360 Degree NATO?

 December 1^st, 2021

Yesterday, I had the honour of addressing the Riga Security Forum which was a side-event of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Latvia.  My old friend, Ambassador Imants Lietgis, who chaired the session asked me the address the following question:

One of the theses of your book addresses the impact of emerging technologies on future warfare, and the profound implications on European defence. BUT you also had a chapter focussing on Southern Europe and indeed the question of 360 degree Europe? Could you say something more about Europeans needing to reconcile threats beyond Russia?

Thanks for the question, Imants. Central to the thesis in Future War and the Defence of Europe, which is brilliant and very reasonably-priced, is the need to understand the interaction of all the threats Europeans face – strategic, geopolitical, regional, domestic, and technological.  Whilst the Russian threat is central to the thesis of the book a core message is that ALL threats are linked and must be considered in the round.  

INDEED, NATO’s essential challenge in the forthcoming Strategic Concept, the what, where, why, how, with what, with whom and for what end of the Alliance, will be to credibly balance the ends, ways and means of deterrence and defence, with that of security engagement,  outreach and partnership whilst recognising the changing threat and technology landscape. It is a global landscape that is, and will, create such tensions in US foreign, security and defence policy, and stretch American forces to such an extent, that the central tenet of European defence since 1945 should no longer be assumed: that US forces of sufficient strength will always be present in Europe. In other words, Europeans are going to have to do far more for their own security and defence IF the Americans are to maintain their security guarantee to Europe across a full spectrum of missions…and mean it. At the very least, that will mean more European strategic responsibility for the sake of European security and defence and the transatlantic relationship. That is the strategic inflection point we are at.

So, leaving aside Russia let me quickly address three sets of risks, challenges and threats to Europe from elsewhere – MENA, China and Technology.

MENA

First, MENA.  I think it is important to separate regional crises from a wider more systemic challenge apparent in MENA. The challenges and threats to southern Europe are part of globalised systemic change, demographic change, climate change and a mass mega-trend shift of peoples from rural life to urban life and across countries and continents as people become aware of a more secure life elsewhere and many of them seek it, enabled sadly, by growing transnational organised crime networks.  As a privileged migrant myself I understand the motivation. 

However, it is the interaction between systemic change and regional crises which is placing NATO’s south, in particular, on a new front-line of instability and making European societies in general, ever more vulnerable to geopolitical manipulation via 5Ds of perma-warfare—disinformation, deception, destabilization, disruption, and coercion via implied or actual destruction.

Across MENA itself social and political instability has worsened with the emergence of state versus anti-state Salafist Jihadism further exacerbated by COVID-19 with potentially profound implications for southern Europe and the rest of Europe given the dislocation of peoples it is causing, ongoing conflict and suffering, and the dissatisfaction with the established political and economic order in states across Europe’s strategic neighbourhood vital to European interests.

The prospect of a major regional-strategic war is ever present, particularly so given Iran’s hard-line stance over its nuclear programme as evinced by what is happening in Vienna at the moment, and the emergence of regional-strategic blocs in the Middle East, exacerbated by external geopolitical interference.

For Europeans, there is also the constant threat of disrupted energy security, particularly in Libya, which threatens not only to cut off vital oil and gas supplies, but extend Europe’s reliance on, and thus vulnerability to, Russian influence and coercion.

China

The rise of China is the biggest single geopolitical change factor to impact Europe’s defence since 1945 and whilst the US has long been a ‘European’ actor; China is fast becoming one. China is also a Jekyll and Hyde power — both constructive and invasive. COVID-19 has revealed the extent to which China seeks to exploit globalization, or what I call Chinaization (ghastly phrase I know), to impose its will and that is, indeed, Beijing’s longer-term aim. The CCP are nothing if not control freaks.

China’s threat to Europe is indirect at present but its impact on Europe’s future defence could well be as profound as Russia’s post-COVID-19 if wolf-warrior diplomacy and debt diplomacy are combined to ill effect. This is particularly the case in Southern and parts of Eastern Europe where Chinese (and I might add Russian) money are having an effect, particularly in the Balkans and parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.  The Belt and Road Initiative and the indebtedness of many European states already enables China to exert its influence and could over time begin to threaten the very functioning of  the EU, NATO, and the transatlantic relationship if states are effectively bought.

Technology

And then there is technology, and the changing character and conduct of warfare that NATO and the European Allies in particular must grip.   If deterrence is to work Europe’s future defence will need to be credible in all potential worst cases, chronic US over-stretch, and the application of emerging and disruptive technologies in the battlespace.  ALL NATO Europeans, indeed all Europeans, will need by 2030 a defence posture that reaches from sea-bed to space, from open space to urban space warfare and across the multi-domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge.  

That, in turn, will demand a new concept of European deterrence, defence and security that is credible in the minds of allies and adversaries alike, both Great Power Competitors and Terrorist Groups, and across the mosaic of hybrid, cyber and hyper war that will be the essence of the simultaneous totality of future war. 

A host of new partnerships will also be needed if the new defence is to be both capable and affordable, underpinned by a radical strategic public-private sector partnership that leverages emerging and disruptive technologies and the introduction into the order of battle from Artificial Intelligence and hypersonic missile technologies to super/quantum-computing, Nano engineering et al.  

The test of seriousness?  Irrespective of US policy choices the beating military heart of Europe’s future war defence will need to be European; a new US interoperable, high-end, first responder NATO European future force capable of sufficient manoeuvre that it can reinforce deterrence and of sufficient capacity/mass to support front-line states in the south in the face of systemic instability.

In The Alphen Group’s just completed NATO Shadow Strategic Concept, which will be published in January by several think-tanks, we call it the AMHF or Allied Command Operations Heavy Mobile Force (AMHF). The AMHF would build on the NATO Readiness Initiative and would be EU-available, at the core of the new comprehensive European security and defence concept, and underpin the NATO 2030 Agenda. It would also help strengthen the transatlantic relationship through more equitable burden sharing of both cost and risk. Crucially, it would afford Europeans more strategic responsibility within the Alliance framework, and strengthen the all-important NATO-EU strategic partnership.

To conclude, seven lines of Allied strategy will be needed to deter hydra-headed future war:      management of Russia through defence and dialogue;  the purposeful balancing of post-COVID-19 human security and national defence costs; the re-establishment of European strategic realism and responsibility via a genuine NATO–EU strategic partnership that is built on the twin pillars of defensive power projection and resilience; the building of a radical cross-border strategic public–private partnership that can properly harness emerging and disruptive technologies; a willingness to see security and defence both in the round and in full across the Euro-Atlantic community; recognition by Europeans that only by helping America be strong where she needs to be strong can Americans help keep Europeans secure into the future, be they in the north, east or south of Europe; and, a Europe strong enough militarily and cohesive enough politically to be a strong actor in and around Europe in the face of all threats and from all strategic directions.

Frankly, we Europeans have a choice to make. One that we can no longer fudge or dissemble over. If the forthcoming Strategic Concept does not recognise much of the above it will simply be politics as all too usual dressed up as faux strategy all too usual.

Which begs perhaps the biggest question of all. Are we up to it?

Julian Lindley-French,  November 2021