NATO under friendly fire as leaders ready for London summit

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO leers will gar in London on Tuesday as world’s biggest military alliance, marking its 70th birthday, battles with one of most confounding of versaries: Itself.

As thousands of troops stand rey along Europe’s eastern flank to deter Russia — reason trans-Atlantic alliance was founded in 1949 — or help keep peace in places like Afghanistan and Kosovo, leers of countries with NATO’s largest armies are wildly taking pot shots at each or.

Before two-day summit, to include receptions at Buckingham Palace and Downing Street plus a working session at a golf resort in outer London, Karen Donfried, president of German Marshall Fund think tank, said 29 NATO allies are approaching this meeting “with a sense of foreboding.”

“Few anticipate a garing that will both unify and stop growing cracks in cohesion. Alliance leers carry responsibility to articulate NATO’s common purpose and ongoing relevance. If y do t, Vlimir Putin will be raising a glass in Moscow to fraught state of alliance at 70,” she said, in reference to Russia’s president.

In recent months, U.S. President Donald Trump has declared that peace is nigh in Afghanistan — NATO’s longest and most costly operation in terms of lives and cash — only to call off talks with Taliban. w, it seems, y are on again. All while, U.S. troop numbers are declining. Or allies are unsure what to make of it.

Last month, he precipitously pulled troops out of rrn Syria. Turkey took that as a green light to launch an invasion that has alarmed its European NATO partners, many alrey struggling with political fallout sparked by arrival of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees via Turkey in 2015.

French President Emmanuel Macron, complaining of a U.S. leership vacuum and sensing an opportunity for France to fill it and boost Europe’s security credentials, has lamented “brain death” of NATO and says allies need “a wake-up call.”

Macron wants strategic talks about where NATO is going, who its versaries really are, how to tackle terrorism, what to do about an unpredictable ally like Turkey, and how to improve relations with Russia, rar than a spend a third summit in self-flllation about Trump’s favorite topic: military spending.

In latest act of political friendly-fire, Turkey accused Macron of supporting terrorism for agreeing to hold talks with a Syrian Kurd politician whom Ankara considers to be part of an extremist group.

“You should get checked wher you’re brain-de,” Erdogan said Friday, in remarks directed at Macron. “Kicking Turkey out of NATO or t, how is that up to you? Do you have authority to make such a decision?”

Meanwhile, Erdogan plans to test a new air defense system, purchased from Russia, that its partners refuse to allow near any NATO military equipment.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in final period of her reign, has played go-between, trying to keep NATO leership train on rails.

From outside, and quite possibly from Kremlin, it looks like a great act of self-harm.

NATO has real wars to fight but its power, and Europe’s security, lies in abilities of allies to deter versaries like Russia and potential ones such as China. That deterrence depends on a balanced mix of military posturing and shows of political resolve by speaking with one voice.

Since Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, NATO has deployed more than 4,000 troops to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to discour furr military venturism by Putin. allies also ended ir post-Cold War budget cuts and stepped up defense spending.

But it is very public infighting among alliance heavyweights that undermines NATO’s security efforts.

“ leers have a responsibility for t undermining deterrence,” said Tomas Valasek, senior fellow at Carnegie Europe think-tank.

“Deterrence is t just about having bombs, bullets, missiles, airplanes or se days cyber geeks you can deploy against versary. Deterrence is also about communicating that we mean it when we say we’re an alliance of 29 and we are rey to respond as 29 when something b happens,” Valasek said.

“Our versaries are constantly looking for chinks in our armor. For cracks or signs of division. God kws re have been plenty of those,” he ded.

On its 70th birthday, NATO’s summit declaration — should it survive hail of friendly fire — will focus on future; issues like new disarmament talks, alliance’s role in , and its policy toward China. Its main challenge today could be surviving its go-it-alone leers.