[Senate Hearing 111-628]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-628
NATO POST-60: INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 6, 2009
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin Republican Leader designee
BARBARA BOXER, California BOB CORKER, Tennessee
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
JIM WEBB, Virginia JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
David McKean, Staff Director
Kenneth A. Myers, Jr., Republican Staff Director
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SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS
JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut JIM DeMINT, South Carolina
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho
ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania BOB CORKER, Tennessee
JIM WEBB, Virginia ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
DeMint, Hon. Jim, U.S. Senator From South Carolina............... 34
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Hamilton, Dan, Director of Center for Transatlantic Relations,
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins
University, Washington, DC..................................... 5
Prepared statement........................................... 8
Hunter, Hon. Robert, Senior Advisor, Rand Corporation,
Washington, DC................................................. 3
Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne, U.S. Senator From New Hampshire............ 1
Prepared statement........................................... 2
Wilson, Damon, Director of the International Security Program,
the Atlantic Council of the United States, Washington, DC...... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 22
Wood, Colonel Joseph, Senior Research Fellow, German Marshall
Fund, Washington, DC........................................... 25
Prepared statement........................................... 28
(iii)
NATO POST-60: INSTITUTIONAL
CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on European Affairs,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeanne
Shaheen (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Senators Shaheen, Kaufman, Risch, DeMint.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEANNE SHAHEEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE
Chairman Shaheen. I apologize for the delay. That voting
just keeps getting in the way. Thank you to all of our
panelists for joining us. We are expecting some of the other
Senators to be here shortly, but I think in the interest of
time--and I recognize that Ambassador Hunter has to leave
shortly--so we will go ahead and begin.
I'm Jeanne Shaheen. I'm the chair of this Subcommittee on
European Affairs. And this subcommittee meets today to discuss
the future of perhaps the most successful regional security
alliance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I
want to welcome everyone here, and expect ranking member of the
subcommittee, Senator DeMint, to be here shortly.
I'm going to submit my full statement for the record and
just do an abbreviated opening here. But I think it's important
to point out, as I'm sure everyone here knows, that last month,
NATO members converged on France and Germany to celebrate the
alliance's 60th anniversary. The meeting was very much a
celebration of NATO's past success, but I think it also
provided an opportunity for us to take stock of NATO's long-
term future. And that's what we're here today to talk about.
Our hearing will focus on the strategic institutional
challenges facing NATO. Our discussion is particularly timely,
as NATO members begin to rewrite its strategic concept
document, which has not been updated since 1999. Though
Afghanistan is NATO's first out-of-the-area military
commitment, and it remains the most pressing issue for the
alliance, we're really here today to consider those
institutional questions which will define NATO's composition,
its scope, its relationships, and ultimately, its success in
the long term.
We have a very distinguished panel with us this afternoon.
First is Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the director of the Center for
Transatlantic Relations at the School for Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Thank you,
Dr. Hamilton, for joining us.
Next is Ambassador Robert Hunter, who is a former U.S.
Ambassador to NATO and currently a senior advisor at the RAND
Corporation. Thank you, Ambassador Hunter.
I also want to welcome Damon Wilson, who is the director of
the International Security Program at The Atlantic Council, and
was a deputy director to NATO under the NATO Secretary General.
Thank you.
And finally, we have Joseph Wood, a senior resident fellow
at the German Marshall Fund and retired Air Force colonel.
Thank you all very much for being here.
And I would, if the other panelists do not object, ask if
we could have Ambassador Hunter begin, since he is, I'm afraid,
going to have to leave us to catch a flight. So please,
Ambassador Hunter.
[The prepared statement of Senator Shaheen follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Shaheen
The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs meets
today to discuss the future of perhaps the most successful regional
security alliance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). I want to welcome you all here today and I'm honored to be
joined by the ranking member of this Subcommittee, Senator Jim DeMint.
As you all know, last month, NATO members converged on France and
Germany to celebrate the alliance's 60th anniversary. The meeting was
in large part a celebration of NATO's past successes. However, it was
also a time to take stock of NATO's long-term future, which we intend
to discuss today.
Our hearing will focus on the strategic institutional challenges
facing NATO. Our discussion is particularly timely as NATO members
begin to re-write its Strategic Concept document, which has not been
updated since 1999. Though Afghanistan--NATO's first ``out of area''
military commitment--remains the most pressing issue for the Alliance,
we are here today to consider those institutional questions which will
define NATO's composition, scope, relationships, and ultimately, its
success in the long-term.
Over the last six decades, NATO's mission to collectively defend
its members has remained the same, yet the threats to the alliance have
changed significantly. No longer is the Alliance's primary concern the
defense of the Fulda Gap in Germany. Today, threats to Alliance members
are as likely to come from furtive non-state actors sneaking across
borders or computer hackers slipping through cyberspace as they are
from invading military forces. Like any successful institution, NATO
must continue to adapt to meet these new realities and challenges.
Since the end of the Cold War, institutional questions have focused
primarily on composition and enlargement. NATO's ``open door'' policy
has been successful in supporting a Europe that is whole, free, and at
peace. Success has been due in no small part to the support of the U.S.
Congress and prominent leaders like Senator Lugar. It says much about
enlargement's success that many of the relatively new NATO members,
including Poland, the Czech Republic and others, are now fighting to
preserve the Alliance in Afghanistan and beyond.
The Alliance must work to find consensus on defining the scope of
its responsibilities and missions. Threats including nuclear
proliferation, cyber warfare, energy security, piracy, even pandemic
health problems will continue to test Alliance members; yet NATO has
limited resources and capacities to deal with these non-traditional
challenges. NATO members must clearly determine how and where it can be
effective in meeting the wide range of 21st Century threats.
NATO must also determine how it wants to interact with non-NATO
members and institutions. NATO-Russia relations will be the most
pressing among these institutional relationship questions, but NATO's
strategic interaction with the European Union, with China, and with
organizations like the UN will also figure prominently in this debate.
In short, NATO has a number of critical strategic questions to
ponder in the near term. It will not be easy to find consensus on these
issues, which is why it is so important that the full Senate confirm
the nominations of two officials who will play an important role in
this effort--Dr. Ivo Daalder to be the U.S. Ambassador to NATO and Dr.
Phil Gordon to be the Assistant Secretary of State for European
Affairs. I hope the Senate will move quickly on these nominations.
Today, we have a distinguished panel to explore these critical
issues. Each of our panelists has broad expertise and decades of
experience on NATO and Transatlantic relations. Their resumes speak for
themselves, but I'd like to very briefly introduce them.
First, we have Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the Director of the Center for
Transatlantic Relations at the School for Advanced International
Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Hamilton has held a variety of
senior positions in the State Department and was most recently the lead
author of the Washington NATO Project's report entitled Alliance
Reborn.
Next, we have Ambassador Robert Hunter, a Senior Advisor at the
RAND Corporation and a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Ambassador
Hunter has served in a number of senior-level White House and Pentagon
positions focused on NATO and European issues.
I'd also like to welcome Damon Wilson, the Director of the
International Security Program at the Atlantic Council. Mr. Wilson
served in a number of high level capacities on the National Security
Council and at NATO, where he was Deputy Director under the NATO
Secretary-General.
Finally, we have Joseph Wood, a Senior Resident Fellow at the
German Marshall Fund. A retired Air Force colonel, Mr. Wood was Deputy
Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs at the
White House and has served throughout the Pentagon and in NATO.
We have a great panel today on a timely and critical issue, and we
look forward to hearing your testimony. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT HUNTER, SENIOR ADVISOR, RAND
CORPORATION, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Hunter. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your
indulgence. And thank you very much for the opportunity and the
honor to appear before you at such an important time, and also
to be on a panel with three very distinguished individuals.
One of the great virtues of NATO, which is reflected in
what you do in leading your subcommittee and in what all these
other folks do, is it's always been bipartisan. We don't divide
on NATO. It's always been so important. And, in fact, no
administration, no Congress would ever succeed unless they had
the backing of the two parties.
This is not just your normal father's NATO we're talking
about. We're about to enter NATO Phase 3. We have reached the
end of the post-cold-war transition, and which under U.S.
leadership, NATO took those actions necessary to bring to an
end the most troubled century in European history and perhaps
world history, and to build a basis for a permanent European
security based upon George H.W. Bush's very important
geopolitical insight of trying to create a Europe whole and
free and at peace.
Right now, however, everybody's looking again at whether
NATO's worth it to revalidate the alliance and to determine
whether there'll be a 65th or a 70th anniversary, other than a
shell organization. The fact is that we, and most of our
allies--and I'm going to over-generalize--are looking at our
basic security interests in different ways. We're very much
focused upon the Middle East and Southwest Asia following 9/11
with what's happening in Afghanistan, with Pakistan today, the
endgame in Iraq, our concerns with Iran, a whole host of
matters.
Very few of our allies see it that way. In fact, most of
the allies are with us--and all 28 allies are with us in
Afghanistan--not because they share necessarily our perspective
of what could happen to them if indeed there is not success
against al-Qaeda, against the Taliban, but essentially to
please us because of the importance they see in the
relationship with us, and also so that NATO will continue and
not fail.
In fact, if they had their preference, they would see much
more effort being focused closer to home, including the work
that still remains in Europe, of which the future of Russia is
perhaps the most important concern, reinforced by what happened
last year with the Soviet Georgia war.
The allies also want the United States to do a number of
things: To have the capacity for leadership, not just in what
they care about, but in general; to keep the moral high ground;
to be the one country, because none of them are able to do it,
that really can do an awful lot of the things that need to be
done in the world. And as a result, they've been willing to do
things beyond the European environment that they would not on
their own have chosen to do.
We, therefore, have to come up with a new bargain in NATO,
a new bargain in transatlantic relations, if we're going to see
these institutions work for the future.
In fact, when we talk about transatlantic, North Atlantic
security, we're not just talking about NATO. In fact, I think
we really need to start at the other end, which is what are the
jobs that have to be done, and what institutions are best able
to do it?
In some cases, that'll be NATO. In other cases, it will be
other institutions, of which I believe the European Union is
most important, which is another reason your subcommittee is so
important. You're going to have to help sort all this out and
come up with ideas that could really revalidate a whole series
of issues in regard to security in the transatlantic
relationship in the broader sense.
Fortunately, this has already begun through the trip that
President Obama paid to Europe last month that you alluded to,
which does, among other things, underscore U.S. leadership and
regaining moral high ground. It's not just one summit, it was
four. I think the most important was the G20 because the world
is looking to the United States to regain its reputation for
being able to lead in preserving and extending and revitalizing
the global financial system, the global economic system. And
that is absolutely critical for them to pay attention to other
things we want and also to be willing to do things in security
that we want.
He also did some other things. He met with the President of
Russia, Mr. Medvedev, and demonstrated that the United States
and Russia are prepared to begin a new kind of relationship.
That's critically important to the allies. For some who were
worried about Russian encroachment on their security, whether
it's the Baltic States or Ukraine or others who were worried
about a new confrontation, Germany and Italy, in that category.
The putting of the antimissile sites in the deep freeze for a
time was a very good message by the President. Doesn't mean we
changed things.
The renewal of efforts to try to deal with the Iranian
question. The allies are, of course, very worried about the
future of Iran. They were also worried that the United States
might be headed toward a confrontation maybe, a conflict. The
revitalization of building on what the last administration did,
if Arab is really peacemaking, for the allies, extremely
important, in part, because of so many Muslims there are in
Europe. In fact, their most important domestic concern is to
integrate a lot of Muslims.
The President then went on to the European Union, and
unfortunately, I think a lot more could have been done there in
Prague. And then he went to Turkey to try to repair that
important relationship and to reach out to the Muslims.
Now what do we do? I think there's some things the United
States needs to do in order to encourage the allies to do what
we want elsewhere by our doing things with them in Europe to
make the North Atlantic Council again the center of strategic
discussion for NATO.
Second, to keep a large number of American troops in
Europe. Reducing the American troop presence unfortunately
would send a very bad signal. And third, to do something about
the transfer of high-technology weaponry and other things to
Europe so we can't have interoperability.
Now, what do we need to do? I think within the strategic
concept--my allies will cover other aspects--three things. No
1, don't commit NATO to a bridge too far. Do things that really
have to be done together and people will agree to do together,
and if need be, the United States will have to look elsewhere
for partners.
Second, get the NATO-Russia Council back up and running to
try to help complete the vision of George Bush on a Europe
whole and free. And third, the comprehensive approach. The
military, the nonmilitary, critical in Afghanistan. For
example, governance, reconstruction development, along with
what's being done in the military, which the allies should do a
tremendous amount about. A new NATO-European Union
relationship. Break down those barriers. A new United States-
European strategic partnership, to help shape things in health,
education, and the like.
These are the big security issues in which we and the
Europeans can work together, and it's my belief if we can get
the comprehensive approach, the military and the nonmilitary
approach right, then we will find the Europeans more willing to
do what we need them to do in places like Afghanistan.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you very much, Ambassador Hunter.
Dr. Hamilton, would you like to continue?
STATEMENT OF DAN HAMILTON, DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR TRANSATLANTIC
RELATIONS, SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (SAIS),
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC
Dr. Hamilton. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to
appear before you and Senator DeMint and your colleagues to
discuss the future of NATO and its strategic direction moving
forward. Let me also congratulate you personally on assuming
the duties at the helm of this subcommittee.
You asked for an assessment of the challenges facing NATO
as it considers a new strategic concept. My testimony, which
I'd like to submit for the record, and I'll just do an
abbreviated verson here, draws on Alliance Reborn, a study that
my Center completed with three other U.S. think tanks, which we
released recently. And while I was the lead author, I do want
to acknowledge, of course, all the contributions that those
colleagues made. It really is a collective effort.
I believe that the Strasbourg/Kehl summit gave us an open,
but fleeting, moment to reposition our alliance, to confront
the kinds of challenges we are more likely to face in the
future than the ones we've been facing over the last number of
years. And the strategic concept can be a vehicle in which we
can do that.
However, we have some immediate tests, as Ambassador Hunter
said, particularly in Afghanistan, the Pakistan issue. I think
there is a need to have greater Western cohesion, if you will,
about how to deal with Russia. These are two immediate tests.
If we cannot generate some Western cohesion there, our efforts
to develop a strategic concept, I think, will be difficult. And
so as we move forward strategically, we have to, of course,
deal with the issues that we face day by day.
And as Ambassador Hunter said, if we think about the grand
strategic challenges we face across the Atlantic, we should
then think, do the institutions we have really do the job? My
answer at the moment is no. I think we have to look across the
institutions we have that we and our European allies work
through and look at how to revamp them and revise them for the
future, NATO being, of course, an essential element.
During the cold war--the peaceful resolution of which was
NATO's greatest success--NATO never fought a day. Today, it's
engaged in six different missions all at the same time. It's
busier now than it ever has been, and yet, I think it's been
hard for alliance leaders to convey what NATO is about these
days to publics and parliaments and to funders. That high
operational tempo has exposed differences among allies, in
terms of strategic culture, in terms of resources, commitments,
capabilities, and even the kinds of challenges we have to face
together.
So it's a problem right now. I think a new strategic
concept can try to convey a simpler, but important, message
about what this alliance is about for the future, rather than
convey the impression that it's a relic of the past. But to do
that, we have to go back to some basics. I believe NATO's
purpose is threefold. It's the same purpose it's had for 60
years. And I think it's fairly simple, actually, to explain.
The first is collective defense of its members. That's the
core mission of NATO. It's always been that. It remains
important. The second is to be a preeminent security form
across the Atlantic for discussion of security challenges
together. It provides the transatlantic link that otherwise
would not be there.
And third, a third purpose of NATO, which I think is often
overlooked, is that it provides reassurance to European members
that they can devote their security energy to common security
challenges rather than to each other. The tragedy of European
history in the 20th century was that the Europeans were looking
over their shoulder at each other, and often fighting each
other, rather than trying to confront some common challenges.
Through NATO this pattern was reversed, and the participation
of the United States and Canada is essential to that mission.
I believe all of those three points remain essential today,
yet each of them is under some question today. So if NATO is to
be bigger and not just better, it has to think of its core
mission set. The last 15 years, we have been driven by the
slogan, ``Out of area or out of business,'' and NATO is now
very much out of area in the Hindu-Kush and is very much in
business.
But the core mission of NATO, if you asked most people,
``What is it for?'' is it is there to protect us. This mission
of protecting the North Atlantic space has been the core
mission of NATO. And so while I've always supported NATO's out-
of-area transformation, I believe we must also show that we're
working in area, back in our basic space to protect our own
people, and that we are out of area in business, but if we're
not in area, we'll be in trouble--in terms of how we explain to
publics and parliaments what this NATO is about.
So NATO, it seems to me, should be guided by a simple set
of home missions and away missions. I think each of those is
straightforward, but they do require some revision in terms of
NATO efforts.
The home missions are very straightforward. The first
element is deterrence and defense, the core mission of NATO
that remains enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic
Treaty, collective defense of its members. That remains
important.
The second home mission, I believe, should address a new
area of security that we have to think harder about. It's not
the traditional area of security. It has to do more with what
one would call societal security--resilience, in the way the
British use that term. What do cyber hackers, terrorists,
energy cartels, maybe even pirates, have in common? Those are
networks that prey on the networks of free societies. They are
not trying to take our territory. They're trying to disrupt
society in many different ways. In fact, they use the
instruments of free societies to disrupt them.
These are important security challenges, and yet, we're not
equipped to cross the Atlantic to deal with those. In our
study, we argue that NATO is not probably the lead actor in
this area, because much of this has to do with law enforcement
and other kinds of issues. But we have identified a number of
specific areas in which NATO could play a supporting role in
terms of biodefense, cyber defense, guarding the approaches to
our space, and they're very specific, and it's an important
role to play.
The third area in home missions is a Europe that can be
whole, free, and at peace. If we think about the Europe that we
see in front of us today, core Europe, if you will, the
Alliance Europe, it is secure. But wider Europe, the space
between NATO and Russia, or between the EU and Russia, is
unsettled territory: Lots of unsettled conflicts, weak states,
fragile states, things that can really do some severe damage.
We have to deal with that, and I think the alliance still has a
role.
The away missions I think are also three, and they are also
straightforward. One is crisis prevention and response; that
is, if we do face threats to our security at strategic
distance, we must be able to project, and that is what the
alliance should do. The second away mission as we see in
Afghanistan and the Balkans, is that after conflict ends,
security operations become quite important in reconstruction.
The alliance has to have some capability in stabilization and
reconstruction, working with civilian authorities.
And third, we can stretch NATO further, and I believe we
should, but if you stretch it too far, you will break it. And
so NATO has to connect better with other partners to be
multipliers for our joint capabilities. Examples include the
EU, the U.N., the African Union, perhaps, other types of
partners that it can work with.
I think this balance of home missions and away missions is
a fairly straightforward way to think about NATO that brings
together its various elements. It gives NATO a new balance, in
terms of what it's doing, and it offers a clearly explainable
way to talk to our publics and parliaments about what our
alliance is about. And I'd be happy to answer more questions
about that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hamilton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Daniel S. Hamilton \1\
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\1\ Daniel Hamilton is the Richard von Weizsacker Professor and
Director of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze
School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins
University. He is the lead author of Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic
Compact for the 21st Century, available at http://transatlantic.sais-
jhu.edu/Publications/nato--report--final.pdf. Dr. Hamilton has served
as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs; U.S.
Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization; and Associate
Director of the Policy Planning Staff.
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Madame Chairwoman, it is a pleasure to appear before you and your
colleagues to discuss the future of NATO and its strategic direction
moving forward. Let me congratulate you personally on assuming your
duties at the helm of the subcommittee.
You asked for an assessment of the challenges facing NATO as it
considers a new Strategic Concept. My testimony draws on Alliance
Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for the 21st Century, a recent report on
NATO's future by my Center for Transatlantic Relations together with
the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) and the Center for Technology and National
Security Policy at the National Defense University. I was the lead
author for the report, but want to acknowledge the many valuable
contributions made by my colleagues.
I begin by suggesting that today and in the future the United
States and its allies need NATO to perform a balanced set of ``home''
and ``away'' missions. I then outline a number of necessary internal
reforms the Alliance should consider.
nato missions: home and away
During the Cold War, NATO never fought a day. Today, it is involved
in six different operations--fighting and securing stability in
Afghanistan; keeping the peace in Kosovo; assisting defense reform in
Bosnia and Herzegovina; patrolling the Mediterranean Sea in a maritime
anti-terrorist mission dispatched under the collective defense clause
of the North Atlantic Treaty; countering piracy and armed robbery at
sea off the Horn of Africa; and training Iraqi security forces. It
launched an extensive humanitarian relief operation for Pakistan after
the massive earthquake in 2005, helped victims of Hurricane Katrina in
the United States, and provided security support to the 2004 and 2006
Olympics and 2006 World Cup. It has welcomed new members, and others
are keen to apply. Budding partnerships have been cultivated with the
UN, the EU and nations from the Mediterranean to the Pacific.
NATO is busier than ever. But this operational reality has exposed
differences among allies in terms of threat perceptions, strategic
cultures, resources and capabilities. As a result, many see an Alliance
lacking focus, driven more by outside events than by collective
interests. This is troubling, because the need for transatlantic
cooperation is rising, not falling. The U.S. and its allies must create
a new Alliance consensus on the challenges to our security and NATO's
role in meeting them. Such a consensus is as important today as it was
when NATO was born. The security challenges we face have changed, but
the need for a common response has not.
Sixty years after its founding, NATO's three-fold purpose remains:
to provide for the collective defense of its members; to
institutionalize the transatlantic link and serve as a preeminent forum
in which allies can discuss issues of common security and strategy; and
to offer an umbrella of reassurance under which European nations can
focus their security concerns on common challenges rather than on each
other. To meet this purpose today, each element needs urgent attention,
and each needs more than NATO.
If NATO is to be better, not just bigger, it must transform its
scope and strategic rationale in ways that are understood and sustained
by parliamentary and public opinion. It must change the nature of its
capabilities, the way it generates and deploys its forces, the way it
makes decisions, the way it spends money, and the way it works with
others.
Most importantly, NATO needs a new balance. For the past 15 years
the Alliance has been driven by the slogan ``out of area or out of
business.'' Threatened with irrelevance by its Cold War success, the
alliance reached across the old East-West divide to include new members
and new partners. It has sent soldiers and peacekeepers to trouble
spots beyond its boundaries, from the Balkans to Afghanistan. It has
become an expeditionary alliance.
NATO's out-of-area transformation remains important. But a single-
minded focus on ``out of area'' risks diverting us from NATO's enduring
``in area'' mission to protect North Atlantic nations from armed
attack. Alliance leaders are right to say that Western security today
begins at the Hindu Kush. But in an age of catastrophic terrorism, the
front line tomorrow may run through Washington's metro, Frankfurt's
airport, Rotterdam's port or Istanbul's grand bazaar.
If NATO is visible in expeditionary missions but invisible when it
comes to protecting our own societies, support for the alliance will
wane. Its role will be marginalized and our security diminished. NATO
operates out of area, and it is in business. But it must also operate
in area, or it is in trouble. If NATO cannot protect, it cannot
project.
NATO today faces a related set of missions both home and away. At
home, it is called to maintain deterrence and defense; support efforts
to strengthen societal resilience against a host of threats to the
transatlantic homeland; and contribute to a Europe that truly can be
whole, free and at peace. Away, it is called to prevent and respond to
crises; participate in stability operations; and connect better with
partners to cover a broader range of capabilities.
NATO Missions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Away
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deterrence and Defense Crisis Prevention and
Response
Transatlantic Resilience Stability Operations
EuroWhole, Free and at Peace Working Effectively
with Partners
------------------------------------------------------------------------
These missions, whether close to home or far away, share five
common requirements. All require intensive debate to sustain public and
parliamentary support and receptivity by other partners. All require
improved capabilities that are deployable. All require better synergy
between NATO and partners. All require better cooperation between civil
and military authorities. All require allies to match their means to
agreed missions.
This outline of NATO home and away missions does not mean that NATO
should always take the lead. Depending on the contingency at hand, NATO
may be called to play the leading role, be a supporting actor, or
simply join a broader ensemble. For deterrence and defense, for
instance, NATO remains the preeminent transatlantic institution. In all
other areas, however, it is likely to play a supporting role or work
within a larger network of institutions. Knowing where and when NATO
can add value is critical to prioritization of resources and effort.
NATO: Leading Role, Supporting Actor, or Ensemble Player?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mission Role
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Missions
Deterrence and Defense................ Lead
Transatlantic Resilience.............. Support/Selective Lead
Europe Whole, Free and at Peace....... Support/Selective Lead
Away Missions
Crisis Prevention and Response........ Lead/Selective Support
Stability Operations.................. Support/Selective Lead
Working Effectively with Partners..... Support/Ensemble Player
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Missions
Deterrence and Defense. NATO's collective defense commitment, as
stated in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, is the core of the
Alliance. NATO plays an essential role in deterring and defending
against attacks on the transatlantic homeland, from whatever source. In
recent years the focus has been on terrorism, but since the Russian
invasion of Georgia there has been renewed concern among some members
about the adequacy of NATO planning and defense capabilities to deal
with more traditional threats by aggressor states. These concerns have
prompted some allies to entertain the need for separate bilateral
security guarantees. A NATO that continues to expand without having the
capabilities to meet its core obligation to defend an enlarged treaty
area runs the risk of becoming a hollow alliance. Moreover, lack of
confidence in NATO's ability to carry out its fundamental commitment
risks undermining another key element of NATO's purpose--to prevent the
kind of renationalization of European defense and conflicting security
guarantees that led Europe to disaster in the 20th century. Therefore,
Alliance leaders should ensure that Article 5 is not just a paper
commitment but is backed up by credible planning to determine the
military requirements to carry it out, as well as the means and
political solidarity to implement it.
To strengthen Article 5 preparedness NATO could:
Restore the military capability of the NATO Response Force (NRF)
for the mission of ``first responder'' if a demonstration of
military force is required after Article 5 is invoked. A fully
capable NRF would express the commitment of Allies to meet
their Article 5 commitment.
Include in the Defense Planning Process a robust scenario that
includes reinforcement of Allied territory. MC-161, NATO's
assessment of future threats, should also ensure that ``the
full range'' of possible threats is included.
Exercise plans for territorial defense where appropriate along
NATO's periphery. Exercises should be fully transparent and
sized appropriately.
Direct NATO military staffs to develop comprehensive plans for the
timely handover of national forces to NATO control.
Invest in essential infrastructure in appropriate Allied nations
(especially in the newer Allies) to receive NATO
reinforcements.
Consider infrastructure upgrades in new members in order to base
NATO common assets.
Transatlantic Resilience. Alliance leaders should consider the
meaning of their Article 5 commitment to ``ensure the security of the
North Atlantic area'' in light of the challenges to societal security
facing our nations today. There are limits to the role NATO can and
should play in this area--many issues of law enforcement, domestic
intelligence, civil security and disaster response are well beyond
NATO's area of competence, and are better handled in national or
bilateral channels, or in some cases between the U.S., Canada and the
European Union (EU).
There are some areas, however, where NATO itself, or NATO and the
EU together, could complement other efforts and do more to enhance
transatlantic resilience. The Alliance has already been called upon to
help member and non-member governments with security for mass public
events and deal with the consequences of various natural disasters. It
could well be called upon to play a role in dealing with a catastrophic
terrorist event, particularly one involving agents of mass destruction.
NATO efforts to enhance societal resilience in the transatlantic
homeland would offer the Alliance both a 21st-century approach to
Article 5 and new meaning and credibility in the eyes of NATO publics
who are concerned about threats close to home. Alliance leaders have
the opportunity to articulate a strategic direction for transatlantic
homeland defense and societal resilience in the next NATO Strategic
Concept.
NATO and its members already possess noteworthy capabilities in
these areas, but their ability to act as a fully organized, capable
alliance is not well developed. NATO will need improved physical
assets, strengthened strategic planning and operating capacities. It
will need to coordinate closely with national governments, many of
which view control of societal security resources as vital
manifestations of their sovereignty, and have diverse constitutional
approaches to domestic uses of their military and to civil-military
cooperation in crisis situations.
Moreover, NATO engagement in this area will require a fundamentally
different relationship with the EU. Among the 21 NATO allies and 5
Partnership for Peace nations that also belong to the EU, there is
strong support for housing within the EU a growing number of common
European capabilities related to societal security and emergency
response (such as customs, police cooperation, environmental security
and information-sharing). The EU has undertaken a range of activities
and initiatives aimed at improving its military and civilian
capabilities and structures to respond to crises spanning both societal
defense and societal security, including cross-border cooperation on
consequence management after natural and manmade disasters.
In short, NATO is likely to be a supporting player in more robust
overall efforts at societal security in the North Atlantic space.
Nonetheless, NATO efforts could build on promising yet modest
developments already under way in several areas, to include:
Guarding the approaches and enhancing border security for the NATO
region;
Enhancing early-warning and air/missile defenses;
Improving counterterrorism activities;
Strengthening transatlantic capabilities for managing the
consequences of terrorist attacks (including agents of mass
destruction) or large-scale natural disasters;
Cyberdefense;
Biodefense;
Political consultations on energy security;
Incorporating transatlantic resilience into the Strategic Concept;
and
Creating a Civil Security Committee.
Europe Whole, Free and at Peace. NATO's third home mission should
be to contribute to overall transatlantic efforts to consolidate
democratic transformation on a European continent that at its broadest
is not yet whole, free and at peace. NATO allies have an interest in
consolidating the democratic transformation of Europe by working with
others to extend as far as possible across the European continent the
space of integrated security where war simply does not happen. Yet
post-communist applicants for NATO membership are weaker than earlier
aspirants and less well known to allied parliamentarians and publics. A
number are beset with historical animosities and have yet to experience
significant democratic reforms. When U.S. and European opinion leaders
consider these countries as potential partners and allies, they will
look closely at the nature and pace of domestic reforms and for
evidence of a willingness and desire to resolve historic conflicts. In
addition, Russia is opposed to further extension of NATO into the post-
Soviet space. Finally, as discussed earlier, some allies question the
current credibility of NATO's guarantees to its own members. They worry
that continued enlargement, without complementary efforts to bolster
NATO defense, could simply hollow out the Alliance.
Given these various challenges, a strategy for democratic
transformation and collective security in the region is likely to be
more effective if its goals are tied to conditions rather than
institutions. Western actors should work with the states in the region
to create conditions by which ever closer relations can be possible.
Such an approach has the advantage of focusing effort on practical
progress. NATO allies share an interest in promoting democratic
governance, the rule of law, open market economies, conflict resolution
and collective security, and secure cross-border transportation and
energy links, regardless the institutional affiliation of countries in
the region. The West must keep its door open to the countries of wider
Europe. NATO governments must remain firm on the Bucharest Summit
commitments to Georgia and Ukraine and to follow through on subsequent
pledges of further assistance to both countries through the NATO-
Georgia and NATO-Ukraine commissions and bilateral programs in
implementing needed political and defense reforms.
In short, the West should be careful not to close the door to the
countries of the region, but it should focus on creating conditions by
which the question of integration, while controversial today, can be
posed more positively in the future. A new focus on societal
resilience, and transatlantic interest in ``projecting resilience
forward'' to neighboring countries, would offer an additional means to
engage and draw closer the nations of wider Europe in ways that
strengthen overall transatlantic security. It could be an attractive
mission for the Partnership for Peace.
Away Missions
Crisis Prevention and Response. NATO's role has evolved from its
singular Cold War focus on Article 5 defense of allied territory to a
broader mission set that embraces non-Article 5 missions to assist the
international community in crisis prevention and response. In some
cases, consultations within NATO or diplomacy by NATO can help prevent
a crisis from escalating. NATO also has a unique capability to respond
quickly to a wide spectrum of man-made and natural crises. The NATO
Response Force (NRF) can be used for missions requiring rapid reaction
at strategic distance.
If the Alliance is to continue to play an effective role in this
area, NATO needs a deeper pool of forces that are capable, deployable
and sustainable. Maintaining the operational effectiveness of the NRF
is essential to NATO's credibility and should not be beyond the means
of allied governments. Yet allies are stretched thin, and there is no
easy fix. Either defense budgets must be increased for personnel,
training and equipment, or spending on existing force structure,
unnecessary command structure and bureaucracy must be re-mixed to
prioritize deployable forces and force multipliers such as
Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms and
helicopters.
Stability Operations. North American and European operations in the
Balkans, Africa and Afghanistan have highlighted the need for lengthy,
demanding stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) missions. As conflict
ends, peace depends on establishing public security, essential services
and basic governance. These tasks often fall to the military forces at
hand before competent civilian resources can be deployed safely to take
over. A lengthy period can then ensue where a combination of civilian
and military forces is required to stabilize the region and lay a
security foundation to enable the population to rebuild governance and
a secure society. These goals require allied forces to perform
demanding and often unfamiliar and unplanned tasks, such as fighting
terrorists and criminal gangs, pacifying ethnic violence, restoring
distribution of electrical power, water, food, and fuel, and rebuilding
armies, police forces, and other institutions of governance and law
enforcement. Sustaining such missions over time is politically and
operationally difficult. Future requirements for such missions could be
large.
Although many of these capabilities exist within the EU, NATO and
the Partnership for Peace, they are not organized into deployable
assets. Consideration should be given to the creation of a NATO
Stabilization and Reconstruction Force (SRF), an integrated,
multinational security support component that would organize, train and
equip to engage in post-conflict operations, compatible with EU
efforts.
Working Effectively with Partners. NATO has an interest in forging
partnerships with others who face common security challenges. Moreover,
in many non-European operations NATO is unlikely to operate or to
succeed on its own; other partners are likely to want to add their
strength to that of NATO, and NATO is likely to need partners for its
own success. NATO efforts to train and build the capacities of others
offer a low profile way to develop closer relations, help others cope
with their own regional problems, and perhaps even turn them into
partners and force contributors. Allied forces will also be better able
to operate together, and with others, if they have trained together and
have similar operational doctrines and procedures. NATO's patterns of
multilateral training and joint command structures provide a firmer
basis for shared military actions beyond Europe than any other
framework available to the U.S. or any individual ally. Thus, NATO will
remain a critical vehicle for ensuring interoperability between U.S.
and European forces. Indeed, this may prove to be one of its most
important military functions.
Moreover, in both crisis response and stability and reconstruction
operations, the Alliance must be able to operate closely with civilian
reconstruction and assistance agencies. A so-called ``comprehensive
approach'' to such operations has been developed by NATO that focuses
on both the civilian and military challenges that come with crisis
operations. The importance of the Comprehensive Approach was
acknowledged by NATO in its last three Summits. The core idea is that
the mission of restoring order and progress to damaged countries cannot
be accomplished by military forces alone. As seen in the Balkans and
Afghanistan, military action can secure space for civilian action in
complex crises, but militaries can not restore societies. A combination
of military forces and civilian assets are necessary, deployed in a
coordinated way. Civilian functions, in turn, cannot normally be
performed by a single institution. Instead, they must be performed by a
multiplicity of actors, including foreign ministries, development
agencies, the EU, partner countries outside NATO, international
agencies such as the United Nations and OSCE, NGOs such as the Red
Cross, and numerous civilian contractors.
Fusing these civilian activities and blending them with ongoing S&R
missions of military forces requires more structured relations between
NATO, the UN, the OSCE, the EU and other established international
actors to allow them to be more proactive in preventing future crises
in the first place, and to work together more effectively, including
with NGOs, in restoring peace and stability in crisis areas. NATO needs
to retool to undertake more stability operations elsewhere in the
world, not just focus on ways to improve its performance in
Afghanistan. NATO's support for the African Union in Darfur, for
instance, may be a model of global engagement for which the Alliance
needs to prepare better.
Not only does the strategic logic for partnerships remain
compelling, NATO's operational effectiveness is increasingly dependent
on such partnerships. 16 non-NATO members are involved in NATO
operations, 15 of them in Afghanistan. NATO's array of partnership
initiatives, however, has languished and needs greater coherence. The
multitude of partner groups constitutes a disparate collage of good
efforts without measures of effectiveness or mutually supporting plans
and programs. Moreover, NATO has yet to establish a truly strategic
partnership with the EU or a meaningful partnership with the UN or such
institutions as the OSCE or the African Union. NATO should establish an
Assistant Secretary General for Partnership to give direction to all
engaged staffs.
NATO-EU Partnership: France's re-entry into NATO's integrated
military structure offers an important opportunity to build stronger
NATO-EU ties. France today is the largest contributor to the NRF, and
it participates in all major Alliance expeditionary operations,
including Kosovo and Afghanistan. Washington should offer clear support
for stronger European security and defense capabilities that can enable
Europe to be a stronger partner for North America and also tackle
security challenges on its own as appropriate.
For the foreseeable future, NATO will remain the transatlantic
partnership's premier military alliance for high-end defense
requirements, including force transformation, demanding expeditionary
missions, and major war-fighting. The EU does not aspire to such high-
end military operations, but it could help promote armaments
cooperation, common R&D and procurement, standardization and
interoperability, training, multinational logistics, and other
activities in ways that conserve scarce resources and thereby benefit
European and NATO defense preparedness.
Various initiatives to build a sound EU-NATO relationship could
develop:
Institutional capabilities to enable rapid coordinated NATO-EU
response to crisis;
Joint planning;
A joint operations command in major operations where the EU and
NATO are both engaged, such as in Afghanistan;
A joint force generation mechanism to request assets from both EU
and NATO members for a combined operation;
A new NATO-EU partnership on WMD consequence management that
delineates the role of each organization in a crisis; creates
links between each and the WHO global health security network;
and develops reliable channels for rapid communication among
health and security officials;
Compatible capabilities.--NATO and the EU should consider joint
training exercises to improve interoperability, work toward
common standards for unit certification, and be fully
transparent in planning for rotations. The EU should consider
making its battle groups and joint assets available for some
NATO forces and missions.
A strong relationship between NATO and the EU's European Defense
Agency (EDA) to rationalize European procurement and facilitate
efforts by European governments to integrate military forces
and structures across national borders.
Joint or complementary efforts to project ``forward resilience'' to
partners.
NATO-UN Relations. In September 2008, after almost 60 years of
coexistence, the UN and NATO agreed for the first time to a formal
relationship and a framework for expanded consultation and cooperation.
These organizations already cooperate to safeguard Kosovo's fragile
stability and struggle together in Afghanistan. NATO protects UN food
aid shipments to Somalia against the threat of pirate attacks. The
United Nations has the most diverse experience with peacekeeping
operations, yet its record is uneven. Further reform of the UN
Department of Political Affairs and Department of Peacekeeping
Operations is needed to better enable them to lead crisis management
and peace support operations.
In 1992 NATO became the first regional organization authorized by
the Security Council to use force. The UNSC has mandated almost all
ongoing NATO operations. It is a rare NATO operation where the UN is
not engaged in some fashion. There are many UN operations with no EU,
NATO or U.S. involvement. There are no EU, NATO or U.S. operations
without some UN involvement. Despite its post-Cold War transformation,
NATO depends on the capacities and expertise of the UN and its special
agencies in the political, rule of law, humanitarian and development
areas in places such as Afghanistan. If progress lacks in these fields,
the Alliance will not be able to achieve its goals.
The NATO-UN relationship, however, has always been ad hoc. There is
no routine and consistent joint planning or common crisis management.
UN humanitarian bodies and agencies are concerned that closer
cooperation with NATO could jeopardize their neutrality and
impartiality in conflict areas and put their staff at risk, and NATO
nations have been reluctant to provide their troops and assets to UN
peacekeeping missions following the UN's failure to stop violence in
Bosnia in the early 1990s. The NATO representation at the UN in New
York is small and unable to undertake consistently the advance planning
needed for NATO and the UN to work together efficiently. NATO needs to
build up its presence at the UN with additional planners to develop the
relationships and establish a routine planning capability; the UN
should have representation at SHAPE; and the NATO-UN agreement should
be operationalized.
Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI).
Allied interests in the stability and prosperity of the Mediterranean
and the broader Middle East have increased greatly since these programs
were first created. Alliance security depends on the stability that can
be advanced through cooperation with these partners. NATO's engagement
in Afghanistan and the training of Iraqi security forces have made the
alliance more relevant to security in the broader Middle East. NATO's
role could grow should the Alliance be called upon to provide forces to
implement any future Palestinian-Israeli settlement--however unlikely
such an accord appears to be at present. NATO, the Gulf States, and
others in the region are also concerned about the implications of
Iran's nuclear activities and missile programs, and have common
interests in energy security. At the Riga Summit, NATO governments
launched a Training Cooperation Initiative to expand participation by
Middle East partners and to explore joint establishment of a security
cooperation center in the region. Unfortunately, not much has come from
this initiative. It should be re-energized so that NATO can share its
expertise in training military forces to help partners build forces
that are interoperable with those of Allies. ICI countries and NATO
need to define future priorities, which might include combined
peacekeeping operations, cooperation on crisis management and missile
defense. The Alliance also needs a better public diplomacy strategy for
the region.
Global Partnerships. In the process of taking on emerging global
challenges, NATO must deepen partnerships globally. Since 2001, NATO
has undertaken operational military cooperation with countries beyond
Europe's periphery to counter terrorism and promote stability.
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea have either worked with
the Alliance in Afghanistan or supported stabilization efforts in Iraq.
The development of these relationships reflects NATO's need for a wider
circle of partners to respond to complex global threats. At the Riga
and Bucharest Summits, allies recognized the value of global
partnerships with countries that share our values. There has been real
progress in building political dialogue and developing individual
Tailored Cooperation Packages. Given that some of these countries are
now offering to intensify their cooperation and to provide troops or
civilian resources to NATO operations, they need to be accommodated
through closer political and military ties.
NATO needs to:
Facilitate routine political consultations;
Better integrate partner armed forces into the planning and conduct
of those NATO-led operations where partners elect to
participate;
Improve partner interoperability with NATO forces; and
Intensify its political dialogue with other major players, notably
China, India and Pakistan.
internal nato reforms
In addition to capacities tailored to specific missions, reforms
are required in areas that cut across the mission spectrum. NATO should
change the way it makes decisions; change the way it spends money;
generate appropriate military capabilities; and match missions to
means.
Change the Way NATO Makes Decisions
Modify the Consensus Rule. NATO decision making at every level of
the Alliance has been governed by the consensus rule; all decisions,
large or small, are unanimous. While this is an important symbol of
unity, especially when the NAC votes to deploy forces, the consensus
rule also allows one nation to block the wishes of all others and also
leads to lowest-common-denominator decisions. It is time for a thorough
review, with an eye towards consensus decision-making only taking place
in the NAC and in budget committees, or perhaps only on certain
decisions, such as deploying forces or spending money. Qualified
majority voting, or upholding a simple majority, have each been
suggested as alternatives, especially in committees lower than the NAC.
Another important reform worth considering is allowing nations to opt
out of participating in an operation (even after joining consensus in
the NAC to approve an operation). In such a case, the opt-out nation
would not bear the cost of an operation, but also would not participate
in decision-making on how that operation is executed.
Merge NATO's Civilian and Military Staffs. The International Staff
and International Military Staff (IS/IMS) are the backbone of NATO HQ,
fulfilling many important day-to-day functions to support decision-
making in the NAC and the Military Committee. However, both staffs have
hardened into bureaucratic stovepipes, often performing duplicative
functions and working in an uncoordinated fashion that undercuts
efficiency. While both staffs should be reviewed by an outside working
group to determine how they might be reorganized, a reform that could
be undertaken now is to increase the integration of the staffs at NATO
HQ, which was begun on an experimental basis a few years ago. Such a
mix of civilian and military staffs is key to implementing the
``comprehensive approach.''
Revamp the NATO Military Committee (MC). In the past, the Military
Committee played an important role in providing military advice to the
NAC and in providing guidance to the Strategic Commands. However, in
recent years the MC has been used as an arena to fight political
battles better fought elsewhere, undercutting the MC's credibility.
Today, many question whether the MC is the best source for unbiased
military advice and whether it has been effective in motivating nations
to improve military capabilities and force generation. The MC's role,
mission and processes should be closely reviewed.
Review Defense Acquisition. The creation of the EU's European
Defense Agency (EDA) provides the potential for cooperation with NATO's
Conference of National Armament Directors (CNAD). Both institutions
share the same capability shortfalls and lack of political will by
their members to increase defense budgets or otherwise improve
capabilities. While there is a NATO-EU Working Group on Capabilities,
cooperation is largely sterile. The role of the CNAD should be reviewed
carefully by an outside group made up of industry and acquisition
officials to determine if NATO acquisition procedures should be
revamped, and to look for ways that the EU and NATO could cooperate in
meeting common capability shortfalls more efficiently.
Streamline the Command Structure. The NATO command structure is in
a perpetual state of reform, and has transformed from the complex
organization of the Cold War to a configuration more suitable for
expeditionary operations outside the NATO region. However, as NATO
evolves, so must its command structure, and there is still some
unfinished business.
One criticism is that SHAPE, despite being a strategic command,
still has too much operational control that should belong to the
commander in the field. SHAPE should remain principally a strategic
level command.
Second, NATO headquarters are not standard, often complex and at
times incomprehensible. Command relationships can hamper rather than
facilitate command. Most of the NATO command structure is still
undeployable, necessitating the creation of ad hoc headquarters to
serve as KFOR and ISAF, while large staffs sit almost idle at fixed
locations in Europe.
Finally, the role of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) as an
``engine for transformation'' is also under the microscope. ACT is
criticized as having a weak impact on transformation, failing to have
acquisition authority, and lacking credibility at NATO Headquarters.
Some have always been concerned that the current arrangement--a dual-
hatted supreme commander as head of both ACT and U.S. Joint Forces
Command (JFCOM)--may not give that commander the time needed to devote
to the difficult transformation task at NATO.
With these perspectives in mind consideration should be given to a
reorganized and reoriented three-level command structure.
The strategic level is Allied Command Operations (ACO) commanded by
the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) who should remain an
American; and Allied Command Transformation (ACT) with a European
Supreme Commander and two Deputies, one in charge of defense planning
and acquisition and the other a U.S. deputy dual-hatted as the Deputy
USJFCOM in charge of transformation. ACT's duties would also include
developing doctrine and training for the comprehensive approach,
transatlantic resilience and defense, including the Atlantic
approaches, and with an element at USNORTHCOM to support that mission.
The second level should be operational and comprised of three JFC
headquarters in Brunssum, the Netherlands; Naples, Italy; and Lisbon,
Portugal. Each JFC headquarters should have a geographic and functional
focus. JFC Lisbon's geographic focus should be on the Mediterranean Sea
and Africa, and its functional priority should be NATO-EU
collaboration. JFC Brunssum should focus on southwest Asia/broader
Middle East as a geographic priority and the reappearance of a
conventional threat as a functional priority. JFC Naples should focus
on southeastern Europe and transatlantic resilience. Each JFC should be
able to deploy a robust Joint Task Force, and there should be at least
two Combined Air Operations Centers (CAOC) with a deployable CAOC
capability. JFCs must be capable of operational oversight of multiple
missions. All JFCs must be capable of backing one another, and must
plan and exercise for Article 5 missions.
The third level of the NATO Command Structure should be comprised
of three joint deployable HQs that deploy to the mission area to
conduct operations (e.g. KFOR and ISAF). These HQs would replace most
or all of the current 6 fixed component commands (2 air, 2 land and 2
maritime). If required, the three deployable HQs could be supplemented
by the High Readiness HQs already in existence in some allied nations
or other HQs at lower readiness.
Change the Way NATO Spends Money
The way NATO spends money for operations and infrastructure is
opaque, complicated and does not go far enough to lessen the financial
burden on nations deploying on missions. Changes are needed to improve
financial efficiency, increase military capability and cover costs that
otherwise give nations an excuse not to deploy on operations. Because
additional common funding contributions will not come easily from
nations, greater effort must be made to re-direct spending of common
funds from political and military bureaucratic structure to improving
deployability and capabilities. This is routinely done through such
mechanisms as Peacetime Establishment reviews, but they have not
produced the needed results. The financial crisis makes it imperative
for NATO to develop a new approach to funding operations and common
equipment:
Cost-share operations. Although wealthier allies feel they already
pay too much into common funds and do not feel it is fair for
them to increase their contributions to common funding, poorer
allies often cannot cover costs to deploy on missions. If
wealthier nations do not contribute more to common funds, fewer
allies will participate in Alliance missions.
Increase and broaden the use of common funds to procure common
equipment for operations. While the Alliance has increased the
use of common funds to procure common equipment for operations,
such use is often blocked by some nations who ``do not want to
pay for a capability twice.'' Such a short-sighted view makes
it easy for some nations to avoid shouldering the burden by
pleading poverty. NATO military authorities should suggest
additional equipment that NATO could purchase and make
available to nations and so make it easier for them to deploy.
Coordinate equipment procurement with the EU. This has the
potential for the greatest efficiency, but is the hardest to
implement. Both NATO and the EU share common capability
shortfalls that could be met more efficiently if those
shortfalls are met in a common procurement. Much of such
cooperation has been stalled by political issues, industrial
base issues, as well as by the sheer complexity that comes with
common procurement by nations. Most efforts, even on a small
scale, have failed miserably in the past. However, a new
approach at cooperative procurement should be considered by a
working group that includes representatives of transatlantic
industry.
Generate Appropriate Military Capabilities
NATO must generate the appropriate capabilities to meet its
missions. Without credible capabilities, strategic concepts, treaty
guarantees and summit declarations mean little to allies or those who
would confront them. NATO credibility rests on a demonstrable
capability for timely military response to threats to any member's
territory. Credibility also requires the capabilities to carry out
other missions that allies have agreed. Every NATO Strategic Concept
has had at its core clear guidance on required military capabilities. A
new Concept will have to address the increasing demand for usable
capabilities alongside the reality that available resources will
contract. NATO militaries need considerable further restructuring to
achieve far more availability of resources. NATO itself needs greater
efficiencies and better business practices.
Capabilities for Article 5 and non-Article 5 missions
A. Deployable Conventional Forces. Forces that cannot deploy are of
almost no use for Alliance missions. About 70 percent of European land
forces cannot deploy, due either to obsolete equipment, lack of
mobility assets, reliance on fixed logistics, or a lack of plans or
training for movement operations. Troop rotations mean that 30 percent
of forces that are deployable yield no more than 10 percent sustained
mission support. With a force almost half a million smaller, the U.S.
deploys well over twice as many troops as Europe.
1. Major Combat Forces. Not only light forces must be
deployable. Heavy armored forces that would anchor land defense
of the Alliance must be deployable, strategically and
operationally by aircraft, ship, rail or road. NATO boundaries
are hundreds, often thousands of kilometers from where forces
are located in the heart of Europe. Article 5 credibility is
eroded by the absence of plans and assets for forces to get
where they may be needed.
2. Intervention Forces. The focus today is on Afghanistan, as
it must be, and on Kosovo, where security remains tense. These
interventions strain allied forces because the reservoir of
deployable lighter forces for non-Article 5 missions is just as
inadequate as for Article 5 missions. In Afghanistan national
caveats by some allies increase the demands on the forces of
those allies without caveats. Rotational schemes, essential to
long operations by volunteer militaries, exponentially increase
force requirements. Europe has 1.3 million non-conscript land
forces, yet in 2007 was only able to muster on average
deployment of less than 80,000 for all operations--NATO, EU and
national. As in the case of heavy armor, many lighter forces
needed in Kosovo and Afghanistan are simply undeployable and
therefore unavailable.
3. The NATO Response Force (NRF). The NRF is the most visible
example of the shortage of ready, available forces, especially
to meet Article 5 missions. Yet for many reasons allies are
reluctant to meet force requirements. As a result, it has been
scaled back both in terms of capabilities and mission. Although
the NRF is intended to be NATO's most prominent response
capability, pressure has been needed from the start to fill the
modest NRF requirements of 25,000 combined land, air and naval
forces, especially a brigade of land forces representing just
2,000-3,000. For example, in late 2008, just two months prior
to its mission window, the 13th rotation of the NATO Response
Force was reported to be at only 26% fill for land forces with
no commitments for helicopters or logistics. Shortfalls are due
to the demands of meeting troop requests for current
operations, particularly ISAF in Afghanistan, and many forces
are simply unusable. The NRF must be kept robust and able for
an array of missions, including disaster assistance and
humanitarian relief.
4. Special Operations Forces and Stabilization Forces.
Conflict regions like Afghanistan are inherently complex, with
warfare and stability operations inextricably intertwined.
Forces must understand their environment be able to work with a
host of partners. Short tours frustrate continuity among
multinational forces through turnover rates that destroy
institutional memory and expertise. Tours of at least 6 months
should be the norm. All allies maintain small contingents of
Special Operations Forces (SOF) as well as the military police,
engineering, civil affairs (CA)/civil-military (CIMIC), and
medical units that are most needed to conduct stabilization or
crisis response operations. However these types of forces are
inadequate in number relative to the long nature of such
operations.
B. Commonly Funded Force Enablers. Three critical sets of force
enablers or multipliers should be approved by NATO for common funding
under the NATO Security Investment Program (NSIP) or under the Military
Budget, as appropriate. These enablers are too costly yet too critical
to continue to depend primarily on national means. The dire result of
that policy can be seen in ISAF shortfalls today.
1. Strategic and Theater Lift. Including sealift and airlift
as well as land movement to Alliance borders, is essential to
respond to Article 5 indications and warnings as well as to
crises well beyond NATO territory. While the Alliance has
organized its sealift capabilities, some sealift capabilities
should be NATO funded. Some airlift capabilities, including
aerial refueling, should also be NATO funded. Strategic
response requires mobility planning, training and exercises.
Airfields and ports should be surveyed and upgraded to handle
appropriate vessels/aircraft and numbers of movements.
2. Network Enabled Command, Control and Communications (C3).
Communications and information systems are incompatible across
NATO forces at the operational and tactical levels, and far too
much of both NATO and national network systems (especially U.S.
systems) remain non-interoperable.
3. Interoperable Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance (ISR). National capabilities span a wide,
disparate range, and system incompatibility is far more common
than synchronous systems. There must be greater willingness to
share information across multinational elements. Procedural
obstacles--especially in the U.S.--are more daunting than
technological ones. Common-owned and -funded systems would help
to solve these problems.
If the Alliance is to be serious about common funding and
procurement, the U.S. must modify its technology transfer
procedures and the ``Buy American'' policy with respect to its
closest allies.
C. Missile Defense. Missile defense of both territory and deployed
forces has emerged as a potentially important requirement for future
deterrence against missile threats from Iran and possibly other
countries. Should diplomacy succeed in stopping Iranian acquisition of
nuclear weapons, interceptor deployment may not be necessary. Yet
current U.S. and allied efforts should continue now for two reasons.
First, such efforts are prudent given the lead time necessary for
deployment. Second, should diplomacy fail and Tehran acquire nuclear
weapons capability, a defensive response is likely to be a more
palatable and effective option than an offensive military response. As
NATO moves forward, it should seek to put missile defenses in place
without rupture to NATO-Russia relations. At the Strasbourg/Kehl
Summit, Alliance leaders committed to engage with Russia on missile
defense issues. The Alliance also needs to follow through on its 2008
Bucharest Summit commitments to explore how the planned U.S. missile
defense sites in Europe could be integrated into current NATO plans and
to develop options for a comprehensive missile defense architecture to
extend coverage to all Allied territory and populations not otherwise
covered by the U.S. system.
D. Nuclear Forces. None of these considerations contradict
initiatives such as Global Zero. Yet when it comes to practical
implementation, it is important to keep in mind that historically, the
presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has been a preeminent symbol
coupling European and North American security. For this reason, a
unilateral U.S. decision to withdraw its nuclear weapons could be seen
in Europe as a U.S. effort to decouple its security from that of its
allies and thus question the very premise of the Atlantic Alliance. If
such a step is to be considered, therefore, the initiative should come
from Europe. If European allies are confident that European and North
American security is sufficiently coupled without the presence of U.S.
nuclear weapons in Europe, the U.S. is unlikely to object to their
removal. Alliance discussion of NATO's choices should be framed by the
following:
Careful consideration of future requirements in terms of theater
nuclear delivery capabilities, i.e., the appropriate number of
dual capable aircraft (DCA) and the number of devices to be
prudently associated with them.
Close and reflective negotiations among all allies, especially
those who store these weapons. Allies should keep in mind that
once withdrawn, it will be all but impossible politically to
return them. Redeployment in time of tension would readily be
seen as an act of war.
If reductions or even elimination is considered, NATO needs a
strategy for negotiating an equivalent reduction by Russia, the
other holder of such weapons.
Match Missions to Means
A vision without resources is a hallucination. And yet the gap
between the missions NATO is called to take on and the means it has to
perform them is growing day by day.
NATO has tried the full array of incentives and mechanisms to
encourage its members to maintain sufficient levels of ready forces and
defense investment. In each case, the initiative fell short--sometimes
very short--of agreed goals. Moreover, we are in the midst of a deep
economic crisis of indeterminate length. For these reasons, NATO cannot
expect any growth in resource availability. The opposite is more
likely--declining defense resources on both sides of the Atlantic over
a sustained period.
The only source of greater capability in the near term is to
improve what is already on hand. That requires members to generate
economies within current defense budgets. The Alliance needs to make a
number of major changes:
Reconsider NATO's ambition of two large and six small operations
simultaneously, which it cannot fulfill for at least 10 years,
and is not attuned to the mission set I have advanced here.
Increase the usability of NATO's 12,500 person formal command
structure, none of which is deployable.16
Look for capabilities where the pooling of assets by some members
can be agreed, such as the C-17 airlift initiative among 12
members and partners.
Reorganize where practical into multinational units comprised of
national component forces or even national niche forces.
Expand civilian capabilities available to NATO by energizing and
implementing the Comprehensive Approach.
Renew emphasis on consolidating R&D investment and sharing
technologies.
Look earnestly at collective procurement or contracting for
transport helicopters; intelligence, surveillance and
reconnaissance (ISR) assets; and centralized logistics, along
the lines of the consortium purchase of strategic airlift by a
group of NATO members described above.
Redouble efforts to shift spending away from personnel and
infrastructure costs in national defense budgets, and towards
investment, training, and readiness. The goal is smaller,
better equipped, more deployable forces.
Bolster Alliance capacities to support member states' national
efforts to safeguard against cyber attacks from whatever
source.
Put teeth in NATOs ``Peacetime Establishment'' (PE) Review to save
military budget funds by cutting static command structure or
cost-sharing with other institutions NATO's Cold War era
research facilities.
conclusion
Taken together, these reforms promise to reinforce each element of
NATO's enduring purpose, while repositioning the Alliance within a
broader, reinvigorated Atlantic partnership that is more capable of
responding to the opportunities and challenges of the new world rising.
To succeed in this new world, Europeans and Americans must define
their partnership in terms of common security rather than just common
defense, at home and away. This will require the Alliance to stretch.
Depending on the contingency at hand, NATO may be called to play the
leading role, be a supporting actor, or simply join a broader ensemble.
Even so, NATO alone--no matter how resilient--simply cannot stretch far
enough to tackle the full range of challenges facing the Euro-Atlantic
community. It must also be able to connect and work better with others,
whether they are nations or international governmental or non-
governmental organizations. And if NATO is to both stretch and connect,
it will need to generate better expeditionary capabilities and change
the way it does business.
At the April NATO Summit, Alliance leaders tasked work on a new
Strategic Concept, to be presented at the 2010 Summit in Portugal. I
respectfully suggest that this process take account of the many ideas
advanced in Alliance Reborn and in this testimony.
Such an effort is likely to be moot, however, if Europe and North
America are unable to quell the threat emanating from the Afghan-
Pakistani borderlands, or to develop a common approach to Russia. The
trick is to combine the urgent with the important, to forge the
consensus needed to tackle current challenges while keeping the longer
term health of our Alliance in mind.
Madame Chairwoman, thank you for allowing me to present my
perspectives here today.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson.
STATEMENT OF DAMON WILSON, DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL
SECURITY PROGRAM, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES,
WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Wilson. Thank you. Madam Chair, Senator DeMint, Senator
Kaufman, I'm honored to join my distinguished colleagues today
to speak before your committee about the future of our Atlantic
Alliance. I'm particularly pleased to be here as someone raised
in Charleston, SC, and who summered on the Connecticut River
Valley between New Hampshire and Vermont on the family farm.
On September 11, 2001, I was in the office of then-NATO
Secretary General Lord Robertson, watching in horror as America
was attacked. At first, we felt helpless, but we quickly went
to work on how NATO could help.
The next day, NATO invoked article 5 of the North Atlantic
Treaty and endorsed a package of support to the United States.
After a history of hair-trigger alert, it was terrorists,
rather than Soviets, that triggered NATO's collective defense
guarantee.
This experience and its aftermath taught me three lessons:
One, the tremendous goodwill of America's allies in times of
crisis; second, the limited capability of NATO to respond to
new threats; and third, the limited ability of the United
States to integrate allied assistance into U.S. military
planning.
Each of these lessons is relevant today. First, that
reservoir of goodwill needs to be nurtured and turned into
political will within the alliance. Allied leaders must
advocate the alliance and partnership with the United States to
their publics in order to sustain support, especially for the
fight in Afghanistan.
Second, since 9/11, NATO has transformed its st
capabilities to face 21 century threats, but the alliance lags
behind the evolution of the threat. Third, NATO is the United
States permanent coalition. Working with allies is cumbersome,
but when American soldiers, sailors, and airmen enter the
fight, it's a political imperative that they do so with allies
by their side.
We, therefore, shouldn't just lament the complexities of
coalition operations, but rather, focus on improving them. And
NATO often should be the organizing core around which broader
coalitions are built, as the alliance offers an increasingly
international standard of interoperability and command.
Stitching coalitions together is unwieldy for the Pentagon, but
it's what NATO's military headquarters at SHAPE is designed to
do.
Today, NATO faces questions both of common vision and
political will as it struggles with how to develop the
capabilities required to deter or win conflicts, how to
integrate Europe's East, and how to succeed in Afghanistan.
Last month's 60 anniversary summit called for a new
strategic concept to answer these questions and to serve as a
roadmap for NATO in the coming years. As this debate begins, I
think the alliance should focus on three key missions: First,
to ensure the collective defense of its members from all forms
of attack; to complete the vision of a Europe whole, free, and
at peace; and to serve as a leading vehicle through which North
America and Europe act to promote security, prosperity, and
democracy around the world, these last two roles in partnership
with the European Union.
I agree with Dr. Hamilton that NATO is first and foremost a
collective defense alliance, and this solemn commitment should
remain the bedrock. NATO is right to begin quiet and prudent
contingency planning for responding to an attack on a member
state, whether by a conventional or unconventional means. This
should be NATO's routine private business.
But this also means developing the capabilities to defend
security at home and at strategic distances. Expeditionary
capabilities and sustainment are just as important for a crisis
in Europe's East as they are for Afghanistan. The alliance must
do better developing defenses against due threats, like cyber
warfare, biowarfare, and missile strikes. Furthermore, creative
work is required to ensure continued NATO and nuclear deterrent
without depending on the current antiquated force structure.
NATO should continue to be an engine for foreign and
fragile European democracies by maintaining a credible open-
door policy and by being an active partner in assisting those
reforms. Enlargement has neither burdened NATO with costs nor
complicated region consensus. Growth in membership does merit
strengthening the authorities of the Secretary General and
streamlining the committee structure, but the real challenge is
keeping the open-door commitment credible.
There is a common vision that as Bulkan nations implement
reforms, they will earn a place within the Euro-Atlantic
institutions. If there is no clear path to deliver on this
vision, there needs to be one.
Some believe it's time to put Georgia and Ukraine on the
back burner. This approach risks backsliding in Tbilisi and
Kyiv and caters to Russia's temptation to pursue a sphere of
influence.
Given the caution in Europe, American leadership is
required to ensure the NATO-Ukraine and NATO-Georgia
commissions do not languish. This engagement need not be
delayed by a false debate about membership, which is many years
away in the best of circumstances. Rather, our efforts should
focus on using the commission's bilateral efforts, the EU's
Eastern Partnership to bolster Democratic institutions, free
markets, and defense reform. But without the vision of where
tough reforms lead, political support for such reforms may
thin.
The key challenge to a Europe whole and free is Russia's
place in it. The NATO-Russia Council itself is not a flawed
institution meriting a new European security architecture.
Rather, Russia's trajectory has undermined the promise of that
partnership. But increasingly, the focus of the U.S.
relationship with Europe is not Europe itself, but our global
challenges.
NATO accordingly should be a leading vehicle through which
Europe and North America act globally, and this means ensuring
we have an alliance prepared to lead new missions, whether
supporting an African Union mission, humanitarian operation, or
even an eventual peace deal in the Middle East.
NATO's track record with the Partnership for Peace is a
good basis upon which to strengthen ties to other global
partners, such as Australia, South Korea, and Japan. We should
even at some point consider alliances with the alliance with
those that share our values and interests and contribute to our
security.
I'd like to make just a brief word on European defense and
France's return to the integrated military command. President
Sarkozy's election represented the victory of a vision of a
strong France in partnership with the United States, rather
than a France defined in opposition to the United States. But
the challenge we face is to ensure that this French strategic
perspective endures beyond the presidency of Sarkozy.
We can reap these benefits by helping France succeed within
NATO, and ensuring European defense reinforces NATO. This means
investing France in NATO's success so that Paris no longer
limits NATO for ideological reasons. It means harnessing a
serious French military in support of creating serious alliance
capabilities, and restoring as the default for cooperation
between NATO and the EU the Berlin Plus arrangements to avoid
the potential for future duplication.
President Obama's first NATO summit demonstrated that our
allies will often not meet our expectations. But NATO is the
institution through which we and like-minded partners can
organize our allies to do more. NATO has been repeatedly
challenged by policymakers and pundits, and also tyrants and
terrorists. And repeatedly, the alliance has overcome obstacles
as it's gathered the political will to reinvent itself. It
faces another such test over the coming year, and the United
States should be a full partner with our allies in helping it
pass that test.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Damon Wilson
Madame Chairwoman, ranking member, members of the committee, I am
honored to be asked to speak about the future of our Atlantic Alliance
before your committee today. I am also delighted to join some of my
closest colleagues and friends on this panel.
The Atlantic Council of the United States promotes constructive
U.S. leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the
central role of the Atlantic community in meeting the international
challenges of the 21st century. But we cannot advance that mission
without taking a critical view of NATO. It is only with such a critique
that we ensure that we are working with our partners to strengthen our
Alliance.
Since the end of the Cold War, the role of NATO has been repeatedly
challenged by policy-makers and pundits, but also tyrants and
terrorists. And despite the criticism and challenges, or perhaps
because of them, the Alliance has overcome obstacles and grown more
vibrant as it has gathered the political will to reinvent itself.
Today, again, the Alliance faces a question of common vision and
political will as it struggles with how to integrate Europe's east, how
to succeed in Afghanistan, and how to develop the capabilities required
to deter or win future conflicts.
My views of the Alliance are shaped by my experiences with NATO,
whether as a State Department official helping to organize the 50th
anniversary Washington summit in the midst of preparing for the air
campaign in Kosovo, or as a NATO international staff member in Kabul to
mark the first change of command to a NATO-led International Security
Assistance Force.
On September 11, 2001, I was at NATO Headquarters in the office of
then-Secretary General Lord Robertson watching in horror as America was
attacked. My first sentiments were one of helplessness. But then we
went to work thinking through how NATO could help. On September 12,
NATO invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty and endorsed a
package of measures to support the United States. After a history of
hair-trigger alert, it was terrorists rather than Soviets that
triggered NATO's collective defense guarantees.
This experience and its aftermath taught me three lessons which
inform my views on the Alliance:
The tremendous goodwill of America's allies in times of crisis;
The limited capability of the Alliance to respond to a new type of
threat; and
The limited ability of the United States to integrate Allied
assistance into U.S. military planning.
Each of these lessons is relevant today.
First, that reservoir of goodwill needs to be nurtured and turned
into political will. Allied leaders must be prepared to advocate the
Alliance and partnership with the United States to their publics,
especially the fight in Afghanistan which is an Article 5 operation.
Second, since 9/11, the Alliance has accelerated an agenda to
transform its capabilities to ensure NATO is prepared for 21st century
threats, but the Alliance as a whole lags behind the evolution of the
threats.
Third, the United Sates needs to remember that NATO remains its
permanent coalition. Many critics argue that working with our allies
militarily is too complicated and time-consuming with too little impact
to merit the investment. I believe it is a political imperative that
when American soldiers, sailors and airmen enter the fight, that they
do so with allies. We should recognize that NATO is our permanent
coalition, NATO allies will almost always form the core of any military
coalition, and NATO can set the standards for interoperability with any
international partner. Therefore, we should not waste time complaining
about the complexities of coalition operations, but rather focus on how
to improve them. After all, SHAPE exists to integrate many national
contributions into a coherent military force. We need to use the
Alliance structures we have invested in.
Last month's 60th anniversary summit launched the drafting of a new
Strategic Concept which will serve as the roadmap for the Alliance in
the coming years. As this debate begins, in my view, we should focus
the future role of the NATO Alliance on three key missions:
To ensure the collective defense of its members from all forms of
attack;
To complete the vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace; this
means NATO should continue to be an engine of reform in fragile
European democracies by maintaining a credible ``open door''
policy and by being an active partner in assisting those
reforms; and
To serve as a leading vehicle through which North America and
Europe work together to promote security, prosperity and
democracy around the world.
This first role is the unique core of the Alliance. The last two
roles should be pursued by both NATO and the U.S.-EU partnership.
NATO is first and foremost a collective defense alliance. This
solemn commitment is the bedrock of the Alliance, and should remain so.
Russia's invasion of Georgia raised questions about whether the
Article 5 commitment remains credible. While the most likely attack on
an ally will originate from a computer, virus or ballistic missile, all
NATO allies deserve to know that military planning backs up the Article
5 commitment. NATO is right to begin quiet, prudent and routine
contingency planning for responding to an attack on a member state,
whether by conventional or unconventional means. This should be NATO's
routine, private business.
But this also means developing the right capabilities to defend the
homeland. Expeditionary capabilities and sustainment are just as
important for Portuguese, Dutch or Canadian reinforcements to an
imaginary crisis in Europe's east as they are for Allied contributions
in Afghanistan. The Alliance must also do better developing doctrine
and defenses against new threats, like cyberwarfare, biowarfare and
missile strikes. NATO has made significant progress on cyber and
biodefense in recent years, but the Alliance should be on the cutting
edge rather than playing catch up. Similarly, NATO's theater missile
defense efforts have dragged on for years, and European and U.S.
ambivalence has kept NATO from being a full partner in broader
ballistic missile defense efforts important to Allied security over the
long-run.
NATO nuclear policy has traditionally underpinned the collective
defense guarantee. The twin pressures of an aging, impractical arsenal
stationed in Europe and the vision outlined in President Obama's speech
in Prague mean the future of NATO nuclear policy is in doubt. Creative
work is required to ensure a continued Alliance deterrent without
depending on the current force structure.
NATO's open door policy has meant that the Alliance has remained
open to all European democracies which share the values of the
Alliance, which are willing and able to assume the responsibilities and
obligations of membership, and whose inclusion can contribute to common
security and stability. Alliance leaders at Strasbourg-Kehl endorsed
this policy, but despite this rhetorical support, the challenge is
keeping this commitment credible as the Alliance grapples with how to
integrate a restless Balkans, as well as the controversial cases of
Georgia and Ukraine.
Some continue to challenge the enlargement process as a weakening
of the Alliance. I would argue that many of the newest members have
demonstrated greater political will to commit their scarce resources to
Alliance operations and to take tough decisions in the North Atlantic
Council. Furthermore, the fears of increased costs or difficulty with
consensus did not materialize as more nations joined. Achieving
consensus within the North Atlantic Council depends more on our
diplomacy with Paris, Berlin, Ankara or Athens than it ever will
Tirana, Bucharest, Zagreb or Prague.
There is a common vision among allies that as the nations of the
Balkans implement reforms, they will earn a place within Euro-Atlantic
institutions. Yet there is no clear path to deliver on this vision. The
European Union has a leading role to play, but may fail to play its
part without prodding from American diplomacy. We need to help the
Greeks and Macedonians settle their differences, foster serious reform
efforts in Bosnia and Montenegro, and lay the groundwork for closer
ties with and ultimately between Serbia and Kosovo. The success of
Albania and Croatia within the Alliance is also important to reinforce
the demonstration effect--that is, the prospect of membership serving
as a magnet and a driver of change in their Balkan neighbors. Just as
NATO and the EU helped heal the great divisions between neighbors
elsewhere in Europe, they should do so decisively in the Balkans in the
next decade.
After the tensions at last year's Bucharest Summit and the Russian-
Georgian war, some believe it is time to put the issues of Georgia and
Ukraine on the back burner. I believe that is a recipe for disaster,
risking backsliding in Tbilisi and Kyiv and catering to Russia's
temptation to pursue a sphere of influence. Given the caution in Europe
today, American leadership is required to ensure the NATO-Ukraine and
NATO-Georgia Commissions do not languish. Fragile European democracies
merit strong Western support as they struggle to determine their own
futures. This engagement need not be delayed by a false debate about
NATO membership, which is many, many years away in the best of
circumstances; rather, our efforts should focus on using the
Commissions, bilateral efforts and the EU's Eastern Partnership to
bolster the democratic institutions and free markets in these nations.
But without the vision of where tough reforms will lead, the political
support for such reforms may thin.
The key challenge to a Europe whole, free and at peace is how
Russia fits into the equation. I was at the founding summit of the
NATO-Russia Council at Pratica di Mare Air Force Base outside Rome.
Aspirations were high for what this partnership could accomplish.
President Bush even referred to the Council as a pathway to an alliance
with the Alliance. However, democratic backsliding in Russia undermined
the confidence in that partnership, limiting the possibilities of the
Council.
As the NATO-Russia relationship mimics the U.S.-Russia relationship
in hitting the reset button, we need to do so with our eyes wide open.
This effort will not succeed if Russia decides not to cooperate. Russia
is seeking to use the Council to enhance its stature and to gain
leverage of the Alliance. Hence, Moscow shuts off alternative routes to
support NATO operations in Afghanistan, while making available routes
that cross Russia. Like the Administration, I want this to be a
relationship of cooperation rather than competition, but we do not hold
all the cards to make it so.
Furthermore, I caution that we not allow ourselves or our allies to
be lured away from the hard work of renewing our Atlantic Alliance by
Russian proposals for a new European security architecture. There is no
harm from discussing such ideas as long as we keep our governments
focused on the task of strengthening NATO over the coming year and not
downgrade the role of NATO in any broader architecture.
Increasingly, the focus of the U.S. relationship with Europe is not
European issues, but rather global challenges. Indeed, when the United
States and Europe act together, we are more effective in dealing with
any problem regardless of geography. NATO, accordingly, should be a
leading vehicle through which Europe and North America act globally.
This means ensuring we have an Alliance prepared to help lead new
missions as merited, for example, supporting an African Union
humanitarian operation or even an eventual peace deal in the Middle
East.
Almost any conceivable military mission today would involve our
NATO allies, but also entail valuable contributions from other
partners. NATO can and often should remain the organizing core around
which such broader coalitions are built, as the Alliance offers an
increasingly international standard of interoperability and command
capable of incorporating partners. NATO's track record with the
Partnership for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul
Cooperation Initiative is a good basis upon which to continue to
strengthen ties to other global partners, such as Australia, Japan,
South Korea and the African Union. As we work to strengthen the
Alliance's global partnerships, we should entertain the possibility of
alliances with the Alliance with our closest partners who share our
values and interests.
Before I conclude, I would like to comment on European defense
efforts and France's return to the integrated military command.
President Sarkozy's election in France represented the victory of a
vision of a strong France in partnership with the United States, rather
than the Gaullist tradition of a strong France defined in opposition to
the United States. The challenge Paris and Washington face is to ensure
that this French strategic perspective endures beyond the presidency of
Sarkozy. The United States laid the groundwork over the past several
years for France to normalize its relations with the Alliance as we
worked to end the perception of ambivalence or even hostility in the
United States toward European defense, by calling for a strong Europe
as a strong partner of the United States. Our experience shows us that
we do not need to fear a strong Europe, but rather the weakness of our
partners. In parallel, the French began to demonstrate that Sarkozy was
serious about committing the resources required to return France to
NATO's military command. Both sides were committed to avoid the
pitfalls of the previous failed attempts. President Bush's strong
statement on European defense at the Bucharest summit and France's
emphasis on defense issues during its EU Presidency last year allowed
Sarkozy to get his politics right, framing France's return to the
integrated command as a ``normalization'' of French ties to a new NATO.
It worked.
Now we need to reap the benefits of France's return by helping
France succeed within NATO and ensure European defense reinforces NATO.
This means:
Reaching an understanding with France that it will no longer work
to limit NATO for ideological reasons, such as preventing the
Alliance from developing its own civil-military capacities for
fear of treading on EU turf;
Harnessing a serious French military in support of creating serious
Alliance capabilities;
Ensuring French leadership within the Alliance, including the
position of Strategic Commander for Transformation, invests
France in NATO's success, particularly that of Allied Command
Transformation; and
Restoring as the default for cooperation between NATO and the EU
the ``Berlin Plus'' arrangements which allow for the Deputy
SACEUR to serve as the EU's commander.
Currently, this mechanism is only used to support the EU operation
in Bosnia. While the EU's current military staff capacity is minimal,
as the EU undertakes more complicated missions, it will require a
stronger, more permanent planning and command and control capability.
This capability should take place at SHAPE rather than any new
permanent EU operational headquarters to avoid unnecessary costs and
duplication.
France's return to the integrated military command may open
possibilities for lessening traditional European resistance to develop
common Alliance capabilities. Much of this resistance is the result of
a commitment in certain European capitals to building a more integrated
European-only defense industry. While the current economic climate is
an obstacle, concrete projects premised on transatlantic defense
industrial cooperation, in which industry on both sides of the Atlantic
plays a significant role, offer the prospect for gaining Allied backing
for new NATO capability initiatives.
Thank you Madame Chairwoman, ranking member, and members of the
committee. I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Colonel Wood.
STATEMENT OF COL JOSEPH WOOD, SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW, GERMAN
MARSHALL FUND, WASHINGTON, DC
Colonel Wood. Madam Chairwoman, distinguished members of
the subcommittee, it's an honor to be here this afternoon to
discuss NATO's strategic future and institutional challenges as
we move beyond the alliance's 60th anniversary. I appreciate
the opportunity to discuss a set of issues that matters greatly
to our security. I want to note initially that the views I will
present are my own and not those of the German Marshall Fund of
the United States.
You've heard three, I think, excellent presentations from
distinguished colleagues. In particular, Damon Wilson just gave
you a concrete list of things that the alliance needs to do for
institutional reform. As the wrapup person, I think I'll try to
broaden this back out a little bit and look at some of the more
general issues that NATO faces that are less vulnerable, if you
will, to concrete measures, and a little more problematic going
into the strategic concept review.
``Crisis in Transatlantic Relations'' has always been good
for a headline, and ``Whither NATO?'' has been a popular
question for the alliance since its founding. Perhaps crisis
and doubt have been the main features of continuity over NATO's
60 years of existence.
The beginning of the 21th century witnessed the 9/11
attacks, and in response, NATO's first invocation of the
article 5 mutual defense clause. Sidelined in Afghanistan at
the outset of that war, the alliance is now trying to see a way
forward in difficult, and some would say deteriorating,
circumstances.
In this climate of contemporary problems, it's worth
recalling a passage from the 1967 Harmel Report, written mainly
by representatives of small of NATO's smaller members, and
undertaken in response to an existential crisis.
That report concluded, ``The Alliance is a dynamic and
vigorous organization which is constantly adapting itself to
changing conditions. It has also shown that its future tasks
can be handled within the terms of the treaty by building on
the methods and procedures which have proved their value over
many years. Since the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949,
the international situation has changed significantly, and the
political tasks of the Alliance have assumed a new dimension.
Although the disparity between the power of the United States
and that of Europe remains, Europe has recovered and is on its
way toward unity.'' end quote, in 1967.
Four decades later, that assessment could be applied to
NATO today. NATO's successes are truly historic.
Institutionally, it established and maintained reasonably
robust procedures and standards for military planning and
operations despite barriers ranging from language differences
to longstanding animosities among its members.
It developed effective, if sometimes inefficient, means of
political coordination on security matters. And measured by
outcomes, NATO can count the successful defense and extension
of freedom in Europe throughout and after the cold war, the
management of the security aspects of the 1990s Balkans wars,
and the enlargement of the alliance in ways that encouraged
reform in new members.
That said, NATO does face some real difficulties which
differ qualitatively and perhaps decisively from its earlier
anxieties. NATO in Afghanistan is laboring in intrinsically
difficult territory under several extrinsic burdens. Its
overall strategy and objectives have been unclear and difficult
to explain to allied publics. Differences on aid programs,
methods for dealing with poppy production, lack of
coordination, and other unresolved questions about political
and economic development have all hindered the nonmilitary
aspects of NATO's effort, so critical in a campaign like this
one.
But for those concerned about NATO's continued viability,
the greatest internal problem has been the refusal of some
allies to take on the same risk as others. The restrictions on
operations imposed by such allies as Germany and Italy have in
effect created a two-tier alliance, something military planners
worked hard to avoid throughout the cold war. This division is
especially damaging because some of the allies with the
smallest potential to contribute have done so without
restrictions, while some with the greatest potential have opted
out of the most difficult and dangerous operations.
The result has been not just resentment, but real questions
about the very meaning of the term ``alliance''. When some
members accept greater risk than others, questions inevitably
arise as to what it means that an armed attack against one or
more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an
attack against them all.
Certainly article 5 leaves latitude for each ally to
determine its own appropriate response, and the war in
Afghanistan was not undertaken as an article 5 operation under
NATO command.
But to have NATO's most significant military operation
create ambiguity surrounding various allies' willingness to
undertake dangerous missions, even against regimes as brutal as
the Taliban, has a corrosive effect that may be lasting.
Some governments, for example, the Netherlands, at least
until recently, Great Britain and Canada, as well as many of
the Central European allies, have been able to sustain a
commitment to the more dangerous work NATO has undertaken.
Others, especially Germany and Italy, have not done so, though
they have lost lives and expended treasure in their Afghan
missions. The inability or unwillingness of those countries to
commit to greater risk has transcended particular governments
and operates even under avowedly pro-American leaders. That
fact suggests that in those countries at least, there are broad
objections to taking on the more dangerous tasks of a war.
So Americans are entitled to wonder if the Taliban regime
and al-Qaeda are not morally and practically worth opposing
with military action, what enemy would qualify for united NATO
action? Doubts on this score seem to suggest a basic divergence
over what constitutes good and evil and whether any regime is
worth risking life to oppose.
Turning to NATO enlargement, in April 2008, the allies
agreed that Ukraine and Georgia will at some point be members
of NATO. But at the behest of General Chancellor Merkel, with
support from French President Sarkozy, the alliance did not
offer Membership Action Plan to either country. Because MAP
has, for the most recent candidates, been the standard path to
eventual membership, the effect of this decision was clear: To
forestall any prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine or
Georgia in the near future.
Berlin and Paris base their objections on the fact that
neither Kyhiv nor Tbilisi was ready for NATO membership, but
none of the countries admitted during the post-cold-war
enlargement of NATO were ready for the responsibilities of
membership when they entered the MAP process.
Indeed, MAP presumes that the candidate has work to do; in
some cases, a great deal of work. Moreover, as the candidate
nation takes on that work, it does not participate in the
article 5 commitment to mutual defense. There was thus no
possibility that a different decision a year ago would have
obliged Germany or any other allied country to defend another
country that was not ready to be a member militarily or
politically.
The real concern for Germany and France seems to have been
Russian objections to even the possibility that Georgia and
Ukraine might eventually become NATO members. In taking such an
approach, Chancellor Merkel declined a direct request by
President George W. Bush, a historic projection of American
leadership on a key issue.
Those who share this view seem more interested in taking a
pragmatic approach to immediate interests than extending the
institutional success of NATO and expanding the security of the
beliefs that caused the allies to come together in 1949,
extending those beliefs to nations farther east.
This division about basic values and interests and the
relationship between the two reflects serious differences
within the alliance. The United States and most of the allies,
especially the newer members in Central Europe, believe that
the extension of NATO's defensive alliance is not complete, and
the continued enlargement is not in conflict with Russia's
legitimate security interest.
Others have a different vision of the future geography of
European security. This fundamental dichotomy will sharpen
divergences and the willingness to take risks, raising
questions about which responsibilities are shared and which are
not within an alliance built on common values and a willingness
to take on dangers and burdens for a larger cause.
NATO's many successes have come in a sustained atmosphere
of crisis characterized by differences among members about
means and methods. Accordingly, any forecast of the demise of
NATO should be treated with more than a grain of historical
salt.
But the key to NATO's future will be a recognition that the
differences facing NATO on its 60th anniversary are real, and
they are about ends, rather than simply about methods and
means, and that surmounting those differences will be more
difficult and require a greater sustained effort than in the
past. Europe and North America should make that effort the
center of NATO's attention in the coming months.
Again, Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity to
appear before the subcommittee today.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Colonel Wood follows:]
Prepared Statement of Colonel James Wood
Madame Chairwoman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is
an honor to be here this afternoon to discuss NATO's strategic future
and institutional challenges as we move beyond the Alliance's 60th
anniversary. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a set of issues
that matters greatly to our security. I want to note initially that the
views I will present are my own, not those of the German Marshall Fund
of the U.S.
``Crisis in transatlantic relations'' has always been good for a
headline, and ``Whither NATO?'' has been a popular question for the
Alliance since its founding. Perhaps crisis and doubt have been the
main features of continuity over NATO's 60 years of existence. In the
1950s, the military structure of the Alliance developed through the
years of the Korean War, the divisive Suez crisis, and Sputnik; in the
same decade, then-West Germany joined the Alliance. The 1960s saw
continued tension over Berlin, changes in U.S. nuclear doctrine that
carried major implications for the allies, and the withdrawal of France
from NATO's military structure.
The 1970s brought Germany's Ostpolitik, an American internal loss
of confidence after Vietnam, and the first decisions on the deployment
of short- and medium-range nuclear missiles that rocked Europe. The
1980s saw President Reagan's ``evil empire'' speech and his declaration
of intent to eliminate nuclear weapons, both disconcerting for the
allies who found them surprising and unnerving.. And 1989 brought the
fall of the Berlin Wall.
What many considered NATO's raison d'etre, and certainly the
proximate cause of its existence, ended soon afterward with the fall of
the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself. Yet NATO survived and
responded to crises in Bosnia and Kosovo, even as it continued to
agonize over its continued relevance.
The beginning of the 21st century witnessed the 9/11 attacks and,
in response, NATO's first invocation of the Article V mutual defense
clause. Sidelined in Afghanistan at the outset of that war, the
Alliance is now trying to see a way forward there in difficult and,
some would say, deteriorating circumstances.
In this climate, it is worth recalling a passage from the 1967
Harmel Report, written mainly by representatives of some of NATO's
smaller members and undertaken in response to an existential crisis.
That report concluded: ``The Alliance is a dynamic and vigorous
organization which is constantly adapting itself to changing
conditions. It has also shown that its future tasks can be handled
within the terms of the treaty by building on the methods and
procedures which have proved their value over many years. Since the
North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the international situation
has changed significantly and the political tasks of the Alliance have
assumed a new dimension. . Although the disparity between the power of
the United States and that of Europe remains, Europe has recovered and
is on its way towards unity.''
Four decades later, that assessment could be applied to NATO today.
NATO's successes are truly historic. Institutionally, it established
and maintained reasonably robust procedures and standards for military
planning and operations, despite barriers ranging from language
differences to long-standing animosities among its members. It
developed effective, if sometimes inefficient, means of political
coordination on security matters.
Measured by outcomes, NATO can count the successful defense and
extension of freedom in Europe throughout and after the Cold War; the
management of the security aspects of the 1990s Balkans wars; and the
enlargement of the Alliance in ways that preserved NATO's functions
while encouraging reform in new members.
That said, NATO does face some real difficulties which differ
qualitatively, and perhaps decisively, from its earlier anxieties.
the challenges of afghanistan
NATO in Afghanistan is laboring in intrinsically difficult
territory under several extrinsic burdens. Its overall strategy and
objectives have been unclear and difficult to explain to allied
publics. Differences on aid programs, methods for dealing with poppy
production, lack of coordination, and other unresolved questions about
political and economic development have all hindered the non-military
aspects of NATO's efforts, so critical in a campaign like this one.
But for those concerned about NATO's continued viability, the
greatest internal problem has been the refusal of some allies to take
on the same risks as others. The restrictions on operations imposed by
such allies as Germany and Italy has, in effect, created a two-tier
alliance, something military planners worked hard to avoid throughout
the Cold War. This division is especially damaging because some of the
allies with the smallest potential to contribute have done so without
restrictions, while some with the greatest potential have opted out of
the most difficult and dangerous operations.
The result has been not just resentment, but real questions about
the very meaning of the term ``alliance.'' When some members accept
greater risk than others, questions inevitably arise as to what it
means that an ``an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe
or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.''
Certainly, Article V leaves latitude for each ally to determine its own
appropriate response, and the war in Afghanistan was not undertaken as
an Article V operation under NATO command. But to have NATO's most
significant military operation create ambiguity surrounding various
allies' willingness to undertake dangerous missions, even against
regimes as brutal as the Taliban, has a corrosive effect that may be
lasting.
If NATO's difficulties in Afghanistan were simply a matter of the
friction that attends coordination among 28 bureaucracies, the problems
would be vexing but not catastrophic. Such problems of process and
mechanics have always existed, and they have always slowed progress.
Indeed, they are explainable as the ``cost of doing business'' through
an organization that operates on the principle of consensus, reporting
to capitals that are each accountable to pluralistic political systems.
But they are still messy, and that messiness can carry serious
consequences. The problems of coordination in NATO's 1999 Kosovo
campaign convinced some Bush administration officials that NATO could
not be relied upon in actual conflict situations. Afghanistan, however,
represents what may be a different level of divergence. Some
governments--for example, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Canada (as
well as many of the Central European allies)--have been able to sustain
a commitment to the more dangerous work NATO has undertaken. Others,
especially Germany and Italy, have not done so (though they have lost
lives and expended treasure in their Afghan missions). The inability or
unwillingness of those countries to commit to greater risk has
transcended particular governments and operates even under avowedly
pro-American leaders. That fact suggests that in those countries, at
least, there are broad objections to taking on the more dangerous tasks
of the war.
So Americans are entitled to wonder: If the Taliban regime and al-
Qaida are not morally and practically worth opposing with military
action, what enemy would qualify for united NATO action? Doubts on this
score seem to suggest a basic divergence over what constitutes good and
evil, and whether any regime is worth risking life to oppose.
nato enlargement
In April 2008, the Allies agreed that Ukraine and Georgia will at
some point be members of NATO. But at the behest of German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, with support from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the
alliance did not offer a Membership Action Plan to either country.
Because MAP has, for the most recent candidates, been the standard path
to eventual membership, the effect of this decision was clear: to
forestall any prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia in the
near future.
Berlin and Paris based their objections on the fact that neither
Kyiv nor Tbilisi was ready for NATO membership. But none of the
countries admitted during the post-Cold War enlargement of NATO were
ready for the responsibilities of membership when they entered the MAP
process. Indeed, MAP presumes that the candidate has work to do, in
some cases a great deal of work. Moreover, as the candidate nation
takes on that work, it does not participate in the Article V commitment
to mutual defense. There was thus no possibility that a different
decision a year ago would have obliged Germany or any other ally to
defend a country that was not ready to be a member, militarily or
politically.
The real concern for Germany and France seems to have been Russian
objections to even the possibility that Georgia and Ukraine might
eventually become NATO members. In taking such an approach, Chancellor
Merkel declined a direct request by President George W. Bush to extend
MAP to Ukraine and Georgia, a historic rejection of American leadership
on a key issue. Those who share this view seem more interested in
taking a pragmatic approach to immediate, economic national interests
than in extending the institutional success of NATO, and expanding the
security of the beliefs that caused the allies to come together in 1949
to nations farther east.
This division about basic values and interests, and the
relationship between the two, reflects serious differences within the
Alliance. The United States and most of the Allies, especially the
newer members in central Europe, believe that the extension of NATO's
defensive alliance is not complete and that continued enlargement is
not in conflict with Russia's legitimate security interests. Germany
and France (and Russia) have a different vision of the future geography
of European security. This fundamental dichotomy will sharpen
divergences in the willingness to take risks, raising questions about
which responsibilities are shared, and which are not, within an
alliance built on common values and a willingness to take on dangers
and burdens for a larger cause.
For perhaps the first time in NATO's history, then, we may need to
ask what happens to a military or security organization when
fundamental purposes diverge. For the cases of Afghanistan and
enlargement raise questions not of means to ends, but of ends
themselves. And beyond the issue of ends and purposes in Europe,
broader global issues will pose a challenge for NATO in practical
terms.
Even in the post-Cold War era, when the attention of U.S.
policymakers has often turned in other directions, Europe's fundamental
importance has remained sufficiently clear and strong to ensure the
mutual and continued core relevance of each side of the Atlantic to the
other. That situation may be changing. Many commentators have noted the
extraordinary array of challenges the Obama administration faces as it
approaches its first few months: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran,
North Korea, and the broader Middle East all present immediate dangers.
In the longer term, China is both a key economic partner and a
potential regional challenger. Latin America, including Mexico,
requires tending, and Africa needs continued assistance.
Given these challenges, there will be a real temptation for
Washington to view European security with less urgency, just as many
Europeans have feared would eventually happen. After all, if the
largest nations in continental Europe are content to grant Russia the
sphere of influence it seems to seek, American leaders may not want to
expend valuable energy and time resisting that course, although the
current administration has admirably rejected the idea of spheres of
influence in Europe and insisted that all nations should choose their
own alliances. While a lessening of American engagement would be
disappointing and dangerous for the newer allies in central Europe, who
have contributed much where the United States has asked, the burden
will be on them and like-minded Western European nations to work to
close policy gaps to manageable scales.
The greater risk, however, is that basic questions on beliefs and
purposes go unanswered and fester, leaving NATO less able to take
united decisions. The United States could find itself working on
critical issues directly with its more like-minded friends and leaving
NATO to attend to less controversial, and less important, issues. Like
a self-fulfilling prophecy, fears of NATO's irrelevance could thus be
realized.
This year's 60th anniversary will, like all such milestones, prompt
a new version of the old debate about ``Whither NATO?'' Such questions
are especially grave this year. The United States will find it much
harder to cope with the global array of security issues it faces with a
weakened trans-Atlantic security relationship, and Europe will find
such a weakened relationship harmful to its project of economic and
political integration. NATO members need to use this year and the new
strategic concept to begin answering the hard questions that face the
alliance.
Yet a future of irrelevance and ineffectiveness for NATO is far
from inevitable. For the first time in over 40 years, France rejoined
the Alliance's integrated military command structure, a step that could
bring with it the resolution of difficult issues surrounding NATO's
cooperation with the European Union. In a more negative light, Moscow
may continue to assert its interests in ways that force NATO to rally
to the deterrence of aggression aimed at Central European allies.
NATO's many successes have come in a sustained atmosphere of
crisis, characterized by differences among members about means and
methods. Accordingly, any forecast of the demise of should be treated
with more than a grain of historical salt. But the key to NATO's future
will be a recognition that the differences facing NATO on its 60th
anniversary are real, and that surmounting those differences will be
more difficult and require a greater sustained effort than in the past.
Europe and North America should make that effort the center of NATO's
attention in coming months.
Again, madame chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear
before the subcommittee today.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you all very much. Colonel Wood--
and I would ask all of the panelists, I guess--but you
specifically talked about the problem of creating a two-tiered
alliance, which we're seeing in some respects with Afghanistan.
What could, what should NATO be doing to address this
differently so that we ensure a more equitable burden sharing
among all of the members?
Colonel Wood. That's a wonderful question. The
administration that Damon and I were part of struggled with
that with not a whole lot of success. President Obama, I think,
undertook his trip to Europe with the hope that he might be
able to convince some of the allies to do more than they've
done.
The press reports were that there was some level of support
for that among the European allies, and there was discussion of
some 5,000 new troops, although the reality of that is very,
very hard to see. I think those troops are hard to count and
hard to actually find.
I don't have a good solution for you because I think the
problem is fundamentally political, and I think it has to do
with the question of how some publics and some politicians,
political leadership in Europe, gauges the reaction and the
potential reaction of their publics, to whom they're
democratically accountable, to the possibility of increasing
the risks that they take.
And so I think that we will be able to at the edges improve
NATO's contribution. We'll be able to improve the chain of
command and improve the effectiveness of how NATO performs in
Afghanistan.
But unless there is a fundamental shift in the political
commitment to the cause of fighting the Taliban, dealing with
al-Qaeda, with the problems in Afghanistan, and separately, in
Pakistan, it's very difficult for me to see a profound or
substantially different way forward, despite the best efforts
of the President.
The only solution I can offer you is the bromide of
American leadership that's tried and true, and I don't think
without American leadership, any improvement will be seen. But
even with that leadership, I think it's going to be very
difficult.
Chairman Shaheen. Anyone else want to tackle that?
Mr. Wilson. Madame Chair, if I may, I think this is a tough
question. It hits at the heart of the challenge with the
alliance, and I think there are two ways to approach it.
One is the politics. What we're lacking in Europe is a
cadre of leaders, politicians, parliamentarians that are
willing to regularly speak out in favor of both partnership
with the United States, but the alliance itself. How often has
a European head of state given a speech on Afghanistan? Not
often.
And I think that's a challenge that we need in various
political channels, whether through the executive branch or
many of your colleagues, to challenge your European partners.
If they are not out making the case to their publics, then how
do they expect to generate the public support to sustain
difficult, expensive operations?
And part of this is getting the politics right. I think
that's why the choice of former Danish Prime Minister Anders
Fogh Rasmussen as Secretary General is a good choice to give
someone with a strong, clear voice who has a track record of
speaking out on these issues in his own election and campaigns.
It's the kind of leader, European leader, we need making that
case in Europe.
There are other smaller practical steps. Caveats used to be
a very discreet military term that no one knew about. When I
worked for Lord Robertson, part of what we did was to shine a
spotlight on this, and through a little bit of shaming, trying
to bring countries to terms with the constraints that they were
putting on the use of their forces, and making it a political
issue so that we could generate momentum to reverse that.
That's only had a certain degree of impact, but it's the
kind of practical stuff that can continue.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Dr. Hamilton. Madam Chairman, if I may, I agree that the
core of this is political, and that much of what my colleagues
say is true. We should, however, recall that NATO has always
been a multitiered alliance. We have a superpower engaged with
a lot of allies who are certainly at different levels of
capability. And we've always had to manage this imbalance
within our capabilities.
The United States, of course, has global concerns as well
as global reach. Many of our allies have a regional
perspective, and that's part of NATO's transformation that's
been so difficult.
So while politics is at the core of it, I do believe that,
as we think about a strategic concept and about the future of
the alliance itself, there are other things to think about.
One is that NATO is a consensus organization. And so often
on these types of missions, everyone has to agree. But not
everyone then participates. And yet, everyone can still block
what is happening because of the nature of this consensus
principle.
So we would argue to maybe think harder about modifying
that rule in operations. There should always be consensus at
the level of the North Atlantic Council to agree or not on a
mission. But once a mission is agreed at that level, shouldn't
the nations then participating in the mission be the ones
actually then to be making decisions about the nature of their
conduct?
I think that allows those to move ahead who are committed,
and maybe those who can't participate, there are reasons for
that. But don't stop the mission from happening or make it
worse.
Another element is that as we went through this list of
missions for NATO, whether home or away, all of them require
deployable forces. Even defense in Europe today cannot be
accomplished with static forces.
If we think about the old dividing line, the Fulda Gap, the
Iron Curtain running through Germany, we asked the Germans to
create static tank forces, land forces, heavy forces. Right
there, at the Fulda Gap we're protecting their own country.
Now we've asked the Germans to deploy forces very far away.
Germany today, it's interesting, has no borders, and only one
with Switzerland. All the others have been swept away by the
Schengen Agreement providing for open borders in Europe.
So if Germany is to defend itself, it has to project at
distance somewhere else, even within Europe. And yet, it's had
trouble making that adjustment from the kinds of forces it had
for the cold war to the kinds it needs today. And I think you
see that pattern among other allies.
So the point has to be strongly made, that every allied
force now has to be a deployable force. And yet many NATO
forces are just static. The sit in place. They don't do a lot,
frankly. And we should be, I think, sending a very, very strong
message about the need to change this.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Senator DeMint. Because you arrived a little late, I assume
you might want to make an opening statement before you begin
questions?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM DEMINT,
U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA
Senator DeMint. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think just
about everything in my opening statement has been addressed to
some degree, and I'd like to jump mostly into some questions
here to make the most of the time.
Clearly, NATO is very important to the United States. I
mean, it's the only cohesive group on the side of freedom right
now, and we're all concerned about a potential setback or
failure in Afghanistan, what that might do to the alliance. I
was in Brussels a few weeks ago and met with a number of
European ambassadors to talk about NATO, the EU, and the
European Union security force idea that's developing.
And the--if I could just kind of take the logic forward a
little bit, we talk about the two-tier, and it's more like a
multiple-tier, as Mr. Hamilton said. We've got a superpower.
We've got some medium powers. We've got others who can do
different things.
But the difficult thing I think for us as we look at this
as a long-term commitment of the United States is that those
countries now that seem to want less and less--have a fighting
role are those that seem to be most committed to developing the
alternative European Union security force approach.
And as I see the commitment to NATO, the exercises that
would lead to interoperability, the things that have to happen
for NATO to work, any less commitment than we have today in
NATO from our European partners, particularly the larger ones,
would seem to make it very difficult for it to operate, and
shift more and more of the responsibility to the United States.
I mean, the ones that--the countries that are doing the
fighting, the United States, Canada, Netherlands, others, are--
it seems that this alternative idea is being developed. I
discussed that with some of the European ambassadors, and it
was usually, ``No, that's not an alternative,'' but there's
only so much resources to go around.
And I think what it appears is whether it's Italy, France,
Germany, that the countries that are balking somewhat at a
fighting role with NATO are more committed to developing this
alternative, which creates a dilemma for us. And we need
allies, but we need allies who are committed to some of the
same principles.
And so I'd just maybe like a lot of--maybe the three of you
here just to address that thought, where the Europeans are
really going, and you can't really discuss that without putting
Russia in the middle of it, which is now meddling and pulling
some of the former republics toward itself, and creating
somewhat of a chaos with energy, using energy as a weapon and
things like that.
So, Mr. Wood, I'll start with you. I don't know if I made
enough sense to actually ask a question here, but maybe you can
pick up on some of that.
Colonel Wood. No, Senator, I understand what you're driving
at at several different levels. This is, as you well know, not
a new problem. We struggled with how to handle ESDP and ESDI in
the 1990s, whether or not it was a threat to the core functions
of the alliance.
It's been less of a theological problem in recent years.
It's been somewhat overshadowed, I think, by the addition of
the new members from, most recently, Croatia and Albania, and
then before that, the round of Central European allies who
joined who, although I don't think as slavishly pro-American as
some Europeans in Western Europe view them, are fundamentally
pro-American.
They have a fairly recent history of--memory of
understanding what tyranny is like, and they are somewhat
sympathetic to the idea of preventing tyranny, and they're very
sensitive to what Russia's doing, as you pointed out.
France has now rejoined the military system, the military
integrated with the military command structure in NATO. They
were never completely disintegrated. I went to French Defense
College, and my French compatriots there had an excellent
understanding--this was the late 1990s--of NATO's military
methods and operations. They had kept up with that. We
exercised together from time to time.
But the President Sarkozy took in some ways difficult
political decision to reintegrate French military forces. The
question for any French leader is whether or not he's doing
that because of some sudden embrace of a transatlantic view
that really is radically different from previous French
Presidents, and I think Sarkozy is very different in how he
views the world than previous French Presidents.
But whether he is doing this to, if you will, harness NATO
and the rest of Europe to French foreign political ambitions,
that's not necessarily a bad thing. If we can gain more unity
as a result of doing that, there's a potentially great outcome
from this, which is that it will give France a new interest in
the success of NATO.
I've personally always wanted the Quai d'Orsay, the French
Foreign Ministry, to have a real interest in the success of
NATO. That's one of the best things that could happen for the
United States in terms of real unity, to have them pulling with
NATO instead of balking against NATO and resisting American
influence.
With that said, I believe that I detect at a variety of
levels the same thing which you may be driving at. I don't want
to put words in your mouth. But the sense that in some parts of
Western Europe in particular, there really is an ambivalence
about a continuation of the same level of American leadership
on security issues that there has been in the past.
I don't know whether that stems from the last 8 years and
the particular unpopularity of President Bush in Europe, or
whether it's a longer term trend. I think we need to remember
that when former French Foreign Minister Vedrine described the
United States as a hyperpuissance, a hyperpower, he did that
under President Clinton, and it was Secretary of State Albright
who had to respond to charges about American unipolarity by
noting that the United States was the indispensable country.
So it's something that's been there for a long, long time,
this kind of resistance. I don't know exactly where it's going,
but I think there is a division in the alliance right now
between those allies who want a greater European autonomy and
who are more resistant at this point for a variety of reasons
to American leadership than maybe they have in the past, given
the exigencies.
At the same time, there are a group of allies who are quite
concerned about the reality of day-to-day security, whether
it's in the Balts or whether it's in Poland or the Czech
Republic, countries that are closer to Russia. They watch
Moscow's actions, both militarily in the caucuses and
economically in energy security and other areas, and wonder
what's ahead. They are the ones who hear the threats of attack
when they agree to missile defense instillations with the
United States, coming from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
So they have real article 5 concerns that have in a sense
reappeared in the last 2 or 3 years, and they very much I think
still want American leadership and seek American leadership.
Again, I'm giving you a mixed answer. When the Russia
proposed--President Medyvev proposed last year this new
security architecture for Europe to be discussed in the context
of OSCE, President Sarkozy was quite strong in saying, ``We'll
talk about security with Russia, but we'll do so with our
partners, the United States.''
And that's a very encouraging sign. That means that there
is a certain commonality of end and purpose that's still in
place, even if the means are different. I think it's natural
and healthy for the Europeans to want those means, but we still
have a ways to go in how we integrate them and what the foreign
policy goals are to which we would attach those military means.
So I'm sorry to give you an ambiguous answer. I just think
it's very, very unclear at this point.
Senator DeMint. It was an ambiguous question, but I think
my concern is that if our NATO allies, particularly the older
ones, know they have--that there's a real threat, if there's
any kind of attack, that we'll be there, that our resources,
our soldiers, they're there.
So they can keep us on the shelf, do their own thing until
they need us, and that--because they want to be more
autonomous. And I know some of our allies do. That may or may
not be a good thing, but it seems like we are committed--our
resources are committed, while their commitment may not be as
much to the NATO alliance, which includes us and Canada.
So I'm just concerned that we may be on the hook, but it
may not be as reciprocal in the future the way it's going.
Colonel Wood. No, I think--at the end of the day, I think
the problem you're describing is that we are a superpower with
global responsibilities, and we tend to, over time----
Senator DeMint. Anyway----
Colonel Wood. [continuing]. Implement our commitments. I
will say this, though. Working against that is what I think is
a long-term and a biting fear on the part of most Europeans of
becoming irrelevant to America. That's I think the greatest
underlying and overlaying fear of most European leaders, is the
United States will forget about them.
If I put myself in the position of someone who is in this
administration right now and think about just what the
immediate dangers are, the things that could really get
dangerous tonight--Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the
broader Middle East, North Korea--none of those are Europe.
If you look at the sort of second-tier problems, where you
have China, a potential regional competitor in Asia, as well as
an economic partner; you have Russia, with what seems to me to
be a fairly clear ambition to establish a sphere of influence
or reestablish a sphere of influence, but an unknown final
ambition toward Central and Western Europe, that's a little
farther down the line, and it's something that, if I were in
the administration, I would at least be tempted to say,
``Germany and France, you go deal with that.''
In the long run, I think that's very dangerous for us to
take that approach, and I don't want to imply this
administration has taken that approach. But I think those in
Europe who have for a long time feared being irrelevant or
becoming irrelevant to the United States, maybe have more
reason to fear that now and will want to cooperate with us more
intensely and work the accommodations that you've described as
necessary in the future.
Senator DeMint. I hope so. Madame Chairman, since I did
skip my opening statement, may I allow these two just to make a
quick comment?
Chairman Shaheen. Absolutely.
Senator DeMint. Thank you.
Mr. Wilson.
Mr. Wilson. Thank you, Senator. I would say when I was in
government, our concern--our fear--was not that Europe was too
strong, but that Europe was too weak.
Senator DeMint. Right.
Mr. Wilson. And so particularly when I worked at the White
House, part of what we orchestrated with the Elysses over the
last 18 months with the Bush administration, was a delicate
dance in which the United States would more equivocally come
out in support of a European defense to help the French get the
politics right, so that it would pave the way for France's
return to NATO, because we wanted the French to have a sense of
ownership within the alliance, and to feel that they can
achieve what they want on the global stage working with us
within the alliance, rather than without us and having to do it
as a separate ESDP structure.
Today, the EU military staff is maybe a hundred people,
just over a hundred people. That's not a problem. It's not
duplication. The EU today doesn't have the capacity to manage a
complex operation, and if it were to move in that direction,
that's where we get concerned about whether some in Brussels
would push for the development of a more permanent structure
that would frankly duplicate.
And this is where I think with France's return to the
alliance, we need to work this diligently with our partners so
that we restore as the default for cooperation the structures
that we have in place that allow the European Union to use the
structures within the alliance to act for EU operations when
the United States doesn't want to be involved.
This way, you embed what the EU is doing with our
activities at SHAPE, at NATO's military headquarters, and you
embed them in a way that doesn't lead to duplication. After
all, these are the exact same forces that we're talking about.
What we've been concerned about is that we not develop
competing alternative structures for command and control and to
integrate those forces.
But again, I think part of this is why it's important for
France's return. We want them to have some sense of ownership.
The United States gave France two four-star commands within the
alliance at Norfolk and at Lisbon so that they will take some
ownership of that and increasingly work European issues with
the alliance rather than outside and in contrast to the
alliance.
Senator DeMint. Mr. Hamilton.
Dr. Hamilton. I was going to start with the same point
Damon just ended with. These are the same set of forces. This
is not an alternative army. These are the same armies. They
would just be deployed for different purposes. And I think that
gets to the heart of much of this.
I should also add a country that's been the main drive for
this in the last number of years has been Great Britain. And
certainly the British are not engaged in the EU effort here to
distance themselves from the United States. They've been
engaged, in fact, to make sure that NATO and the EU are aligned
well.
I think the questions really come up regarding operations
in which the United States might not participate, in which
Europeans feel they have a security challenge, and they either
don't know if they can count on the United States or in which
the United States, because of what Joe said, might have other
things going and might not be able to participate. What then?
These are the kinds of capabilities and issues that they're
trying to grapple with. And frankly, they've had some
experience with this. I would argue in the first Bush
administration and in the early Clinton administration, the
United States was not there with its allies in the Balkans and
Bosnia. We failed. It was a bipartisan failure, I would argue,
to stand together with European troops on the ground who were
facing a horrible situation. We did not engage.
And I think the lesson many of those European allies took
out of that was, ``We have to build some hedge, unfortunately,
if the United States isn't there for us.'' Now, we could argue,
now we are there, and that was a passing episode. But I think
people have these memories, and they influence policy.
So I think the best answer to that European fear of
abandonment by the United States, is to be there and to be
engaged and to make that always a consistent message. But there
might be operations, say, for instance, in Africa, in which the
United States might not want to participate militarily, and
which the Europeans might have some role to play with the
African Union. At the moment, they can't get to Africa from
Europe because we have to fly them there. And so our
capabilities are being used to do that for them.
So if there's any effort here that promotes European
capabilities--which I think is our shared interest in the
United States--that should be a good thing for the United
States to promote the types of European capabilities so
Europeans can take more control over their own security, if we
are not able to choose not to be there in a crisis.
These are the kinds of very specific areas in which I think
the Europeans are trying to develop their capabilities, but the
ambition is not to duplicate NATO, and they have shown no
serious effort to try to develop forces that can project
further that would be independent of any U.S. link. In fact, as
I said, they're dependent on us providing that link for them.
So I think the theology has disappeared, and now we're
working on what are the practical arrangements where Europeans
could develop some value added to our overall effort on that
one part of the spectrum, which might be very minor, in
situation where the United States might not potentially engage.
Senator DeMint. Thank you. Thank you for all the time,
Madam Chair.
Chairman Shaheen. Senator Kaufman.
Senator Kaufman. Madam Chairman, thank you for holding this
hearing. I want to follow up on your question and Senator
DeMint's, and that is, NATO's an incredible organization and an
incredible concept. America should be involved. I'm all for all
that.
But I'm finding on my last trip to Afghanistan pretty much
the same kind of thing I found when I went to Kosovo and to the
Balkans, and that is, complexity does not describe trying to
operate this multiheaded monster in an actual battlefield.
I mean, you mentioned complexity. We talked about
multitiered, the caveats. I mean, just to sit there with the
folks from the ISAF that are trying to run this war, it's
just--it's just incredibly difficult. The thing that concerns
me is I don't see any progress made since we were in the
Balkans and we had to have everybody sign off.
And I know how difficult this is, and I know you've already
covered limitless ground, but can any of you give any concrete
suggestions on politically--and I understand this is a
political problem, but I think it could become--I mean, it
could just hinder our ability to do this, and at some point,
we're just going to say the game's not worth the candle, and I
am totally opposed to that.
So politically, what should the President and the Congress
do to in some way begin to straighten this out so the next time
we go into a situation, wherever it is, whether it's in Africa
or wherever, that we have some way to deal, and we can actually
go to war with a unified complaint without the complexity,
without the caveats, and without the rest of it, or at least
minimize them?
Dr. Hamilton. That's quite a question, Senator. As I said,
I think there are two levels. One is the overall strategic
direction for the alliance and how to change things within the
institution, which I think is the core of the hearing here
today. And then there's the politics of it, as you said, if you
don't get the politics right, it doesn't matter all the
tinkering you do with the bureaucracy, obviously.
I think we have a serious issue here, which comes to the
core of this alliance and the core of our relationship. For 50
years, it was about stabilizing the European contact. When we
said transatlantic alliance, we meant stabilizing Europe. That
was where the dangers were. Today, I would argue wider Europe
is still a task for us, but stabilizing Europe is not 90
percent of our transatlantic agenda.
And so the real shift we have to make with our allies, and
that's the hard part, is that this relationship today is not
about Europe the continent, as much it is about whether we
together, Europeans and Americans, are going to address a whole
range of third issues, either functional issues, like climate
change, or regional issues, like instability in Southwest Asia,
together.
This is the type of relationship we need now to build. That
requires a serious and probably multiyear conversation with our
allies about this type of partnership. It also means we have to
change certain ways we would think about those allies.
My colleague mentioned how listing all the challenges we
face in this world and where Europe doesn't seem to be on the
list. Well, Europe's not on the list of challenges, thank God,
because of the success of this alliance and what we have done.
But now we have to say can we have the Europe that's the
capable partner to be the value added as we engaged in all
these other issues?
That Europe's not yet there, but it is potentially there.
It is not a Europe that would be achieved only through NATO,
because many of the issues, such as the financial crisis,
climate change, migration--all of these things, are probably
done best either bilaterally or with European Union. We need
more bandwidth across Atlantic to deal with some of these
issues and not ask a military--a political alliance to deal
with some of them.
But I do think that what distinguishes this relationship
among any other we have is this basic premise: If we do agree
across Atlantic on almost any issue of some global concern, we
are almost always the core of the coalition that gets anything
done. And if we disagree across the Atlantic, still today, we
stop almost any global coalition from getting anything done.
There's a two-edged sword to this, but it does highlight
why this relationship is still highly relevant to the global
challenges we face--if we can get the kind of partnership that
I think we would need to be effective.
Ambassador Hunter. If I may, Senator, I believe that it is
an imperative for us to fight with our allies. It's never going
to be easy. It will always make things more complex. But I do
think it's an imperative.
Part of this is we've been learning some difficult lessons
because of the experience in Afghanistan since 9/11. SHAPE NATO
structures have been designed to figure out how to stitch
together disparate national contributions into a force. In the
aftermath of 9/11, we were trying to do that in the Pentagon.
It was too complicated. We didn't want too many to play in that
game. Later, politically, we understood the value of that.
We need to use some of the default NATO force generation or
planning structures to figure out how 25 Estonians make sense
in an overall military force, and use some of those structures
that exist within the alliance.
We have been playing catchup since day one in Afghanistan,
where we began with the international presence being led by
individual NATO countries, very disruptive as we went through
rotations, then to a NATO-led ISAF, which was divorced from
most of the U.S. force, which was also disruptive. And now, we
finally have a command structure that makes a little bit of
sense, but only as of last year, where you have a U.S.
commander double-hatted for both.
So we frankly--we don't--we only have just gotten sort of
the structure in a more--in a way that makes more sense now in
Afghanistan. We need to lead with that, rather than take years
to come out with that. Let me end with that, since our time----
Colonel Wood. There are two baskets of areas where we have
to work. The first is we have to keep in mind that our NATO
allies are democracies. As a result, their leaders are
accountable, and as a result, they can get tossed out of office
when their publics get tired of them.
With that in mind, we have to be very clear, as the
alliance leader, on our own strategy, and I think in
Afghanistan, over the last 7 years, we have not done that.
We've sometimes had a bumper sticker on a comprehensive
strategy, but in my mind, we have not done a good job of
explaining a clear strategy to our ends in Afghanistan that
leaders in Europe could take to their publics, and explain
clearly and get the kind of support that would make them
confident as political leaders to join us and to follow us.
The second is that we need a better public diplomacy
program, whatever you want to call it, to explain that kind of
a strategy, to explain our mutual interests, our shared
interest, and to again, in a sense, mitigate the political
risks that leaders in Europe are having to take when they
support the United States in a war that's very difficult for
them to explain to their own publics. So that's one basket of
issues, sort of understand that they're democracies, and try to
lead in that regard.
The second basket is to look to our own alliance structure
and how we form coalitions and alliances. In the long run, what
are the countries who are most likely to have similar interests
with us that we can build coalitions with and work closely with
in the future? That may not line up with NATO. It'll line up
partially with NATO.
So we need to make clear in our own minds and in the minds
of others that in the future, we may be working more closely
with Japan than with others, more closely with South Korea,
more closely with India, more closely with others around the
world who have and see shared interests with us than some of
the NATO allies might see in some particular circumstances, and
then within NATO, work with those who will work with us.
The effect of that is potentially to raise this possibility
of irrelevance for a lot of the senior folks in Europe, for the
larger countries in Europe, and then force them to make
strategic decisions about where they need to be for their own
interests.
Senator DeMint. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Madam
Chairman.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you. I think you've all talked
about the other threats that our NATO is facing and Europe and
the United States are facing: cyber security, energy security,
others. And several of you have pointed out we have to look at
what is the legitimate scope of NATO's mission as we're
thinking about the future.
Could each of you speak to what you think the scope of
missions should be and what you think limits on that should be,
if there are any? You want to go first?
Dr. Hamilton. Madam Chair, in our report, to which I
referred, we provide a matrix, if you will, of areas in which
we think NATO should have the lead; areas in which we think
it's a supporting actor; and then others in which it's more
sort of part of the band, as the international community has to
deal with challenges.
And I think that breakdown starts to get as to discern more
the appropriate roles for NATO. During the cold war, NATO was
the institution. That's how we thought about it. Today, with
this host of different and unorthodox challenges, it doesn't
always need to be the institution, and sometimes the right
capabilities are outside of NATO.
So distinguishing where NATO needs to take the lead and
where it does not I think helps us. It certainly should take
the lead in collective defense of its members. That remains its
core mission. It certainly should take the lead in terms of
crisis response of this alliance to threats at distance. Crisis
response. Afghanistan is an example of that. The Balkans at the
time were another example.
We don't have another mechanism with our European allies to
do that. NATO is the instrument. The EU effort wouldn't do
that. So in those two areas, NATO is clearly the lead and
should have then the capabilities and the funding priorities to
make sure it matches that.
There were other areas, though, where a supporting role is
more appropriate, for instance what I mentioned earlier, what I
would call transatlantic resilience issues, societal security
issues, where some of the primary capabilities have to do with
law enforcement issues or policing or intelligence. NATO really
wouldn't have the lead, but it can play a support role.
Right now, in the Mediterranean, the only article 5 mission
NATO is engaged in, Operation Active Endeavor, which guards the
approaches and keeps nasty things out of Europe, is that type
of mission. It's actually a mission in which the Russians have
participated.
So here is an example of an article 5 mission, a core
mission of NATO, collective defense, that is being carried out
in cooperation with Russia. It's a different kind of security
challenge, but I think one that can be developed further.
Regarding Europe Whole and Free, this issue is not just
about NATO enlargement. It has to do with the enlargement of
all of our institutions, to use them to increase the space of
stability in Europe where war doesn't happen. NATO plays an
important role in that, but so does European Union. So do other
institutions. So NATO should be part of a much broader Western
approach to the region, if it could be done.
Chairman Shaheen. Well, when do you decide that those
supporting roles in terms of its societal mission, as you
called it, spill over into a collective defense mission, and
how do you draw those lines in a way that address the
challenges we're facing in the future?
Dr. Hamilton. That's where I believe now we should do some
serious work as part of the strategic concept, to start to
delineate some of those lines. For instance, the concept of
military support to civilian authorities, which is a fairly
standard way of thinking about it, starts to get you there.
Cyber defense--there's a lot of discussion these days about
cyber defense, particularly against military networks.
But obviously, that spills over into the civilian realm as
well, and how--what does one decide? Moreover, as we are
democracies each of our nations has laws about the role of the
military in purely domestic matters. This is new territory in
which we really have some things to think through--especially
given different traditions within Europe.
But it seems to me we need to engage now in a new
discussion about what I would call transatlantic resilience or
Transatlantic Homeland Security, if you will, if you want to
use U.S. terminologies. That starts to engage other agencies of
government, not just the military. Because, as I said, some of
the other agencies are actually more appropriate to this
challenge.
When we had Hurricane Katrina here, our European allies
helped us. And yet, we were not equipped as a government to
receive that aid very well. And it wasn't done just through the
military, it was done in a whole host of ways.
So as we think to the kinds of, God forbid, catastrophic
challenges we might face in the future, I think we need to
think harder about how we confront those potentially, or
prevent them, with allies. And that's a whole realm which NATO
is part of as a supporting player, but it certainly engages
other agencies and other partners and civilian authorities, as
well.
Chairman Shaheen. Do either of the rest of--either of you
want to respond on that?
Mr. Wilson. I do agree that collective defense and crisis
response operations are the core where NATO has a lead on this,
but it's important to think about the next article 5 attack on
a country. No one expected it to be terrorists in New York. And
I think that's where NATO's responsibilities in how to maintain
a collective security guarantee demand that it develops new
capabilities.
The next attack is likely to be a cyber attack, a bio
attack, or from a ballistic missile. Therefore, NATO needs to
be at the forefront of helping to develop some of those
capabilities.
Where it does get more complicated is how does the alliance
adapt to how we've been adapting our own military in terms of
the simple military cooperation that Dan talked about that is
increasingly intellectual common sense to us. We don't have our
instruments and tools right, and don't know how to work that
out. Part of the reason is because there is no real strategic
partnership between NATO and the European Union today. We say
there's one on paper, but it's stuck. It's a problem. And until
we get the two institutions to be able to work together
credibly, we're going to have these creases where some problems
will fall.
There is a body that brings together NATO ambassadors and
EU ambassadors. It doesn't do much today. That's a venue that
needs to be something that becomes more credible if we're going
to have our institutions prepared to face some of these real
challenges.
So because of the nature of the potential attacks on the
members, NATO must have an important role in some of these.
It's in recognition that it has to work in partnership with
other organizations, and that's where some of the weaknesses
are right now in our plan.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Colonel.
Colonel Wood. Just very briefly, Madam Chairman, I think
the core is article 5, those situations that constitute some
kind of an attack on a NATO member. Beyond that, I'm a very
broad constructionist on where I'd like to see NATO involved.
The only criterion I really have is that there be some military
component to it, because it is a defense organization. Beyond
that, if it is a mission for which we can generate political
will for NATO involvement, I think NATO should be involved, and
that's for two reasons. One is that will help us in the long
run avoid the renationalization of defense that NATO was
originally set up to prevent. And second, it sustains the
United States-European defense link against modern threats,
whatever they are.
That's why I think the missile defense sites in Europe were
particularly important because they maintained a link between
European defense and the United States on what is a current and
future threat, as opposed to territorial defense, which is a
past threat, for the most part, we hope. We'll see.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Senator DeMint.
Senator DeMint. I may have missed this when I stepped out,
and I apologize. But Mr. Wilson, I think you mentioned in your
testimony that a missile attack may be one of the likely
threats that NATO would face in the future.
And given Iran's growing missile capability, state-
sponsored support of terrorism, what's happening in Pakistan,
North Korea, how critical do you think a missile defense system
is in Europe for NATO, and would you distinguish between a
ground-based versus sea-based, which is being debated right
now? So just some quick comments there.
Mr. Wilson. Right. I do think a credible threat to a member
of the NATO alliance is a ballistic missile strike at some
point in the future. Because of that, I think it is prudent,
important, and imperative that the alliance think through on
how to deal with that threat.
The alliance has a fairly long history of developing
theater missile defenses. It has taken too long, but it's been
deeply invested in that development. The question is out there
on European third sites related to ballistic missile defense,
with part of the challenge is how to link what the U.S. effort
is doing with the NATO effort and potential cooperation with
Russia on some of this.
What we've tried to do over time is use the alliance as an
incubator where you could have development of common threat
perceptions, sharing of intelligence and data, because that
underpins the same perception of what's happening. And part of
what has happened is the debate on missile defense. The
attention has moved away from Iran and onto a United States-
Russia dynamic, and that's the wrong place for it to be.
I think using the alliance to contain strategic discussions
on what the ballistic missile threat is, what capabilities
being developed around the world are taking place, so that
there's a common assessment underpinning common action.
I do think it's an important element that the alliance
incorporate in its future defense capabilities, and it's very
much on the table and in debate right now. Part of the
challenge is can the Russians be brought on board to be
partners in something along this line in an architecture like
this, which keeps it clearly focused on a threat emanating from
the Middle East, rather than being caught up in the political
charades of this being a United States-Russian problem.
That's something that has made our allies nervous. I think
it's addressable, but I do think it's prudent and imperative
that the alliance continue its work on this front.
Senator DeMint. Any alternative opinions? OKay. Well, Madam
Chairman, that's all I've got. It's been very helpful. Thank
you.
Chairman Shaheen. Yes, I think we can probably continue
this discussion for a long time, but we promised not to do
that, although I'm sure the ongoing discussion about NATO's
long-term strategic mission will continue. Thank you all very
much for your willingness to engage with us this afternoon, and
we look forward to continuing the debate.
Senator DeMint. Madam Chairman, may I ask to put my opening
statement in the record?
Chairman Shaheen. Absolutely.
Senator DeMint. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Senator DeMint follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Jim DeMint
Madame Chairwoman, distinguished witnesses, I thank the committee
for holding this hearing.
While there are many trouble spots in the world, Europe has been a
place of relative security and freedom. No one questions the crucial
role NATO has played in creating this peace and prosperity.
However, we must not let the current peace cause us to let down our
defenses. As the world focuses its attention on North Korea, Iran,
Afghanistan, and other hot spots, nations and leaders may forget what
has given us the peace and how old alliances are more important than
ever as we confront new challenges.
I'm afraid that the perceived lack of immediate danger may weaken
the alliance. In an effort to create a ``Europe only'' security policy
the alliance is being challenged by organizations and policies that
duplicate the structures of NATO and undermine its access to the
manpower and equipment necessary to complete missions.
But more importantly, the lack of unity and strategic focus could
erode the alliance's willingness to defend the shared values that
created NATO in the first place. This lack of consensus on strategic
challenges that face Europe and NATO could undermine decades of
commitment and work.
At the summit last month, NATO members agreed with some of these
concerns, and I am encouraged by the decision to write a new Strategic
Concept.
From terrorism to energy supply disruptions, from cyber attacks to
piracy, there are numerous threats. If done properly, the rewrite can
be a very useful tool, but it will require a considerable level of
honesty about ALL of the threats that exist and the internal challenges
at NATO.
I am especially concerned by the role Russia is playing inside the
Alliance. At times, it appears Russia has a stronger voice at NATO than
some of the alliance's members. While I believe dialogue with Russia is
necessary, we must approach Russia with a healthy sense of realism and
possibility.
Russia has experienced incredible peace and security on its western
border because of NATO, but they have not returned the favor to NATO's
Baltic allies or to the other European nations that rely on natural
gas. And the Russian invasion of Georgia gave some members legitimate
reason to question NATO's Article 5 security guarantees.
Still other partners feel NATO is becoming a two-tier alliance
where only a few countries shoulder the economic and military burdens.
The strategic rewrite must address these issues and ensure the alliance
must remain open to nations that aspire to NATO's standards,
principles, and values.
One other issue of concern for the alliance is the American nuclear
umbrella. I fear that President Obama's pursuit of nuclear
disarmament--coupled with ambivalence on missile defense--will
undermine the European security guarantees provided by the U.S. nuclear
arsenal. The U.S. Nuclear Triad has been the backbone of European
security, which means there is no such thing as unilateral disarmament
for the United States.
Despite all of these challenges, I still believe the best days are
ahead for NATO. It is the commitment to a shared set of values and
principles--and willingness to defend them--that have made the alliance
so successful for 60 years. I look forward to hearing your testimonies
and suggestions for ways the United States can help strengthen NATO and
support our friends and allies better.
Thank you.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Senator DeMint. Thank you all very much.
Chairman Shaheen. Thank you.
Senator DeMint. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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