Now in the position of a declining hegemon, the US is attempting more than ever to draw on the resources of its allies, and especially NATO’s European members. Countries like Germany must now ask the crucial question: what path is to be taken? In a multipolar world, it hardly seems advisable to follow a policy of confrontation with great powers. By Sevim Dagdelen
At its Washington summit in July 2024, NATO finally abandoned all formal territorial constraints. It has now mutated into a global military pact, operating largely in accordance with the US’s stated ambitions.
As part of these efforts, the alliance is waging a proxy war against Russia, notably in Ukraine, where, along with massive arms deliveries, NATO’s provision of German and Polish training and command centres and the creation of its own Ukraine mission signal its proliferating commitments. In this war, the US acts as the leading power through the so-called Ramstein group, ignoring Germany’s democratic sovereignty.
China is also now for the first time openly identified as a de facto enemy of NATO. To challenge Beijing, the alliance intends to expand into Asia using bilateral agreements; Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea all were invited to its July summit.
Meanwhile, a third front is emerging in the Middle East, thanks to military aid supplied by NATO’s largest member states, the US, Germany and the UK. Here too, the aim is to assert US hegemony – militarily if need be – and to bolster it geopolitically.
But the critical question is whether NATO is overstretching its capacities in the three-front war it envisages. Inevitably, thoughts have turned to boosting the contributions of the US’s NATO allies, possibly to up to 3 per cent of GDP. For Germany, this would mean an increase in military spending from 90 billion to 135 billion euros annually.
Declining hegemon
Discussions over security policy in the US indicate that Washington’s political elites see themselves in a direct confrontation with China. They likewise evidently oppose the BRICS and similar organizations – that is, those championing a multipolar world, mutual balancing of interests, dialogue and cooperation. Now in the position of a declining hegemon, the US is attempting more than ever to draw on the resources of its allies, and especially NATO’s European members.
This dynamic is conspicuous in the case of Ukraine aid, where Germany especially has taken on a proportion of total support far higher than its GDP-based share in NATO. It is also evident in the general expenditure on NATO; former president Trump ensured that the US and Germany would pay a top a rate jointly, though the US’s GDP is far higher.
The shift within the NATO pact is most noticeable when one examines the US economic warfare to which EU has signed on. Whereas the US benefits from sanctions against Russia and punitive measures against China, German industry in particular is facing ruin. German employees and consumers are bearing the cost of US economic warfare, even as Germany shoulders the main burden of financing NATO’s proxy war.
This strategy is nothing new. Indeed, the Roman Empire once sought to shift onto its allies – especially its client states along its eastern border – the lion’s share of the military expenses for enforcing its interests.
A crisis of legitimacy
NATO and the US face not only overextension, but also a deep crisis of legitimacy. NATO’s image as a defence alliance based on shared values is evidently fading. As a military pact, it has waged wars of aggression in Yugoslavia and Libya, while its leading member has killed around 4.5 million people in its wars over the last 20 years, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute. Yet NATO’s strategy of successive expansion up to Russia’s borders in breach its commitments, along with the NATO-ization of Asia, undermine the myth that it is merely a defensive alliance. As for its values, the West’s unpunished war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan speak for themselves.
Even more striking is the casualness with which the US and NATO ignore the war crimes Netanyahu’s far-right government has committed in Gaza. Despite their occasional throat-clearing, US and NATO officials are preventing a ceasefire there – even after more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, half of whom are women and children.
The US and NATO are pursuing geopolitical aims. To be limited to defensive measures alone, or to be constrained by international law and its associated principles would contradict this reality in practice.
Defending sovereignty
Many countries now find that BRICS membership is particularly attractive, as it appears to be the sole means by which one may defend one’s sovereignty against US encroachments. Conversely, submitting to US hegemony and its institutions, namely the World Bank and the IMF, is often regarded as exacerbating domestic social ills and undermining self-determination.
Countries like Germany must now ask the crucial question: what path is to be taken? In a multipolar world, it hardly seems advisable to follow a policy of confrontation with great powers. Those who do so, like German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, will eventually find themselves ridiculed worldwide and advised to head straight to Washington.
In retrospect, former chancellor Willy Brandt’s policy of détente not only improved people’s lives, but, by likewise improving relations with a major eastern power, brought gains in sovereignty vis-à-vis the US; this in turn was beneficial for Germany’s overall international standing. The obverse prevails today: bellicosity against Russia or China binds Germany to the slightest decision made in Washington, at whatever cost.
Whoever thinks this arrangement confers additional security should recall the US conduct in Afghanistan after 20 years of war there. Since the US pursues only the interests of its large corporations, allies are simply abandoned once they are no longer needed. One need only consider the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, an unprecedented attack on European energy infrastructure. Tank deliveries to Ukraine are another example of the US asserting its own interests at the expense of its allies. It was always understood that with these deliveries, which crossed the red lines it had set for itself, Germany would become a target for retaliation.
The decision to station US missiles in Germany starting in 2026 must also be seen in this context. On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington, the US presented Chancellor Scholz with a joint declaration on the deployment of US cruise and long-range missiles – a plan only made possible by Trump’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty. Such deployments threaten to turn Germany into a nuclear battlefield. There is, simultaneously, a mounting danger of accidental nuclear war, since US hypersonic missiles targeting Russian command centres give no warning.
It is of utmost urgency now to pursue détente so as to end the expansion of the war and gain a greater measure of sovereignty.
Prompted by the current volatile situation, the ‘Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance’ (BSW) has placed the issue of missile deployment at the centre of its state election campaigns in eastern Germany. We intend to send a clear signal of peace in any potential coalition agreement. Because the federal government does not favour diplomacy and negotiations, we want the states to take action in the Bundesrat, as for example in the foreign policy committee, so as to pave the way for a referendum within the next six months, or alongside the upcoming federal elections. That way, the population can express itself directly on such a fundamental matter.
The BSW is determined to push for an end to the war in Ukraine. It takes courage to pursue détente. Those who claim it is no longer possible today should remember how difficult things were when this policy was first introduced, when some remained indifferent to escalation towards world war, probably hoping it wouldn’t affect them.
This article appeared in our latest journal
Sevim Dagdelen is since 2005 member of the German parliament, the Bundestag. She is member in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and foreign policy spokesperson for the party Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance – Reason and Justice (BSW) in the German Bundestag. LeftWord has just published the English edition of her book, ‘NATO: A Reckoning with the Atlantic Alliance’
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Image: 19 March 1970: West German Social Democrat leader Willy Brandt and Willi Stoph of the Socialist Unity Party of meet in Erfert in the German Democratic Republic/ Creative Commons
