Alphen, Netherlands. 2
July. US Secretary for Defense Chuck
Hagel said of America’s allies recently “…lopsided burden threatens NATO's
integrity, cohesion and capability - and ultimately, both European and
transatlantic security…We must see renewed financial commitments from all NATO
members.” Sir Adam Thomson, Britain’s
Ambassador to NATO rammed that message home at an event at the Institute of
European Studies in Brussels on Monday. Most
NATO Europeans simply do not get just how much the strategic landscape will
change over the next decade and the extent to which the American conventional
deterrent is facing a profound crisis.
Indeed, many Europeans
seem to think that somehow NATO will continue with business as usual. and that the Americans will go on essentially paying for European defence whilst Europeans go about fixing their
Euro-ravaged economies at their political leisure. It is as though Europe’s defence has somehow
become detached from the rapidly-shifting global strategic balance. One would have thought Russia’s aggression
in Ukraine would have been seen as a symptom of this shifting balance. Instead it is being conveniently
finessed away in many chancelleries as a ‘one-off’ that was not really Russia’s
fault.
The reality of
strategic change should also have been made clear by the decision yesterday by
Japan to abandon the principles of self-defence which have driven Tokyo’s
defence policy since World War Two.
Japan understands perfectly that it needs to enhance its defence effort
to enable the American conventional deterrent to remain credible in East
Asia. By 2020 the US will cut its
defence expenditure by more than the entire annual expenditure of Europeans on defence. Given that both Europeans and Japanese live
in rough neighbourhoods soon the Americans could simply be unable to provide
credible conventional defence for both Europe and Asia-Pacific without allies that
can first respond to crises in their backyards.
Much is being made of
the agreement that all NATO nations should spend a minimum of 2% GDP on
defence. The target is of course nominal
and pedants will point out that it is not actually a binding commitment. Moreover, whilst four NATO Europeans
currently spend the magical 2% and some four more are making the effort to get
there one of those states is Greece (which is both worrying and uplifting given
how broke the Greeks are) and some of the rest of deploying that most
devastating of defence weapons – creative accountancy.
In fact the point of the
2% target is to get NATO’s many “one-percenters” to stop killing NATO. Sadly, not only do most of the “one-percenters”
spend too little on defence they also spend badly. Another key target is that at least 20% of
the budget should be spent on defence investment. Several Europeans spend as low as 5% on the
future force which is creating a dangerous so-called interoperability gap
within the Alliance.
Ambassador Thomson
said the US and UK “are leading the charge” to get allies to spend more and spend
better. However, even the UK which makes
much of its spending 2.4% of GDP on defence is guilty of fiddling the
figures. The Financial Times recently
ran a report that British defence spending would soon fall to 1.9% GDP.
Furthermore, this Friday
will see the launch the first of two brand new super-carriers the HMS Queen Elizabeth. She will operate the vertical take-off
version of the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35B) rather than the conventional
version. This decision was made to save enough money on construction of the
ship to allow her sister ship HMS Prince
of Wales to also be commissioned into the Royal Navy. And yet in spite of Britain’s commitment to
the 2% target “pour encourager les autres”
London seems to have gone soft on the second carrier. This now leaves open the possibility that the
second ship will be sold once complete after the British 2015 General Election.
Let me be blunt; if a
British Government were to sell a brand new state of the art super-carrier to a
foreign power it would kill Britain’s case for enhanced defence investment
across the Alliance. It would also have
a devastating impact on Britain’s influence and reliability in Washington both of which are still
in intensive care after the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. These two ships are more than ships; they are
statements of British and European ambition to support the US world-wide if
needs be in future conflicts. Given
these ships will be supporting the Alliance well into the 2060s to abandon HMS Prince of Wales would be mad,
short-term accountancy at the expense of sound long-term defence strategy.
Interestingly, an academic
from one of the “one-percenters” challenged me over my assertion that if they are
not prepared to spend 2% GDP on defence then they will be forced to consider
defence integration and the loss of national sovereignty. He was trying to trip me up and not for the
first time. Surely, he suggested, the
bigger states should lead the way towards defence integration. My response was twofold. First, many of the “one-percenters” refuse EITHER to
increase or enhance their defence spending OR consider common funding let alone
defence integration. As such they are simply
not facing strategic reality. Second, how
can they be trusted as allies? Too many
of the “one-percenters” refuse to share the point of contact with danger on
operations with the likes of the US and UK claiming “can’t do, won’t do”.
The 2% target is a
political target. If achieved it would
send a message that Europe still believes in the Alliance and is prepared
to invest in it and the twenty-first century transatlantic strategic security and
defence compact upon which NATO is founded. If Europeans demur then
one day they could awake to find Americans simply cannot defend them even if they
wanted to. It is for that reason
that burden-sharing is simply self-interest because the cost of Europeans defending themselves would be very much higher.
And one final thing; if
I hear one more bloody diplomat (not Sir Adam) say that talk of NATO’s demise is again premature I will be, er well,
undiplomatic!
Julian Lindley-French
