Is NATO’s Article 5 dead?
10:43 Share

What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95, including prescription lenses, plus scratch-resistant, smudge-resistant, and anti-reflective coatings, and UV protection, and free adjustments for life.

To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com. That's warbyparker.com.

Hi folks, it's Mark from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. As the weather gets warmer, it's time for lighter meals and Whole Foods Market has just what you're looking for with great everyday prices. Look for the yellow low price signs that help you save money without compromising the quality you expect. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the store has any high fructose corn syrup, for example.

Just shop with confidence. Save on the best of spring with great everyday prices at Whole Foods Market.

Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. I'm Alex Dibble, today with Stuart Willey. Faith in the Trump administration's commitment to NATO has been chipped away at in recent weeks after a series of speeches and comments that have startled many and even prompted the incoming German leader to say it's time for Europe to go it alone in security.

But as commentators suggest Vladimir Putin could be emboldened by those worries, the UK Prime Minister has told Parliament it's something he's talked about with Donald Trump.

The President made absolutely clear his commitment to Article 5 of NATO, absolutely clear that he would have our backs because of the relationship between our parties, and agreed that our teams would sit down together to talk through security guarantees. Sir Keir Starmer mentioned there NATO's Article 5, which is generally understood to mean that an attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all, prompting a response from other members.

But given US foreign policy is shifting rapidly, is Article 5 now dead? Our guest today is security consultant Edward Lucas, a senior advisor at the Centre for European Policy Analysis. Edward, is Article 5, first of all, as simple as I've just described? Well, Article 5 of the Atlantic Charter is probably the most cited and least read article

paragraph in the whole of national security discussions. People assume that it's a kind of burglar alarm. You smash the glass and the police come running and protect you. And it really doesn't say that. And if you don't mind, I'm going to read it out.

because it's really worth just listening to the exact words, and I will stress what I think are the most important ones. The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. And consequently, they agree that

that if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the party or parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with other parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

That's the first paragraph of Article 5. Now, the key words in that are such action as it deems necessary. There's no requirement to do anything. It's a permissive clause that gives you the right under international law to respond to an attack on another NATO member. But if you choose to issue a cross-press release, well, that's the action that you've deemed necessary. And you can do that and nobody can criticize you for it.

So plenty of freedom for NATO members to act in almost any way they see fit. Given the mood music coming from the Americans in recent weeks, how worried should we be that those NATO protections are under threat? I think that we are actually now in a post-NATO environment. The key letter in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the A for Atlantic.

I think what we've now really got is the European Treaty Organization, or maybe the Canadians sort of hanging in there,

But the message from the Trump White House is absolutely clear that they do not see it as the duty of the United States to be the main guarantor of European security. Maybe they will act as a backstop in some circumstances. But the message from Secretary of Defense Hegseth and from Trump himself is, guys, you're rich, fix your own shit.

And that's what we need to do. So we're now in an era where we may want to use Article 5 to defend each other here in Europe. And for the European Union members, there's also a clause in the EU constitution which gives the solidarity clause. But the idea that the Americans are going to come to the rescue is basically over.

Edward, under which circumstances do you think Donald Trump still would step in to defend a NATO ally? Well, I think that there's a view in Washington that Eastern Europe is basically...

Russia's sphere of influence. And one person quite close to the Trump camp said to me a few months ago, please tell your friends that if they think the United States will risk nuclear war for a field in southern Lithuania, they're very much mistaken. It's always been a bit of a stretch, to be honest, the idea that the Americans would risk a Soviet or Russian nuclear strike, take out a city, Chicago or something, in order to protect Russia.

countries on the other side of the Atlantic. So to some extent, it's always been a bit of a comforting fiction. We've never tested it. And at least the belief that America might do this was enough to deter the Soviets from any major attack on the West. It kind of worked. But I think that Putin isn't stupid. And what he's actually doing is eroding NATO's defence by nibbling it at the sub-threshold level.

If Putin was to announce in 90 days' time

I'm going to attack, I'm going to seize territory in the Suvalki Gap between Belarus and Kaliningrad, unless you give me a transit corridor across there. That would be kind of perfect. Within 90 days, we might even be able to get our reserves mobilized. And by the time of that deadline, we'd probably be in a position to defend against that ultimatum. But that isn't the way it's happening. What's actually happening is Putin is

conducting numerous pinprick attacks, I would say escalating pinprick attacks against people, against institutions, against infrastructure. And at each point, it's clear we don't really have a response. And that's where our deterrent is being attacked, not at this sort of grand strategic level, although the result is a grand strategic problem. So if Trump is effectively removing the US from its NATO responsibilities...

leaving it just as Europe. We know that's a boost to Russia. What about other adversaries like Iran or even China? This is obviously very good news for the Chinese. They need the West to be divided and distracted so that we don't interfere with their efforts to push their influence in

Latin America, African countries, elsewhere in Asia, so that we don't confront them in the South China Sea when they're technically in this creeping blockade of Taiwan. And of course, their massive influence operations inside Western countries and their economic and technological dominance and so on and so forth. So Xi Jinping is popping champagne corks every time that NATO is in trouble.

There's also big differences of opinion on Iran, and I suspect the Iranian regime will feel the pressure is probably off them a little bit if America and Europe are divided, although Europe hasn't been a huge help on Iran. The odd thing here is the West is still an enormous lump of political, economic and political power. It's 40 trillion people.

GDP, it's a billion people, it's got by far the most attractive living standards and ideas and so on. We are, compared with life under the Chinese Communist Party, West still looks pretty good. And yet, because we're in this sort of civil war within the West, it makes it a lot easier for our adversaries.

Final thoughts, Edward. As the US commitment to European security gets weaker, how far could it go? And I suppose what I'm essentially wondering is, could we get to a stage where not only would the US not step in if another NATO member was attacked, but that they could block or hinder maybe

another NATO ally from using their own weapons, if those weapons, or maybe the technology that makes them work, if they've been supplied by the US. And an example of that would be Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent.

Well, the answer is we don't know. But in theory, Trident hits its target by navigating through the stars. And even Donald Trump can't shift Sirius and the Great Bear. So we probably have a couple of years of more or less independent deterrent. But those missiles need servicing, and they're American missiles. And in much shorter term, there's a real worry now in countries like Norway, Denmark, and

Finland and Poland, who've bought expensive American warplanes and missiles, that these won't work when they need them. Donald Trump's quite capable of saying, I don't want American weapons used in a border skirmish with Russia. What he regards as a border skirmish is an existential fight for survival for countries in the Baltic states or elsewhere in the region.

So I think we are going to see a lot of collapsing order books for the American arms companies, and they will put pressure on Trump and he may reverse course. We're too late. This is a great time to be a European arms manufacturer offering genuinely independent kit that actually does what it says on the tin.

Edward, thank you. That is Security Consultant and Senior Advisor at the Centre for European Policy Analysis, Edward Lucas. For more on how European NATO members are contemplating the American commitment to the alliance, listen back to yesterday's episode named Can Ukraine Survive Without US Military Aid? But for now, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

What makes a great pair of glasses? At Warby Parker, it's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95, including prescription lenses, plus scratch-resistant, smudge-resistant, and anti-reflective coatings, and UV protection, and free adjustments for life.

To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses, or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com. That's warbyparker.com. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.