© REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

When Greta Thunberg made her speech at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit last September she concentrated on governments and corporations. Interestingly enough, she did not point her finger at the military. The armed forces are not an environmentally-friendly organization and frankly they are not designed to be one. They focus on the most effective means to dominate and defeat the enemy. But a culture of environmental oblivion cannot be sustained, especially when climate change impacts the military’s operational capabilities. NATO, whilst not the first responder to climate change, can help to collectively address this challenge.

A “Greener” NATO—Why Now?

Climate change will be increasingly present on NATO’s agenda for three reasons. First, by acting as a threat multiplier it will inevitably affect NATO’s core business and its deterrence and defense posture. Thus, in the course of its broader adaptation, the alliance will have to embrace issues related to climate change in all strategic directions.

In the south, the war in Syria proved that climate change could cause or fuel conflicts. Between 2005 and 2011 Syria experienced severe consecutive droughts. Hoping to find employment, farmers migrated to cities. Competition over resources and jobs, already scarce following decades of poor governance, was one of the factors that pushed people in Syria to rebel.

In the north, the melting of the polar ice cap is starting to ease the access to vast deposits of oil, gas, and metals. The changing climate will open a transpolar passage across the Arctic Ocean via the North Pole. This will attract interest from a broad range of actors and increase the maritime traffic through the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) gap and nearby waters. From Moscow’s point of view, this will facilitate the movements of vessels between the Pacific and the Atlantic, thus putting additional stress on the strategically important GIUK gap. Another interested party will doubtless be China, which will likely lead to a commensurately increased presence of the People’s Liberation Army Navy in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Second, motivated by political and economic factors, individual allies will try to strengthen NATO’s response to climate challenges. Allies are already implementing the “Green Defense” framework that was adopted in 2014. It seeks to make NATO more operationally effective through changes in the use of energy, while also meeting the environmental objectives of using fewer resources. “Greening” NATO’s militaries allows some allies to rally public support and promote their domestic technologies whist providing tangible military benefits. This trend will intensify in the near future.

In the years to come, investments in green energy will form one of the pillars of the EU growth strategy. As Europe prepares itself to face the economic recession that will follow the COVID-19 pandemic, many argue that public investments in sustainable energy sources can act as a lifeline. In this context, a broad coalition of European nations (including Greece, Poland, and Spain)have called on the European Commission to forge an industrial policy for renewables. At the same time, France and Germany tabled the idea of creating “green recovery roadmaps” for every economic sector to overcome the shock. Inevitably, these views will spill over to NATO through European allies.

Third, the COVID-19 pandemic will reinforce existing vicissitudes, with the public demanding a more coordinated response to global challenges such as climate change. Social mobilization around climate change will have winners and losers. On the winning side will be organizations that provide pro-active responses to climate change. Entities that undermine environmental stability will lose out.

NATO’s Three Core “Green” Tasks

NATO will have to address the challenges posed by the climate emergency in a holistic manner and sink in the climate change factor in its policies. NATO’s approach to climate change should follow the logic of its three core tasks: collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security.

Collective defense is NATO’s bread and butter task. Including insights from climate projection and modelling in NATO’s intelligence products and processes is definitely not enough. In fact, NATO should not be afraid to act strategically by expanding the NATO Pipeline System (NPS) to its eastern flank. The NPS is a network of fuel pipelines and storage sites, with the Central Europe Pipeline System (CEPS) as its chief element. It spans from ports in France and the Benelux countries to Germany, ending on the former border between East and West Germany. Today, the CEPS mostly serves commercial clients (such as airports in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt), whilst maintaining the readiness to supply the military in times of crisis. According to official data, the pipeline transports the equivalent of roughly 1,110 diesel-powered military trucks, running round the clock, day in, day out. In other words, the CEPS helps safeguard the environment, while providing the military with a reliable logistic system for their fuel supplies.

Despite those benefits, the NPS has not been expanded to NATO’s eastern flank. Instead, the military has to rely on road and rail transports toppled by pre-positioned storage sites. Academic research proves that pipelines shipments are substantially less energy-consuming than rail, road, and water transport. In turn, pipelines reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 61 and 77 percent compared with rail for transporting oil over long distances. Expanding the NPS to the eastern flank would help NATO to significantly “green” its fuel supply logistics, while enhancing the fuel supply of its military forces and plugging the alliance in a broader effort to stimulate the post-pandemic economies. In fact, an expanded NPS could be used to supply the soon-to-be-opened Berlin-Brandenburg airport and the future Solidarity Transport Hub in Poland.

Taking on Disasters

Crisis management is another of NATO’s core tasks. Allies and partners are not immune to droughts, floods, mudflows, wildfires, hurricanes, storms, and earthquakes. Climate change exacerbates hazards and amplifies the risk of extreme weather disasters. NATO was not designed to tackle these challenges, but over the last couple of years was able to develop relevant instruments and mechanisms. There are at least two vehicles that could help NATO to better streamline climate change into its crisis management tasks.

First, the Euro-Atlantic Disaster Response Coordination Centre (EADRCC), which is NATO’s principal civil emergency response mechanism. In recent months, the EADRCC became famous for coordinating allied responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. But it has a long-standing record of coordinating both requests and offers of assistance mainly in case of natural and man-made disasters. The EADRCC regularly conducts field exercises based on scenarios encompassing environmental challenges. Allies should consider strengthening the EADRCC’s role, including via potential cooperation with private sector.

Second, there are the seven baseline requirements for civil preparedness which help allies to enhance resilience as agreed at the 2016 NATO Warsaw Summit. Those requirements are being regularly updated in order to reflect recent developments such as 5G networks or lessons learned so far from the COVID-19 crisis. Future updates should consider how climate change impacts civil preparedness and resilience, especially energy supplies, food and water resources, critical infrastructure in disaster-prone areas, and allies’ ability to deal with the uncontrolled movement of people.

Cooperative security will be an important element of NATO’s approach to tackle climate change, too. Sharing lessons learned with partners and introducing concrete solutions to help their armed forces to become more climate change-cognizant could create a more predictable and secure neighborhood. The NATO Science for Peace and Security Program (SPS) should play a leading role in this regard. The SPS should become a prime vehicle for developing and promoting cooperation on the smart and energy efficient technologies between allies and partners, including from the Middle East and North Africa, but also from Eastern Europe. Equipping the militaries with sustainable energy sources, such as deployable camps that typically rely on fuel-consuming and polluting diesel generators for power production, could be a case in point.

The Way Ahead

Climate change will affect the central business of NATO, including its three core tasks. The alliance can help to address this challenge by creating a culture of environmental consciousness. At the same time, NATO should not become obsessed with climate change and thus measure its policy decisions primarily through the environmental lens. Other simultaneous challenges will continue to exist. Therefore, NATO cannot afford to be a world leader in combating climate change. But it definitely can be at the forefront of environmental stewardship, especially in the context of the upcoming NATO Summit in 2021.

N.B. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position or views of the institution they represent.

The post Op-Ed: Toward a “Greener” NATO appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Deterrence, transparency, risk reduction. They have all become buzzwords, especially as Russia’s relations with the West hit an all-time low. Numerous experts have become concerned about a new arms race and its implications for transatlantic security. Alexander Graef, in his recent Berlin Policy Journal article “Getting Deterrence Right on NATO’s Eastern Flank”, sets up a discussion about the right balance between deterrence and transparency. He refers to all three buzzwords, suggesting that “without confidence and trust-building measures, rhetoric about deterrence—and deploying additional forces—risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy that might bring about what it is supposed to prevent: real military conflict, where all sides would lose.”

This piece will not concentrate on the importance of deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank nor seek to rebut the suggestion that an increased US presence in Poland might start a vicious circle of increasing insecurity and new deployments. Rather, this article will try to frame the discussion about the role of transparency and risk reduction.

It is true that the current relationship between Russia and NATO (or more broadly the West) is marked by a mounting lack of trust as well as growing risks. Therefore, transparency is often perceived as a silver bullet solution. Yet transparency is not isolated or unconnected from strategy. Since 2014, Russia has decided to instrumentalize risk, treating it as a security policy concept. Russia’s continues to pick and choose which arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament treaties and agreements it complies with. In fact, Russia’s policy of selective violation and non-compliance, as well as its practice of exploiting loopholes in the existing frameworks, significantly increases uncertainty and unpredictability.

The Benefits of Openness

In such circumstances, why does transparency still matter for NATO and the West? For one, when properly implemented, it promotes predictability between competitors, increases the chances to reduce risk, and helps to (re)build mutual trust. Yet transparency should not undermine security, nor hinder NATO from having a credible deterrence and defense posture.

There are three main goals that transparency should contribute to. First, security, which is indivisible. The ultimate task is to eliminate any security grey zones or regions of unequal security. Second, stability, which should be based on reciprocity. Indeed, only balanced final results will maximize incentives for parties to stay in compliance with any arms control, disarmament, or non-proliferation obligations. Thirdly, verification, which in practical terms means the ability to assess compliance. Transparency should increase the possibilities for deterring possible violations.

From an eastern flank perspective, there are three main platforms which should be used to achieve greater, yet measured and reciprocal, transparency: NATO-Russia contacts, the OSCE framework, and finally, bilateral/regional dialogue.

NATO-Russia Founding Act

In his piece, Alexander Graef suggests that “the alliance could publicly announce that it is willing to uphold the threshold of “substantial combat forces” on the Eastern flank implied by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act and propose to clarify the exact meaning of this term in negotiations with Moscow.” In fact, such a solution is a non-starter for Allies on NATO’s eastern flank. Not only would it belittle Russia’s political and military violations of the Act, but it would also undermine the concept of equal security among all allies, which is one of the goals transparency should contribute to. Therefore, a return to a discussion about the NATO-Russia Founding Act is counterproductive as this document should be perceived as a Russian “political A2/AD tool” inside NATO.

Instead, one should concentrate on achievable steps. Both the NATO-Russia Council as well as direct military contacts between SACEUR and the Russian Chief of Defense offer valuable instruments to increase predictability and potentially reduce risks. Currently, risk reduction is one of the integral elements of the NATO-Russia Council meetings, which entail reciprocal briefings on NATO and Russian military exercises. At the same time, the meetings and phone calls between SACEUR and the Russian Chief of Defense allow both sides to maintain strategic military-to-military contacts, thus serve increasing predictability. However, from NATO’s perspective a qualitative change in the transparency and risk reduction pillar can only happen when Russia starts to address the most destabilizing elements in its military posture, such as inherently destabilizing snap exercises. Informing NATO about the start of a snap exercise (so-called ‘day one transparency’), for example via the SACEUR-Russian Chief of Defense line of communications, would considerably contribute to practical risk reduction.

Revitalize the OSCE

Alexander Graef suggests that “Russia could agree to give military observers access to newly deployed and modernized units or provide notification and invite NATO officers to military exercises unregulated by the OSCE’s Vienna Document”. At a first glance, such a solution might seem tempting. Yet, voluntary measures should not distract us from the fact that Russia does not deliver on the obligatory requirements of the Vienna Document, such as inviting observers to exercises with 13,000 troops or more. In fact, since 1990 Russia has never officially organized a military exercise involving more than 13,000 troops in the Vienna Document zone of application. Official or not, this makes no sense—such exercises happen on a regular basis, including near NATO borders.

Therefore, the goal should be to enhance the OSCE framework, which was primarily designed to increase transparency and help reduce military risk, but also to allow participating states to (re)build confidence among them. However, in the last few years the OSCE platform—despite ongoing constructive attempts by the West—has failed to properly tackle the issue of transparency and risk reduction.

First, chapter III of the Vienna Document (“Risk Reduction”) has never been properly tested. In a real life situation, on the eve of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in March 2014, its value proved limited.

Second, Russia, despite some initial interest, did not agree to modernize the Vienna Document. The Polish proposal to amend paragraph 17 of the Vienna Document (‘Co-operation as regards hazardous incidents of a military nature’), currently co-sponsored by more than half of the OSCE participating states, has so far not attracted Russian politico-military attention.

Third, the Structured Dialogue—launched in 2016 to work on the current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area—has produced limited results. This informal platform was designed to tackle the issues of concern that for political reasons could not be effectively addressed in the formal fora (e.g. snap exercises, hybrid warfare). Yet to this point Russia’s engagement in the Structured Dialogue process has been far from constructive.

Finally, the OSCE discussions on military doctrines—a crucial element of reciprocal confidence building and a perfect platform for strategic and technical military to military contacts—has not brought much added value in recent years. In short, the OSCE framework still has untapped potential to make a lasting contribution to transparency and risk reduction.

What is achievable? In a short-term, one could ensure that technical elements for risk reduction are in place. The OSCE Secretariat (Conflict Prevention Center) could organize an exercise during which national points of contact for military incidents would be tested. However, the precondition for any substantial change, including the modernization of the Vienna Document, is a Russia willing to engage constructively.

Bilateral/Regional Dialogue

Graef also advocates agreeing additional bilateral measures between Russia and the West (“bilateral agreements on Vienna Document-like evaluation visits”). In the Baltic Sea region, additional bilateral confidence and security building measures (CSBMs) were agreed upon between Russia and the Baltic States in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the past decade, among them CFE-like information exchanges. The latter were terminated by Russia after it suspended its participation in the CFE Treaty. In addition, in 2001 Russia and Lithuania had agreed to allow for one reciprocal evaluation visit beyond the regular Vienna Document quota to be carried out in the territories of the Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania. This provision was cancelled by Russia in April 2014. Currently, only Finland has bilateral agreements with Russia (signed in 2000 and 2002) allowing for one additional evaluation visit per year as well as biannual exchange of naval visits to Finnish bases at Upinniemi or Pansio and Russian bases at Kaliningrad or Kronstadt.

In the current security environment, entering into new bilateral agreements with Russia will be politically and militarily difficult for most of the countries in the Baltic Sea region, but also for e.g. Black Sea littoral states. Nevertheless, both sides should at least start looking into this option as a mid-term to long-term goal. Such an approach should encompass the necessary internal national preparations, including setting the expected objectives as well as conducting the intra-agency brainstorming.

Finally, one should not forget that regional dialogue can also prove to be useful in rebuilding trust. In the recent years in the Baltic Sea region, two working groups, which included among others Russia and NATO, contributed to increasing air safety for both civilian and military aircraft. The work of the ICAO-facilitated Baltic Sea Project Team (2015) as well as Finnish-led Expert Group on Baltic Sea Air Safety (2017) led to a reduction of air incidents in the region. The engagement of the Russian side in the works of both groups confirmed that there is interest on technical and military level to establish additional principles to enhance air safety. The full implementation by Russia of the rules and procedures for air safety and engagement in safe and responsible airmanship will help to potentially replicate the Baltic Sea experience in other regions (e.g. Black Sea, North Sea).

More Than Just Transparency

Transparency and risk reduction are certainly important elements in the deteriorating relationship between NATO and Russia. The West should continue to pursue achievable steps, such as OSCE or NATO dialogue and bilateral agreements where possible. But until Russia stops conducting a policy of intentional escalations and provocations to enforce its interests and exercise influence, transparency will never reduce tensions as much as some strategists believe.

The views and opinions expressed here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the institution he represents.

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