Executive Summary:
- During the decade since its last strategic concept review, NATO has witnessed a significant security transition and subsequent change in strategic priorities.
- Formulating a new strategy to tackle the new security environment will not be the underlying challenge; rather the stumbling block may prove to be the necessary support from NATO members to implement it.
- NATO has experienced transitions before, but the difference between previous and current transition is in terms of the capabilities necessary to underpin its strategy.
- The NATO alliance continues to suffer from persistent shortfalls in critical capabilities and has long been faced with the difficulties generated by the capabilities gap.
- The international economic crisis, demographic trends, and gas dependence will contribute to European states’ inability to become more capable partners to the US.
- President Obama will be forced to seek new alliances that will be more appropriate to American national interests.
- The United States continues to have a vested interest in ensuring European security as a result of its economic interdependence.
- European allies should focus on how to develop the military capabilities needed to support their security strategies within projected resource constraints.
April 2009, when NATO celebrated its sixtieth anniversary, also marked the launch of its strategic concept review. The announcement of this review was long overdue, as the last one was made in the midst of NATO’s Kosovo campaign ten years earlier. During this intervening decade, NATO has witnessed a significant security transition and subsequent change in strategic priorities. The most noteworthy changes have been the strategic paradigm shift of 9/11 and more importantly NATO’s Afghanistan mission, the first outside the Euro-Atlantic area. Consequently, the urgency for NATO to adapt to the demands of the new century’s security threats has never been more pressing marked as this period has been with the growing drift between the transatlantic relationship, the changed security environment, and the shift in the origin of threats.
Eager to prove the alliance's enduring relevance, NATO members have identified a multitude of threats, from climate change and mass migration, to Islamist militants and energy security.[1] However, formulating a new strategy to tackle these issues will not be the underlying challenge. Rather, the stumbling block may prove to be the necessary support from NATO members to implement it. At issue is the lack of European states’ contribution and burden sharing, making NATO’s transition to deal effectively with a changing security environment slow and cumbersome.
NATO underwent a similar crisis after the Cold War. The key difference between the previous and current NATO transition is in terms of the capabilities necessary to underpin its strategy. During the Cold War, both Russia and the transatlantic alliance based their deterrence policy mainly on nuclear weapons, not conventional forces. During the post Cold War era, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslavia prompted new threats, such as state failure and instability on the borders of NATO countries. These threats could only be dealt with by using conventional military means, measures that required consensus among and contribution from NATO members. A conflict on NATO’s doorsteps ensured the involvement of European allies whereby air strikes against Yugoslavia ultimately set a precedent for future non-Article V action. However this decision was not reached easily as both Italy and Greece opposed the use of force. A breakdown in negotiations in Rambouillet helped NATO finally to find consensus for these air strikes without explicit UN Security Council backing.[2] Subsequently, NATO became increasingly involved in peacekeeping operations beyond its own borders, first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then in Kosovo.
However, the NATO mission in Afghanistan demands different levels of capabilities and commitment. NATO’s role as an exporter of security far beyond the Euro-Atlantic area means that the Alliance must have expeditionary capabilities in line with its ambitions. To maintain relevance in the current security environment, NATO forces must be able to reach farther, faster, stay in the field longer, and still undertake the most demanding operations. Somehow all this must be accomplished seamlessly, or in the words of NATO, in a consistent interoperable way.
Eager to prove the alliance's enduring relevance, NATO members have identified a multitude of threats, from climate change and mass migration, to Islamist militants and energy security.[1] However, formulating a new strategy to tackle these issues will not be the underlying challenge. Rather, the stumbling block may prove to be the necessary support from NATO members to implement it. At issue is the lack of European states’ contribution and burden sharing, making NATO’s transition to deal effectively with a changing security environment slow and cumbersome.
NATO underwent a similar crisis after the Cold War. The key difference between the previous and current NATO transition is in terms of the capabilities necessary to underpin its strategy. During the Cold War, both Russia and the transatlantic alliance based their deterrence policy mainly on nuclear weapons, not conventional forces. During the post Cold War era, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the Yugoslavia prompted new threats, such as state failure and instability on the borders of NATO countries. These threats could only be dealt with by using conventional military means, measures that required consensus among and contribution from NATO members. A conflict on NATO’s doorsteps ensured the involvement of European allies whereby air strikes against Yugoslavia ultimately set a precedent for future non-Article V action. However this decision was not reached easily as both Italy and Greece opposed the use of force. A breakdown in negotiations in Rambouillet helped NATO finally to find consensus for these air strikes without explicit UN Security Council backing.[2] Subsequently, NATO became increasingly involved in peacekeeping operations beyond its own borders, first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then in Kosovo.
However, the NATO mission in Afghanistan demands different levels of capabilities and commitment. NATO’s role as an exporter of security far beyond the Euro-Atlantic area means that the Alliance must have expeditionary capabilities in line with its ambitions. To maintain relevance in the current security environment, NATO forces must be able to reach farther, faster, stay in the field longer, and still undertake the most demanding operations. Somehow all this must be accomplished seamlessly, or in the words of NATO, in a consistent interoperable way.
Despite the intention to address security threats further afield, the NATO alliance as a whole, continues to suffer from persistent shortfalls in critical capabilities such as strategic lift, communications, and intra-theatre lift assets, such as helicopters.[3] Moreover, the alliance has long been faced with the difficulties generated by the capabilities gap that has emerged between the United States and other members of the alliance, which raises legitimate questions about the long-term interoperability of allies.[4]
With the occasion of NATO’s sixtieth anniversary and the review of the strategic concept, the United States has taken the opportunity to bring these issues to the attention of its European allies. However, the question is not whether the European allies will make the concessions demanded by the US, but whether they are able to.
There is serious cause for concern that this might indeed probe to be the case as European external priorities have shifted, and so have national interests. The international economic crisis has heightened — not reduced — nationalism as each nation looks out for itself. The weaker nations, particularly in Central Europe, have been left to fend for themselves. CEE countries’ pleas to rescue them through the economic downturn have been rejected by Western European leaders. Instead the West has signalled to some in the East that it will take care of itself first.[5] Most likely the already large capability gap will soar as it becomes more difficult for European leaders to justify growing defence expenditures when the unemployment rate steadily grows to double digits.
Furthermore, while recession is a temporary condition, European demographic trends do not offer more encouraging economic predictions. The current demographic trends in Europe point to a continent that is becoming older, smaller, and more culturally diverse.[6] The expected effects were recognized by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-20 as she argued that German demographic trends are such that the Anglo-American proposed stimulus would impose long-term debt on a shrinking population.[7] The United States, meanwhile, is expected to become more populated, relatively younger, and equally more diverse. These diverging trends raise daunting questions about the dynamism of Europe’s economy, the evolution of its political system, and the cohesion of its society.
Russia, a foreign policy priority for the Obama administration, may become a contentious matter in the transatlantic relationship. The extent of European Union willingness to support the United States is uncertain. As Russia gets bolder, and as Germany remains unwilling to stand in Moscow’s way due to its energy dependence, countries on the EU periphery are looking instead for new relationships, particularly with the United States.[8]
The United States must reassess its existing alliances and its contribution towards maintaining global security. President Obama has advocated multilateralism; however this does not necessitate continued alignment with all the traditional allies of the United States. The inability of the Europeans to support key aspects of US policy is understandable. But their lack of support will create pressure on President Obama to seek new alliances that would be more appropriate to US national interests.
Against this backdrop, the United States continues to have a vested interest in ensuring European security. The United States and European Union have an economic interdependence that represents roughly €1.7 billion per day in trade – effectively, the United States cannot do without an affluent Europe any better than the Europeans can do without an affluent America. In 2006, the combined economies of EU and the US accounted for nearly 60% of global GDP, 33% of world trade in goods and 42% of world trade in services.[9]
NATO will ensure it will remain relevant if it focuses on Europe’s strengths instead for being undermined by its lack of a credible strategy. Currently allies struggle to deploy and sustain significant elements of their armed forces in expeditionary operations. They point out that the 24 European NATO members have a total of 2.4 million military personnel, but that only 3% to 5% of these forces are capable of deployments outside their territory for even short periods.[10] Alternatively, European allies should focus on how to develop the military capabilities needed to support their security strategies within projected resource constraints. Considering their limited capacity for expeditionary operations, European allies should instead enhance their capabilities in low-intensity operations such as reconstruction, cyber security, organized crime, and policing of movement within their borders. Hence, by using the finite resources available on role specialization, Europe would be better positioned to guarantee its security and become a more capable partner. Likewise, the United States would avoid military and strategic over-extension, thereby permitting it to consider new strategic relationships that will better address the 21st century security environment.
[1] http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/192658,nato-chief-calls-for-new-long-term-strategy-to-tackle-new.html
[2] http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmfaff/28/2809.htm
[3] http://www.nato-pa.int/Default.asp?SHORTCUT=1474
[4] http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2002/issue3/english/art1.html
[5] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4926704/Euro-set-to-fall-further-on-EU-split-over-eastern Europebailout.html
[6] http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/editions/i48/27.pdf
[7] http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20090330_united_states_germany_and_beyond
[8] ibid
[9] http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/bilateral/countries/usa/index_en.htm
[10] http://www.nato-pa.int/Default.asp?SHORTCUT=1474
*Liliana Mulvany, The Henry Jackson Society, Scholar-12th May 2009
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