Are NATO Cohesion and NATO Defence Compatible?

“In all history, this is the first time that an Allied headquarters has been set up in peace, to preserve the peace, and not to wage war”.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Alphen, Netherlands. 18 April. Are NATO Cohesion and NATO Defence compatible? Friday last I had a strange experience. This distinctly VUP – very unimportant person – found himself alone in a posh Alfa Romeo as part of a VVIP (Very, Very Important Person) convoy being driven brilliantly at high speed by an Italian soldier through the streets of Rome. It was the most efficient way to get the NATO Deputy Secretary-General, the impressive Dr Rose Goettemoeller, quickly and securely through the Roman traffic from the hotel to the NATO Defense College where we were both due to speak in the excellent NATO @ 70: No Time to Retire conference. At one point, a short delay, a gentlemen who was waiting to cross the road, looked straight at me and shook his head in disgusted contempt. It was a moment that seemed to capture the zeitgeist of European peoples distinctly at odds with their European elites.

The conference was a success for the NATO Defense College. Not only did the assembled throng take stock of NATO and its seventy years, it also looked forward. After a well-crafted assessment of where NATO is at by the Deputy Secretary-General ‘looking forwards’ was very much my theme. To do that I employed NATO past to shine my light on NATO future.  By invoking past  NATO strategic concepts – the what, why, when, where and how of NATO action – I endeavoured to reinforce the need for a clear and agreed understanding on the part of all the allies about the need to really adapt NATO and its role, utility and purpose in the twenty-first century.  Specifically, and to take up the challenge of Eisenhower, NATO’s first Supreme Allied Command, Europe, I also posed a question - does sufficient political cohesion exist between the allies to mount an effective defence? My sense is no.

Which NATO?

A couple of interventions from two Italian friends, the professional acumen and knowledge of whom I deeply respect, left me profoundly concerned that NATO’s political cohesion is being just about maintained but only at the expense of NATO defence. The first concerned the threat posed by Russia. Russia, I was told, is not threat to the Alliance. Let me put aside the rapid modernisation of the Russian armed forces, the aggressive posture of the Putin regime, the rape of Ukraine-Crimea and Moscow’s systematic application of complex strategic coercion and 5D warfare – disinformation, destabilisation, deception, disruption and implied destruction against many of Europe’s open societies. The simple fact is that Russia has a relatively small, unmodernised economy reliant for too much of its limited wealth on one export to countries that form part of what Moscow has deemed to be its main strategic adversary and which is using too high a proportion of that limited and fluctuating wealth to fund a burgeoning security state – both civilian and military – the burden of which is as much a threat to itself as others. In other words, no-one knows what will happen to Russia in the coming years, least of all President Putin and his team. What IS clear is that on its current policy and strategic trajectory at some point Russia will face a massive political and social crisis. Then what?

The second question concerned me even more. Why is non-defence spending in Europe not included as defence spending?  To be fair, this ‘non-defence spending’, it was implied, is expenditure that contributes to the wider security that Italy and other NATO Mediterranean states must address daily given the threats and challenges it faces from its south. My response was clear; if ‘non-defence’ spending has a proven and demonstrable defence effect then all well and good. For example, investments made in infrastructure to improve military mobility in Europe in a crisis. Rather, the question seemed to imply that if one takes security and defence in the round then Italy is spending enough on defence. It is not.

360 Degrees of what?

NATO’s leaders regularly refer to the creation of a 360 Degree Alliance that can cope with all threats of whatever nature and from whatever direction they come. To achieve such a defence would require a high level of both political and defence cohesion. NATO is making some way towards achieving such a balance. However, given the nature of extant and emerging threats such progress is nothing like fast enough and cohesion nothing like deep enough. Mediterranean NATO wants a very different NATO to eastern and northern European NATO. In such circumstances the danger is that political convenience will be bought at the expense of defence reality.

NATO might be making progress towards balancing ends, ways and means but it is no way near achieving such a balance. For proof see the absurd lengths NATO Europeans and Canada go to justify not spending the 2% GDP on defence of which 20% per annum to be on new equipment. Even some of those NATO nations who claim to spend 2% only do so through creative accounting. Britain’s claim to spend 2% GDP on defence is one of the greatest works of English fiction since Dickens! NATO Europeans are doing little or nothing to confront the revolution in military technology underway and the fundamental threat that does and will pose to the military interoperability with US forces which, in extremis, collective defence will rest upon.   Europe’s strategic vacation is over. And yet, a lot of Europeans are like the schoolkid who at vacation’s end does not want to go back to school.

NATO Europe’s cold turkey reality

Let me state again NATO’s cold turkey reality. The Americans can no longer afford to subsidise Europe’s defence even if Europeans still refuse to recognise America’s changing strategic reality. With Europeans seemingly unable or unwilling to fund their own collective/common defence there is, and there can be no NATO without the Americans. And yet, US armed forces are stretched thin the world over and are likely to become ever more over-stretched. In other words, the Americans will only be able to continue to afford relatively rich Europeans the security and defence guarantee they have enjoyed for seventy years if Europeans become far better effective first responders to the threats that are beginning to squeeze Europe from multiple directions. What will it take for Europeans to wake up and smell this very American coffee?

So, why are Europeans unable to recognise hard reality? Frankly, Europeans have become addicts. They have become addicted to the cheap defence the Americans afford them through NATO. That addiction must come to an end and fast, even if that means Europeans going into some form of cold turkey and defence ‘rehab’ for some time. Thus, the elephant in the NATO at 70 room is that for the Alliance to mount an effective defence and thus preserve the peace to which Eisenhower referred Europeans must also help the Americans preserve peace beyond Europe. First and foremost, that means Europeans far more willing to share the real burdens of preserving the peace in and around Europe itself.

Are NATO cohesion and NATO defence compatible? 

Let me take you back to my line of sight exchange with a disgruntled Italian citizen the other day. The reality is that Europe’s elites will only afford the European people security AND defence at a reasonable degree of risk and cost if a) they agree on the balance that must be struck BETWEEN security and defence; b) a further balance is struck between national security and collective defence; and c) (critically) they begin to treat citizens as adults rather than uneducated peasants and explain honestly to their respective peoples what needs to be done in their name.  The disgust shown by that Italian citizen seemed to imply that the VVIPs momentarily disrupting his Friday morning had no longer earned the right for such privilege. If that is what he was thinking then he has a point. Only Europe’s elites can make the calls necessary to secure and defend Europe and thus earn their status by demonstrably getting to grips with the many dangers Europe faces. In other words, Europe’s elites need to get their collective act together and prove to the people they are performing and not just mouthing self-serving platitudes.

As for my momentary VVIP-ness and my hi-speed, high status drive through Rome, the next morning I found myself back to full on VUP-ness. Mop in hand I cleaned the kitchen floor under the stern command of my Dutch Commander-in-Chiefness. Poorly, I might add, for as ever I missed a bit.

Happy birthday NATO! But, NATO is us and, if we Europeans really want NATO to preserve the peace that Eisenhower set as its challenge, we must all ensure the Alliance CAN secure and defend it.

Julian Lindley-French