Alphen, Netherlands. 8
July. Machiavelli wrote, “All courses of
action are risky. So prudence is not in
avoiding danger (it is impossible) but calculating risk and acting
decisively. Make mistakes of ambition,
not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do things, not the strength to
suffer”. NATO leaders will meet in
September in Wales in what is the most important Alliance gathering since the
1991 London Summit in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.
In 1991 they met to
consider the implications of peace in Europe.
In 2014 they will meet to consider the profound and dangerous
implications of the rapid shift in the global balance of power away from NATO’s
member nations. This summit will very
quickly reveal whether there is sufficient unity of purpose amongst Alliance
leaders to generate ambition and if they are big enough to distinguish between
long-term strategy and short-term politics.
The stakes are very
high. London in 1991 set the future
orientation of the Alliance right up to 911.
In spite of the grand language of a Europe “whole and free” which set
the course for NATO and EU enlargement there was an implicit question in London
that has come to define the Alliance over the ensuing years, how little can be
spent on defence? Through the Wars of
the Yugoslav Succession in the 1990s, the Kosovo war, 911, Afghanistan, Libya
and elsewhere Europeans have been unwavering in their collective belief that
whatever happens they will spend less on defence. It is political dogma that was strengthened
by the 2008 financial crash and the Eurozone crisis that has driven Europe’s
retreat from strategic realism. It has
also fostered the appeasement of reality and a “we only recognise as much
threat as we can afford” culture amongst leaders.
With Russia’s invasion
of Ukraine, the creation of the Islamic State on NATO’s strategic doorstep and
the steady march of the Islamist anti-state, Iran and its nuclear ambitions, the
rapid rise of strategic China, proliferation of destructive technologies across
the world and a range of other potential threats it is clear that such self-deluding
dogma must be challenged. Indeed, with
NATO leaving Afghanistan the twenty-first century is finally beginning for the
Alliance in Wales. Therefore, the Wales Summit
should be the place where NATO properly and finally begins to prepare for the
global Cold Peace that is being inexorably fashioned beyond Alliance borders in
the battle between a West that is no longer a place but an idea and the new
forces of intolerance and expansionism.
The first casualty of
the Cold Peace is the assumption that the Americans will always be able to
defend Europe irrespective of Europe’s own defence. Indeed, a if not the central issue at Wales
should be the fashioning of a new twenty-first century transatlantic security
contract founded on two principles of political realism. First, NATO Europe can no longer play at Alliance. The vital need for the United States to
maintain credible influence and deterrence in Asia, Europe and the Middle East means
that Europe’s defence can only be assured in the first instance by Europeans
able and capable of acting autonomously in and around Europe. Second, a total security concept will be
needed. All security and defence tools
from intelligence to armed force, civil and military must be fashioned to
prevent conflicts upstream but also to engage in conflict if needs be when,
where and how it happens.
That means forces and
resources shaped to face the world as it is not as leaders would like to be. Therefore, if London was the defence premium
summit Wales must be the defence re-engagement summit built on the principle
that “security and defence matters”.
My latest report for
Wilton Park, a conference and research centre close to the British Foreign and
Commonwealth Office entitled “NATO’s Post
2014 Strategic Narrative” was published last week (https://www.wiltonpark.org.uk/conference/wp1319/).
The report argues that NATO is entering
a new and unpredictable era as the Alliance shifts from campaigns and
operations to strategic contingencies. The
word ‘strategic’ is the key as it means big and that implies ambition, forces,
resources and a fundamental change of mind-set on the part of political
leaders.
There is no doubt that
prior to Russia’s annexation of Crimea the Wales Summit would have been little
more than a glorified photo op. Leaders
would have somewhat disingenuously declared “mission accomplished” in
Afghanistan. Some thought would have
been given to the preservation of military interoperability between Alliance
forces and some declaration made about NATO’s Open Door and future membership
and partnerships.
Now the Wales Summit must
begin NATO’s search for the answer to five twenty-first century strategic
questions which finally operationalise the 2010 NATO Strategic Concept and the
three core tasks of collective defence, crisis management and co-operative
security. How can NATO provide credible collective defence to its members? What type of reassurance can NATO provide to
both members and partners? What support
can NATO realistically offer to states on its margins? What relationship should now be sought with
an assertive Russia? What more can NATO
allies do to support the US in its global mission and at the same time ensure
and assure security and defence in and around Europe?
In other words Wales
must answer THE pivotal question; what is NATO for now? Answers on a postcard please.
Julian Lindley-French
