Atlantic Council

From Marcus Weisgerber and Pierre Tran, Defense News:  François Hollande may have pledged on the campaign stump to pull France’s combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, but analysts expect the president-elect to do his utmost to reassure NATO allies that France is a solid partner when the alliance chiefs meet in Chicago later this month. . . .

Outgoing French President Nicolas Sarkozy surprised NATO allies when he said Jan. 20 that Paris would pull out combat troops by the end of 2013. A few days later, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he hoped Afghan forces would take the “combat lead” in 2013, but American forces would still be engaged in combat missions.

To differentiate himself during the campaign against Sarkozy, Hollande proposed that French combat units would leave one year earlier, said Loic Tribot la Spiere, chief executive of Paris think tank Centre d’Etude et Prospective Stratégique.

With the campaign over, analysts suggest that Hollande has given himself an escape route from his campaign pledge.

But Hollande also knows how important it is to maintain France’s standing in the alliance.

Socialist lawmaker Bernard Cazeneuve, a defense specialist and spokesman for Hollande’s campaign, said the French leader fully understands Paris is a member of an alliance and will “propose” an early withdrawal when he goes to Chicago. Indeed, Hollande is not one to slam his fist on the table, but will try to explain to the allies the sense of the French move, Tribot la Spiere said. . . .

“The principle which applies for the German government is: We entered [Afghanistan] together, we will leave together,” Chancellor Angela Merkel told German lawmakers May 10, Agence France-Presse reported.

Merkel’s remarks were widely seen as taking aim at Hollande ahead of the NATO summit, which begins May 20.

Individual nations should not organize redeployment plans “in isolation,” French Air Force Gen. Stéphane Abrial, who heads NATO’s U.S.-based Allied Transformation Command, said at a May 8 Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington.

The Netherlands pulled its troops out of Afghanistan in 2010 and Canada ended combat operations last year, but keeps a training mission. . . .

Barry Pavel, director of the International Security Program and director-designate of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said he is looking for three major components out of the Afghanistan discussions in Chicago.

Specifically, will the International Security Assistance Force be able to sustain the level of troops needed throughout the phased transition to Afghan forces in the coming years; what is the strategy after the transition in 2014 and beyond; and will NATO leaders be able to convince the public to support “residual military activities,” such as training and advising, beyond 2014, he said.

“[I]f I had to guess, we’d have what we call a [quick reaction force] somewhere in the region … that if all of a sudden there was just such an operational crisis that the Afghans couldn’t handle it themselves, the cavalry will come in and [provide] support,” Pavel said. “Whatever the missions are, they should be guided by a strategy, and our leaders need to lead to ensure that everybody follows that strategy until we are comfortable that we can reduce [troop levels] even further.”

That is a key issue for other European countries and the U.S. to decide: What will be the scope of NATO’s role in Afghanistan after ending combat operations and post-2014?  (photo: Getty)

From Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Wall Street Journal:  Last month, NATO conducted a historic exercise: the first comprehensive test of the alliance's new missile-defense capability. A U.S. ship, radar and satellite, as well as interceptor batteries from Germany and the Netherlands, conducted a series of simulated engagements to test the alliance's ability to defend against missile attacks. The test was successful. . . .

Today, we face a grave and growing threat from the proliferation of ballistic-missile technology. More than 30 countries have acquired such technology or are working to acquire it. Some already have missiles that can be fitted with conventional warheads or weapons of mass destruction, and some of these missiles can reach Europe. That's why the U.S. and European allies are working together within NATO to develop appropriate responses. . . .

The U.S. and a number of European allies have announced their intention to contribute interceptors, sensors and control systems, as well as to host key parts of the overall system. At our summit in Chicago on May 20-21, we will declare an interim capability that brings these individual contributions together under NATO command and control.

This interim capability will provide the alliance with a limited but operationally meaningful and immediately available capability against a ballistic-missile threat. It is the first step, but a real step, toward providing full coverage for all NATO populations, territory and forces in Europe. . . .

From the very beginning, the whole point of NATO missile defense has been to go beyond the U.S. contribution. European allies are fully involved—supporting it politically, sharing the costs, and providing substantial assets of their own. Many different assets from European allies are being drawn together with the U.S. assets into a common, integrated and shared NATO capability.

The alliance has already developed an initial command-and-control system to link the U.S. assets with sensors and interceptors provided by European allies. This part of the system is designed by NATO, paid for by NATO, and operated by NATO.

After the Chicago summit, we will continue to expand the system toward full operational capability. The Netherlands has already announced plans to upgrade four air-defense frigates with missile-defense radar. France plans to develop an early-warning capability and long-range radar. Germany has offered Patriot missile batteries and is hosting the NATO command-and-control at Headquarters Alliance Air Command in Ramstein. Turkey, Romania, Poland and Spain have all agreed to host U.S. assets. I expect more announcements in the months and years ahead.

Mr. Rasmussen is secretary-general of NATO. (photo: Defense Update)

From Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Project Syndicate:  Many years ago, I took my children to visit the sites of the D-Day landings in Normandy. I wanted them to understand the sacrifices that others had made so that Europe and North America could enjoy the benefits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We saw the beaches whose names echo through history – Omaha, Utah, Juno. Those beaches remain a memorial to the idea that, together, we can overcome any threat, no matter how great.

We understand the future that could have befallen not only Europe, but the entire world, if North America had not helped Europe in its hour of need. And we know that those landings created a unique bond between our continents.

That bond remains vital for the preservation of our values and our security. But, after the Cold War, many assumed that its institutional embodiment – the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – would fade away. It did not, because our bond is based not just on common threats, but on shared ideals. It could no more fade away than our desire for freedom could wane. NATO needed no external reasons to exist. Yet history would provide them soon enough.

In Bosnia and Kosovo, NATO intervened to stop massive human-rights violations. In Libya, we enforced a United Nations Security Council resolution to protect civilians. And in Afghanistan, we are denying a safe haven to extremists.

The Alliance has evolved into a true security-management organization that is flexible, efficient, and cost-effective. The threats have changed, and become more global, and we have changed to meet them.

NATO is developing a ballistic-missile defense capability to protect our European populations and territory against a grave and growing threat. In the Indian Ocean, NATO is working with the European Union and many others to police major sea lanes threatened by pirates. And, in countries around the world, it carries out tasks such as de-mining, disaster relief, advising on how to bring military forces under democratic control, and working closely with the UN to prevent harm to children.

Efforts like these may not make headlines. But security is like health – you never notice it until it takes a turn for the worse. This is why you need insurance. And NATO is the most solid security insurance that the world has. Underwritten by 28 members, it has delivered security benefits to all Allies, year after year, for more than six decades.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen has been Secretary-General of NATO since 2009. He was previously Prime Minister of Denmark.  (photo: thefrenchwillneverforget.com)

From Robert D. Kaplan, STRATFOR:  [T]he very weakening of the European Union because of its debt woes makes NATO more crucial than at any time since the Berlin Wall fell -- crucial as a political stabilizing agent within Europe itself. Especially for Eastern Europe, NATO serves as a seal of approval for these former communist states struggling to obtain foreign investment and thus prevents Russia from undermining them. Geography still rules. Russia, because of its own history of invasion from Europe, still requires a row of friendly buffer states in Eastern Europe. Therefore, Russia will do everything it can to undermine states from Poland southward to Bulgaria. NATO is a political, diplomatic and military mechanism directed against that Russian design. Moreover, the more that Europe reels from its debt crisis, the greater the possibility of geopolitical inroads made by Russia, and thus the more relevant NATO becomes.

NATO is also relevant concerning the future geopolitical direction of Germany. As long as NATO exists and Germany is a member, playing a substantial political if not military role, then the chances of Germany pivoting toward an alliance with Russia in future years is lessened.

Analytically, it is a mistake to assume that just because a political-military organization is less useful now than it was a quarter-century ago it is useless altogether. NATO has a bureaucracy, protocols, interoperability between member militaries and all manner of standard operating procedures honed over decades that would simply be irresponsible to get rid of. NATO can act fluently in humanitarian emergencies with which European publics are comfortable and thus somewhat reduce the burden on the United States. NATO, like the United Nations on occasion, still provides diplomatic cover of varying degrees for American actions. NATO is American hegemony on the cheap. Imagine how much less of a fiasco the Iraq War would have been were it a full-fledged NATO operation, rather than a largely unilateral one. Without organizations like NATO and the United Nations, American power is more lonely in an anarchic world.

Aside from the mundane security details provided by some NATO countries in Afghanistan, NATO is not going to get much better at fighting hot wars because Western European publics are not willing to pay the budgetary price that hot wars entail. In any case, land engagements are especially problematic for militaries in pacifist-trending societies. NATO might be ideally suited for air and naval rescue missions in Africa and points beyond. But NATO will be kept alive so that it can continue to serve as a vehicle for European political coherence. The "smart defense" initiative is a case in point, whereby individual countries will increasingly coordinate their weapons acquisition policies. For example, the Dutch are disbanding their tank battalions and putting trust in German units and others to defend Dutch territory. With the savings, the Dutch are investing in ballistic missile defense radars for their frigates, a capability that will benefit all alliance members.

Those who casually belittle NATO assume that Europe will face no geopolitical nightmares in its future. But that assumption might be wrong. Just look at these revitalized military configurations: a Nordic Battlegroup to include the Baltic and Scandinavian states as well as Ireland; and the Visegrad Group to include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. These might on some future morrow partially replace NATO; but they might continue to fall under the NATO umbrella. And they are all responses to a militarily powerful Russia lying to the east.

A more dynamic Russia, a more chaotic North Africa and continued unrest and underdevelopment in the Balkans might all pose challenges to Europe. If they do, NATO will provide a handy confidence-building mechanism. The United States needs NATO to help organize European defense, precisely so that Washington can focus on the Middle East and Asia. NATO is not great, but for the time being it is good enough.  (photo: Julia Shea)

In a just released Atlantic Council-Foreign Policy survey, experts voted Greece as the country they were most likely to “kick out of NATO.” Heads of state, ministers of defense and foreign affairs, a head of intelligence, plus current and former members of Congress were among the dozens of expert respondents from the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
 
As international leaders converge on Chicago this week for the NATO Summit, the Atlantic Council and Foreign Policy partnered to ask about the relevance and future of the world’s most powerful alliance. None of the respondents thought NATO should cease to exist or that the United States would be better off leaving the Alliance, but they were less certain that NATO can adapt to a changing geopolitical and military landscape—and just who will foot the bill for future operation.
 
Some key findings:

•    More respondents think NATO should not intervene in Syria, with one stating, “Are you kidding? NATO does not have the resources: no will, limited skill, no tools.”
•    Respondents are nearly split equally on the question of whether or not Al Qaeda will return to Afghanistan once the International Security Assistance Force mission ends.
•    Most participants believe that the European members of NATO could not have conducted the Libya operation without US assistance.
•    Almost all of the respondents feel NATO should have offensive cyber capabilities.

Read the entire survey results and see the full list of respondents at http://www.acus.org/event/atlantic-councilforeign-policy-survey-future-nato.

From Ian Brzezinski, the Atlantic Council:  The Chicago Summit will be important in large part because of the context in which it takes place. That context includes: 

• A war in Afghanistan from which both the US and Europe appear to be disengaging; 
• Economic crises on both sides of the Atlantic that have atrophied European defense capabilities; 
• A qualified success in Libya that nonetheless raised questions about US commitment to NATO and highlighted European defense shortfalls; and, 
• The new U.S. defense guidance that features a pivot to Asia and reduction in American forces stationed in Europe. 

Some have asserted that the NATO meeting in Chicago should be an “implementation summit” that focuses on Afghanistan and reviews Alliance progress under its new Strategic Concept promulgated in 2010. In the light of the above, that will be insufficient. That would reinforce a sense of NATO’s growing irrelevance and further a process of transatlantic decoupling.  

If the Chicago summit is to have one principal, overarching purpose, it should be to provide credible reaffirmation of the Transatlantic Bargain – one in which the United States demonstrates commitment to Europe’s regional security interests and our European allies demonstrate that they stand ready to address global challenges to transatlantic security. . . . 

First, the President must credibly reaffirm Europe’s centrality in US global strategy. . . .

The fact that US draw-downs in Europe occur in the context of an increasingly assertive Russian foreign policy, rising Russian defense expenditures, and increased Russian military deployments along the country’s western frontiers only adds to a sense of regional consternation. . . .

[T]he Obama Administration promised to increase rotational deployments to Europe. But, it will be challenging for a unit that rotates to Europe for six to eight weeks a year to match the engagement a unit permanently stationed there has with its European counterparts. 

The Administration has yet to communicate when and what units will execute those exercise rotations. It would be appropriate and reassuring to NATO allies to have that training schedule articulated by the time of the Chicago Summit. Continued ambiguity on this issue communicates disinterest not just in Europe’s regional security, but also in Europe’s role as a military partner in out of area operations. . . .

Second, the Chicago Summit should be used to reanimate the vision of a Europe whole, free and secure as a guiding priority for the transatlantic relationship. . . .

To revitalize the process of NATO enlargement at the Chicago Summit, NATO heads of state can and should: 

• Declare its intent to issue invitations to qualified aspirants no later than the next summit;
• Underscore the urgency of resolving Macedonia dispute with Greece over the former’s name, the last remaining obstacle to Skopje’ accession to the alliance;
• Assert that Georgia’s path to NATO can be through the NATO-Georgia Commission; and,
• Applaud Montenegro’s significant progress under the Alliance’s Membership Action Plan.

Third, the Alliance must chart its way forward in an era of financial austerity. The Chicago Summit occurs in the midst of a prolonged economic crisis on both sides of the Alliance, but in Europe it has exacerbated an endemic problem of eroding European military capabilities. . . .

The Alliance’s capability shortfalls are real and urgent today. NATO has worked diligently to foster Smart Defense initiatives in areas of logistics and sustainment, force protection, training, intelligence, surveillance & reconnaissance, and combat operations. The Summit’s capability emphasis should focus on these projects to which Allies can sign-up today and deliver in the near term. . . .

Fourth, the Chicago Summit should be used to expand and deepen the partnerships the Alliance has developed around the world. The globalized and increasingly hybrid character of today’s challenges make it important for the Alliance to expand and deepen its relationships with non-governmental organizations and non-member states around the globe. They have been of great value to NATO’s efforts in Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere. They include the military and financial contributions of Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar and Morocco, among others. . . .

Finally, NATO must demonstrate unambiguous determination to sustain a stable Afghanistan. . . .

At Chicago, NATO aims to map out a strategic partnership with Afghanistan that will endure well beyond 2014. The US-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership, even if it is fleshed out robustly, will likely be insufficient to ensure success in Afghanistan in the absence of a long-term transatlantic commitment to the Afghan people.  

Failure in Afghanistan would present its own negative regional consequences. It would also be a serious blow to the credibility of the Alliance and, thus, to the commitment of its member states who have sacrificed much largely out of resolute solidarity with the United States.

Excerpts from testimony by Ian Brzezinski, Atlantic Council senior fellow with the International Security Program, before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the upcoming NATO Summit in Chicago.  (photo: Getty)

From Barry Pavel and James Joyner, the New Atlanticist:  [T]his is no time for routine. The atrocities in Syria are ongoing. Unrest continues to bubble across the Middle East and North Africa. And the threat of an Iran crisis looms, which from its outset would directly involve NATO members in the neighborhood (Turkey) or with forces in the region (United States, Britain).

In light of all this, the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in particular are practically begging NATO to deepen its outside relationships. (NATO also needs to formalize partnerships with Australia and other key Asian players.) At a minimum, NATO must initiate greater outreach regarding air, missile defense, and maritime operations with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other Gulf countries who are interested in operational links to NATO.

At the Chicago summit, the Obama administration can exert leadership to make inroads on areas where consensus is emerging.

Moving ahead on “smart defense” requires an agreement on which capabilities must be maintained by all allies and which can be shared responsibilities, with some providing capabilities that all can rely upon if needed.

On Afghanistan, maintaining Lisbon’s 2014 timeline may no longer be possible, but Chicago should at the very least result in an agreement to follow a NATO timeline, not one set by the domestic politics of individual allies.

On cyber security, allies need to move toward common standards for national cyber assets to ensure continued interoperability. On partnerships, NATO should engage in structured outreach at multiple levels to its Gulf partners who already have joined NATO military operations.

Finally, NATO should formalize the reality made clear by the Libya operation and set forth procedures for “coalitions of the willing” among NATO members to employ alliance command and control assets in the absence of unanimous participation.

If Obama can push NATO on these critical points, and help foster consensus, there is some hope that NATO will remain as relevant to protecting US interests in the 21st century as it was in the last.

Barry Pavel is director of the International Security Program and James Joyner is managing editor of the Atlantic Council. This article originally appeared in The Christian Science Monitor and is part of a series of New Atlanticist pieces on NATO's 2012 Chicago Summit.

From Franklin D. Kramer, the New Atlanticist:  [T]here are questions on both sides of the Atlantic. From the European perspective, does the United States as the transatlantic leader have a strategic approach that will be effective in the new global world? And from the United States perspective, does Europe have an interest and the capability to engage in and shape the new security environment?

This question is raised most clearly in the context of the very difficult security environment the NATO nations face to their southeast. . . .

There are good reasons for the Alliance to orient its activities in this direction. One NATO country—Turkey—faces an immediate, very complicated security environment on its borders with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. Likewise, Afghanistan is an obvious continuing high priority for the Alliance. But the reality is that the entire region from Syria to Pakistan is a cauldron of instability, including energy and maritime security in the Arabian Gulf; nuclear proliferation from Iran; the Israeli-Palestinian problem; internal instability in Iraq; insurgency and civil war in Syria; and, as noted, Afghanistan plus Pakistan, presenting overlapping but differentiated challenges. In terms of “active threat, right here, right now,” it is the issues of instability in the Greater Middle East that present the most clear set of problems to Alliance countries. . . .

The NATO Summit offers an opportunity to solidify the transatlantic bargain for this part of the world. In theory, this has already been done. The NATO Strategic Concept agreed to at Lisbon provides a framework on which a transatlantic effort in the Greater Middle East, and South Asia can be built. The concept provides that the “Alliance is affected by, and can affect, political and security developments beyond its borders [and] . . . will engage actively through partnership with relevant countries.” It goes on to state that “Instability or conflict beyond NATO borders can directly threaten Alliance security, including by fostering extremism, terrorism, and trans-national illegal activities.”

The words of the Strategic Concept are entirely congruent with, though not as explicit as, the United States defense strategy. But just as the earlier Cold War concept of flexible response needed periodic enhancement, the words of the current Strategic Concept —while only sixteen months old — are no longer enough. It will be important to establish that NATO and United States defense strategy are, in fact, congruent. To do so, the Alliance should take three steps.

The first action would be to issue at the NATO Summit an appropriate political declaration focusing on the Greater Middle East and South Asia. Second, as a mechanism to give substantive strategic content to the declaration, the Alliance should support the formation of a Strategic Consultative Group for the region. A Strategic Consultative Group will not displace bilateral activities nor would it be the only multilateral venue. What it would do, however, is focus the Alliance on a key theater in which its interests are at risk. And it would be an affirmation of the transatlantic bargain in the context of the most immediate challenges for both Europe and the United States. Third, the Strategic Consultative Group should be tasked to propose a longer term strategy utilizing all elements of national power for this arena, including the theater involving Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Central Asian countries; the Iranian problem and the issues of deterrence and potential containment in the Gulf; and the issues raised by Syria.

Franklin Kramer is a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former Assistant Defense Secretary for International Affairs. This piece is part of a series of New Atlanticist pieces on NATO's 2012 Chicago Summit.