NATO Members Berated by Former US National Security Advisor Bolton

January 3, 2023 Elizabeta Bozinovska Foreign Policy

The former US national security advisor John Bolton has slammed several NATO members for their supposed reluctance to support Ukraine – singling out Germany, France, and Türkiye – in a scathing op-ed in The Telegraph on Monday.

Warning that the weakness within NATO could allow Russian forces to prevail in the war that is still raging in Ukraine, Bolton urged for Western unity against Russia arguing 2023 would be a decisive year for the West to prove how strong its resolve is.

The former US National Security Advisor pointed out that Western unity and resolve are the real issues since neither is guaranteed, pointing to what he called fractures within the bloc, beginning with Türkiye, and suggested even expelling Türkiye from NATO unless it severs ties with Russia.

Bolton wrote in the op-ed that Türkiye’s NATO membership should be at issue should Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan be reelected later this year – which he claims would likely occur through fraud – since the country is one of Russia’s commercial and military partners that have not yet deserted it.

On top of refusing refused to go along with the United States-led retaliatory sanctions campaign against Moscow since Russian troops were sent into Ukraine last February, Ankara has also somewhat limited its military aid to Kyiv despite boasting the second-largest NATO army.

Türkiye has also hosted a series of high-level negotiations last year, remaining largely neutral and seeking to mediate a diplomatic end to the war.

The former US National Security Advisor also criticized Germany, whose pledges to boost military spending to meet NATO requirements – made by its chancellor Olaf Scholz after taking office in 2022- remain in doubt after Germany’s 2023 defense budget turned out to be falling below the previous year’s.

Despite pledging to devote €100 billion for procurement of new weapons and to replace its fleet of aging fighter jets with US-made F-35s, Berlin led by Scholz – who also vowed change in Berlin’s foreign policy- has contracted none of that money as of yet.