful member, the U.S., to the alliance is now more uncertain than ever.

On Monday, Stoltenberg told CNBC that while NATO doesn't see any "imminent threat, military threat" against any NATO ally, the alliance does see "a more assertive Russia using military force against neighbors in Ukraine and Georgia. We see the rise of China, but we believe that it is important to try also to avoid increased tensions," he told CNBC's Hadley Gamble in London.

"We strongly believe in dialogue with Russia. We believe in arms control. We must avoid a new arms race that's dangerous, especially when it comes to nuclear weapons. We think also China should engage in relevant parts of arms control talks because they have more and more advanced nuclear weapons."

"Rarely has NATO not been under verbal siege over these past few months," Judy Dempsey, a non-resident senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, said in an editorial piece on Tuesday last week.

"The fact that that this meeting will not be called a summit shows how NATO's seventieth birthday is not being celebrated with great fanfare but instead with a degree of self-doubt, if not anxiety."

That anxiety comes after a tough few years for the alliance, especially when it comes to the issue of who pays the most. NATO agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014 to reverse the trend of declining defense budgets and to raise them over the coming decade, a move that was designed to "further strengthen the transatlantic bond." Then, members agreed to spend a minimum of 2% of their GDP (gross domestic product) on defense.

At last year's summit in Brussels, President Donald Trump chided other members of the group for not meeting spending targets agreed at the NATO summit in 2014.

Experts note that discussions at this NATO "Leaders Meeting," as it's being called, will be informed as much by issues not on the formal agenda as those that are.

"Member states will be keen to bring their political differences back behind closed doors, whilst emphasizing the military coherence and credibility of their alliance," Sarah Raine, consulting senior fellow for geopolitics and strategy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told CNBC.

"The degree to which Europe should do more not just for itself, but also by itself, remains highly contentious. Assessment of the scope of NATO's engagement on China's challenge, including the U.S. push to include the issue of 5G within these discussions, risk further highlighting these sensitivities," she said.

Spending is likely to be a key issue again this week with the latest figures not making for comfortable reading. NATO estimates for 2019, released in June, show that only the U.S., U.K., Greece, Estonia, Romania, Poland and Latvia have met or surpassed that target. The highest defense spend was made by the U.S., at 3.4% of its GDP, while the lowest spend was by Luxembourg which only spent 0.55%.

Given the slow progress made by members, Trump is likely to be heavily critical again. Germany has been singled out for especially harsh treatment because of its budget surplus. The European nation only spent an estimated 1.36% of its GDP on defense spending in 2019, setting up another potential clash with the U.S.

Defense spending, or the lack thereof, has created so much ire in Trump that there are reports that he frequently discussed pulling the U.S. out of the alliance, even with Congressional support.

In July, he also likened countries not meeting the defense spend target, like Germany, to delinquents.

"We're the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing," Trump said at a rally in July. "Frankly, many countries owe us a tremendous amount of money for many years back, where they're delinquent, as far as I'm concerned, because the United States has had to pay for them," singling out Germany as "the number one" culprit.

Perhaps the only thing Trump has in common with his predecessor Barack Obama was their shared dismay at the perception that the U.S. bears the brunt of NATO spending. Obama called out "free riders" in NATO that benefit from U.S. military support without contributing enough to defense themselves.

Ironically, questions over members' commitment to NATO could come from closer to home (it's headquartered in Brussels) with increasing talk in Europe about strengthening the EU's cooperation and coordination on defense.

French President Emmanuel Macron has caused a stir ahead of this week's NATO meeting after he said in early November that "what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of Nato."

Speaking to The Economist magazine, Macron cited the U.S. failure to consult NATO before pulling out of Syria as a reason for his comment, and also questioned NATO's validity. He argued that Europe should focus on its own defense alliance, although German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes the continent is too weak "for now" to defend itself.

Speaking to lawmakers last week, Merkel said that "we rely on this trans-Atlantic alliance, and that is why it is right for us to work for this alliance and take on more responsibility."

IISS's Raine told CNBC that the short-term priority for the alliance "must be to get NATO's public messaging back on track."

"That includes the presentation of an alliance that is militarily more capable than ever before, and that is adapting to the evolving security threats its members face, not at the expense of its traditional focus but in addition to it," she said.

The NATO secretary general will be hoping for summit headlines that focus attention away from the state of NATO's brain, Raine said, "and towards admiration for NATO's muscles, by highlighting the range and depth of NATO's operational commitments and capabilities."

NATO was set up in 1949 as a military alliance between 10 European countries, the U.S. and Canada "to promote cooperation among its members and to guard their freedom," the alliance says, "within the context of countering the threat posed at the time by the Soviet Union."

Seventy years on, and after several decades of relatively good relations and cooperation, NATO's relations with Russia are tense.

This comes after Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and its role in a pro-Russian uprising in eastern Ukraine. NATO says that the channels of communication remain open with Russia but that "Russia's destabilizing actions and policies go beyond Ukraine" citing its "provocative military activities near NATO's borders stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea."

It has also cited its "irresponsible and aggressive nuclear rhetoric," its support for the regime in Syria as well as the U.K. nerve agent attack which it said was "a clear breach of international norms." NATO has said it supported the U.S.' decision to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in response to "Russia's material breach."

On Russia's part, perhaps the most controversial NATO decision has been the decision to deploy NATO missile defense systems in Romania and Poland (although completion of this Aegis Ashore a land-based missile defense system site is delayed to 2020). Along with the deployment of thousands of NATO troops to the Baltic nations and Poland in the last few years, these developments appear to have served only to exacerbate tensions with Russia.

Russia has widely criticized the deployment of missile defense shields in its former backyard. The prospect of Ukraine and Georgia, both of which used to be part of the former USSR, joining NATO (and even potentially the European Union) is also an unsavory prospect for Moscow.

In September 2019, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that "NATO approaching our borders is a threat to Russia." That view was echoed by Russian President Vladimir Putin this month, when he told Russia's Security Council that he was "seriously concerned about the NATO infrastructure approaching our borders, as well as the attempts to militarize outer space."

Questions over NATO's future are bound to dominate this year's coverage of the meeting. Asked if NATO remained relevant, IISS' Raine replied with an emphatic "yes."

"NATO's responses to persistent and aggressive destabilizing actions by Russia have ensured the relevance of the alliance as the cornerstone of European security. The irony is that whilst NATO has become military more relevant, political debate within the alliance has become more fractious," she said.

"It is political deficiencies, not military deficiencies that are now threatening the future relevance of the alliance."

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NATO meets as challenges, threats and tensions face the alliance from outside, and within - CNBC

Princess Anne Was the Real Winner of the NATO Summit – Vanity Fair

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Light royal attendance at this weeks NATO Summit might have been a preview of what Prince Charles imagines as a streamlined monarchy, but one royal proved why its nice to have the whole family around. Princess Anne has gotten a glow from her relatable portrayal on season three of The Crown, and while she hasnt always shown her sassy side to the public, her presence at a NATO reception Tuesday made the biggest royal splash. After the conclusion of the Queens reception for the leaders of NATO, videos began to circulate that showed Anne having a great time. In one, the Queen looks over to her daughter and appears to motion for her to greet Donald and Melania Trump. Anne responds with a shrug that would make a perfect reaction gif.

The interaction went viral as a snub of Trump, and even led Democratic congressman and Trump critic Ted Lieu to speak out in Trump's defense. Though plenty of other Trump critics welcomed her shrug (welcome to the resistance, Princess Anne!), that's probably not what she intended. On Wednesday morning, the Timess Valentine Low attempted to give more clarity to what actually happened. He tweeted that Trump was the last person in line to meet the Queen, and that an onlooker said Anne was simply trying to telegraph to her mother that the receiving line was overnot that she didn't want to meet the Trumps. Anne raised her hands in the air, laughed and said: It's just me, adding a moment later and this lot as she pointed to the members of the household behind her, he wrote.

It was a second viral video, though, that may have revealed her true feelings. Standing in a circle with Canadas Justin Trudeau, Frances __Emmanuel Macron, and __ Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Anne seemed to laugh as the leaders indulged in a little bit of gossip about Trumps lengthy performance at a press conference earlier in the day.

Ultimately, it seems like Anne was just doing exactly what anyone would do at an awkward cocktail party: avoid the people youre not fond of, congregate with the ones you like, and generally join in the merriment. In a 1988 Vanity Fair article, Georgina Howell called young Anne stroppy and churlish, though noted that she eventually became the exemplary royal workaholic and patron of the Save the Children Fund. But sometimes what reads as catty or glib might just be honest in a situation as odd as a NATO summit centered on Trump, NATOs biggest critic.

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Princess Anne Was the Real Winner of the NATO Summit - Vanity Fair

Trump is expected to discuss China, Russia challenges with NATO leaders next week – CNBC

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U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak to the media at a NATO news conference in Brussels, Belgium.

Sean Gallup | Getty Images News | Getty Images

WASHINGTON President Donald Trump is set to meet with representatives of at least a dozen nations, including Germany, France, Italy and Denmark, at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 70th anniversary meeting in London next week.

Senior Trump administration officials told reporters Friday that the American president is also expected to stress the ongoing challenges that NATO and the international community face from China and Russia, two nations that have become inextricably tangled up in Trump's domestic political battles.

"There are continuing challenges that NATO needs to face, China above all," one official said in a conference call.

The Trump administration also expects that NATO's relationship with Russia "will certainly come up," an official said.

"Russia has shown a consistent disregard for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbors. Certainly that's something that will be discussed at the leader summit," the official said.

The officials sketched a rough outline of Trump's schedule for meetings with world leaders over the course of the event, which takes place Tuesday and Wednesday, including:

The officials noted that the administration is working to lock down additional bilateral meetings that may be announced at a later date.

The NATO meeting is scheduled to take place in London just days after a man was killed near London Bridge in an incident that authorities there are treating as a terrorist attack.

The Trump administration officials also warned of China's pursuit of greater global influence and highlighted the risks of 5G technology.

The U.S. will "absolutely" bring up 5G at the NATO meeting, an official said.

"This has been a major push of ours. We are absolutely going to insist that our NATO allies use trusted and reliable partners, providers in their 5G networks. This is not something where they want to allow the Chinese Communist Party to be able to siphon off their data or entry into their networks at all. So this is a very, very high priority for us, and the president is going to reiterate that message," the official said.

U.S. officials have long complained that Chinese intellectual property theft has cost the economy billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs and that it threatens national security.

China maintains that it does not engage in intellectual property theft. The issue is central to the repeated attempts between the two economic superpowers to strike a trade deal that will also address the U.S. trade deficit with China and so-called forced technology transfers. The first "phase" of a deal was announced in principle in mid-October, but it has yet to be formalized on paper more than a month later.

Last year, the Pentagon halted sales of Huawei and ZTE mobile phones and modems on U.S. military bases around the world due to potential security risks.

"These devices may pose an unacceptable risk to the department's personnel and mission," wrote Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Eastburn in a previous statement to CNBC.

Since 2012, the U.S. government has warned against using Huawei equipment and component parts. The company has been effectively banned since that time, and Trump's executive order in May made the recommendations official.

"U.S. government systems should not include Huawei or ZTE equipment," a 2012 report by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence said. "Similarly, government contractors, particularly those working on contracts for sensitive U.S. system, should exclude ZTE or Huawei equipment from their systems."

Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report from CNBC's global headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

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Trump is expected to discuss China, Russia challenges with NATO leaders next week - CNBC

President Macron is right: its time Nato came to an end – The Guardian

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President Macron has pronounced Nato brain dead (Report, 3 December, theguardian.com). That is an irreversible condition so all that remains is to switch off the life support and bury the corpse.

In the case of Nato, that is long overdue. It originally claimed to be a defensive alliance but it ran into difficulty nearly 30 years ago when the Soviet Union broke up and the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. That left Nato with no enemy to defend anyone against and so no justification for its existence.

The logical step would have been for it also to be dissolved but instead it set about creating an enemy to justify itself. It was quite easy to provoke Russia into being the new enemy by extending membership up to the Russian border and stationing troops not far from St Petersburg (one can imagine the US reaction if China had formed an alliance with Mexico and placed forces on the border with California).Nato now provides the US with a captive market for its expensive weaponry, including, in Britain, entirely useless Trident missiles.

The only complaint the US has about its satellites is that they do not spend enough on this dangerous hardware, pointing out that its own rate of expenditure on its armed forces is around twice theirs. The unfairness of this as perceived by the US could be easily rectified by cutting its own military budget by half. There is plenty that the money could be spent on to greater advantage for the American people a health service, for example.Anthony MatthewLeicester

Under the heading What is Nato? (4 December) a few facts were missed. Nato is a nuclear armed military alliance which has now expanded across the world to Asia and Australasia, even as far as making an agreement with Colombia, which is in a nuclear weapon free zone (Tlatelolco Treaty 1967).

Despite differences between member states, its policies continue to be dominated by the US. Under its policy of nuclear sharing, which breaches the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, there are US nuclear bombs, the B61s, at bases in five non-nuclear countries: Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. The latter are based at ncirlik, not far from the border with Syria. At the same time, Erdoan is saying he would like Turkey to have its own nuclear capability.

The US is planning to upgrade the B61 to a B61-12 which will be more accurate and earth penetrating. Already the B61 could have up to 340 tons of killing power; the Hiroshima bomb was 15 killing tons. Nato still holds a policy of first use of nuclear weapons, slavishly followed by the UK. Next year Nato will be carrying out huge military exercises, entitled Defender across eastern Europe. None of the above is likely to bring peace and security for citizens in the member states, nor across the globe.Rae StreetLittleborough, Lancashire

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President Macron is right: its time Nato came to an end - The Guardian

NATO’s not brain dead, but it really needs a strategy – CNN

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Its last concept was approved in 2010, well before Russia's annexation of Crimea and before President Xi Jinping became the new Chinese leader. The development of a Strategic Concept is a laborious process and the end product usually leaves all allies less than satisfied; yet a different approach could provide a small yet diverse group of strategic thinkers under NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's guidance, with an opportunity to help NATO frame this politically and militarily disruptive era. Some NATO members are reluctant to "reward" French President Emmanuel Macron's less-than-flattering description of NATO as suffering from "brain death" with a commitment to a process that would acknowledge the alliance has some political issues that it needs to address.

But such a process could begin with a prioritization of threats to NATO. Should NATO fight terrorism, fight insurgents in Afghanistan, defend against Russian aggression, deter China's desire for technological superiority -- or all or none of the above?

NATO's dual political and military tracks are in desperate need of a strategic bridge between them. Simply put, it is time for a 21st century version of the report "The Future Tasks of the Alliance." As we watch the conversation unfold among current NATO leaders 70 years after NATO's founding -- and particularly France's disruptive role -- plus a change, plus c'est la mme chose!

For decades, NATO leaders' gatherings were mostly the dominion of international security and defense mandarins. Long, multi-paragraph NATO declarations were not headline-grabbing material, but they served as important marching orders for NATO international staff and senior government officials to perform the daily work of the alliance.

More recently, we have entered a new era where political fireworks over NATO and its well-being are front page news. While that reality spotlights the growing split between NATO's political and military roles, it has also overshadowed the historical truth that NATO has been through far worse drama than this before.

In its past, NATO has experienced some true and intense political division, some of it produced by French leaders and their historically strong desire to lead European defense without American involvement.

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NATO's not brain dead, but it really needs a strategy - CNN

Opinion | Its Not Just Trump. The American People Are Skeptical of NATO, Too. – Politico

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Its not just President Donald Trump who is skeptical of the North Atlantic alliance, in other words. Its the American people. To the extent that U.S. citizens think about NATO at all, they disagree about whether honoring its commitments would be worth the sacrifice.

This wavering commitment likely signals a belief that American protection is no longer necessary for European security or that the United States has different priorities from when NATO was created 70 years ago. If NATO wants to earn the confidence of American citizenswho, after all, elect the American president whom NATO allies deal withthe alliance must rethink its mission for the 21st century.

To be sure, most Americans still have a general sense that NATO is important to our countrys security, according to another recent survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. But even that survey found the same divide on whether Americans would opt to retaliate against a Russian attack on a NATO ally. As recently as the late 1990s, nearly 70 percent of surveyed Americans supported sending U.S. troops to defend a new NATO member from a military attack.

Whats going on? NATO is in the midst of an existential crisis; its original mission is a vestige of an earlier era. Even the current secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, acknowledges that theres no imminent military threat from Russia (whose economy has dwindled to the size of Italys), and the Germans certainly dont seem intent on territorial expansion. So, Americans who retain a positive impression of the alliance might yet hesitate to sacrifice blood and treasure on a mission they dont see as vital to their interests.

Trump has seized on NATOs troubles, dismissing the treaty as obsolete. That critique is not particularly constructive, and his transactional accounting of member states financial contributions smacks more of petty grievance than of grand strategy. But his provocations have led to some soul searching.

French President Emmanuel Macron recently worried aloud about the brain death of NATO and encouraged Europe to regain military sovereignty and reassess the reality of what NATO is in the light of the commitment of the United States. Macron doesnt lay this all at Trumps feet, though; he says it was very astute for the United States to refocus on the rest of North America, as it did beginning under President Barack Obama, and to shift the U.S. geopolitical gaze toward Asia. In the wake of these comments, NATO will now convene a group of experts to strategize about the alliances futurean encouraging step.

If every crisis also represents an opportunity, leaders ought to use their meeting in London and subsequent gatherings to reimagine NATOs mission. Doing so could revive the popular support that gives it license to operate.

Russian meddling in democratic elections might be a place to start. Its increasingly clear the main threats to open societies are not military. If NATO remains a military alliance, it is unfit to respond to these types of threats. Three years after Estonia acceded into NATO in 2004, Russia in fact did attack the Baltic country. But because it was a cyberattack on banks, media outlets and government agencies, and there was no major loss of life, the alliance was powerless. One could imagine, in our era, that the integrity of European democracy would be better defended, Russian hostility better deterred and public support better assured if a cyberattack on one NATO country were treated as a cyberattack on all.

NATO members might argue the alliance is adapting to modern times by expandingit has grown from 12 countries 70 years ago to 29 today. But, on some level, expansion perpetuates the problem NATO seeks to solve. This sprawl has brought in a motley set of national interests to a body that requires consensus. Would Bulgarians fight for Belgium if it were attacked? Or, as Macron ponders, if Syria decides to retaliate against Turkey, will we commit ourselves under [Article 5]?

The real danger of an alliance with neither a clear purpose nor a clear adversary is its tendency to unnecessarily provoke citizens of nonallied countries. As Michael OHanlon at the Brookings Institution has pointed out, Russians see a psychologically and politically imposing former enemy that has approached right up to their border. NATO has strengthened autocracy and weakened democracy movements in and around Russia.

This was utterly foreseeable. In fact, it was foreseen by the man whose policy of containment helped to defeat Soviet communism. In 1998, at 94 years old, George Kennan spotted the perversity of expanding NATO when, he said, Russias democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, as any of these countries weve just signed up to defend from Russia. Kennan predicted, Of course, there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are. In a sense, his prophecy has come true.

If the Russian military is not the nemesis of the 29 NATO member countries, then who or what is? In a news conference with Stoltenberg on Thursday, Macron ventured it was terrorism, not Russia or China. This isnt so far-fetched: The only time any member country invoked Article 5 was when the United States did so after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But Macrons comment quickly led to derision from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who suggested Macron doesnt know what the fight against terror is and should have his own brain death checked out first. In a case of badly entangled alliances, Erdogan is annoyed because French troops are in Syria working with Kurdish forces that Turkey considers terrorists, while Turkey is striking a deal with Russia on controlling parts of Syria that were once patrolled by the United States.

NATO has a proud history and could yet have a productive future. But it must seek a new purpose that Americansand the citizens of other member statescan get behind. And it must heed Ismays call to use the kind of clear language that is only achievable with clear purpose. Only then will it be more than an alliance in search of both a mission and an adversary.

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Opinion | Its Not Just Trump. The American People Are Skeptical of NATO, Too. - Politico

Jilted Trump Announces Formation Of Cooler, Way More Powerful NATO With His New Best Friends Oman, Macedonia, And Suriname – The Onion

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LONDONIn response to the covertly recorded footage of European leaders mocking the U.S. president, a jilted Donald Trump announced Wednesday the official formation of a cooler, way more powerful NATO with his new best friends Oman, Macedonia, and Suriname. We are going to have so much fun without you losers, said the U.S. commander in chief of the impromptu new intergovernmental alliance he formed after proclaiming that the old NATO is stupid, explaining that he had already poured billions of dollars of funding into the collective to ensure they have the best summit ever. France and Canada think theyre so cool, but we could totally destroy them in a fight. I already met with Qaboos, Stevo, and Dsi, and were gonna get matching satin jackets and theyre gonna look sick. At press time, Trump was already threatening to pull out of his newly formed alliance after accusing its members of not paying their fair share of the budget.

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Jilted Trump Announces Formation Of Cooler, Way More Powerful NATO With His New Best Friends Oman, Macedonia, And Suriname - The Onion

Theres No Excuse for NATO Allies Not Meeting That 2 Percent Threshold – National Review

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A general view during the NATO leaders summit in Watford, England, December 4, 2019. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

With the NATO summit wrapping up, President Trump continues to complain, accurately, that some allies like Canada are not spending 2 percent of their GDP on national defense, as the alliance requests of its members.

Theres really no good excuse for any member nation failing to hit that 2 percent threshold. In the most current report from NATO, the United States spends 3.42 percent, Bulgaria spends 3.25 percent, Greece spends 2.28 percent, the U.K. and Estonia both spend 2.14 percent, Lituanias at 2.03 percent, Latvias at 2.01 percent, and Poland hit 2 percent on the dot. A bunch of NATO members are just below the threshold Turkeys at 1.89 percent, France is at 1.84, and Norway is at 1.8 percent.

Fifteen NATO members are below 1.8 percent; Canada is at 1.31 percent. The real stragglers are Belgium (.93 percent), Spain (.92 percent), and Luxembourg (.56 percent). The Luxembourg Army has a strength of approximately 430 professional soldiers, and a population of about 600,000 people.

What makes the low percentages particularly infuriating is that NATO allows countries to define military spending pretty broadly. A NATO country doesnt have to spend more on fighter jets and tanks to hit that threshold; the alliance guideline is to spend 20 percent of the military budget on equipment.

If a country wants to spend more beefing up its capabilities in search-and-rescue or disaster response, or radar systems that would help with civilian air traffic control as well, they can do that. If a countrys national police, gendarmerie, carabinieri, coast guard are trained in military tactics, are equipped as a military force, can operate under direct military authority in deployed operations, and can, realistically, be deployed outside national territory in support of a military force, then they count as military spending, too.

Lets say youre a left-leaning European government that thinks guns are icky but likes spending more on government. Pay raises for military personnel and their pension systems counts as military spending! Ammunition for training, petroleum products, spare parts, rents, engineering equipment, transport vehicles, research and development . . . all of that counts towards a countrys military spending under NATO rules. Come on, guys. Just a little effort, and you would leave the president with a lot less to complain about.

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Theres No Excuse for NATO Allies Not Meeting That 2 Percent Threshold - National Review

Libya and the Future of NATO – Forbes

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France's President Emmanuel Macron addresses members of the media as he leaves from 10 Downing ... [+] Street, central London on December 3, 2019, after meeting with Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other heads of State, ahead of the NATO alliance summit. - NATO leaders gather Tuesday for a summit to mark the alliance's 70th anniversary but with leaders feuding and name-calling over money and strategy, the mood is far from festive. (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / various sources / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images)

By Ethan Chorin and Dirk Vandewalle

French President Emmanuel Macron struck a raw nerve last weekby calling NATO brain dead and urging its membership not to rely on the United Sates fordirection (which in any case is unlikely to come soon).Macrons comments followed President Trumps sudden and unilateral decision to remove U.S. troops from the Syrian-Turkish border, which allowed Turkey a NATO member to overwhelm Syrian Kurds, key Western allies in the fight against ISIS.

While Turkish actions in Syria are of immediate concern,Libya should be at the forefront of discussions at the current NATO Summit in London.For what happens next in Libya is immediately relevant to core NATO interests including combatting terrorism, addressing Europes migrant crisis, curbing Russianopportunism in the Middle East, and assuring the long-term viability of the Alliance itself.

Libya has been in turmoil since the NATO-led intervention in March 2011 that ousted Libya's nearly 42-year dictator Muammar Gaddafi. In launching Operation Unified Protector, NATO and the U.S. appealed to an aspirational international humanitarian norm, the Responsibly to Protect (R2P).Many then hoped that Libya would be a bright spot among the Arab Revolutions. But the hands-off approach by the U.S. and NATO encouraged states like Turkey and Qatar to steer national elections in Libya in favor of parochial groups and Islamist minorities.This development, once it was apparent, was deeply opposed by most Libyans, who were powerless to stop it.This was the immediate context for the September 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, drove the West out of Benghazi, and facilitated the citys takeover by Al Qaeda and then, the Islamic State.

Promising to deliver Benghazi from Islamic extremists, former Gaddafi-era general Khalifa Heftar created the Libyan National Army, which through a bloody war of attrition freed Benghazi from the ISIS-Al Qaeda grip in 2016. Although Heftars actions were popular within large parts of Libya, the international communityhas spurned Heftar as yet another authoritarian strongman and backed a U.N.-built political agreement, which arbitrarily took authority from an elected government and put it in the hands of an unelected, and still unratified body, hoping it would rubber-stamp Western air attacks on the emergent Libyan franchise oftheIslamic State, and solve the migrant issue.It did neither:U.S. strikes were largely ineffective,andthe refugee crisis eased only when Italy paid human traffickers operating in theshadow of the Tripoli government to keep migrants in Libya, under appalling conditions.

More recentlyHeftar and the LNA have taken the fight from Benghazi and Libyas East to Libyas capital of Tripoli, where they are waging another war of attrition to break the militia stranglehold.And here is where the extent of internal NATO discord is most obvious: France is widely seen to back Heftar; Turkey hasramped up efforts to back the Tripoli militias againstHeftar, while the U.N. continues to call for an unconditional cease fire that would allowthe militias toregroup.A number of Arab states, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, form a pro-Heftar front. As in Syria, it is unclear where the United States stands, as House Democrats, with some Republican support, have recently put forward a hodgepodge Libya bill that smells more like partisan politics (opposing President Trumps apparent recent nods to Heftar), than coherent policy. Meanwhile, Russia and radical groups continue to exploit the power vacuum to advance their own interests.

The authorswarned at the start of the conflict in 2012 that NATO would have to deal with the Gordian knot of the Libyan militias sooner or later.And while many in the West realize it, few are willing to state the obvious: Heftar has been doing NATOs dirty work.Turning a blind eye to this reality, now as in the past, carries significant risks:if Heftar manages to take control of Libya, the popular assumption will be that this was the Wests preferred outcome all along, and NATO and the West will have limited leverage over what comes next.

Heftar has done his part to keep Libya from one side of the abyss, but Libyans are unlikely to acquiesce to a Sisi-like rule after years of bloody internal conflict. Nor is it clear what exactly Heftars end game is:So far, he has deferred to Libyas elected government-in-exile, and insists that he will hand over control to a civilian government once Libya has been stabilized. He must be held to these commitments.Waiting encourages events on the ground to dictate larger outcomes.

Within this chaos, and assuming NATO is capable of projecting a unified front (indeed, this was the essence of Macron's challenge), NATO has an unconventional opportunity toleverage Heftars momentum to stabilize Libya, address themigrant crisis, and dealwith terrorism and Russian expansionismwithout creating new fissures.

The first step would be to put strong and specific conditions on Heftars advance.NATO could, forexample, offer to broker and enforce a cease-fire that provided combatants on all sides safe passage and immunity from all but war crimes, but in return for immediate disarmament.It should censure Turkey for its destructive actions in both Syria and Libya, and prevent the additional flow of arms and fighters into the country.And it should help Libya form an interim, technocratic government, pending a new nationalelection and in accordance with a provisional constitution (a quasi-internal consensus seems tohave emerged regarding therelevance of the country's 1963 Federalist constitution to alonger term process of national integration and reconciliation).This would have the added benefit of effectively ending, once and for all, the fiction that the United Nations Government of National Accord (GNA) is a viableframework for solving Libya's ills.Further,NATO should help safeguard Libyas oil and gas resources, crucial to both Libyas and Europes economic well-being, and encourage regional states to invest in the diversification of Libya's regional economies intoareas like maritime services, tourism and medical infrastructure.

Collectively, these measures constitute a much-belated application of the Responsibility to Rebuild (R2R), which in original formulations was seen as an indispensable component to any R2P intervention.

Despite its current identity crisis, NATO may be the only organization still able to make this happen, just as it was the only organization judged capable of managing acomplex, multi-partymilitary response to Gaddafi in the first place.And paradoxically, by working through the obstacles to a unified position on Libya, NATO may be reminded of its raison d'tre, while its traditional lead, the United States, works out its own internal divisions.

Ethan Chorin is a former U.S. diplomat posted to Libya and author of Exit the Colonel: The Hidden History of the Libyan Revolution. Dirk Vandewalle is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and author of A Modern History of Libya.

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Libya and the Future of NATO - Forbes

Trump re-election could sound death knell for Nato, allies fear – The Guardian

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Donald Trump arrived in the UK to meet Nato allies who are fearful that he could pose a serious threat to the survival of the alliance if he wins re-election next year.

Days before Wednesdays leaders meeting just outside London to mark Natos 70th anniversary, the US announced it was cutting its contribution to joint Nato projects.

Nato officials say the cut (which reduces the US contribution to equivalence with Germanys) was mutually agreed, but it comes against a backdrop of Trumps longstanding ambivalence about the value of the alliance, and suggestions that US security guarantees to allied nations were dependent on their military spending.

John Bolton, Trumps national security adviser until September, heightened fears among allies about the presidents intentions in a private speech to a hedge fund last month, in which Bolton (according to a NBC report) warned that Trump could go full isolationist if he wins re-election next November, withdrawing from Nato and other international alliances.

Trump has continually complained about the defence spending of European allies who committed less than the agreed 2% to defence, particularly Germany. And he has cast doubt on US commitment to its obligations under article 5 of Natos founding document, the Washington Treaty, under which an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all allies.

What is Nato?

TheNorth Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) is a collective defence alliance between 29 North American and European countries. Founded in 1949, the treaty provides that if one country is attacked, all Nato members would collectively respond. Nato was set up to counter the threat of the Soviet Union.

The 12 founding members were: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom and the United States.

Over the years the organisation has expanded to itscurrent membership of 29. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, North Macedonia and Ukraine are recognised as states with aspirations to join.

Why is it meeting in London?

This week's summit marks a celebration of the 70th anniversary of the organisation. London was chosen partly because it was the location of the original headquarters of the organisation when it was founded.

What is on the agenda?

During the two-day gathering there will be addresses by the Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, a formal reception at Buckingham Palace hosted by the Queen, and a meeting of the North Atlantic Council attended by heads of state and government. The agenda features discussions about Russia, China and the future of arms control. There will also be a series of bilateral meetings between leaders - the most testing of which are likely to feature Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoan looking for support for his country's recent incursion into Syria.

What's the context?

Infighting is a major issue. For the third summit in a row, Donald Trump is expected to renew demands that European allies and Canada step up defence spending. He is also unhappy with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, over a tax on American tech giants including Google, Amazon and Facebook.

For his part Macron has lamented Nato's "brain death" due to a lack of US leadership, and said the organisation needs a wake-up call. He insists that strategic questions must be addressed, like improving ties with Russia and how to handle an unpredictable ally like Turkey.

In turn, Erdoan has lashed out at Macron. Their very public argument bodes ill for the summit, which is being hosted by the British prime minister, Boris Johnson. Johnson will want who to smooth things over and downplay any links to Trump, who is unpopular in the UK.

Before leaving Washington on Monday, Trump repeated his complaint about other countries that we protect, that werent paying.

They were delinquent. So well be talking about that, he told reporters, though he noted that allies were now spending $130bn more than before he took office, a development he took credit for.

Tweeting from Air Force One on the way to the UK, Trump declared: In the 3 decades before my election, NATO spending declined by two-thirds, and only 3 other NATO members were meeting their financial obligations. Since I took office, the number of NATO allies fulfilling their obligations more than DOUBLED, and NATO spending increased by $130B!

In fact the number of allies meeting the 2% commitment has tripled to nine since 2016, though some of that increase was already planned and Russian aggression in Ukraine is also an important factor.

Air Force One touched down at London Stansted just before 10pm.

A European diplomat in Washington pointed out that under the Trump administration, the US military presence on the alliances eastern flank has been stepped up, but expressed concern that such reinforcements were driven by other administration officials seeking to compensate for Trumps personal affinity for Vladimir Putin and his denigration of his European allies.

The greatest fear is what he would do in a second term. He would be more free from constraints, the diplomat said, adding that he was under pressure from his capital to assess what a second Trump term would look like. It is impossible to predict, he said.

Trump last year publicly called into question whether the US would intervene in defence of the newest member, Montenegro, under article 5. In an July 2018 interview, Trump described Montenegrins as very aggressive people and expressed concern they would somehow drag the US into a conflict and congratulations, youre in World War III.

The New York Times has reported that Trump has said privately several times that he would like to withdraw from Nato.

I think what Bolton says resonates with people because it is something that has worried people since Trump took office and there is concern that he would feel less constrained in a second term, and could actually do something, said Amanda Sloat, a former senior state department official now at the Brookings Institution.

Given that you have someone who was working very closely with the president over the last year expressing that concern himself, I think it is bringing back to the fore the possibility that this is something that could happen in a Trump second term.

Susan Rice, national security adviser in the Obama administration, said that congressional Republicans would step in to prevent Trump pulling the US out of Nato, but she expressed concern about the long-term draining effect of Trumps ambivalence on Nato cohesion.

I still do think that Congress would throw its body in the way of a move to withdraw from Nato, Rice told the Guardian. But, you know, Congress has surprised me in the recent past, by its inability or unwillingness to challenge Trump. What I think is more likely is this continued erosion of confidence in our leadership within Nato, and more efforts that call into question our commitment, and more signals to the authoritarians within Nato and Russia itself that this whole institution is vulnerable.

Its hard to envision the United States withdrawing from Nato, but I could see it suffering a death by a thousand cuts, Rice said.

Natos secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has credited the $130bn in increased defence spending by Nato allies to Trump. In a further effort to appease the US president, Stoltenberg has also brokered a deal by which the US contribution the Nato common funding for shared projects, was reduced from 22% of the roughly $2.5bn total to just over 16%, in line with the share paid by Germany, which has a significantly smaller economy.

Other countries are supposed to make up for the consequent shortfall, but France is reportedly refusing to contribute more on grounds that the redistribution represents pandering to Trump.

Its actually a very small budget within the Nato context, said Rachel Ellehuus, deputy director of the Europe programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.

So its largely symbolic that the US is cutting its contribution. But the US administration was very clear that we wanted to have our share of common funding more in line with what Germany was paying.

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Trump re-election could sound death knell for Nato, allies fear - The Guardian

Tensions Between Russia and NATO Have Militarized Eastern Europe. But Belarus Is Charting a Different Course. – Foreign Policy

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Last month, in an interview with the Economist, French President Emmanuel Macron lamented the brain death of NATO. His statement went viral. He was not the first Western leader to comment publicly on the North Atlantic alliances problems, but his questioning of NATOs commitment to collective defensethe cornerstone of the organizationindicated serious trouble. Numerous Western officials were quick to repudiate Macrons words, but the unfolding discussion only emphasized that NATO faces perhaps its most intense challenges since its inception in 1949.

For some observers, NATOs internal turmoil is a dangerous gift to Russia, a country with which the alliance has had a particularly strained relationship since 2014. No wonder that a spokesman from Russias Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, praised Macrons statement as golden words. Yet both Western condemnation of Macrons remarks and Russias happy reaction neglect a possibly more worrisome future.

Over the last few years, Russia and NATO have been caught in something of a security trap, where neither trusts the others intentions and thus tries to build up more military power to deter its rival. Although both think of their actions as defensive, their enemy sees pure aggressionand the cycle dangerously repeats.

For simple reasons of geography, Eastern Europe, which lies between Russia and NATO, has become the epicenter of this unfolding security dilemma, which has resulted in increasingly dangerous militarization. Russian exercises in the Baltic Sea, for example near the Karlskrona Naval Base in Sweden, are an indicator of Moscows plan to expand its influence over the states of the former Soviet Union and beyond.

Macrons public questioning of the alliances commitment to collective defense will only exacerbate the sense of uncertainty along NATOs eastern flank. Countries there may believe they have no choice but to do more about their own defense. In particular, they may look beyond NATO to Washington. Poland has already done as much in its attempt to secure a Fort Trump, including a permanent U.S. military presence, within its borders. Other countries appear ready to follow suit.

Meanwhile, by mid-2018, NATO and the United States had placed around 4,500 soldiers in the three Baltic states and Poland, as well as several thousand armored troops in Eastern Europe to prevent Russian aggression. That will also raise the stakes for Russia, which would surely see any increased buildup as an act of aggression.

The short- to medium-term repercussions are easy to predict. They will include more tensions inside NATO and inevitable counteractions from Russia. Those will, in turn, prompt ever more Western presence on the ground. No country will be left feeling more secure. Another worry is that a stronger NATO commitment to an ally would make that ally behave more aggressively than it would otherwise. In the longer term, the security dilemma could throw the region and the entire Euro-Atlantic space into danger.

It will be difficult to reverse Eastern Europes security dilemma. Doing so would require the Western countries and Russia sitting down together and striking a grand bargain on numerous issues such as sanctions, an arms control framework, and Ukraine, which currently appear unresolvable. A more realistic solution would be to find ways to make the twists and turns of Eastern European security more predictable. And here, Belarus is key.

For a long time, Belarus has been disregarded in the West as Europes last dictatorship, languishing in Russias geopolitical backyard. Although the countrys domestic politics are troubling, its recent foreign and security policies show a lot of potential for Belarus to play a stabilizing role in Eastern Europe.

In the wake of Russias invasion of Crimea in 2014 and fighting in the Donbass, Belarus took an emphatically neutral stance between Russia and the West. It even became a venue for the peace talks that saw the two Minsk agreements concluded in 2014 and 2015. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europes Trilateral Contact Group (including representatives of the OSCE, Russia, and Ukraine) convenes there every second week. And at a Minsk Dialogue Forum on regional security in October, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko pledged to make the country a success story of European security and asked key global and regional actors for help.

Belarus remains a Russian ally, of course, and in a military conflict, it would side with Moscow. But it is also ready to do everything possible to prevent such a war from starting and alleviate regional tensions. We are on the front line. If we dont survive these years, if we will fail, it means we will have to become part of some other state, or they will simply wipe their feet on us. God forbid they unleash another war, like in Ukraine, Lukashenko said in the summer of 2018.

Because of its desire to head off the fighting, Belarus has refused to host a Russian air base, which Moscow sees as crucial in responding to NATOs growing presence on its western flank. Minsk has also gone a long way in improving relations with both the United States and the European Union, and it has expressed readiness for direct dialogue with NATO.

Most importantly, Belarus has a unique network of bilateral, military-to-military agreements with its neighbors. It has agreements with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland (all NATO members) for regional confidence and security-building measures. With Ukraine, Minsk has an even stronger agreement on security cooperation.

Such agreements, long dismissed as window dressing, have become uniquely practical tools since 2014. The agreement with Kiev proved highly important in easing Ukrainian concerns that Belarusian territory could be used to launch a Russian attack, and agreements with NATO member states are becoming particularly useful in light of the upcoming Defender Europe 2020 exercises.

On the basis of these documents, Belarus could serve as a geographic cushion between NATO and Russia, protecting the two against miscalculation. As Belarus seeks better relations with the EU and the United States, Western actors should encourage bilateral and multilateral engagement with Minsk. Belaruss willingness to act more independently between East and West has grown, and questions about Belaruss sovereignty are at the heart of this determination.

Belarus will not solve the fundamental problems between Russia and NATO, nor will it ease growing differences inside the North American alliance itself. Yet it could help tame the security dilemmaand given todays climate, anything that prevents escalation would be welcome.

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Tensions Between Russia and NATO Have Militarized Eastern Europe. But Belarus Is Charting a Different Course. - Foreign Policy

NATO is defined by its successnot its tensions – Atlantic Council

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UK Secretary of State for Defence Ben Wallace speaks at the NATO Engages event in London, United Kingdom on December 3, 2019. (Sarah Halls)

While international headlines have focused on high-profile disputes within the NATO alliance over a litany of issues including defense spending, trade, Syria, and Brexit, transatlantic leaders stressed on December 3 that these disagreements are dwarfed by the continued success of the seventy-year-old alliance.

Our alliance has always risen to whatever challenge is being thrown at it, UK Secretary of State for Defense Ben Wallace said on December 3, as transatlantic leaders gathered in London to mark seventy years of NATO and chart a new course for the organization. Speaking at the NATO Engages townhall event co-hosted by the Atlantic Council, Wallace highlighted NATOs quick response to Russias illegal annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine as an example of the Alliances ability to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. We have adapted again to reinvigorate our deterrence and our defense, with enhanced forward presence, rapid reaction, and higher readiness, he explained.

Polish President Andrzej Duda agreed, labeling the establishment of NATO presence in the Eastern flank as the most important NATO accomplishment of the last few years. By reacting quickly to Russias aggression in the regionincluding sending more troops to the frontline Baltic states and Poland, and stepping up joint surveillance and monitoring activitiesNATO has shown that it is alive, the Polish president argued. If NATO is really an organization without purpose, as some commentators have suggested, why, Wallace asked, do our adversaries put so much effort in destabilizing our alliance?

NATOs accomplishments have often been overshadowed by significant disagreement within the Alliance over the last few years. US President Donald J. Trump has consistently criticized NATO allies for not spending enough on defense, while Turkey has angered its NATO partners by purchasing an air defense system from Russia and launching a combat operation in northeastern Syria. But Duda, who joined Prime Minister of North Macedonia Zoran Zaev in a session at NATO Engages on December 3, argued that these tensions are only natural because NATO is an alliance of almost thirty countries and there are many interests. Despite the political disagreements, he assured the audience that Europe sees the Euro-Atlantic Alliance [as] one of the crucial elements of our stabilityand our security.

While his country has been primarily focused on the threat from Russia, Duda stressed that Poland is ready to fulfill all our duties and responsibilities as a NATO member, and assist its allies in protecting their citizens security from threats wherever they originate. I believe in 360-degree policy, he maintained. The eastern flankis not the only problem, and NATO should also look at the southern flank to address instability in North Africa and the Middle East which threatens many NATO countries with refugee flows and fuels terrorism. Although member states may debate the priority of these challenges and the best way to meet them, Wallace explained that alliance unity should never be endangered, because our comparative advantage over our competitors has always hinged on our togetherness.

When event moderator Stephen Sackur of BBCs HARDTalk questioned whether all member states still see the Alliance as effective in the 21st century, Zaev argued that the example of his countrywhich is set to become the thirtieth member of the Allianceshows that the power of attraction to NATO remains really big. The fact that his country was willing to change its name as part of a deal with Greece to open the door to NATO accession, Zaev explained, demonstrates that the Alliance is still viewed as a success by its neighbors and that its historical role of preserving peace in Europe and abroad means that temporary disagreements will never cause a member of the family to walk away. Every member country will never forget the reasons for [NATO], he argued. NATO must be prepared for new challenges, he added, but I dont think something big will happen with someone going out of NATO.

Looking ahead

While the Alliance is faster, fitter, and fairer than it has ever been, Wallace said, we will have to keep changing and adapting to tomorrows challenges, which will be the focus of the NATO Leaders Meeting on December 4. Wallace stressed that NATO countries must continue to increase investment in both our conventional forces, which are so important to effective deterrence, and in those new capabilities needed to address the challenges that lie ahead. Allies will also need to innovate, as maintaining our technological edge is the only way we can avoid obsolescence and deliver on our most important pledge: keeping our people safe, Wallace argued. NATO will also need to consistently be on the hunt for the next geopolitical disruptors, such as demographic shifts or climate change or the next technological advancement that changes the rules of the game completely.

NATO leaders will help support these goals on December 4, Wallace reported, by agreeing a plan for NATOs response to emerging and disruptive technologies, recognizing two new operational domains in space and cyberspace, and developing plans to confront and deter hybrid tactics.

Despite the litany of internal disagreements and this growing array of new threats, Duda was confident that NATO will be up to the task in the 21st century, as its history and recent activity have shown it consistently effective in meeting the challenges thrown its way. We have many threats around, Duda said, and we have answered [them].

David A. Wemer is associate director, editorial at the Atlantic Council. Follow him on Twitter @DavidAWemer.

Thu, Nov 14, 2019

Edward Ferguson, minister counsellor for defense at the Embassy of the United Kingdom in the United States, said that the Alliance is setting an ambitious agenda for the summit to show that NATO as a septuagenarian is as fit and virile as ever and to highlight the progress we have made in adapting NATOs deterrence and defense since the 2014 Wales Summit.

New AtlanticistbyDavid A. Wemer

Mon, Aug 26, 2019

While movement towards 2 percent may seem slow, it is clear that NATO allies are making significant changes to their defense spending.

InfographicbyTransatlantic Security Initiative

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NATO is defined by its successnot its tensions - Atlantic Council

We got students to model NATOs reaction to an earthquake in the Mediterranean here’s what happened – The Conversation UK

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When NATO leaders get together, their meetings tend to follow a familiar script and their gathering in a hotel north of London in early December was no different.

The presidents of France, Turkey and the US engaged in ill-tempered exchanges casting Donald Trump, unusually, as NATOs champion. Meanwhile, NATOs unflappable secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, did his best to talk up the alliances accomplishments: recognition of space as an operational domain, greater attention to Chinas military modernisation, and unprecedented increases in defence spending.

The closing London Declaration, true to form, glossed over allied differences in favour of solidarity, unity and cohesion, noting concrete progress on counter-terrorism, burden-sharing and military readiness.

But if we left the serious business of diplomacy to students rather than politicians would they fare any better?

Once the politicians leave town, it is flexibility and focus that matter. NATO has not survived for 70 years for nothing. Its pragmatic functionalism means the organisation can bend to the changing demands of its members and the fluid and sometimes sudden shifts in the international environment be that the end of the Cold War, war in the Balkans, 9/11, the resurgence of Russian power and, conceivably, even the rise of China.

It is often forgotten that NATO has also played a role in disaster management. Its first such mission flood relief in Belgium and the Netherlands was as long ago as 1953. Since 1998, NATO has operated the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC). Albania, which suffered an earthquake at the end of November, has just requested assistance from that body.

Albanias earthquake has not preoccupied NATO leaders much this week but NATOs agility in emergencies was tested to the limit in a Model NATO summit organised by the British International Studies Association and supported by NATOs Public Diplomacy Division. In a day-long exercise on December 2, 2019, more than 90 students from 15 UK universities met at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to role-play NATOs response to a disaster of unprecedented scale and consequence.

The participating students had been forewarned. In a briefing circulated some weeks earlier, theyd been alerted to the probability of significant seismic activity and the need to mobilise civil and military resources to cope with the consequences.

The crisis updates circulated on the day took the breath away: a massive earthquake in Turkey resulting in tens of thousands of fatalities, a landslip in the Canary Islands sending a tsunami racing across the Atlantic towards north America, and a massive volcanic eruption on the Italian island of Stromboli.

The students rose to the occasion. Representing all NATOs 29 nations (plus incoming ally, North Macedonia), and working through two specialised NATO bodies the Military Committee and the Civil Emergency Planning Committee they agreed a detailed set of actions. Endorsed in a final declaration by NATOs highest authority, the North Atlantic Council, that involved activating the EADRCC, partnering with the EU, the UN and the Red Cross, and mobilising national and joint NATO military assets for the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Of course, all of this was fiction. But the exercise served an important educational purpose. Having been involved in Model NATO events for over a decade, I can think of no better educational tool than simulations and role play for motivating and enthusing students.

These are highly effective in replicating real world phenomena and so convey to students and instructors alike insights unobtainable in traditional classroom settings. Model UN is perhaps the best known example but the European Union, the Arab League and the African Union are also frequently role-played.

Model NATO, meanwhile, has obtained a permanent presence in the educational calendar with simulations being run in Washington DC, Bologna, The Hague and elsewhere. The benefit of such events is not only educational. Preparation for, and involvement in, a model summit can inspire students to embark upon careers and projects in diplomacy, government, the charitable sector and the armed forces.

Politicians make the headlines, but it is the hard work and commitment of staffers, civil servants and, in NATOs case, the military which keep international organisations on the road. Students become politicians but many more will join the ranks of these important professions.

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We got students to model NATOs reaction to an earthquake in the Mediterranean here's what happened - The Conversation UK