“Re-launching NATO, or just re-branding...

SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA

SDA Discussion Paper

“Re-launching NATO, or just re-branding it?”


A Security & Defence Agenda Discussion Paper Editor: Giles Merritt Coordinator: Pauline Massart Credits: NATO

DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this Discussion Paper are the personal opinions of the author(s) and are not necessarily the views of the organisations they represent nor the Security & Defence Agenda, its mem-bers or sponsors. Reproduction in whole or in part is permitted, provided that full attribution is made to the Security & Defence Agenda and to the author(s) in question, and provided that any such reproduction, whether in whole or in part, are not sold unless incorporated into other works.

SECURITY & DEFENCE AGENDA Bibliothèque Solvay, Parc Léopold,

137 rue Belliard, B-1040, Brussels, Belgium T: +32 (0)2 737 91 48 F: +32 (0)2 736 32 16

E: [email protected] W: www.securitydefenceagenda.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.securitydefenceagenda.org


Page 3


CONTENTS

Introduction Giles Merritt p.4 NATO at Sixty Ilana Bet-El p.6 NATO and the Muslim World Pascal Boniface p.8 An unbalanced partnership Edgar Buckley p.10 NATO, the EU and the New U.S. Administration Alain De Nève and Pieter-Jan Parrein p.12 Making NATO’s comprehensive approach work: Ensuring interoperability between defence and security systems and actors Thomas Gottschild p.15 NATO’s core purpose Joylon Howorth p.17 Factors shaping the future of NATO-ESDP relations Nik Hynek and Vit Stritecky p.19 As goes the West, so goes NATO Soeren Kern p.21 NATO’s “Whack-a-Mole” World Daniel Korski p.23 NATO and a new security agreement Fyodor Lukyanov p.25 Let change come to NATO Jacques Rosiers p.27



ATO’s 60th anniversary summit sought

to redefine the Alliance’s strategic

concept and determine NATO’s role in

the post-Cold War world. No longer tasked

exclusively with transatlantic security, NATO

now faces a host of new security challenges.

The major questions are precisely which

security challenges fall under the auspices of

NATO, and what sort of a role the Alliance

should play in the coming years.

In this Security and Defence Agenda discussion

paper, entitled “Re-launching NATO, or just re-branding it?” experts tackle critical

questions over NATO’s new strategic

consensus, including France’s return to NATO’s

military command, the relationship between

NATO and European security and defence

policy (ESDP), and the Obama Administration’s

own security and defence agenda.

Pascal Boniface, Director of the Institute for

International and Strategic Relations (IRIS),

sees NATO’s future relationship with the

Muslim world as its most pressing challenge

and calls for a broader strategic vision within

the Alliance.

Edgar Buckley, Senior Vice President for

Defence and Security for EU, NATO and

European Cooperation at Thales, questions the

European commitment to the current ISAF

mission in Afghanistan and advocates a re-

invigorated transatlantic relationship based on

equal burden-sharing.

Alain De Neve and Pieter-Jan Parrein of the

Belgian Royal Institute for Defence highlight the

EU’s need to become a more credible partner

in transatlantic security and stress the

importance of dialogue amongst all involved

parties.

Thomas Gottschild, Director for EU Defence

Policy and NATO at EADS, brings to light the

importance of interoperability for military, police

and civilian staff, and emphasises the need for

clarification of how the Allies can most

effectively cooperate with non-Alliance actors.

Introduction by Giles Merritt

Page 4


Ilana Bet-El, Op-Ed editor of the European

Voice, looks at the non-traditional threats faced

by NATO today.


Page 5


Jolyon Howorth, Visiting Professor at Yale

University, calls for a change in NATO’s

functions and focus. Although NATO’s core

purpose remains collective security, Howorth

argues that its core business has become crisis

management.

Nik Hynek and Vit Stritecky, Research

Fellows at the Prague Institute of International

Relations, outline their thoughts on France’s re-

entry into NATO, question Obama’s

commitment to NATO and compare NATO

member states’ views on strategic consensus.

Soeren Kern, Senior Fellow for Transatlantic

Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de

Estudios Estratégicos says that NATO needs

not just a new strategic concept but a new

legitimising ideology.

Daniel Korski, Senior Policy Fellow at the

European Council on Foreign Relations,

tackles what he believes to be the three main

challenges to the progress of the Alliance:

German unilateralism, Turkish strategic

aloofness, and Britain’s persistent euro-

scepticism.

Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor of Russia in Global

Affairs, points to what he describes as NATO’s

lack of internal coherence and also examines

the controversy he claims surrounded the

appointment of its new Secretary General

Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Giles Merritt

Director


Jacques Rosiers, President of Belgium’s Euro-

Atlantic Association sees France’s return to the

NATO military command as a catalyst for re-

defining the Alliance’s strategic concept.


ATO’s sixtieth anniversary reflects the

old dictum that there is nothing more

permanent than a temporary structure.

Created for a specific event and purpose – the

Cold War – the alliance has lived on another

twenty years, yet it still seems to be in search of

the event, or purpose, that will make it relevant

– and permanent. This is a somewhat curious

situation given that NATO’s mission in

Afghanistan, ISAF, is its biggest ever: this

could, or should, be the event upon which its

permanence is ensured, yet there is an ever-

growing impression that it could actually be the

one that buries the alliance if it does not do

better there.

Then there is the matter of a new “strategic

consensus” – which is an apt but painful choice

of term. For this is not intended as a drafting

exercise in long term planning, but rather as an

attempt – possibly a final one – to deal with a

fundamental issue that has dogged NATO

since the end of the Cold War: the absence of

an agreed vision for the alliance amongst its

members.

During the Cold War there were no doubts or

divisions over strategy or vision: the enemy was

clear (the Warsaw Pact), the threat absolute

(nuclear war), the capability and commitment

unquestioned (mass industrial armies

maintained by all member states), and the

leadership obvious (the US). None of these four

basic issues are clear cut today. The enemy is

now an ever changing array of “non-state

actors”, from terrorists to insurgents, militants

and just plain criminals. Under current

circumstances, and due to the chronology of

action by the US post 9/11, NATO is fighting

these enemies in Afghanistan, but the problem

has already spilled over into Pakistan, and

elsewhere around the globe there is potential

for ever more conflicts of this kind.

The threat posed by these enemies is also of a

different nature: it is to the security of our

people, not our states. Al Qaeda did not destroy

the US by the horrors of 9/11, nor can the

attacks on Madrid or London be seen as a

threat to Spain or the UK. It is a constant threat,

but far less tangible than the absolute one of

nuclear annihilation, and as such is a more

difficult sell to civilian populations.

With intangible threats and non-state enemies

who more or less by definition do not fight with

a regular army, amassing capabilities becomes

increasingly complex. NATO as an alliance,

and the militaries of its member states, are all

industrial in nature – but its enemies, threats

and conflicts are those of wars amongst the

people. It is a core mismatch that is far from

being resolved – especially in Europe in which

many states have an aversion to the use of

NATO at Sixty By Ilana Bet-El

Page 6



Page 7


force, regardless of whether it is wielded by

NATO, the EU or a single state.

Finally, it is no longer the case that the US is

the undisputed leader of the alliance –

however, it is unclear who or what the current

leadership is. To this end it is of crucial

importance that France has fully recommitted

to NATO – and pledged to do so within the

context of a full EU defence capability. France

will not lead the alliance, but it will enable a

properly orchestrated European caucus within

it, and therefore a proper and more

substantiated dialogue with the US, and an

allocation of labour between the two

organizations. If this happens, there may be a

basis for a new strategic consensus in NATO –

which is a necessary first step towards

addressing the four core issues of the alliance.

Ilana Bet-El is Op-Ed editor of the European

Voice.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France, at the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit, April 2009. © NATO


he NATO summit has been widely seen as

a success: a new and popular American

president (a welcome change), the

reintegration of France into military structures

without opposition among public opinion

(largely due to the Obama factor), a large

consensus on every point (no public

transatlantic misunderstandings), and the

designation of a new secretary general (Turkey

lifting its veto on Rasmussen). Wisely, Obama

has accepted not to make a case concerning

the incapacity or unwillingness of European

countries to send additional troops to

Afghanistan. It is better to agree to disagree

and hopefully the “either with us or against us”

attitude is over.

Usual sources of dispute among members

seem to be under control. Obama is by

conviction and self-interest a multilateralist. Of

course, disagreements and contradictory

interests will emerge from time to time between

some European members and the USA. These

will probably be managed without useless

dramatisation. In the near future, NATO and the

ESDP will increasingly work hand in hand.

It would be wrong to think that NATO has

entered into an era of clear skies. The future of

NATO is at stake in Afghanistan. The new

strategy (a more civilian-oriented approach) is

not certain to prevail but the previous one

(which sought military victory mostly through

military tools) was a recipe for defeat.

The most important challenge for the Western

world is the future of its relationship with the

Muslim world. NATO is the military alliance that

brings most Western countries together.

Therefore, what should its role be regarding this

peerless strategic challenge?

There are still a few debates to be held, such

as: is NATO the most convenient Western

structure to deal with the Muslim world? Are

there no risks in giving a military response to a

very sensitive, political challenge? Is there not a

risk for a collective defence body to appear

aggressive? The risk is for NATO to scrutinise

the effects of the problem and to look to its

roots. For example, it is obvious that a large

part of the Muslim world’s anger at the West is

linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to a

strong feeling of a policy biased by a pro-Israeli

approach. Ben Laden and others who want to

set fellow Muslims against the Western world

do so by emphasizing the "double standard

factor". Addressing the way to deal with radical

Islam in NATO’s future Strategic Concept will

also raise a few questions depending on how

terrorism is tackled. Will it only propose a

security-based approach – according to which

the way to fight terrorists and potential terrorists

NATO and the Muslim World By Pascale Boniface

Page 8



Page 9


requires judicial cooperation, intelligence

gathering, police cooperation and military tools

– or will it also encompass a political answer –

the goal of which is to limit the attractiveness of

radical Islamism.

The core of the debate is to decide whether we

think of terrorism as something which cannot

be explained and must be blindly fought, or if

we should understand its roots beforehand.

Why is there more terrorism now in the Arab

world than two or three decades ago? While

some Arabs are fighting us for what we are,

many others are fighting for what we have

done or what we are doing. If NATO wants to

deal adequately with this challenge, it should

have a broader vision of strategic affairs

emphasizing political aspects.

Pascal Boniface is Director of the Paris-based

Institute for International and Strategic

Relations (IRIS).


uropeans still tend to overestimate their

role and importance in global security.

We see ourselves and our leaders as

nearly equal partners in a transatlantic Alliance

which has preponderant power and can

determine security outcomes around the world.

NATO crystallises that view. It is the privileged

forum for security discussion with the world’s

superpower. But the notion of true partnership

between Europe and North America is no

longer valid today, as we saw at the Summit.

Despite the angst about NATO’s territorial

security following the Georgia conflict, NATO’s

main military tasks remain non-Article 5 crisis

response operations. Its credibility depends

upon success in Afghanistan. President

Obama arrived in Strasbourg with a simple

agenda: explain his new strategy and persuade

the Europeans to join the United States in

committing more resources there. He left with

only assurances and temporary easements; it

was hard to discern any notion of common

responsibility.

Seen through most European eyes, Strasbourg/

Kehl was a success. An incoming President

confirmed continued US engagement; French

reintegration and the accession of Croatia and

Albania showed that NATO remains central to

our security; differences over the choice of a

new Secretary General were resolved. But

analysts in Washington will undoubtedly have

concluded that any additional heavy lifting in

Afghanistan will have to be done by the United

States or by close Allies with stronger bilateral

ties; they will be asking what America is getting

in return for its guarantee of our security.

Europeans for the most part have neither the

means nor the will to back up their

commitments in Afghanistan. According to one

anonymous European diplomat at Strasbourg:

“No one will say this publicly, but the true fact is

that we are all talking about our exit strategy ….

It may take a couple of years, but we are all

looking to get out.” This is not the way to build

up Afghan resistance to the Taliban and Al

Qaida. This is not the mindset which made

NATO the most successful alliance in history.

The most important strategic initiative this year

came not from NATO, whose Declaration on

Alliance Security offered little new, but in U.S.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budget

briefing speech, fundamentally reshaping the

U.S. defence programme to match short and

long-term security priorities. Gates gave a

better indication of the radicalism NATO needs

to adjust to its new environment.

NATO must be useful or it will wither. Article 5

alone will not sustain it. It must be a community

of security interest and common values or it is

An unbalanced partnership By Edgar Buckley

Page 10



Page 11


nothing. It must have real capabilities attuned

to today’s challenges and the will to use them.

It must have the strength and determination to

succeed in what it embarks upon, even over

the long haul. It must engage with its

members’ civil as well as military resources,

and with the EU and European defence. It

must share burdens and hold its members to

account when they fall short of common

expectations.

The “Obama effect” at Strasbourg/Kehl was

welcome and necessary but it was not

sufficient. We need a stronger transatlantic

partnership based on more equal commitment.

The alternative is a progressive unravelling

which will leave Europe dangerously exposed.

Edgar Buckley is Senior Vice President for

Defence and Security for EU, NATO and

European Cooperation at Thales.

Barack Obama, President of the United States, with his counterparts and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, at the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit.

© NATO


lthough the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit

confirmed NATO’s new orientation,

hopes of a more mature relationship

between the EU and the U.S. still have to be

confirmed. Huge challenges remain to be

addressed and differences between allies’

strategic postures are still to be resolved.

Far from having realised a radical break from

the past, the brand new Obama Administration

has taken pragmatic steps to confirm changes

that were in fact initiated one year ago by the

Bush Administration. One must remember the

famous speech made by Victoria Nuland, U.S.

Ambassador to NATO at the time, at the

London School of Economics on 25 February

2008; ever since, it has become clear that

Washington shifted its traditionally sceptical

view of ESDP to point out the need for “a

stronger, more capable European defense

capacity.” How the new President Barak

Obama will leave his political footprint on the

agenda of the Alliance remains unclear.

Though his apparent firm resolution to anchor

US foreign policy in a new relationship within

NATO seems to offer European allies some

guarantees about American engagement (see

A Stronger Partnership with Europe for a Safer

America), other signs invite us to be more

cautious about US investment in European

security affairs. For example, the presidential

campaign’s document entitled Barak Obama

and Joe Biden on Defense Issues is very

elusive on NATO’s place in world politics,

NATO is only mentioned once in the document.

The possible emergence of a true two-pillar

NATO with the EU as an equal partner

alongside the US has been much debated.

However, we have to ask ourselves if this is not

European wishful thinking and a way to stay in

the centre of gravity - or perhaps attention - of a

NATO that is sliding away from the European

dimension. During the Cold War NATO was

there to defend a free Europe; in the nineties

NATO was there to help contain threats like

ethnic violence and nationalism. At the same

time NATO made it possible to protect Europe

from external security challenges. This allowed

reconciliation in Europe to be formalised and

perpetuated through the EU. The NATO and

EU process came together in an enlightened

Europe that saw itself as an example to the rest

of the world. September 11th halted the

debates about the choice between a local and a

global NATO. A local NATO would have

remained focused on Europe. A global NATO

would address the rise of both emergent and

resurgent powers (with a new era of

competition), the development of criminalised

types of war (piracy, drug trafficking) and the

growth of domestic instability with an impact on

regional security (Central Asia, Horn of Africa

and Sub-Saharan Africa).

NATO, the EU and the New US Administration By Alain De Nève and Pieter-Jan Parrein

Page 12



Page 13


Given its strategic culture and the legacies of

the Cold War era, the US has developed some

specific military capacities mainly dedicated to

forces-to-forces contingencies. However, as

the US military is pursuing the development of

stand-off, precision-guided weapon systems

and unmanned platforms with an increasing

radius of operation, Washington could be

tempted to focus exclusively on rapid and

strictly defined high intensity operations abroad

– in other words, before the threat reaches the

American homeland (a lesson learned from the

9/11 terrorist attacks). Though these kinds of

assets will prove to be useful for a global

NATO, they must be complemented with other

kinds of military capacities and competencies.

In such a systemic approach to strategy,

NATO’s European militaries have developed

critical skills in the fields of post-conflict

reconstruction, humanitarian aid and police

missions. Such a division of labour between

the US and EU inside NATO could be a means

to address the old transatlantic burden-sharing

issue. However it could be argued that

European armies appear to be relegated to

troop suppliers.

In the coming decades, NATO will have to

cope with two main processes of

transformation. At the operational level,

Afghanistan will test NATO’s transformative

capacities and will give some indications about

the way in which NATO could be used in the

near future, especially in COIN contingencies.

At the political level, NATO will pursue its

renovation by developing into a network in

which the European Allies are nonetheless only

one pillar with, next to them, partners (PfP) and

friends (the contact countries). Besides them

NATO will also need regional partners if it

wants to confirm itself as a true global

organization. In such a view, NATO would be

deemed both as a force toolbox at an

operational level, and as a partners network at

a political level.

Meanwhile, the EU will offer the international

system a political model based on dialogue and

mutual exchange. The problem is that although

dialogue and soft power are, ethically

speaking, preferable to (military) coercion and

hard power, it is difficult when people are

reluctant to engage in dialogue or for whom

dialogue occurs without tangible results.

The difficulty for Europe to confirm itself as a

credible partner in managing the world has led

some observers to speculate about the

possibility of a NATO shift away from Europe to

follow the security agenda of Washington only,

while maintaining a polite dialogue with the

Europeans. Since the implementation of ESDP,

the EU has clearly demonstrated its desire to

play a constructive role outside its ‘bubble of


peace’. The EU has shown its will to become a

real partner with the US but it must still develop

credible military capacities to fulfil a global

mission, not only inside NATO but in

cooperation with regional and international

partners. As such the EU and Europe can do

more than only “the dishes”.

Page 14


Alain De Nève and Lieutenant Pieter-Jan

Parrein are researchers at the Belgian Royal

High Institute for Defence.



Making NATO’s comprehensive approach work Ensuring interoperability between defence and se-curity systems and actors By Thomas Gottschild

t is widely accepted that longer-term

security and stability can only be achieved

by effective conflict prevention, integrated civil-

military crisis management and well-organized

post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding.

To this end, a high degree of collaboration

between the different international, national,

regional and local actors is needed, bringing

together military assets, humanitarian

assistance, reconstruction and development,

governance and the rule of law in a concerted

and coordinated way.

NATO acknowledged this principle during the

Riga Summit, when it adopted the

Comprehensive Approach as a basic concept

for the Alliance’s crisis response operations in

2006. Since then, important steps have been

taken towards reaching a common

understanding of the concept, defining

doctrines and implementing procedures. At the

Strasburg/Kehl Summit in April 2009, these

efforts resulted in the tasking of the NATO

Council to facilitate the implementation of the

corresponding Action Plan as devised at the

Bucharest Summit.

However, for a successful translation of the

comprehensive approach into practice, NATO

urgently needs to focus more deeply on how

the Alliance is going to shape its relations with

partners, including governmental and non-

governmental organisations, as well as with

local actors in the field. A transparent division

of labour is needed between the different

actors with a focus on pooling resources and

making use of specific expertise and synergy

effects. This is especially relevant in times of

scarce resources. To this end, NATO should

concentrate on its military added value and

work out how it will be capable of “plug and

play” with the other actors in the field, be it the

EU, the UN or a group of nations.

Hence, NATO's new strategic concept should

address both traditional Alliance defence and

crisis response operations in conjunction with

the comprehensive approach.

When it comes to the latter, NATO should

focus particularly on how it will more effectively

manage the transition from a military mission to

a civilian-dominated mission, or the other way

around. Here, besides the political will of all

NATO member states, the Alliance is in need

of better and more adequate capabilities to

ensure interoperability between defence and

security systems.

Until now, military, police and civilian staff are

not equipped with interoperable command,

control and communications systems and often

do not even have compatible radio systems.

the existing tools and dses

Page 15


However, during the transition of missions and

beyond, it is vital that military and civilian actors

are able to communicate and coordinate.

Therefore, the joint utilisation of professional

mobile radios, which are already widely used in

NATO Member States, would support such a

shift. In addition, both sides should benefit from

the existing tools and databases already

deployed and should contribute to an improved

situational awareness. Hence, beyond the

military importance of C4ISR, these capabilities

are also a solid foundation for a successful

transition from a crisis to longer term stability

and security. Consequently, it is essential that

NATO invests in these capabilities ensuring the

interoperability between defence and security

systems to protect the hard won gains of its

military operation.

In summary, NATO’s new strategic concept

should clarify how the Alliance will in the future

interact and cooperate with non-Alliance actors

and how it can adjust its concepts, processes

and, most importantly, capabilities to be

compatible with other actors. This is especially

relevant to better exploit synergies between the

European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)

and NATO.

Thomas Gottschild is Director for EU Defence

Policy and NATO at EADS.

Page 16



Page 17


cursory reading of the NATO

Strasbourg/Kehl Summit Declaration

cannot fail to give the impression that

the Alliance is indeed “busier than ever”. The

list of its activities covers no fewer than sixty-

two articles, ranging from the war in

Afghanistan to training cooperation, from

Mediterranean dialogue to missile defence,

from arms control to concerns about the “High

North”. All of these activities are vitally

important, but the more one delves into the

sub-text, the more one is forced to ask the

question: what exactly is the Alliance’s core

purpose in 2009?

In 1949, the key message behind the North

Atlantic Treaty was crystal clear. In any future

conflict within the Euro-Atlantic area, the United

States would be engaged from day one. That

was a vitally important strategic message, and

it remained valid throughout the Cold War.

Today, there is no equivalent message.

Indeed, given much of the re-posturing of

forces which has taken place since the 1990s,

both in Europe and in the US, it is not clear

whether even the 1949 message is still valid.

One main purpose of the growth of ESDP is

precisely to move towards a situation where

the US no longer needs concern itself with

stability in Europe. Of course, Article 5 still

binds the 28 member states together in

existential embrace. But some of the

nervousness we have recently witnessed from

the newer member states suggests that, even

more than at the height of the Cold War, the

real value of article 5 is in the believing rather

than in the enacting.

The truth is that, since its fortieth birthday,

NATO has changed beyond all recognition in

two important ways. Firstly, by “going global” –

the alternative, many argued, to “going out of

business” – the Alliance has turned its initial

raison d’être on its head. No longer designed

to guarantee American commitment to

European security, NATO looks more and

more (at least to many Europeans) like it is

intended to drum up European support for US

global strategy. This is a perfectly valid

objective, but it is – as Afghanistan, its first test,

has demonstrated – both highly divisive and

relatively ineffective. The reality is that there is

no political consensus within the Alliance to

underpin such a project. This has proven to be

increasingly the case as NATO has enlarged

geographically, and that reality will only worsen

with any further enlargement, either within or

(especially) outside the Euro-Atlantic area.

The second change has to do with functional

focus. Although NATO’s core purpose remains

(for the vast majority of its member states)

collective defence, its core business has

become crisis management and collective

NATO’s core purpose By Jolyon Howorth


Page 18


security. Yet here again, there is no consensus

on what that means in practice. The Alliance is

present in Afghanistan in part because that

mission was perceived as an Article 5 mission.

But its different member states understand that

mission in very different ways – and they act

accordingly. It is not at all clear whether there

would be a consensus for crisis management

missions in any of the other world hot spots.

The debate on a “new strategic concept”, which

has been in suspended animation ever since 11

September 2001, is unlikely to generate a

document featuring lucid prose. France’s

return to the fold has entailed two potentially

contradictory processes. Militarily, it is clearly

the return of the prodigal son, for whom

continued exclusion from the integrated

command had become a serious liability. But

politically, it could well prove to be something of

a Trojan Horse. Whatever neo-Gaullists and

their socialist disciples may think, France, at

least since the end of the Cold War, exercised

zero influence over the Alliance from the

outside. The aim of reintegration is to exercise

influence from the inside. Whether that will

prove to be the case remains to be seen. What

is certain is that the conversation over the

future course of NATO is now set to become

much more animated.

John Howorth is Visiting Professor of Political

Science at the University of Yale.


Page 19


rance’s return to full membership of

NATO is important, but it is unlikely to be

the catalyst for the Alliance’s long-awaited

new “strategic consensus”. To begin with,

France has been much more pragmatic within

NATO than is generally realised, and a good

example is the future plan to link NATO’s

Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile

Defence programme (ALTBMD) with that of the

U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense (USBMD).

Not only did France help to forge the

consensus view on the decision, to be found in

the Bucharest Declaration of 2008, but it did so

despite having traditionally disagreed with such

a strategy. France has long relied on its own

autonomous deterrence strategy against rogue

states, while its position within NATO has been

considerably overestimated, mainly resulting

from policies left-over from the De Gaulle era.

To answer the question of whether or not

NATO-ESDP political tensions ended even

before France’s return to NATO, one needs to

critically examine the basic premise implied by

the question, i.e. the zero-sum relationship

between NATO and ESDP. There can be no

doubts that France has long punched above its

weight within ESDP, but our understanding of

the relationship between France’s membership

of NATO and ESDP is that they are

complementary.

To re-join NATO fully, French President

Nicolas Sarkozy has been trying to create an

improving political relationship with the US after

the disastrous Chirac era. So far as the

strategic dimension is concerned, there has

been no link between rejoining NATO fully and

the focus of ESDP. France has hinted that

NATO and ESDP are complementary

enterprises, even though political tensions can

be expected to persist for the foreseeable

future.

Barack Obama, when still a presidential

candidate, created expectations that the U.S.

under his leadership would promote a new

round of multilateralism in the security domain.

What is crucial in terms of interpreting Obama

the president is to distinguish between two ever

more distant levels: rhetoric and practice.

Two issues clearly show that Obama may

underestimate the role and strategic

importance of NATO, Afghanistan and the

triangular issue of the relationship with Russia

within the context of nuclear arms-control and

missile defence. In none of these has NATO

been the primary or relevant platform for

strategic planning. In Afghanistan, Obama has

used NATO only to pressure the allies into

contributing more troops to the mission (to

reinforce the US’s surge strategy). Although for

very different reasons than under George W.

Factors shaping the future of NATO-ESDP relations By Nik Hynek and Vit Stritecky


Page 20


Bush (freeing hands for Iraq), NATO’s role has

once again been relegated to that of an

executive agency, without being able to shape

US strategic thinking.

As for the triangular issue, Obama has

consistently preferred to work bilaterally with

Russia, often without any consultation of the

allies. Surprisingly, the idea of Obama’s letter

to Russia’s President Medvedev, in which the

issue of missile defence was used as a

bargaining chip to bring Russia closer to the

idea of nuclear arms-control and disarmament,

without consulting the Czech Republic or

Poland, smacks of strategic condominium.

France, Germany and the UK do not – as one

might expect of three major countries with

different strategic cultures and preferences –

share the same view of a new strategic

consensus for NATO with NATO’s new

member states. However, three new member

states Poland (the New Atlanticist), the Czech

Republic (the Flexible Pragmatic) and Slovakia

(the Unpredictable Trouble-Maker as the issue

of missile defence suggests), also have very

different views of a strategic consensus. So the

Rumsfeldian distinction of the New versus Old

Europe is not the most productive lens.

Strategic disputes tend to be issue-specific,

making any generalisations difficult.

Nik Hynek and Vit Stritecky are Research

Fellows at the Prague Institute of International

Relations.


Page 21


ATO has always been more than just a

traditional military alliance because it

has always been about more than just

traditional military security. When the Atlantic

Alliance was established 60 years ago, its

founding vision involved more than just the

defence of Europe and America against the

Soviet Union. It was much bigger and far more

compelling than that. NATO’s original raison

d’être was nothing less than the defence of

Western civilisation against what was at that

time portrayed as Eastern tyranny.

If anything, the ensuing decades of the Cold

War clarified and crystallised the political and

intellectual division between the West and the

East. And NATO evolved from its origins as a

defensive alliance to become part of an

offensive vanguard that sought to spread the

ideals of Western civilisation, such as political

freedom and democratic capitalism, to other

parts of the world. The issue of enlarging

NATO, for example, came to epitomize the

larger question of establishing the borders of

Western civilisation.

But somewhere along the way, the West

stopped believing in the idea of Western

civilisation. In the United States, the spread of

economic interests throughout Asia and Latin

America, that is to say, outside of the

boundaries of the West, made the concept of

Western civilisation seem too narrow. In

Europe, the rise of deconstructionism and post-

modern philosophy displaced the core

intellectual and spiritual base of Western

civilisation, especially as it pertains to

Christianity. And in both America and Europe,

the steady increase in immigration from non-

Western countries has led to the rise of

multicultural ideologies which at the core are

hostile to the idea of Western civilisation. As a

result, the West is now essentially post-

Western.

This post-Cold War, post-Western West is,

however, in the throes of a profound identity

crisis. It is adrift and unable (and seemingly

unwilling) to define, much less defend its

values and face up to the challenges that

threaten its way of life. It is weak and divided. It

is in crisis, both morally and intellectually.

The abandonment of Western civilisation by its

strongest defenders, combined with important

shifts in the transatlantic balance of power, has

contributed to a fundamental breakdown of the

Euro-Atlantic security order. Europe and the

United States are now incapable of agreeing

upon even the most basic strategic priorities.

They remain unable to define, much less

engage, strategic threats. The end of the West

has also had major negative consequences for

NATO, because it has deprived the Atlantic

As Goes the West, So Goes NATO By Soeren Kern


Alliance of its main legitimising mission. Since

the end of the Cold War, NATO has been

primarily at the mercy of bureaucratic

momentum, which is why it generates so little

enthusiasm and political support from European

and American citizens.

If NATO is to survive another 60 years, it needs

more than just a new Strategic Concept. It

needs to conceptualise a new legitimising idea,

a grand overarching vision that clearly and

effectively confronts the grim security realities

the world now faces. Still missing at this

historical crossroads is leadership that is up to

the task of turning vision into reality. At

transatlantic summit after transatlantic summit,

European and American political leaders seem

content to paper over problems instead of

solving them. Historically, the West has not

been given to fatalism and a good step in the

right direction would be to confidently and

articulately reaffirm support for the time-

honoured values and principles of Western

civilisation. Otherwise the future of transatlantic

relations in general, and NATO in particular, will

remain an open question.

Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic

Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de

Estudios Estratégicos (GEES).

Page 22



Page 23


hen Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel

joined hands across the Passerelle des

Deux Rives, which crosses the Rhine

between Strasbourg and Kehl, the gesture was

meant to underline the importance of France’s

full re-entry into NATO. In the end, however,

the event was almost ruined by the problematic

appointment of Jaap de Hoop Scheffer’s

successor as NATO Secretary-General. Until

the last minute, Turkey threatened to veto

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh

Rasmussen.

The brouhaha typified NATO’s current

dilemma. As the 60-year old alliance

overcomes long-standing problems it faces at

least three new and potentially even more

intractable challenges: Germany’s dovish

unilateralism, Turkey’s strategic detachment

and Britain’s persistent Euro-scepticism. In

each one of these, France’s role looks more

bad than good.

France’s re-entry into NATO should not, of

course, be underestimated (even if it is a lot

less dramatic than most French people seem

to believe). For even though France has

participated in NATO military operations since

the mid-1990s –- the French military has led

NATO’s KFOR mission in Kosovo on several

occasions –- French diplomats reserved the

right to slow down NATO decision-making and

prevent NATO from moving into areas that

Paris thought properly belonged to the EU.

This is now likely to change, with France

expected to be given command of Allied

Command Transformation - the engine of

military transformation - and become a goad for

NATO reform.

But though the French “Non” has disappeared,

it has been replaced by a potentially even more

damaging German “Nein” in at least two policy

areas. Berlin regards friendly relations with

Russia as key. Whatever Russia does,

Germany seems unwilling to confront Moscow.

Forging effective NATO policies towards

Europe’s large eastern neighbor is therefore

very difficult.

Equally important has been Germany’s

relationship with NATO’s Afghan mission.

Though it has deployed almost 5.000 troops,

Berlin prevents its soldiers from moving as

freely as necessary amongst the population

even though they patrol the quietest part of

Afghanistan. Sending Germans to the

insurgency-racked south is out of the question

and Berlin resists many of the reforms

necessary to make the alliance capable of

counter-insurgency operations.

Part of this is down to electoral timing. With a

general election this autumn, neither the

NATO’s “Whack-a-Mole” World By Daniel Korski


Christian Democrats nor the Social Democrats

are willing to take bold steps. But the problems

are more deep-seated. As Charles Grant, who

leads the Center for European Reform, argues:

“Germany has become more unilateral in an

incremental and unconscious way rather than

as a result of any plan.” The reportedly bad

personal chemistry between Angela Merkel and

Nicolas Sarkozy has done little to move

Germany’s debate.

If Germany’s unilateralism weren’t a problem

enough, NATO is now wracked by Turkey’s

increasing strategic detachment from the

alliance. Ankara’s threat to veto Anders Fogh

Rasmussen’s appointment as NATO chief was

not only about the Danish cartoon crisis and the

potential impact on East-West relations. It

should also be seen in the light of Turkey’s

move towards a kind of non-aligned status.

Though they recently played host to Barack

Obama, Turkish officials have been expressing

concern about U.S. intentions to "enter" the

Black Sea. Ankara joined Russia at the height

of its war on Georgia in suggesting a

"Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform",

and has hosted Iranian President Mahmoud

Ahmedinejad and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir. In

other words, Turkey seems to want to keep

NATO at arm's length and to have concluded

that European integration is no longer a serious

prospect because of France’s opposition to its

membership.

The final problem lies in London. France’s re-

entry into NATO’s military structures was meant

to pave the way for the further development of

ESDP and a consequent improvement in

NATO-ESDP relations. But despite having the

most pro-European foreign and defence

ministers for decades, and with the US being

openly supportive of ESDP, Britain has not

changed its sceptical position. In many ways,

the Labour government has not moved beyond

the Hampton Court “baseline”, which saw

European leaders agree on modest institutional

ESDP innovations. Should the Conservative

Party win the next general election, slated for

spring 2010, Britain is likely to become

increasingly euro-sceptic (possibly even more

than the Major government). Nicolas Sarkozy’s

open championing of ESDP awakens basic

British fears.

France’s “return” to NATO is significant. But

alliance politics is beginning to look like the

fairground game of Whack-a-Mole: bash down

one mole and another pops up elsewhere. This

time, three have popped up at once.

Paradoxically, in all three areas France’s role is

problematic.

Daniel Korski is Senior Policy Fellow at the

European Council on Foreign Relations.

Page 24



Page 25


he NATO Summit in Kehl and

Strasbourg, at which the allies celebrated

the 60th anniversary of the alliance,

highlighted a number of the problems it faces.

NATO is still unable to formulate a new

strategic mission, now even less so than

before. Attempts to make NATO a universal

security organisation, which had seemed

natural after the end of the Cold War, failed

because the majority of members are not ready

to take global responsibility and to act outside

Euro-Atlantic zone. Political diversification

where new centres of power with different

interests are emerging makes NATO’s

hypothetical task as global policeman

impossible.

The symbolic embodiment of NATO’s

unwillingness to move beyond its traditional

area was the selection of its new Secretary

General. The alliance proclaims that major

challenges in the years ahead will come from

the Middle East and Northern and Central

Africa. Former Danish Prime Minister Anders

Fogh Rasmussen is a brilliant politician and

manager, but the Muslim community remains

apprehensive about his position on a number

of key issues, and that will certainly not help

NATO in these regions. By – consciously or

unconsciously – disregarding this, the allies

clearly showed that NATO will remain a

European organisation without far-reaching

ambitions. And the US will need to find another

institution to support its efforts worldwide.

The problem of the alliance’s internal

coherence is not limited to differences of

strategic visions that exist between the U.S.

and Europe. Another contradiction exists

amongst NATO’s European member states;

Western Europe tends to focus on new soft

security challenges, although traditionally

NATO has not. Meanwhile, new member

states, some with troubled historical

experiences with Russia, would like to re-

instate a more traditional NATO designed

several decades ago to counter the threat from

Moscow. France’s return to NATO’s integrated

command structure will hardly contribute to the

unification of the alliance. This decision was

aimed to strengthen the European component

(in other words – to balance American

domination) of NATO. It consequently may be

disturbing for Central and Eastern European

states which in the end do not trust NATO.

Neither re-launching, nor re-branding NATO is

in sight; so the alliance will remain a regional

organisation that lacks clear priorities because

there are no obvious security challenges in the

Euro-Atlantic zone today. NATO's enlargement

was a way to imitate successful development

of an alliance, but eventually turned into a

NATO and a new security agreement By Fyodor Lukyanov


source of growing instability in the post-Soviet

space. After NATO entered that area, potential

for peaceful expansion was exhausted, and any

resistance from the outside makes the allies

even more disunited and renders the alliance

dysfunctional.

Europe’s security can only be ensured by

involving Russia in a major new security

agreement. It is therefore important to

understand that, we can’t separate economic

cooperation from security. For example, we

can’t expect to guarantee energy security if we

don’t have a general security structure deemed

trustable by all concerned. Both Russia and

NATO need to adopt a new and innovative

approach that would involve the re-launching of

European, and indeed Eurasian, security.

Fyodor Lukyanov is Editor of Russia in

Global Affairs.

Page 26


Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, appointed as the new NATO Secretary General at NATO 60th anniversary summit. © NATO


Page 27


he festive lights of the big international

“come together events” of spring 2009 are

dimmed! The summits of the G20 in

London, NATO in Strasbourg & Kehl, EU and

USA in Prague, Turkey and USA in Ankara, US

and Asia, US and the Americas are now past

events. President Obama has been in office for

100 days. It is now time to take off from sea

level and pragmatically engage, layer by layer,

the new 21st century in a holistic approach. Old

recipes won’t work; remember all the

unexpected events since mid 2008: the

Georgia events amidst the Beijing Olympic

summer games, the financial crisis and the

subsequent economic storm (still not under

control), energy security issues (with unstable

markets and supply problems), the “media

crisis” and renewed international involvement

around last years’ Gaza events, the ever more

exposed “cyber problems” of our networked

societies, the ever-present threat of

international terrorism, failing states, ill-

controlled international migration and trafficking

problems, piracy at sea, unresolved nuclear

issues, the worrisome status of weapons

control treaties and regimes, and the recently

well documented existential problems around

climate change, food and poverty issues, risk

of a pandemic, ... to cite only these!

We are in another century! Those who doubt it

have just to scan the long list of risks and

challenges we face, as described by

recognised authorities, and they will easily

acknowledge from our daily media reports that

we have to face them all now, with urgency.

From now on, the “future” is down to the 2010

timeline, with the immediate future being the

next 5 years or so to come, and the real future

for strategists in 2030 plus.

History teaches us that times of great change

are difficult to apprehend and that wrong

assessments are paid in cash at the end. So it

is high time to take a fresh and unbiased look

at our planet. It is urgent that we renew and

reform the transatlantic partnership, for the

world we have known is fading away. A new

world is rising: uncertain, indeterminate, yet

forming fast. Transformation of our mindsets

and our “modi operandi” is not only necessary,

it will be an ongoing process, and since there

are both long term and short term issues, a

thorough and continued analysis, monitoring,

action, regulation, correction, and adaptation

will be required.

Transformation of NATO -a NATO “buzz word”

and a tenet for militaries since more than a

decade - is now to be understood and

implemented by all, strategists &

policymakers, in such numerous and different

matters as finance, economy, sociology,

information and knowledge, health, sciences,

Let change come to NATO By Jacques Rosiers, Jr.


security and defence. It is necessary to tackle

the world’s global and regional challenges

pragmatically and efficiently, keeping our public

opinions on board and guaranteeing security

and stability to all, for a human, shared,

balanced and sustained peace and

development. That’s what NATO is committed

to now, with the Declaration on Alliance

Security stating: “We are committed to

renovating our Alliance to better address

today’s threats and to anticipate tomorrow’s

risks”. In a global world, there must be different

platforms at different levels for different issues

to be addressed in different regions or on a

global scale. These platforms must be political

and empowered to implement actionable

solutions. NATO has the knowledge and

political, strategic, as well as tactical and

technical skills for the use of (military) power.

The utility of this use needs to be redefined or

at least revisited, in balance with the other

elements of power - our own or those of

partners.

We also know that sometimes the easiest

solutions are the hardest to recognise, that we

can find strengths through unconventional

means, by acknowledging the limits of our

power, by listening and reducing fear. In NATO,

we must again make the Allies willing to help

each other and, in the words of President

Obama: “make them more willing to cooperate

than not to cooperate, even for countries with

different interests”. From a European

standpoint, this means making the EU and

Europe speak increasingly as “one”. Resistance

may turn out only to be based on old

preconceptions or ideological dogmas that,

when cleared away, show we can actually solve

a problem. We have to value dialogue and to

engage. As Vice-President Biden said:

“consultation and cooperation”!

France’s return to full NATO membership is a

catalyst for NATO’s long awaited new “strategic

consensus”. It brings us closer to an Alliance

that is “de facto” evolving into a “2-pillar NATO”

in which, next to the individual governments,

the EU and the US are the primary actors of

decision-making. At the EU level therefore, in

the context of ESDP and NATO, European

military capabilities must be further developed,

through various forms of cooperation and

pooling, to guarantee the autonomy of ESDP

while evidently serving full integration for NATO

operations when required. President Obama

said in his inauguration speech: “Change has

come to America”. Change should come to

NATO by implementing the long awaited

changes in the EU.

Jacques Rosiers is President of Belgium’s Euro

Atlantic Association.

Page 28



Page 29


A f t e r N A T O ’ s 6 0 t h a n n i v e r s a r y S u m m i t . From left to right: Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Barack H. Obama, President of the United States of America; Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France; Jaap de Hoop Scheffer,NATO Secretary General, and An-gela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. © NATO


The Security & Defence Agenda (SDA) is the only specialist Brussels-based think-tank where EU institutions, NATO, national governments, industry, specialised and in-ternational media, think tanks, academia and NGOs gather to discuss the future of European and transatlantic security and defence policies in Europe and worldwide.

About the Security & Defence Agenda

Building on the combined expertise and authority of those involved in our meetings, the SDA gives greater promi-nence to the complex questions of how EU and NATO poli-cies can complement one another, and how transatlantic challenges such as terrorism, cybercrime, or proliferation can be met.

By offering a high-level and neutral platform for debate, the SDA sets out to clarify policy positions, stimulate discussion and ensure a wider understanding of defence and security issues by the press and public opinion.

SDA Activities:

• Monthly Roundtables and Evening debates

• Press Dinners and Lunches

• International Conferences

• Reporting Groups and special events


Page 30


The Security & Defence Agenda would like to thank its members and partners for their

support.

Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy

(University of

The SDA gratefully acknowledges the generous support from the following governments:

France Romania United States Russia Netherlands Turkey

Czech Republic Italy Finland Belgium



Bibliothèque Solvay, Parc Léopold, 137 rue Belliard, B-1040, Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 (0)2 737 91 48 Fax: +32 (0)2 736 32 16 E-mail: [email protected]

www.securitydefenceagenda.org

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.securitydefenceagenda.org

Date post:	18-Mar-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	2 times
Download:	0 times

“Re-launching NATO, or just re-branding...

Documents