NATO needs a strategic reset
Our European allies should heed Donald Trump’s warnings that NATO must reorganize its finances and structure to face the challenges ahead, writes former U.S. ambassador ZALMAY KHALILZAD
At the NATO summit last week, President Donald Trump predictably criticized our allies for not spending enough on defense and for pursuing their own economic well being, in part, at the expense of the United States. The president has been lambasted for upbraiding U.S. allies, and, indeed, our alliances are important and NATO represents a great achievement of U.S. foreign policy. However, Mr. Trump’s criticisms are justified. NATO must reform; it is not sustainable in its present form.
The alliance is ill-structured, illequipped and ill-financed to deal with the European region’s two major security problems — an aggressive Russia and the spillover of instability and terrorism from the Middle East and North Africa — leaving aside emerging global security challenges. Worse, at times some members can even be said to have enabled the threat. One example being the massive German purchase of Russian gas, which provides Russian President Vladimir Putin with ongoing financing. To deal effectively with these challenges on an equitable and sustained basis among allies, the terms of the partnership must be renegotiated and its common ground redefined. This is in Europe’s best interest too.
Despite the best efforts of the Clinton, Bush (43) and Obama administrations, Russia has embarked on a more aggressive path, going to war against Georgia and Ukraine, conducting cyber attacks on Estonia and otherwise threatening the Baltic states. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, NATO members are directly threatened by Russian aims. Efforts at finding common ground with Russia based on mutual interest in a changing global environment should continue, but so must preparations to deal with threats from Russia.
Also, Europe faces a threat from the south, as the crisis in the Middle East and Europe’s permissive asylum laws and expansive welfare systems have triggered a flow of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The series of terrorist attacks in Europe inspired or coordinated by the Islamic State is one consequence. This terrorist threat — which combines external and internal security problems — is one NATO is ill-designed to address.
Many of NATO’s members
have effectively disarmed since the end of the Cold War, with only eight of NATO’s 28 members spending the agreed-upon goal of 2 percent of GDP on defense. Meanwhile, the United States faces major fiscal constraints, particularly rising entitlement costs and interest payments, and growing demands to meet its other global responsibilities, particularly in the Western Pacific. Additionally, many European members have favorable balances of trade vis-a-vis the United States, giving credence to the claim that we subsidize them on defense and they take advantage of us on trade.
Gentle persuasion by past presidents failed to induce Europeans to spend more on defense. By contrast, Mr. Trump’s demands for greater burden sharing are starting to have an effect. Yet much more still needs to happen. Moreover, we need to focus not just on inputs — how much money is spent — but also on outputs. A reformed NATO must hold members accountable in terms of actual military capabilities they can field. Those who care about NATO should criticize free-riding alliance members, not the efforts of Mr. Trump to get the alliance to step up its game. At the same time, the Trump administration needs to articulate alliance priorities and the steps needed to adequately address them.
What to do
In a new arrangement, NATO members would first agree on specific plans and capabilities needed to meet the threats from the East and the South as well as an operational division of labor. This doesn’t mean abandoning the requirement to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, but instead would require every NATO member to commit to spending the necessary resources to meet identified defense responsibilities, which in some cases could require expenditure of more than 2 percent.
Specifically, the alliance should collectively take three steps to field an agreed set of defense outputs:
• Develop integrated defense plans within the NATO military committee for dealing with the Russian threat in northeast Europe, and instability and terrorist threats emanating from the Middle East and North Africa, thereby creating a strategy and a division of labor. This will entail a combined planning effort of the major NATO powers and the members living nearest or most directly affected by these threats.
• Agree to specific outputs — forces, weapons systems, operational capabilities, logistics support and command and control — that each NATO member must develop and maintain at high readiness. This should take into account the capabilities that are needed now but also look to exploit emerging technologies to solve military problems more effectively as these technologies mature.
• Engage in realistic large-scale annual exercises — analogous to Exercise REFORGER of the Cold War — that would serve as a deterrent for would-be aggressors, demonstrate resolve and compliance with NATO commitments and identify shortfalls for remediation.
In addition, the United States should candidly inform the European NATO members that the larger share of these agreed-upon capabilities must come from them. We must explain that geopolitical realities require the United States to augment our own defense commitments in other priority regions, especially the Western Pacific. They must also understand that the American public expects wealthy countries to defend themselves principally on their own, with the United States playing a supporting role on an as-needed basis.
We must deliver the hard message that the future of the U.S. commitment under the Article 5 provision for collective defense is contingent on European performance. Those capabilities provided by the United States should be specifically tailored to reinforce NATO war plans and the security of the front-line states. European states would carry the burden on the southern threat, which affects their states domestically.
This would form the basis of a new global division of labor which would have America’s European allies assume the primary role for the security of Europe; the United States, Japan, South Korea and Australia would assume the primary role for security in the Western Pacific; and collectively, America and its global and regional allies would share roles in providing for security in the Middle East. Thus, working together, America and its allies would be meeting critical security demands in three critical regions.
Elements of the new construct
To address the Russian threat in northeast Europe, the United States should lead the planning effort in NATO to develop the requirements for forces capableof deterring and, if necessary, defeating Russian irregular and conventional aggression, and to deter nuclear use. While the specifications for these forces requires comprehensive military analysis, we can conclude that a small tripwire force is inadequate to the task.
Among the capabilities that European NATO members would need to develop would include the following:
• An integrated air defense and surface-to-surface strike capability that would create an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) belt covering the territory of NATO members and extending into adjacent areas of Russia.
• A counter-A2/AD capability that would defeat Russia battle networks and weapons systems, and Moscow’s ability to threaten NATO forward-deployed forces and reinforcements.
• A special operations forces capability sufficient to counter Russia’s subconventional operations involving the so-called “little green men.”
• A ground maneuver force that would combine the kind of light infantry that Hezbollah used against Israel’s offensive forces with heavy armor and artillery units that would consolidate territorial control.
As part of the new NATO security construct, the United States should offer to take the following steps:
• Maintain a small, highly capable ground maneuver force in Europe that would partner with a larger European force.
• Maintain pre-positioned military equipment and supplies in Europe, proximate to the locales where it would likely be needed, that would enable a surge of U.S. capability on a rapid basis if needed. Other major NATO powers, such as France, Germany and the UK should also provide this capability.
• Sell to European allies and partners, or license the right to produce, the highend weapons systems needed to create the required European A2/AD, counter A2/AD, and maneuver-force capabilities. Interoperability is vital and should be programmed into the strategy and plans.
• Agree to back up European arsenals of precisionguided munitions with U.S. stockpiles and production capabilities.
• Provide European NATO members with access to U.S. high-fidelity training capabilities and technologies.
• Provide the command, control and surveillance capabilities that would enable integrated NATO operations in the event of conflict.
• Undertake a new look at what would be needed at every step in the escalation ladder — including tactical and intermediate-range nuclear forces — to ensure that Russia would not gain an advantage though escalating to high levels of conflict. This would be a first step to address any deficiencies in our deterrent.
A similar process should be undertaken regarding the threat from the Middle East and North Africa. The flood of migrants from the region and the infiltration of terrorists into European countries should be treated as a first order security problem for NATO. While these challenges principally affect European security, the United States should work through NATO to help enable European members better to address these challenges. This should include the following steps:
• Assist European NATO members in creating stabilization forces capable of brokering political compacts in fragile states, training local security forces, and building key state institutions.
• Work with European NATO members to develop a political-military plan for the stabilization of Libya and play a supporting role to the main European effort, which will likely require deployment of stabilization forces and establishment of a beachhead to deal with the source of refugees embarking across the Mediterranean Sea.
• Develop a counter-terrorism intelligence fusion and operations center that is part of the NATO command structure, thus coordinating the police, internal security and military responses to terrorism.
• Develop an agreed strategy and political-military plan to defeat the remnants of the Islamic State which is a threat to the member states.
A Trump Doctrine for NATO
In essence, the new construct is analogous to the Nixon Doctrine, only this time for the wealthy countries of Europe. Nixon pledged to come to the defense of allies in the developing would should they be threatened or attacked by a major power. However, he insisted under the Nixon Doctrine that these states principally carry the burden for internal defense and lesser contingencies, though assisted with U.S. training and economic and military aid. In Europe today, European NATO members are fully capable of providing for their own defense.
To implement this doctrine, the United States should play an active supporting role and develop a three- to five-year timeline and program to create the needed European capabilities. We need to shore up vulnerabilities now, but this has to be part of a plan to create European capabilities and to set limits on the U.S. role that enable us to prioritize the challenge in East Asia, deal with ongoing threats in the Middle East and work within our fiscal constraints.