Open letter to their Excellencies the gathered
heads of state and government of the NATO nations from the GLOBSEC NATO
Adaptation Team
9 July
2018
Excellencies,
Adapt
our Alliance Now and Together!
NATO is
at a crucial decision point. The
Alliance has made significant progress since 2014 in strengthening deterrence
against a revisionist Russia and countering threats from the south. But continued questions about unequal sharing
of burdens across the Atlantic threaten to erode the unity and common purpose
that are the Alliance's centre of gravity.
It is
political solidarity, now and in the future, that is the true defence against
any and all adversaries. Only then will the Alliance be armed with the
necessary strategic ambition needed to succeed in what is clearly going to be a
challenging century for all of the Allies.
Such ambition will only be realized if it is embedded in a new, more
balanced transatlantic relationship in which the United States continues to
afford its European Allies with the defence guarantee and security support
vital to Europe’s stability, in return for European Allies plus Canada,
conscious of the pressing and changing needs of American and global security,
becoming more able and willing to help meet those needs, as they did in the
wake of 9/11.
Commission
a Strategy Review
The
November 2017 GLOBSEC
NATO Adaptation Report, The
Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance is clear: “To lay the basis for
long-term adaptation, NATO leaders should commission a strategy review at the
July 2018 Summit that could be completed by the seventieth anniversary summit
in 2019, and which might be embodied in a new Strategic Concept. NATO needs a
forward-looking strategy that sets out how NATO will meet the challenges of an
unpredictable and fast-changing world”.
At this
week’s NATO Brussels Summit you will collectively confirm and build upon the
decisions taken at the 2014 Wales and 2016 Warsaw Summits, including a more
robust command structure, enhanced readiness, mobility and reinforcement
capacity, and a new training mission in Iraq as part of a wider
counter-terrorism agenda. You will also reaffirm the Alliance’s long-term
commitment to a Europe whole and free.
However,
much more needs to be done -- and quickly -- if a 360-degree NATO is to be
realized. An essential part of this is ensuring that NATO's European members,
plus Canada, are equipped to shoulder greater responsibility for transatlantic
security as true partners for the United States.
Build a
Twenty-First Century NATO
As NATO
nears its seventieth birthday, the Alliance risks falling behind the pace of
political change and technological developments across the great drivers of
mega-change, including new technologies like cyber and artificial intelligence,
disinformation and other "hybrid" threats, as well as failing states,
violent extremism and uncontrolled migration.
All allies need to take action to meet the pressing need for further
organizational and internal reform to enable a properly agile and modernized Alliance and to better prepare NATO not only to
meet the many technology and affordability challenges
but to master them -- from hybrid warfare to hyperwar.
Strengthen
NATO Defence
Fifty
years ago (December 1967) former Belgian Prime Minister Pierre Harmel delivered
his seminal report to the North Atlantic Council on the Future Tasks of the Alliance. The report called for a new
politico-military foundation to be established based on the equitable sharing
of risk and cost, and the pursuit of a two-track strategy based on preservation
of defence and deterrence on the one hand, and dialogue with Moscow on the
other.
Harmel
affirmed that NATO is and will always remain a defensive alliance. However,
Alliance defence must be sound, credible, well-resourced and proportionate to
the threats the Alliance faces. At the military-strategic level, collective
security and collective defence are merging and growing in both scale and
intensity. To meet that core challenge, NATO must be prepared, fit and able to
act across the seven domains of grand conflict: air, sea, land, cyber, space,
information and knowledge.
The
Harmel Report was of its time but its guiding principles made the peace we
enjoy today. That peace, however, can only be ensured and assured over the
longer term if we confront the threats, both internal and external, that the
transatlantic community faces today. If
NATO were to fail because of short-term political frictions, the loss would not
only be felt by the Allies but by freedom-loving peoples the world over, as
they could no longer rely on this anchor of legitimate security.
Forge a
New Transatlantic Relationship
Therefore, what is needed and what our people are expecting
from you, our leaders is the will to
pursue and achieve a renewed high political consensus and a strengthened
transatlantic covenant. Such a covenant must be based on shared values,
solidarity and a clear purpose for our Alliance in this new and fast-evolving
security environment. As part of such a
noble effort, the European Allies must
properly commit to making a greater leap forward than hitherto for the sake of
their own security and that of all the Allies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Such ambition must be central to and inform the
overarching goal of the new strategy review that we recommend be launched at
the Summit.
Given
the changing strategic context, the primary challenge and responsibility facing
you all at the Summit will be to impart a renewed political purpose and
momentum to the Alliance, in which all twenty-nine Allies commit to do their
part. Credible military capability and
capacity is, of course, vital to meeting such challenges. That can only come if
all Allies fulfil their commitments and share a common vision for the future of
the world’s most important alliance.
Therefore,
the undersigned urge the Heads of State and Government to commission at the
Summit a Strategy Review that will guide Allies and NATO in the reforming
spirit of Harmel, to adapt our Alliance to meet the challenges of the
twenty-first century with confidence and purpose.
At the
Brussels meeting, you will together have the opportunity to afford NATO’s
citizens the strategic reassurance they need and crave from San Francisco to
Vancouver, from Riga to Rome, from Amsterdam to Ankara. Seize that opportunity!
In
wishing you every success at the Summit, we remain
Yours
respectfully,
John R. Allen, General, USMC (Ret.),
Commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 2011-2013
Knud Bartels, General (Ret.), Danish
Chief of Defence Staff 2009-2011, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee
2011-2015
Philip M. Breedlove, General (Ret.) Supreme
Allied Commander, Europe 2013-2016
Ian Brzezinski, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense 2001-2005, Resident Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
Giampaolo di Paola, Admiral (ret.), Chairman
of the NATO Military Committee 2008-2011, Minister of Defence of Italy
2011-2013
Alena Kudzko, Deputy Research Director,
GLOBSEC, Bratislava
Wolf Langheld, General (Ret.), Commander
Allied Joint Forces Headquarters, Brunssum 2010-2012
Julian Lindley-French, Professor, Senior Fellow,
Institute for Statecraft London, Fellow Canadian Global Affairs Institute and
Vice-President, Atlantic Treaty Association 2014-2016
James G. Stavridis, Admiral (Ret.), Dean of
the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Supreme Allied
Commander, Europe 2009-2013
Stefano Stefanini, Ambassador (Ret.), Permanent Representative of Italy to NATO and Diplomatic
Advisor to the President of Italy, Giorgio Napolitano 2007-2010. Non-resident
Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
James J. Townsend, US Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense 2009-2016, Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American
Security
Tomas Valasek, Ambassador (Ret.),
Permanent Representative of Slovakia to NATO 2013-2017, Director of Carnegie
Europe, Brussels
Robert Vass, President, GLOBSEC,
Bratislava
Alexander Vershbow, Ambassador (Ret.), NATO Deputy
Secretary General 2012-2016, US Assistant Secretary of Defense 2009-2012, Ambassador
to NATO, Russia and South Korea 1997-2008, Distinguished Fellow, Atlantic
Council
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