The 2019 NATO London Charter

“We, as an Alliance, are facing distinct threats and challenges emanating from all strategic directions…We are adapting our military capabilities, strategy, and plans across the Alliance in line with our 360 degree approach to security”.

London Declaration, December 4, 2019

Arsenal of democracy?

Funny old week, as NATO Heads of State and Government were meeting in Watford at the high-end of the Alliance, I was briefing NATO (and other) senior commanders on power, strategy and future war at the sharp-end.

With commendable brevity NATO’s London Declaration (perhaps the Watford Declaration?) is a masterpiece of British diplomatic drafting. Seventy years of Alliance, European defence expenditure, Russia, China, terrorism, Open Door policy, future war technology, cyber et al were all dispatched in succinct brevity.  Still, the question I am left pondering is thus: given the task-list implicit in the Declaration how does the Alliance get from here to ‘there’, and is Watford a good place to start.

Much has been written about NATO adaptation, and much of it by me. However, the tour d’horizon des menaces implicit in the Declaration suggests that for NATO defence and deterrence to be credible the Alliance needs to be less adapted more transformed if it is to balance the goals established at Wales in 2014, Warsaw in 2016 and Brussels in 2018 with the hard strategic realities of profound and rapid dangerous change faced by the Alliance. Much of that effort must necessarily fall to the European allies. In other words, what the London Declaration is missing is a London Charter.

The 2019 NATO London Charter

Seventy years on from the founding of the Alliance, and in recognition of the service to Europe provided by both Canada and the United States, the European allies propose the 2019 NATO London Charter.  The European allies agree that NATO is first and foremost an institution for the defence of Europe. They also agree that, given the scale of scope of dangerous change, and for the US to maintain its security guarantee to Europe, Europeans will need to do far more to assure and ensure their own defence.  Therefore, Europeans will establish a new defence-strategic level of ambition that re-energises the NATO Washington Treaty with particular emphasis placed on the modernisation of Article 5 collective defence and Article 3 self-defence.

Therefore, the Charter agrees the following actions:

The future defence of the Alliance: The European allies will systematically and collectively engage in the revolution in military affairs underway and properly consider the defence applications of artificial intelligence (AI), machine-learning, big data, et al.

Assessing China: Proper consideration will be given by the European allies to the security implications of the military-strategic rise of China for European defence, with a specific focus on the ability of the Americans to maintain its security guarantee to Europe, as well as the further implications for the Alliance of China’s use of debt to influence NATO members.

Countering Russian coercion: European allies will collectively seek to better understand Russia’s use of complex strategic coercion together with the application by Moscow of 5D warfare against Europeans through disinformation, deception, destabilisation, disruption and destruction.

Reinstating worst-case analysis: European allies will again consider the possibility that the worst-case could one day happen and judge Russia, China, Iran (and others) by the military and other coercive capability capabilities they could use against the Alliance if they so choose.

Building an ACO European Heavy Mobile Force: European allies will actively construct a high-end, fast, first-responder heavy mobile force able to engage across multi-domain warfare by air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge. The Allied Command Operations Heavy Mobile Force will be ready by 2024. It will support front-line Alliance nations in Strategic Direction East and Strategic Direction South, under both Article 3 and Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, thus making the 360 degree Alliance a credible reality.

Restoring high-end development exercises: European allies will design a series of high-end ‘development exercises’ to properly test multi-scenario emergencies that could possibly take place simultaneously in several theatres ranging from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and beyond. Such exercises would be designed to test NATO to the point of failure and also involve senior politicians, including heads of state and government.

Further strengthening the EU-NATO Strategic Partnership: European allies and partners will strengthen the EU-NATO Strategic Partnership recognising the importance of the EU to credible European societal and critical infrastructure resiliency, effective consequence management, and the enhanced mobility of Allied and EU forces in and around Europe.

Greece and Turkey: Turkey is an honoured and important member of the Alliance, as is Greece. However, the European allies cannot accept either Turkish absolutism or Greek exclusionism. The allies will thus make it clear to all concerned that if the essential modernisation of NATO is blocked by regional strategic disputes over oil drilling rights etc, the Allies will seek alternative solutions.

Deconflicting Brexit and NATO: It is vital the UK remains engaged in the future defence of Europe beyond the maritime piece.  However, the European allies also recognise that NATO cannot be isolated from a bad Brexit. Britain is a nuclear power with Europe’s most advanced intelligence services, as well as an effective advanced expeditionary military capability. A close post-Brexit strategic defence and intelligence partnership with the UK will be in jeopardy is the EU and its member-states sought to punish the UK over trade policy for departing the EU.

Promoting harmonised threat assessments: The European allies will seek to harmonise their respective threat assessments and set defence budgets at a level commensurate with the nature and scale of actual threat. To that end, and given the deteriorating strategic environment, European allies will consider the impact of both austerity policies and Eurozone monetary convergence criteria on defence investment and the ability of nations that are both EU and NATO members to meet their obligations under the Defence Investment Pledge.

Creating NDARPA: European allies will create a NATO Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (NDARPA) to inform their collective research and development and inform their future war defence procurement choices.

Making better use and place of Alliance forces and resources: European allies agree that NATO headquarters should be placed where they are needed, not where they are desired, or where it is cheapest. Such headquarters will be re-married with the forces they are designed to command and exercised as such. Command structure and defence planning reform will continue. European allies recognise that the NATO Defence Planning Process needs to be far more rigorous, with possible sanctions for those allies who repeatedly fail their annual reviews. European allies also agree NATO Centres of Excellence must be excellent, not simply consolation prizes for those who did not get headquarters. Such centres must form a NATO Network of Excellence that informs NATO HQ, SHAPE and deployed forces.

Modernising NATO education and training: European allies will seek to modernise NATO’s professional military education with the NATO Defence College in the lead. Particular emphasis will be placed on the development of best practice education and training ‘products’ that can be offered to nations. There will be a focus on the use of new technology in education and training.

Rationalising EDTIB: European allies will seek to create an effective and efficient European defence technological industrial base to meet the requirement of the European Future Force.  Particular attention will be paid to ensuring fielding times for new European defence equipment is vastly improve. 

In conclusion, the European allies fully recognise the debt of gratitude owed to the United States and Canada for their respective contributions to over seventy years of relative European peace.  They also recognise that the sharing of burdens, risks and costs is central to the very ethos of Alliance. Therefore, the European allies formally agree to build European forces of sufficient strength and quality that US forces are never again enfeebled by trying to offset European military weakness.

The strategic rise of China, the continued aggression of Russia, and the threat posed by terrorism demand of all the allies a fundamental re-commitment to the principles of unity of effort and purpose without which there can be no sound defence of Europe. They also recognise that if they fail NATO to could fail and be replaced by coalitions. Such an outcome would critically undermine the efficiency and effectiveness of the Transatlantic Relationship upon which the peace of the world relies.  For Europeans NATO is the arsenal of democracy and is recognised as such.

(It was a nice dream).

Julian Lindley-French