Key Issues Facing the NATO Alliance
Key Issues Facing the NATO Alliance by Daniel Kochis and Luke Coffey – The Heritage Foundation
SUMMARY
NATO has done more to promote democracy, peace, and security in Europe than any other multilateral organization, including the European Union. In Brussels next week, President Trump has an opportunity to lead on important issues facing NATO. The U.S. must renew its leadership role in NATO, including reinforcing and strengthening measures decided upon at the Warsaw Summit to bolster collective defense; press allies to commit to robust defense spending and proper investment in equipment; reaffirm commitment to NATO’s open-door policy in Brussels; and renew NATO’s commitment to support the ongoing Resolute Support mission. NATO faces real threats, and the U.S. and its allies should not miss an opportunity to make important progress in addressing the complex challenges facing the alliance at a critical juncture.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- In Brussels next week, President Trump has an opportunity to lead on important issues facing NATO.
- The U.S. must renew its leadership role in NATO, including reinforcing and strengthening measures decided upon at the Warsaw Summit to bolster collective defense.
- Russian aggression increases the need for NATO to be fully funded and functioning. Russia is acting out against neighboring states and has threatened NATO members.
In May 25, the North Atlantic Council at the heads-of-state level will meet in Brussels in what is commonly referred to as a NATO mini-summit. The mini-summit will be President Trump’s first opportunity to attend a NATO meeting with fellow heads of state. In addition to formally inaugurating NATO’s new headquarters, the mini-summit will allow the alliance to assess decisions made at the Warsaw Summit last summer, both in terms of implementation and initial effectiveness. The meeting is also an important opportunity for the Trump Administration to reaffirm U.S. commitment to collective defense, reassert America’s leadership role in the alliance, and help chart a path back towards NATO’s core mission of territorial defense…
Some possible insight into what NATO is — or was — supposed to be all about post-the Old Cold War:
* Remarks by US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Accession Lunch, March 29, 2004:
BEGIN QUOTE
My friends, for most of its existence, NATO has been concerned mainly with the defense of common territory. NATO is now transformed, as only a league of democracies can be, into an alliance concerned mainly with the defense of common interest and common ideals.
NATO was determined, above all, to prevent aggression. Now it is determined, above all, to promote freedom, to extend the reach of liberty, and to deepen the peace. And I am confident that with the new energy that these seven nations bring to our alliance, our alliance will be as successful in the future as it has been in the past.
END QUOTE
http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/2004/s040329a.htm
* From the book: “Geopolitics Reframed: Security and Identity in Europe’s Eastern Enlargement,” by Merje Kuus (wherein, the vast majority of the above Colin Powell quote also was initially found):
BEGIN QUOTE
Starting in the 1990s, NATO documents began to downgrade the organization’s previous focus on military security, and instead framed NATO as a cultural and civilizational entity. They fostered the notion that NATO is “the expression and military guarantor of Western Civilization,” an organization whose essential identity and cohesion is based on common cultural and civilizational roots. Over the 1990’s, it became commonplace and indeed obligatory to cite NATO enlargement as an example of how identity shapes geopolitics …
Through “values” NATO was redefined from an entity standing against something — the new defunct Soviet Union — to one that is favor of something else — civilizational or Western values.
END QUOTE
https://books.google.com/books?id=9PKLDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA42&lpg=PA42&dq=geopolitics+or+something+else&source=bl&ots=FC4LKeiWyX&sig=ZXBQNAMejB-amIwiE1vTSa7hH9k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif2cW66ojUAhWCSSYKHT7ZA_IQ6AEISjAI#v=onepage&q=geopolitics%20or%20something%20else&f=false (See Page 41 and 42.)
The myth of NATO under funding rears it’s ugly head. NATO accounts for the vast majority of the world’s defence spending. Much of the remainder is done by US allies- Saudi Arabia, Israel, Japan, Australia etc or countries which are of no threat to the alliance- Brazil. China, India etc. That leaves poor old Russia outnumbered 6-1 and with an economy 1/20th the size of NATOs. Well you use what you’ve got so Russia is the great threat of the moment.
The major issue facing NATO is that most of it’s citizens don’t think Russia will invade the west. The answer? Move the “west” further “east”. Russia for quite obvious reasons doesn’t like this idea (27 million people killed by Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians etc in two world wars will do that to you).
The best thing Trump could do would be to announce that the US doesn’t care how much the Europeans spend. That Ukraine will never be allowed to join the EU or NATO without Russia’s agreement. The silly ad hoc multi-national battalions being deployed to the Baltics won’t.
Should we consider the “Key Issues Facing the NATO Alliance” from the standpoint of Samuel P. Huntington’s 1993 “Clash of Civilizations?
In this regard, consider the following recent analysis, of NATO and Russian activities post-the Old Cold War, from the viewpoint of our Special Operations community:
BEGIN QUOTE
… Western encroachment into the Russian sphere of influence, primarily through North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion and European Union (EU) economic ties, stimulated a reactionary movement among Russian conservatives to stop the loss of peripheral states to the West. … The Maidan movement is viewed as a product of Western—especially American—conspiracy. …
END QUOTE
(See “The Historical Context,” on Page 2, of the “Executive Summary” of the document linked below.)
BEGIN QUOTE
Driven by a desire to roll back Western encroachment into the Russian sphere of influence, the current generation of Russian leaders has crafted a multidisciplinary art and science of unconventional warfare. Capitalizing on deception, psychological manipulation, and domination of the information domain, their approach represents a notable threat to Western security.
END QUOTE
(See “Conclusion,” on Page 3, of the “Executive Summary” of the document linked below.)
BEGIN QUOTE
Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations examined the nature and course of conflicts among nations. His main thesis was that the wars of princes and ideologies were in the past and that new conflict would be between civilizations. Huntington named eight such civilizations including Western, Islamic, Confucian, and Japanese civilizations. With the book’s publication in 1993, readers could view the Iran-Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm, and the ongoing conflict in Israel and easily envision Huntington’s description of the conflict between Western and Islamic civilizations. What was less obvious was the growing rift between the successor state to the Soviet Union—the rump state now called the Russian Federation—and the West. Moscow was emerging as the leader, champion, and oftentimes tyrant of the Slavic Orthodox civilization. Incisive observers might have remembered that Ukraine was the seam between Western and Slavic Orthodox civilizations, and that the Russian nation traces its history to the Kievan Rus’ Empire. The division between the Latin Church and Orthodoxy was exemplified by the 1472 marriage of the Grand Prince of Moscow Rus Ivan III to Sophia Paleologue, claimant to the throne of the Byzantine Empire, at the recommendation of Pope Paul II in an unsuccessful attempt to join the two civilizations. Still, through this union, Russian autocrats believed themselves to be the true inheritors of civilization, with Moscow the “third Rome,” following Constantinople. Ivan III began to refer to himself as Tsar, the Russian derivation of Caesar. Vladimir Putin’s interest and intervention in Ukraine emanated from these deep roots and, more recently, from the dramatic experiences of the Soviet Union as it teetered toward its demise.
END QUOTE
(See Pages 6 and 7 of “Part I. Context and Theory of Russian Unconventional Warfare” of the document lined below.)
http://www.jhuapl.edu/ourwork/nsa/papers/ARIS_LittleGreenMen.pdf
Bill C.,
You’re parsing quotes and sources to support your conception of a reasonable basis for a “Reverse Cold War”. Apparently, Russia’s “deception, psychological manipulation, and domination of the information domain”, appear to be working effectively on you.
It is the nature of bureaucratic institutions to resist their own demise, and NATO is no different. In the 1990s, it seemed at times to be an organization in need of a mission. Yet for all of the lofty rhetoric, it took a major effort for European NATO members to get behind Operation Allied Force, and this was in spite of past recent European humanitarian failures in Rwanda and Bosnia. Indeed, OAF was the high-watermark of NATO’s use as an offensive military alliance. Powell’s remarks are a thinly-veiled attempt to bring NATO into Iraq the way it was committed in Afghanistan, even though the latter operation was in response to the Article V invocation following 9/11.
But is NATO the real issue, or is it the American presence?
1. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo had some UNSC pedigree from the Yugoslav Wars and grudging toleration from Moscow, even if Kosovan secession did not
2. NATO’s involvement in the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (actually FID) was in response to an Article V determination which Moscow did not oppose at the time
3. NATO’s anti-piracy operations off Africa have not been problematic for Russia, which also participates alongside China
4. NATO’s intervention in Libya was in furtherance of a UNSC Resolution, even if Britain and France later overstepped, and Qatar intervened on the ground
5. NATO has not violated the CFE Treaty
6. NATO BMD can only threaten Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons systems such as the Iskander, not its strategic forces
7. NATO defense spending, particularly in Europe, as a share of GDP, has consistently declined since the end of the Cold War
8. NATO has not threatened or attacked any member or prospective member of the CSTO
9. Despite not being party to either the INF or ABM Treaties, non-U.S. NATO members have also complied