Atlantic Council

Ambassador Kurt Volker, senior advisor to the International Security Program and member of the Atlantic Council’s Strategic Advisors Group, and Vice Admiral Kevin P. Green, USN (Ret.), vice president for defense and intelligence for IBM Federal, outlined several key principles for NATO reform in a new issue brief. The publication was released at the event “Transforming Towards a Smarter Alliance: NATO Reform in the Age of Austerity,” part of the Council’s Smarter Alliance Initiative in partnership with IBM.

The topic of reforming NATO—and in particular cutting costs and improving efficiencies—has been with the Alliance for decades. Throw-away lines such as “Why does NATO have 400 committees?” or “Cut the International Staff by 10 percent” have often been used to signal a rough determination to streamline NATO and make it more efficient.

To be sure, there are indeed improvements to the way NATO operates that should be made, and to be sure, they can result in more efficient use of resources, and perhaps even cost savings. But let’s not make the mistake of assuming that the most important problems facing the Alliance today result from a lack of reform. Nor should we assume that internal reforms can compensate for the glaring gaps in members’ political will and resources.

The real problems are far more fundamental: the lack of a strategic consensus on threats and responses, inadequate and still declining Allied defense budgets and capabilities, and a lack of leadership and solidarity among the Allies. Moreover, NATO has already gone through substantial reforms several times since the end of the Cold War.

Still, specific reforms have their place. We suggest below a number which, if the more fundamental issues of political will and capabilities are addressed, would make a good Alliance better and smarter.

Smarter Alliance Initiative:

The Atlantic Council and IBM established the Smarter Alliance Initiative in response to the NATO Secretary General’s call for European allies to adopt a “smarter” approach to leveraging scarce defense resources to develop and sustain capabilities necessary to meet current and future security challenges. Working with recognized experts and former senior officials from Europe and the United States, the Atlantic Council and IBM have produced a set of policy-oriented briefs focused on NATO reform which will be officially launched during the conference.