NATO’s Report – USA Gov Policy

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has released the alliance’s latest annual report. It clearly reveals the impact Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had on what is frequently described as history’s most successful defensive grouping. It also airs his frustration in dealing with Moscow.

“For more than 30 years, NATO tried to build a partnership with Russia. Despite this, over the past decade, Russia has continuously violated the norms and principles that contributed to a stable and predictable European security order. Russia’s brutal and unlawful war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 has shattered peace and gravely altered the security environment. In light of its hostile policies and actions, NATO cannot consider Russia to be a partner.”

Stoltenberg makes a point that has been all too often ignored when discussing the crisis.

“This war did not start in 2022, it started in 2014, when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and entered eastern Ukraine. Since then, NATO Allies have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and supported its defence and security sector. NATO will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

The Secretary General emphasized the alliance’s timely response, noting that within hours of the current invasion, NATO’s response eventually placed over 40,000 troops in the eastern part of the Alliance, backed by substantial capabilities in the air and at sea. The alliance doubled the number of battlegroups, from four to eight. Additionally, NATO increased its military presence from the Baltic to the Black Sea, on the land, at sea and in the air. Since the invasion, NATO Allies provided around $120 billion of military, humanitarian and financial assistance in 2022. While the United States is the largest single contributor, Europe and Canada provided over half of the overall assistance. Europeans also welcomed almost five million refugees from Ukraine.

Eastern members of the alliance, especially Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have been the most emphatic in the need to respond forcefully to Putin’s aggression.

The alliance’s “New Strategic Concept,” formulated at a meeting in Madrid last year, identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to its security, but also addresses the People’s Republic of China for the first time, and it sets out how it can address other challenges like the ongoing threat of terrorism, as well as cyber, hybrid, and new technologies.

The next major gathering of the group will take place in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in July 2023Stoltenberg expects the allies will agree a new more ambitious defense spending pledge. In a more dangerous world, Allies increasingly see 2% of Gross Domestic Product spent on defense as a floor and not a ceiling. During his tenure, President Trump urged NATO members to increase their defense spending. From 2021 to 2022, defense spending increased by 2.2% in real terms. In total, over the last eight years, this increase added $350 billion for defense. In 2022, seven Allies met the guideline of spending 2% of their Gross Domestic Product on defense. In 2014, only three Allies met the guideline. The United States accounted for 54% of the Allies’ combined GDP and 70% of combined defence expenditure. Total NATO military spending in 2022 was estimated to exceed $1trillion.

Stoltenberg emphasizes that “The new baseline builds on the ongoing military adaptation efforts, including the full and speedy implementation and operationalisation of two high-level military concepts – the Concept for the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area and the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept. The Concept for the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area focuses on force employment to deter and defend today, while the NATO Warfighting Capstone Concept offers a vision to guide the Alliance’s long-term warfare development to remain militarily strong now and in the future.”

Photo: Meeting of the North Atlantic Council at the level of NATO Heads of State and Government during the extraordinary Summit following the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Brussels, Belgium, March 2022. (NATO photo)

Quick Analysis

Judge Merchan continues to deny justice to Donald Trump

In August of 2024, we discussed the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. We described the three tiered system enunciated by Chief Justice Roberts to determine whether or not the actions taken by the President of the United States are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution or not. The first tier are acts within the President’s constitutionally mandated authority which are subject to “absolute immunity.” The next are acts that may have “presumptive immunity,” and are subject to examination with evidence that rebuts the presumption of immunity. The third are acts which are unofficial, and which enjoy no immunity. In September, we also discussed the effect this decision should have on the New York County criminal case currently pending against President-elect Trump before Judge Juan Merchan. We cited to a CNN report, which described the evidence used against Donald Trump at the trial of that matter: “Trump’s lawyers pointed to testimony at trial – including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout – they argued should not have come before the jury…'[a]ll of Hicks’s testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on [Presidential] authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity,’ Trump’s attorneys argued. ‘[the Supreme Court’s ruling] specifically forbids prosecutors from offering ‘testimony’ from a President’s ‘advisers’ for the purpose of ‘probing the official act.’” Sure enough, as Chief Justice Roberts stated in the Presidential Immunity decision, “[a]llowing prosecutors to ask or suggest that the jury probe official acts for which the President is immune would thus raise a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the President’s policies and performance while in office. The prosaic tools on which the Government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former President.” At the time, we stated that “Judge Merchan allowed testimony regarding Donald Trump’s official acts as President, acts which enjoy absolute immunity and which cannot be used against him, or even be entered into evidence in a criminal trial, a situation which could have been avoided had Judge Merchan delayed the trial until he’d received the guidance of the US Supreme Court.” Nonetheless, we predicted that Judge Merchan “will find a way to justify his actions once again, and let stand the unlawful conviction of former President Donald Trump.” You know how much we hate to say we were right…but…we were right. “This Court…finds that the evidence related to the [President-elect’s] claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Judge Merchan wrote in his December 16, 2024 decision. “Further, even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence…as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence.” In so ruling, the Court denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his New York County conviction. Let us examine these findings, in light of the evidence admitted at the President-elect’s trial, and then compare that evidence to the acts granted absolute immunity by the US Supreme Court. In his decision, Judge Merchan discusses the testimony of Hope Hicks, who served as the Communications Director for the Trump White House. “Defendant argues that in her roles at the White House, any communications between Ms. Hicks and Defendant must receive absolute immunity…as Defendant’s ability to speak freely to Ms. Hicks was a core function of the Executive. According to Defendant, because Ms. Hicks wielded executive power on his behalf, authority that exists pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, any communications [President Trump] had with [Hicks] are subject to absolute immunity,” the Court wrote. Judge Merchan also noted that “[t]he People argue that the communications Defendant had with Ms. Hicks…constitute unofficial acts not entitled to any level of immunity.” In his inevitable agreement with the arguments presented by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, Judge Merchan wrote “Defendant’s argument that any communication he had with Ms. Hicks is subject to absolute immunity by virtue of the position she held in the White House is mistaken…the President himself may speak in his unofficial capacity as a candidate or party leader, and certainly he can do so in his private capacity as well. Any argument that private conduct transforms into official conduct by communicating about the same to an individual with a particular title is without merit.” Thus, it is Judge Merchan’s position that the conversations Donald Trump had with his Communications Director are not entitled to immunity, even though those discussions were held at the White House, while Donald Trump was serving as President of the United States, merely because those discussions were not related to official Executive Branch activities. Sounds possibly reasonable – until you examine the Presidential Immunity decision more closely. In September, we wrote that “the statement made by Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion in the Presidential Immunity case [is significant]; ‘Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution…[t]estimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.’” This statement by Chief Justice Roberts points to a blanket immunity for ANY discussions had between the President and his advisors, regardless of the nature of those communications. Further, we noted that the Supreme Court issued the following warning: “[t]he government…contends that a jury could ‘consider’ evidence concerning the President’s official acts ‘for limited and specified purposes,’ and that such evidence would ‘be admissible.’” In rejecting that argument, Chief Justice Roberts states “[t]hat proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized. It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly – invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution […]