Washington DC, 29
January. “Our alliance with Europe is the strongest the world has ever known”. As President Obama delivered his fifth State
of the Union address the failing snow gave Washington a sense of unusual
calm. As the President spoke I was at a
private dinner with General Jean-Paul Paloméros, NATO’s Supreme Allied
Commander Transformation just a few hundred metres/yards from the Capitol. Yesterday I discussed NATO with senior
Americans and Europeans in preparation for the September NATO summit in Britain. What is the state of the Alliance?
In September 2012 in a
speech in Latvia I established for NATO the Riga Test which sets a benchmark
for the Alliance; how safe do Rigans feel?
In his address President Obama said, “Our security cannot depend on our
military alone”. He is of course
right. However, security in the
twenty-first century will be equally reliant on strong and credible North
American and European militaries backed by political and strategic unity of
purpose generated by a strong Alliance.
There was the now usual
nonsense from the European elitist Left. Europeans no longer trust or need America. NATO will not die but will fade away. The future of Europe is the EU. In fact, with EU Europeans now spending an
average of 1.36% of GDP per annum on defence (and doing it very badly) Europe
is more not less reliant on an over-pressed America. Too often too many in Europe’s elite act like security
junkies who are in denial about their addiction to free-riding.
Back in the real world one
senior American called NATO’s September summit “a genuflection moment”. Yes, we can continue down the path of
cynicism and allow our collective war fatigue and depression to set what passes
for ‘strategy’. Yes, President Obama is
right; a whole range of influence tools will indeed be needed to manage global
security and America will need alliances with partners the world over. Yes, there are a range of issues which NATO
should not seek to engage, such as climate change. And yes a Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership will be equally important.
For all that Alliance leaders
must seize the moment and the opportunity September offers at what will be NATO’s first
truly strategic summit of the century unfettered by operational pressures. If our leaders rise to the occasion and set
the course towards a future transformative Alliance then the summit will
succeed. If instead they tick the box of
pretend success in Afghanistan then the summit will fail the people of the
Alliance and indeed their future.
For that to
happen the leaders of my own battered old country who will host the summit must
rise above their obsession with the politics of the moment and as US Secretary
of State Dean Rusk once said, “For God’s sake act like Britain”. I have been struck on this visit by the lack
of respect senior Americans have for Britain and the sacrifice of my own men
and women under arms in support of America.
I have also been struck by the failure of British diplomacy to convince
Washington of Britain’s determination to be a serious ally in a dangerous
world.
Why does this
matter? Seventy years after D-Day the Alliance
is still founded on the US-UK strategic relationship and that in turn needs a
strong Britain. Yes, France, Germany and
other Europeans are vital US allies but without a strong Britain the very cornerstone
of the Alliance is weak. Equally, NATO itself
must understand its position in the West, no longer a place but an idea, and
in Washington which leads a changing America.
To do that the Alliance must aspire again to be essential to Americans
in an American-centred world-wide security web.
However, America must
also change tack. The most moving moment
in the State of the Union address was the rightful tribute President Obama paid to disabled
Veteran and US Ranger Sergeant First Class Cory Remsburg. There are Sergeant Remsburgs across the Alliance
and beyond struggling to build a life beyond sacrifice. Make no mistake these young men and women
left their homes from Riga to the Rhondda to go and fight in support of America. Americans need to understand that and make a
much greater effort to acknowledge their sacrifice too.
“Nothing worth
achieving in life is easy”, President Obama opined. As in life so in strategy. With a world getting more military not less,
a world with dangerous frictions many on Europe’s doorstep the need for a
strong Alliance is again strategically self-evident. Call me old-fashioned, and I know some of you
will, but the world is a safer place when the West is strong and at the centre
of a strong West is a strong Alliance.
Getting NATO through
strategic rehab will not be easy but it starts in Wales where leaders must openly
and publicly retake their vows to each other, our Alliance and of course the
good people of Riga.
Julian Lindley-French
