“In all history, this is the first time that an Allied
headquarters has been set up in peace, to preserve the peace, and not to wage
war”.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Alphen,
Netherlands. 18 April. Are NATO Cohesion and NATO Defence compatible? Friday
last I had a strange experience. This distinctly VUP – very unimportant person
– found himself alone in a posh Alfa Romeo as part of a VVIP (Very, Very
Important Person) convoy being driven brilliantly at high speed by an Italian
soldier through the streets of Rome. It was the most efficient way to get the NATO
Deputy Secretary-General, the impressive Dr Rose Goettemoeller, quickly and
securely through the Roman traffic from the hotel to the NATO Defense College
where we were both due to speak in the excellent NATO @ 70: No Time to Retire conference. At one point, a short
delay, a gentlemen who was waiting to cross the road, looked straight at me and
shook his head in disgusted contempt. It was a moment that seemed to capture
the zeitgeist of European peoples
distinctly at odds with their European elites.
The
conference was a success for the NATO Defense College. Not only did the
assembled throng take stock of NATO and its seventy years, it also looked
forward. After a well-crafted assessment of where NATO is at by the Deputy
Secretary-General ‘looking forwards’ was very much my theme. To do that I
employed NATO past to shine my light on NATO future. By invoking past NATO strategic concepts – the what, why, when,
where and how of NATO action – I endeavoured to reinforce the need for a clear
and agreed understanding on the part of all the allies about the need to really
adapt NATO and its role, utility and purpose in the twenty-first century. Specifically, and to take up the challenge of
Eisenhower, NATO’s first Supreme Allied Command, Europe, I also posed a
question - does sufficient political cohesion exist between the allies to mount
an effective defence? My sense is no.
Which NATO?
A couple of
interventions from two Italian friends, the professional acumen and knowledge of
whom I deeply respect, left me profoundly concerned that NATO’s political
cohesion is being just about maintained but only at the expense of NATO
defence. The first concerned the threat posed by Russia. Russia, I was told, is
not threat to the Alliance. Let me put aside the rapid modernisation of the
Russian armed forces, the aggressive posture of the Putin regime, the rape of
Ukraine-Crimea and Moscow’s systematic application of complex strategic
coercion and 5D warfare – disinformation, destabilisation, deception,
disruption and implied destruction against many of Europe’s open societies. The
simple fact is that Russia has a relatively small, unmodernised economy reliant
for too much of its limited wealth on one export to countries that form part of
what Moscow has deemed to be its main strategic adversary and which is using
too high a proportion of that limited and fluctuating wealth to fund a
burgeoning security state – both civilian and military – the burden of which is
as much a threat to itself as others. In other words, no-one knows what will
happen to Russia in the coming years, least of all President Putin and his
team. What IS clear is that on its current policy and strategic trajectory at
some point Russia will face a massive political and social crisis. Then what?
The second
question concerned me even more. Why is non-defence spending in Europe not
included as defence spending? To be
fair, this ‘non-defence spending’, it was implied, is expenditure that contributes
to the wider security that Italy and other NATO Mediterranean states must
address daily given the threats and challenges it faces from its south. My
response was clear; if ‘non-defence’ spending has a proven and demonstrable defence
effect then all well and good. For example, investments made in infrastructure
to improve military mobility in Europe in a crisis. Rather, the question seemed
to imply that if one takes security and defence in the round then Italy is
spending enough on defence. It is not.
360 Degrees
of what?
NATO’s
leaders regularly refer to the creation of a 360 Degree Alliance that can cope
with all threats of whatever nature and from whatever direction they come. To
achieve such a defence would require a high level of both political and defence
cohesion. NATO is making some way towards achieving such a balance. However,
given the nature of extant and emerging threats such progress is nothing like
fast enough and cohesion nothing like deep enough. Mediterranean NATO wants a
very different NATO to eastern and northern European NATO. In such
circumstances the danger is that political convenience will be bought at the
expense of defence reality.
NATO might be
making progress towards balancing ends, ways and means but it is no way near
achieving such a balance. For proof see the absurd lengths NATO Europeans and
Canada go to justify not spending the 2% GDP on defence of which 20% per annum
to be on new equipment. Even some of those NATO nations who claim to spend 2%
only do so through creative accounting. Britain’s claim to spend 2% GDP on
defence is one of the greatest works of English fiction since Dickens! NATO
Europeans are doing little or nothing to confront the revolution in military
technology underway and the fundamental threat that does and will pose to the military
interoperability with US forces which, in extremis, collective defence will
rest upon. Europe’s strategic vacation is over. And yet,
a lot of Europeans are like the schoolkid who at vacation’s end does not want
to go back to school.
NATO Europe’s cold
turkey reality
Let me state
again NATO’s cold turkey reality. The Americans can no longer afford to subsidise
Europe’s defence even if Europeans still refuse to recognise America’s changing
strategic reality. With Europeans seemingly unable or unwilling to fund their
own collective/common defence there is, and there can be no NATO without the
Americans. And yet, US armed forces are stretched thin the world over and are
likely to become ever more over-stretched. In other words, the Americans will
only be able to continue to afford relatively rich Europeans the security and
defence guarantee they have enjoyed for seventy years if Europeans become far
better effective first responders to the threats that are beginning to squeeze
Europe from multiple directions. What will it take for Europeans to wake up and
smell this very American coffee?
So, why are
Europeans unable to recognise hard reality? Frankly, Europeans have become
addicts. They have become addicted to the cheap defence the Americans afford
them through NATO. That addiction must come to an end and fast, even if that
means Europeans going into some form of cold turkey and defence ‘rehab’ for
some time. Thus, the elephant in the NATO at 70 room is that for the Alliance
to mount an effective defence and thus preserve the peace to which Eisenhower
referred Europeans must also help the Americans preserve peace beyond Europe.
First and foremost, that means Europeans far more willing to share the real burdens
of preserving the peace in and around Europe itself.
Are NATO
cohesion and NATO defence compatible?
Let me take
you back to my line of sight exchange with a disgruntled Italian citizen the
other day. The reality is that Europe’s elites will only afford the European
people security AND defence at a reasonable degree of risk and cost if a) they agree
on the balance that must be struck BETWEEN security and defence; b) a further
balance is struck between national security and collective defence; and c) (critically)
they begin to treat citizens as adults rather than uneducated peasants and
explain honestly to their respective peoples what needs to be done in their
name. The disgust shown by that Italian
citizen seemed to imply that the VVIPs momentarily disrupting his Friday morning
had no longer earned the right for such privilege. If that is what he was
thinking then he has a point. Only Europe’s elites can make the calls necessary
to secure and defend Europe and thus earn their status by demonstrably getting
to grips with the many dangers Europe faces. In other words, Europe’s elites
need to get their collective act together and prove to the people they are
performing and not just mouthing self-serving platitudes.
As for my
momentary VVIP-ness and my hi-speed, high status drive through Rome, the next
morning I found myself back to full on VUP-ness. Mop in hand I cleaned the
kitchen floor under the stern command of my Dutch Commander-in-Chiefness. Poorly,
I might add, for as ever I missed a bit.
Happy
birthday NATO! But, NATO is us and, if we Europeans really want NATO to
preserve the peace that Eisenhower set as its challenge, we must all ensure the
Alliance CAN secure and defend it.
Julian
Lindley-French
