© 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.

Artwork © Claude Cadi

Emmanuel Macron is a trained philosopher. In a country, in which appearing cultured is the status currency, he never misses a chance to spice up his speeches with some thoughts from the wise and often dead.

Among Macron’s favorites is the enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant. The man from Kaliningrad famously argued that lying was never justified, as it undermines your interlocutors’ dignity and prevents them from taking rational decisions. This is Macron’s standard line of defense for the rhetorical bombs he likes to throw every now and then.

Arguing the 35-hour workweek is a mistake, qualifying the demographics of the African continent as a “bombshell,” or declaring NATO “brain dead” in an interview with The Economist, Macron likes to provoke public outcries at home and abroad and justifies himself in always the same way: “I am being honest with the French,” “I am saying the things as they are,” or “It is no sign of contempt to tell the truth.”

Battle of Ideas

But eager beaver Macron is certainly not only sharing his thoughts on NATO’s health condition out of a Kantian ideal and to enable his EU partners to take fully-informed decisions. He also believes speaking the “truth”—and doing it publicly—yields political spoils.

This is where another philosopher Macron likes to quote comes in. Antonio Gramsci reasoned that ideological victory precedes political victory. To persistently tell the “truth” and force society to think in your terms is thus the real revolutionary act, the Marxist argued.

For Gramsci, who is also en vogue with today’s right-wing populists, “Ideas and opinions are not spontaneously born in each individual brain: they have had a center of formation, or irradiation, of dissemination, of persuasion—a group of men, or even a single individual, which has developed and presented them in the political form of current reality.”

The French President certainly sees himself as this Gramscian hero. The “brain dead” statement in conjunction with his calls for Europe to relearn “the grammar of sovereignty” and “rearm mentally,” served as a “wake-up call” Macron said in a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg. In the Economist interview, Macron also questioned whether Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits members of the alliance to collective defense, was still valid.

Trump Support

If the goal was, first, to make it impossible for him to be ignored, second, to force Europe to debate his ideas of a “sovereign EU” and partnership with Russia, which, third,  should help disseminate his views and, fourth, pave the way for policy change down the line, Macron can certainly declare “mission accomplished” on the first two counts.

Politicos in the Twittersphere have been all over the “brain dead” comments. Other EU leaders reacted fiercely and even the normally calm Chancellor Angela Merkel has shown her frustration.

And indeed, saying that NATO is “alive and kicking” with a straight-face has become somewhat of a challenge. One tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump telling off Macron would have sufficed to scotch the debate for good. But Trump has remained silent so far and prefers to continue poking at Germany.

Even worse, three days after the Economist interview, Macron boasted on Twitter about the “many convergences” and the “excellent phone conversation with Donald Trump on Syria, Iran and NATO.” The two also agreed to meet ahead of the NATO summit in London on December 4. Paris is keen to point out that Trump, who described NATO as “obsolete” before he took office (he later withdrew the comment), is on the same page as Macron.

Limits of Truth

Still Macron’s gamble poses problems and many in the Paris administration feel uncomfortable with his grand strategizing.

First, telling “the truth” can do damage. If a murderer rings at your door and asks where your friend is who he wants to kill, should you lie? Kant argued No, taking his position to its (absurd) extreme. But by questioning NATO’s Article 5 and reaching out to Russia, the EU’s eastern members feel Macron is doing just that.

Second, changing the way Europeans think about security and Russia will—if at all possible—take time. Indeed, an overlooked element in Macron’s interview is that he sketches out a five to ten-year horizon: “Things won’t happen overnight. But once again, I am opening a track that I don’t think will yield results in 18 or 24 months. … If I don’t take this path, it will never open up.”

Lastly, by claiming to speak in the name of “truth,” Macron implicitly says his adversaries are at best stupid or at worst liars. Macron’s interventions spur debates, a precondition for bringing Europeans closer, according to Jürgen Habermas, another of Macron’s favorite philosophers. But his bulldozer mentality and refusal to listen to others also creates bad blood. The Yellow Vests taking to the streets and the European Parliament rejecting Sylvie Goulard’s candidature for the EU Commission certainly had one thing in common: frustration with Macron’s self-righteous attitude and stubbornness.

No End in Sight

Nevertheless, Macron believes that France has more to lose than others if a real debate over his “sovereign Europe” dream keeps being suffocated. He thus continues to double down, following the motto of Facebook-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s “move fast and break things.”

In the press conference with Stoltenberg, Macron said “Is our enemy today Russia? Or China? … I don’t believe so,” and suggested NATO should essentially be reduced to an anti-terror alliance. He also demanded more help from allies in the Sahel adding in a grave tone: “If some want to see what they call cost-sharing, they can come to the ceremony on Monday that France organizes (for the 13 soldiers killed in a helicopter collision in Mali).”

Attempts to out-maneuver Macron, for example by setting up an “expert group” to study NATO strategy, as German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas proposed, don’t seem to work. If Berlin wants to calm spirits and regain some control over the new debate on European security,  including enlargement, Germany must find an understanding with Macron. 

The post Pariscope: Macron’s Obsession with Truth 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.

The post With Russia, Transparency No Silver Bullet appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Leah Mills

On June 12, the Polish government finally secured its long-sought after joint declaration with Washington on enhancing the US military presence in Poland. As part of the intensive lobbying process leading up to the declaration, Polish President Andrzej Duda had even jokingly offered to name the prospective installation “Fort Trump”. Predictably, the name stuck. But what will this new deployment actually amount to—and how will it affect deterrence, NATO’s Eastern Flank and wider relations with Russia?

Warsaw had initially aimed for the permanent deployment of a US armored division (about 15,000 troops)—and even promised a significant financial contribution (up to $2 billion) to secure it. Over the course of negotiations, however, it became clear that Washington was not ready to meet these expectations. The final declaration instead foresees the deployment of 1,000 additional US troops, the establishment of several combat training centers, and the upgrade of the existing Mission Command Element in Poznan to a US Division Headquarters. In addition, the US will establish special operations capabilities and build-up a squadron of armed MQ-9 Reaper drones.

The Polish government has, obviously, been keen to play up the significance of this deployment, in part because the display of US support and Poland’s status as an indispensable ally helps to mitigate the criticism within the EU of its domestic policies. During the lobbying process, President Andrzej Duda claimed that the US presence would “guarantee (…) security and defense of our part of Europe that is the free world”. Most Western observers have also welcomed the decision to deploy, as it will supposedly strengthen deterrence on NATO’s eastern flank, where the alliance has been steadily increasing its military presence and readiness since Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The 2014 Wales Summit created the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), comprised of up to 5,000 troops ready for deployment within 48 to 72 hours, and increased the size of the NATO response force from 25,000 to 40,000 personnel. 2014 also saw the US launch what is now known as the European Deterrence Initiative, which established a rotational Armored Brigade Combat Team of approximately 3,500 troops in Western Poland, plus 80-90 tanks and hundreds of other vehicles. It is complemented by a combat aviation brigade, mostly based in Germany.

Over the last five years, the budget of the initiative has increased six-fold. Since 2017, the largest part  has been reserved for the pre-positioning of additional equipment that would facilitate the deployment of division-sized forces into the regional theater in case of military conflict. NATO has also increased the number of its military exercises in the region and, at the Warsaw Summit in 2016, established an enhanced forward presence (eFP) of around 4,000 (multinational) troops in the Baltic states and Poland.

A Tripwire for Russia

Nevertheless, despite these measures, Russia continues to enjoy overwhelming military dominance in the Baltics—as it has for decades—and the current level of NATO reinforcements will not change that. Hence, within NATO there is a growing consensus that the alliance cannot practice “deterrence by denial,” which would require deploying sufficient local military forces to defeat a possible invasion, without being caught in a security dilemma. The issue is that any force sufficiently large to achieve denial would present an intolerable threat to Russia and be misinterpreted as an offensive posture. The obvious gap between the initial expectations of the Polish government and the final US commitment suggests that some people in the Pentagon are aware of such risks. 

Tripwire deterrence works on a different principle and does not require regional military superiority: This is deterrence by punishment. The tripwire would not stop a Russian offensive; rather, it ensures that if Moscow ever decided to invade the Baltic states, it would need to engage the forces of different NATO member states directly. Although these forces would be easily defeated, the casualties they incurred would trigger a reaction by the entire alliance, which has global superiority in conventional forces. The tripwire is thus seen to deter. The prospect of the unacceptable damage that would stem from an alliance-wide response, driven by the states that bore the brunt of the casualties, should discourage Moscow from pursuing any such aggression.

The drawback of both deterrence strategies is that they are only appropriate if an adversary indeed plans to attack. After all, the value of successful deterrence is that it prevents military action by changing the state of mind of a potential aggressor. Capabilities alone, though, do not deter. Their deployment needs to be adjusted to the interests and motives of the target state, and they must be accompanied by clear and unambiguous communication efforts. Hence, if an adversary’s political intent is misinterpreted, signals meant for deterrence can instead provoke a vicious circle of increasing insecurity and new deployments. Indeed, in the last five years both NATO and Russia have adopted increasingly robust mutual deterrence postures, which are inherently unstable because offensive and defense postures are increasingly difficult to distinguish from each other.   

A Lack of Trust

Despite all the rhetoric of deterrence (of whichever kind), harder questions are rarely asked: Why would Russia attack the Baltic states with conventional forces or try to test NATO’s credibility on the Eastern flank? Is the stationing of more troops on the ground as a tripwire an adequate response to hazardous incidents between warships and jets on and over the Baltic sea? And what about Russia’s own motivation for military reinforcements? Why does Moscow permanently deploy short-range Iskander-M ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad and strengthen its anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) capabilities to limit NATO’s ability to freely operate within the region? Common wisdom has it that the intentions for this kind of behavior are ultimately unknowable and that one should thus prepare for any possible contingency.

However, just because an opponent’s intentions are difficult to comprehend does not mean that one cannot come to informed and reasonable judgements about them. In truth, Russia’s force posture seems to be driven by an almost neurotic sense of insecurity, stemming from both existing and upcoming NATO ballistic missile defense infrastructure and the vulnerable status of Kaliningrad. In addition, due to its overall conventional inferiority, Russia seems to practice ambiguity and even nuclear signaling on purpose as a deterrence strategy. 

The real problem is that Russia’s actions in Ukraine, in combination with military snap exercises and its malign efforts in cyber and information domains, have significantly—and understandably—increased the level of distrust in its relations with NATO. Hence, what might have been perceived as non-threatening before is now looked upon with suspicion within NATO. Under these circumstances, deterrence rhetoric has presented itself as an easy political fallback option, aggravated by the Cold War tradition. In this sense, references to deterrence stabilize the identity of states—whether as friends or foes. Indeed, NATO’s moves to bolster its Eastern flank are mainly aimed at reassurance of intra-alliance solidarity and resolve. The Fort Trump debate is a case in point: Arguably, it does more to strengthen US-Polish bilateral relations than to enhance NATO deterrence towards Russia.     

So what can be done to proceed more constructively and reduce the risk of misunderstanding, or even conflict? The best option would clearly be to engage in political dialogue between the parties to address the substantive fears on either side and foster a more constructive relationship. Yet given the overall lack of trust and political disagreements between NATO and Russia, this is highly unlikely.

More Transparency Required

In the absence of such a political move, however, there are still a number of practical steps that both NATO and Russia could take in order to defuse a potentially escalating situation. Greater military-to-military dialogue and cooperation can play an important role in the absence of major political initiatives.  

For example, 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. Currently, military activities with 9,000 or more troops require notification in advance, whereas exercises with 13,000 or more troops are subject to obligatory observations. Russia often evades these measures by splitting up larger exercises into smaller units with several operational commands and conducting the aforementioned snap exercises, which do not require notification.     

Moscow could also reiterate the commitment it made in 1999 to show due restraint with regard to conventional deployments in the Kaliningrad and Pskov oblasts, both of which directly border NATO territory. Since Russia suspended the implementation of the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) in December 2007 (and withdrew from it altogether in March 2015), no treaty-related on-site inspections have taken place on its territory. Given that the three Baltic states are not members of the CFE, bilateral agreements on Vienna Document-like evaluation visits—such as the one between Russia and Lithuania that was in place until the annexation of Crimea—could be revised or even expanded. 

In turn, 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. At the moment, NATO deployments remain below the threshold, usually understood as troop levels exceeding more than three permanent brigades, but more and more voices are calling for the termination of the Founding Act.

A better alternative is to revive existing arms control instruments to their full extent, which would help to reduce the perceived dangers of surprise attacks and uncertainty about intentions. Without such 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.

The post Getting Deterrence Right on NATO’s Eastern Flank appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© US Navy/Handout via REUTERS

It was a long and winding road to get there, but in late October 2018, Europe and its allies sent one of the strongest signals yet to the Kremlin since its 2014 annexation of Crimea. More than 50,000 troops, hundreds of aircraft, and dozens of warships converged in Norway for NATO’s Trident Juncture exercise, a clear display of military might and political unity. It was the alliance’s largest live exercise since the end of the Cold War and, alongside the mobilization of 29 NATO countries, the participation of non-members Finland and Sweden highlighted how Moscow’s threatening behavior has driven its non-aligned neighbors closer to the alliance.

But while Trident Juncture was a much-needed showcase by NATO that the alliance is resilient amid the disruptions—both internal and external—of recent years, the aftermath of the exercise, in particular the Kerch Strait incident, points to a troubling new normal in the West’s relationship with Russia: while its actions since 2014 have largely eroded any soft power or goodwill that Moscow had in the West, the Kremlin is willing to pay the price for its bad behavior. That is the heart of the current standoff.

Calculated Risks

Moscow is aware of the fact that it is militarily, technologically, and economically inferior, but it still manages to largely hold its own. This is because the Kremlin has made opportunism a cornerstone of its behavior and compensated for its relative weakness by relying on disinformation, political meddling, and subterfuge. This strategy is based on taking calculated risks on incidents that come with a low cost, but still have the desired impact of signaling Moscow’s displeasure. For instance, Russia conducted missile tests near the Norwegian coast in the middle of Trident Juncture, and both Finland and Norway said Moscow jammed GPS signals on their territory during the exercise. And in bringing about the Kerch Strait incident in late November, where Russia seized three Ukrainian vessels and captured their crews, Moscow was operating on a similar expectation of a passive and muddled response from the West that would give it room to push its goals.

This is troubling for two reasons: it’s a dangerous recipe for miscalculation and misinterpretation that could see a small incident escalate into something bigger, and it’s a new normal for Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to go after low-hanging fruit and aggressively use new tools to do so. In order to manage this unpredictable situation, the collective West needs to come up with a better strategy. Now that Europe has mostly woken up to Putin’s tactics and NATO has flexed its muscles through Trident Juncture, the West needs to figure out how to make the the new standoff with Russia more manageable.

Not Quite a New Cold War

At the heart of today’s confrontation is Russia’s quest to return to the stature and respect that it lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under Putin, Moscow has been projecting power around the world, deploying troops to Syria and Ukraine, using its formidable cyber capabilities to target adversaries, and searching for new allies in the process. While Moscow’s efforts have not always been successful—and sometimes even backfired—this approach forms the backbone of a strategy designed to reshape the international order around Russia’s own interests.

Russia is not the Soviet Union, but it is still a major power on the global stage and cannot simply be defeated or contained. Moscow still has sufficient power to define the security environment in Europe and has already done so. Moreover, it’s important to note that the Russian elites—not simply Putin—want the country to pursue this ambitious global strategy and have supported their president’s foreign policy adventures despite the economic sting brought by sanctions. In the end, those at the top share the geopolitical vision that is fueling Moscow’s maneuvers.

Russia’s actions in recent years have motivated and mobilized NATO in ways not seen since the Cold War. Defense spending is rising, the alliance is exercising on a larger scale, and NATO has bolstered its eastern border amid growing tensions with Moscow. But underneath these successes lies a more concerning reality. Policy disagreements between the United States and Europe, in fields from arms control and the Paris Climate Accords to the Iranian nuclear deal, are mounting, and the rift in the transatlantic alliance is growing. This is made worse by US President Donald Trump’s own troubling behavior: insulting allied leaders, imposing tariffs, and even labelling the European Union a foe.

The Trump Effect

However, amid these strains, transatlantic ties have proved quite durable. Despite the foreign policy chaos created by Trump, the US still has plenty of allies to call on for support. In contrast, Russia has no such allies to rely on. Beijing and Moscow have moved closer together since the fallout of the Ukraine crisis, but the Sino-Russian relationship is still defined by behind-the-scenes competition and riddled with mistrust. Similarly, while Belarus and Kazakhstan are Moscow’s closest partners, they are deeply suspicious of Russia’s intentions and seek to balance their relationship with ties to the West and China.

Still, the growing tensions within the EU and the US should not be minimized. They highlight that the greatest threats are largely from within. This is concerning for the wider security picture, not only because it provides deeper divisions for Moscow to meddle in and exploit for the information war that it is waging against the West, but because it is blood in the water for the Kremlin. The world order was already in the midst of a shift, but from Moscow’s perspective, Trump has put this process into overdrive. Russia is no doubt expecting this to continue and therefore has little appetite to end the confrontation while it thinks its hand will strengthen over time.

In this atmosphere of a near-total lack of trust, the risks of miscalculation and escalation are very real. Cyberattacks are difficult to attribute and have the potential of taking out infrastructure in major cities or even across entire countries. Meanwhile, much of the architecture used during the Cold War to manage the confrontation between Moscow and the West is set to expire or already gone. The US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, Trump has threatened to scrap the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and New START will expire in 2021, unless it is extended for another five years. A new arms race in Europe is not out of the question.

Strengthen NATO And Keep Talking

Against this backdrop, the West needs to shore up its lines and devise a more consistent approach to Russia. A key part of this is finding ways to pressure Russia to comply with the INF and prevent the US from leaving the arms control agreement. Sanctions, which have become the go-to policy response since the current standoff began, also need to be applied more holistically by European members. But most importantly, Western allies need to keep investing in defense and maintaining the integrity of NATO as the guarantor of European security. Trump’s criticisms of the unequal balance within the alliance have been condescending and needlessly combative, but he is not necessarily wrong in calling for stronger defense commitments from many European members.

In addition to strengthening NATO’s position and working to prevent an arms race, Western nations need to agree on a shared approach to engage in various trust-building measures and conflict-prevention mechanisms. Opening military-to-military hotlines could reduce the chances of miscalculation, and putting new energy into the hobbled NATO-Russia Council could also reduce some tensions. Dialogue at the highest levels will also be required. Meetings such as Trump and Putin’s summit in Helsinki or bilateral talks on the sidelines of other international gatherings are unlikely to lead to any kind of formal agreements or major breakthroughs, but can still help lower the possibility for misunderstanding and escalation by clarifying each other’s intentions.

America First, Then What?

The greatest difficulties toward actually being able to limit the potential for escalation will be domestic forces. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a stable hand in international affairs, has entered her twilight years in power, probably stepping down in 2020. French President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity has dropped, and the United Kingdom is distracted by the Brexit turmoil. In the US, Trump is consumed by Robert Mueller’s investigation, which overshadows and impedes any kind of diplomatic talks with Russia. On top of that, the disruption brought by two years of Trump’s America First foreign policy has already given the impression to European allies that they are witnessing Washington put an end to the American-led world order. A second term for Trump cannot be ruled out, and there’s also no guarantee that any new administration coming into office in 2024 will be able to significantly rebuild the international destruction they would inherit.

This has major implications for the security of Europe. The Kremlin will continue to exploit any opportunities that this chaos will produce, but the Kremlin has low expectations for Trump and is aware that US domestic politics will prevent any kind of serious conversation or policy breakthrough. This in turn fuels Russia’s own domestic forces that drive its behavior abroad. Russian policy-makers have done a good job of navigating a tough economic situation, but the barricades built to limit the fallout from sanctions have slowed economic growth.

Putin is resilient at home but not immune to a serious drop in popularity—something that is already underway. In the past, Putin has boosted falling ratings by provoking an incident abroad. Combined with Moscow’s geopolitical ambitions, this points to a deepening standoff that won’t be going away and will define the security situation in Europe for years to come. The best plan for now is to focus on better managing the current confrontation with Russia, and avoid backing into something even more dangerous.

The post Russian Opportunism appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By the end of this week’s NATO summit in Brussels, it wasn’t just European leaders who were leaving with negative feelings about America. Even the European journalists covering the summit left flummoxed and frustrated.

“Why do we have to put up with this?” one asked me. “I am so sick of America. Trump comes here and humiliates us and there’s nothing we can do about it.” Even the White House press corps, he complained, was granted a sizeable area in the summit’s press room, cordoned off from other media—the US was the only country with such a reserved space.

Indeed, the press seating arrangements seemed to mirror the general power dynamics in NATO itself. It is viewed by many not as an alliance of equal members committed to defend each other, but as an American military protectorate over Europe. Trump, breaking decades of protocol, acknowledged this on Wednesday morning during a fiery breakfast with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. “We’re supposed to protect you against Russia but they’re paying billions of dollars to Russia and I think that’s very inappropriate.”

Trump was referring to Germany, and Berlin’s approval of a new pipeline to import Russian gas. Washington, and many others, say this will increase Europe’s energy dependence on Russia, and they should instead import US liquefied natural gas. “Germany is totally controlled by Russia,” Trump said, before citing a markedly incorrect figure for how much gas Germany already imports.

It was an unprecedented public display of aggression by a US president toward the NATO allies, and it was a humiliating blow to Merkel. When she arrived at the summit later, she told press that as someone who grew up in East Germany—a country that really was controlled by Russia—she is glad that a unified Germany is independent today.

But is it? To many, Trump’s remarks sounded like a protection racket. The American military protectorate comes at a price, and apparently that involves European countries surrendering sovereignty to Washington. In Trump’s view, Berlin is not free to make its own decisions as long as it is the recipient of American military protection.

Attack, Then Retract

Trump’s comments sparked such discord that he and Merkel hastily arranged a joint appearance before the media. Trump insisted that he has a great relationship with Merkel and relations between Germany and America are the best they have ever been. Merkel did not look convinced.

It is a tactic Trump uses often – attacking and then later insisting no attack was made. He did it again during his visit to London on Friday, criticizing Prime Minister Theresa May in an interview with The Sun tabloid newspaper and saying her rival Boris Johnson, who just quit her cabinet, “would make a great prime minister.” He later walked back his statements during a damage control joint press conference with May.

But his biggest lurch in tone came on Thursday. Around midday, reports emerged that Trump had threatened to pull the United States out of NATO unless countries immediately increased their military spending. Stoltenberg hastily convened an emergency meeting of the 29 NATO members to try to come to a solution. Trump then called an unscheduled press conference, where he said he had successfully strong-armed the Europeans into committing to spend more on their military. He was asked three times if that involved making a threat to pull the US out of NATO, but he didn’t answer.

“We have now got it to a point where people are paying a lot more money,” he said. “And if you talk to Secretary General Stoltenberg, he gives us total credit, I guess that’s me. He gives me total credit. Everybody in that room by the time we left, got along and agreed to pay more.”

Except they didn’t. French President Emmanuel Macron quickly contradicted Trump’s assertion, saying NATO members made the same commitment agreed at the 2014 summit in Wales – to aim to increase military expenditure to two percent of GDP by 2024. Inside the room, Trump had demanded that this be increased to four percent – even though the US itself doesn’t spend this amount. The other leaders said this was not only impossible, it would also be ill-advised to throw so much money at their militaries so fast.

For the rest of the afternoon, in press conference after press conference, prime ministers had to find diplomatically creative ways of saying Trump lied, without actually saying it. Asked repeatedly why Trump had made the claim that Canada will be doubling its military spending, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeatedly pointed out that Canada is increasing its military spending by 70 percent over the next ten years.

Nobody wanted to incur the wrath of the US president by calling out his untruth. In a particularly creative attempt, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel offered that it might be a question of differing interpretation.

A Shaky Alliance

It was a display of just how fractious the nearly 70-year-old alliance has become, and it had a lot of journalists asking why Europe should continue to put up.

In the short term, the answer is clear: Europe has relied on the NATO military protectorate for the last seven decades, spending little on their militaries and instead investing that money in generous welfare and healthcare systems. Even with the end of the Cold War and the supposed end of the Russian threat, nobody other than the French was suggesting that this arrangement might not make sense in the future.

The NATO system makes Europeans completely dependent on the goodwill of the United States to guarantee their protection because they would not be able to defend themselves from a Russian attack.

The EU has now launched a defense union, which got underway in earnest this year. But it will take years to develop to the point where it could actually serve as an effective coordinator of Europe’s militaries in the event of a conflict without American assistance.

The UK remains adamantly opposed to the EU Defense Union because they say it undermines NATO. But Britain is on its way out of the EU, and London can hardly object to the enhanced cooperation now.

But what exactly did Trump say on Thursday? Most accounts point to the president saying: ‘If you don’t increase your spending, then America may go it alone.’

Some officials have cautioned not to read too much into that, and that Trump may not have understood what he was saying. This is the interpretation that European leaders have chosen to accept, in public at least. Macron insisted that there had been no threat to pull the US out.

In private, officials acknowledge that this was obviously an implicit threat. The implications are serious. If the US did pull out of NATO, the alliance would become a hollow shell. The US is, obviously, the largest pillar, and Trump’s comments caused understandable alarm. A US exit could leave Europe relatively defenseless overnight.

Like most NATO summits, this ended with few tangible outcomes. Conclusions regarding increased military spending remained unchanged from the Wales goal – something most of the NATO members are well on their way to reaching.

In past years, these annual summits of NATO leaders have become more about putting on a display of unity and power, a message to the world, and particularly to Russia. But this year’s gathering highlighted the exact opposite, putting NATO’s weaknesses and serious divisions on full display.

And those divisions will be brought into sharp relief as President Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.

The post Calling His Bluff appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Jesco Denzel

When US President Donald Trump comes to Europe this week, he is not going to be greeted by cheering crowds. Thousands of people are expected to turn up at anti-Trump demonstrations in Brussels this weekend, ahead of Trump’s attendance at a NATO summit on Wednesday and Thursday. Even larger protests are expected in the United Kingdom when Trump makes an official state visit following the summit.

This is not just protestors demonstrating against the actions of their government; they are doing so with the tacit approval of their leaders. Revulsion at Trump’s America extends from the top down in Western Europe. London Mayor Sadiq Khan this week authorized a giant balloon depicting the US president as a baby in a diaper to fly over Westminster during the visit. Trump has in the past brutally criticized Khan, accusing him, among other things, of being soft on terrorists.

But all eyes will be on the NATO summit, where Trump will meet Europe’s two most powerful leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both of them seem to have lost patience with the US president. This week, Merkel told the German parliament that Europe will not back down in the face of Trump’s trade and military threats, disputing his claim that the US has a large trade deficit with Europe. She warned that the current trade conflict could escalate into “a real war” if cooler heads don’t prevail.

She also shot back against a letter Trump sent to her ahead of the summit demanding that Germany immediately increase its military spending to two percent of its GDP—the suggested level for NATO members. “We are the second biggest provider of troops, we are participating in several missions, and Germany will remain a reliable partner of NATO,” she told the parliament.

Macron, who had previously tried to make nice with Trump, seems to have abandoned that strategy following the disastrous G7 summit in Canada last month, where Trump berated the other leaders and left early. Macron’s team let it be known that during the summit Trump called NATO “as bad as NAFTA”—the US free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico that Trump says is unfair—and even offered Macron a financial reward if he took France out of the European Union.

Friends No More

Even populist and far-right leaders in Eastern Europe, who might be ideologically sympathetic to Trump’s world view, have grown exasperated with the US president’s Europe-bashing over the past months. They all signed on to EU counter-measures against Trump’s trade and aluminium tariffs without hesitation. And while leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán haven’t openly condemned Trump, they haven’t defended him either. Indeed, it would seem Trump has no friends at the moment in the EU.

That exasperation grew last week when Trump told a rally in the US state of Wisconsin that the EU was “set up to take advantage of the United States, to attack our piggy bank.” The EU was, of course, actually set up in cooperation with the United States—at America’s urging.

EU leaders are talking in increasingly stark terms about the death of the transatlantic alliance. A senior EU official said Trump’s attacks on the EU, NATO, and free trade now look like “the pattern of an American doctrine in which there are no friends.”

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said in a letter to national leaders last week that the EU must prepare for “worst-case scenarios” in its relations with the United States. Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament, said on Monday that Trump is pushing a pro-Russia foreign policy that aims to cause the collapse of both the EU and NATO in order to benefit Moscow.

Trump is planning a bilateral summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 21. There are expectations that he may offer to end US sanctions for Russia’s 2014 invasion and annexation of the Ukrainian territory of Crimea, and offer Russia a free hand to back Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

“Whether Trump realizes what he is doing is up for debate, but what is clear is that he is now acting in a way that threatens the stability and economic partnership between western liberal democracies,” said Seb Dance, a British Labour member of the European Parliament.

NATO No More

It is this context that has so many worried about the outcome of Wednesday’s summit—including Trump’s own generals. Reports have circulated that the US Mission to NATO is trying to manage Trump’s visit in a way that will give him as little opportunity to speak as possible. There was even speculation that the US military leadership had tried to convince the US president not to attend the summit.

Trump is expected to berate the European leaders for not spending enough on their military, as he did during last year’s summit. But the fear is that he will go much further this time. A lot has changed since last year. Europe and America are now in a trade war, and it seems unlikely that this will not come up at the summit, even though it is not related to military matters. Trump has implied that Europe owes America favorable trading terms as payment for the US military protection that NATO provides.

In the corridors of power in Brussels, Europeans are coming to accept that they are not considered friends of Trump’s America. But what if they become enemies? It depends which Donald Trump shows up in Brussels on Wednesday. An erratic Trump could threaten to pull the US out of NATO, which would leave Europe without the ability to militarily defend itself. It is a volatile moment, and much will depend on whether the American generals can steer the president away from microphones.

But Trump can only be steered for so long. What is clear now is that the enduring institutions of the Pax Americana, set up by the US after World War II, are unraveling. Perhaps the most astonishing sign of this came this week, when reports emerged that the Trump administration wanted to partially pull the US out of the World Trade Organization.

“It is clear to me following President Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from TTIP, TPP, JCPOA, Paris Climate Change Agreement, and blockage of the US nomination to the appeal body of WTO that this is part of a wider exceptionalist policy,” said Charles Tannock, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament.

“I don’t think President Trump holds sacrosanct any of the traditional pillars of the UK special partnership such as close alliance within NATO or even the UN primacy for security,” he added. “Trump wants a club of strongmen all operating on a bilateral basis again. It’s as if World War II has taught the West nothing. President Putin will be overjoyed by all this.”

Trump will be able to deliver that message to Putin personally a week after the NATO summit. By the end of July, the world may be looking at a very changed geopolitical and economic landscape. Wednesday’s NATO summit could, therefore, prove to be the most consequential in the alliance’s history.

The post Boiling Point appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

In an address given in London earlier in June, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg quoted the words of Lord Hastings Ismay, the first Secretary General of the alliance, who said “there will be persistent efforts to drive a wedge between us” and “we shall have our little quarrels” in a 1952 broadcast.

Today, we are actually talking more about serious transatlantic disagreements than about “little quarrels.” Without a doubt, these are particularly challenging circumstances for a NATO summit. The list of contentious issues between the US and its allies is long and touches on fundamental matters, from trade to the Iran deal (JCPOA), and from the Paris accords to the Middle East. Concerned voices are asking how NATO can, under these circumstances, continue to project the essential characteristics of any alliance, namely unity and resolve.

A closer look shows, however, that the alliance has so far felt hardly any tremors from the various transatlantic disagreements. The two years since the summit in Warsaw have been remarkably positive for the alliance, precisely because of its unity and resolve. NATO, far from being obsolete, has delivered on all promises given in Wales and Warsaw. The Trump administration has reconfirmed Article 5 (which stipulates that an armed attack against one or more NATO members is considered an attack against them all) and redeployed troops to Europe. The alliance has boosted its collective defense efforts. European allies have reversed the downward trend and are now increasing defense spending (more on spending targets later). NATO is willing to do more to project stability beyond the alliance’s borders and to combat international terrorism. We have systematically enhanced our cooperation with the EU. And we are adapting to new security challenges in the fields of cyberspace and hybrid threats. Comprehensive institutional adaptation processes, such as the reform of the NATO command structure, have been set in motion to deal with these new and complex challenges. Looking at the pace at which the alliance has kept on adapting to a fundamentally changed security environment since 2014, the remarkable unity and resolve of the alliance becomes obvious. Despite the aforementioned differences, the 29 members of NATO have been able to unite around the core task of standing together and protecting each other.

As we now move to the summit, we need to build on these achievements and concentrate on those areas where NATO makes the difference.

First and foremost among them is NATO’s core business, Euro-Atlantic security. Since Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and destabilization of eastern Ukraine, the alliance has undertaken far-reaching steps to enhance its defense and deterrence, for example by establishing an enhanced Forward Presence in Poland and the three Baltic states as well as a tailored Forward Presence in Romania and Bulgaria. But more needs to be done, while of course maintaining the defensive nature of the alliance.

We need to improve the mobility of our troops across the Atlantic and on the continent and improve their operational readiness. That is why NATO is adapting its command structure, in part by increasing the size of its staff by 1,200. NATO will also set up two new HQs—one new command post in Norfolk, Virginia, to handle the deployment of troops across the Atlantic, and then another in Ulm, Germany. This Joint Support and Enabling Command (JSEC) will be in charge of coordinating deployments, transport, and supplies around the continent. This underlines how seriously Germany takes its responsibility when it comes to making the alliance stronger and more effective.

In addition, we also need to improve our armed forces’ readiness. That is the goal of the NATO Readiness Initiative, which aims at allies having 30 land battalions, 30 air squadrons, and 30 combat vessels ready to use within 30 days. This important and challenging initiative is to be formalized at the summit.

These and other measures to strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defense have essentially been caused by Russia’s actions since 2014. Nevertheless, we agreed at the Warsaw summit that the offer of dialogue would remain open to Russia. The Brussels summit should reaffirm that dual-track policy. True, we won’t get back to business as usual until Russia changes its behavior, in particular contributing more constructively to the implementation of the Minsk agreements in Ukraine. However, there are subjects on which we need to maintain dialogue with Russia in order to reduce risks and prevent misunderstandings and unintended escalation. The NATO-Russia Council remains the key forum for such dialogue.

Projecting Stability

At the Brussels summit, leaders will need to look at what NATO can do to project stability into the troubled regions to the South and to combat terrorism. Together with Afghan leaders and partners, they will discuss the way ahead in Afghanistan. The Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, which provides training and advice for the Afghan security forces, will have to be continued as the most visible element of NATO’s engagement in the southern arc of crisis in the fight against terrorism. That is why NATO recently raised the troop numbers again, from 13,000 to 16,000, with Germany bringing up its troop ceiling from 980 to 1,300, making it the second-most important troop provider.

But the alliance’s role in the south is not limited to Afghanistan. NATO is not the main player in this region, but with its unique expertise in defense capacity building, it can help its partners improve their resilience and put them in a position to more effectively defend themselves against terrorist threats. In this vein, NATO will enhance its defense capacity building activities in Jordan, Tunisia, and – by establishing a non-combat train and advise mission – in Iraq.

As the situation in the south makes clear, NATO cannot deal with the manifold security challenges alone. It depends on cooperation, with the EU primarily – and vice versa. For all their dissimilarities, the two organisations do share values, interests, and security challenges. They are natural partners in a truly strategic collaboration. The joint declaration on reinforcing NATO-EU cooperation issued by Secretary General Stoltenberg and Presidents Donald Tusk and Jean-Claude Juncker at the Warsaw summit was a milestone. Since then, we have opened up a new chapter in NATO-EU cooperation, working on implementing an action plan with 74 measures. In recognising the need to strengthen military mobility on our continent, NATO and EU have now identified a new, ambitious flagship project for their cooperation. The Brussels summit will be an excellent opportunity to give guidance for further developing NATO-EU cooperation, based on a common understanding that NATO will remain indispensable for our collective defense. At the same time, developing stronger European capabilities will also contribute to better transatlantic burden-sharing.

Among the many issues to be discussed at the Brussels summit, burden-sharing will be the trickiest. Clearly, the European allies need to do more for transatlantic security: after all, the United States and Europe have roughly the same economic clout, but Europe spends a lot less on defense than the US does. We take the implications of this imbalance very seriously, and a Europe capable of effective security policy needs considerable European investment, not least in military capabilities. For both those reasons, it is worth taking the commitments agreed at the Wales summit seriously.

Increasing Defense Spending

There are three aspects to the pledge. First, the allies made a commitment to reverse the downward trend in defense spending. Second, they pledged to aim to move within a decade towards spending 2 percent of GDP on defense, with 20 percent of that going into investment and procurement in order to fill shortfalls in strategically defined alliance capabilities. This is not about simply pouring more money into defense; it is about channelling investment specifically into the capabilities that the alliance as a whole needs for the tasks it faces. And third, the allies pledged to increase their contributions to, for example, alliance missions and operations.

And there has been progress in these areas. We have reversed the trend in defense spending. In 2016, expenditure by the European allies and Canada rose by 3.8 percent; an increase of 4.3 percent is expected for 2017. Since 2014, the European allies and Canada have spent some additional $87 billion dollars. Germany has increased its defense spending by around 20 percent since 2014 and has now announced that it intends to be spending 1.5 percent of its GDP on defense by 2024. That’s an 80 percent rise in spending compared to 2015.

Germany has furthermore acknowledged all the targets in the current NATO Defense Planning Process and has built its national plans around meeting those targets. And finally, Germany is NATO’s second-largest troop contributor, thus providing substantial support to missions and operations. All that being said, no one will deny that we are not yet where we should be on capabilities.

Looking at the whole range of topics on NATO’s agenda, the ingredients for a successful summit are there. NATO delivers, and it is adapting to the changing security environment. And we largely agree on what to do next. After the agreement between Athens and Skopje on the name dispute, NATO is even looking at the prospect of accession talks with a possible 30th member. With regard to the difficult topic of burden-sharing, we are at least moving in the right direction. For all our shortcomings, we are on the right path.

However, it is key that allied leaders actually broadcast that overall positive message come July. After all, unlike the G7, NATO is about the security of hundreds of millions of people. It is a cornerstone of the rules-based order and the very core of the transatlantic bond, which we need to maintain particularly in these difficult times. That is why it is so important that the Brussels summit send out a strong message of allied unity and resolve. Only if allies maintain their unity as their center of gravity will the alliance be able to protect its nations on both sides of the Atlantic into the future.

N.B. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

The post Still the Greatest Alliance appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Ints Kalnins

The stakes were high in the late 60s. The Soviet Union posed a threat to the entire transatlantic community, and maintained a tight grip on the countries of the Warsaw Pact. France, under President Charles de Gaulle, had withdrawn from NATO’s integrated military structure in 1966. German reunification seemed unattainable for the foreseeable future, and Bonn was concerned that the Western powers might opt for a détente with the Warsaw Pact countries on the basis of the German status quo. Henry Kissinger famously described the transatlantic Alliance as a “troubled partnership” whose relevance was in doubt.

In December 1967, in the midst of this particularly challenging period at the height of the Cold War, NATO adopted a report on “The Future Tasks of the Alliance” at the initiative of then-Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel. The Harmel report, as it came to be known, represented a major conceptual breakthrough for the Alliance. First, it asserted a twofold political goal for the alliance: NATO would work to both overcome the division of Germany and achieve a just and stable order for the whole of Europe. Second, the report envisioned a method to achieve both goals, essentially a dual-track approach based on military strength and sufficient defense capabilities on the one hand and dialogue to achieve political progress on the other.

For the first time in its history, NATO was defined as a political-military alliance with a genuine coordinating function in shaping détente. The Harmel report stressed that “military security and a policy of détente are not contradictory but complementary,” broadening NATO’s approach to security to include a political-diplomatic dimension.

These key elements of the Harmel report became a kind of unofficial doctrine for West Germany’s foreign policy. Germany’s Ostpolitik both influenced the dual-track approach and benefited from it; without NATO’s “adequate military strength and political solidarity,” emphasized in the Harmel report, it would not have been possible to make incremental steps toward rapprochement with Eastern Europe. And vice versa, without credible and meaningful diplomatic efforts by the allies to reduce tensions and to rebuild trust, the political will for defense investment and unwavering solidarity expressed in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty might have been weakened.

The Harmel report paved the way for initial talks about conventional arms control, as well as for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. NATO’s “double-track” decision of December 1979, although highly controversial within Germany at the time, is another case in point demonstrating the dialectic of the Harmel method – simultaneously searching for dialogue and negotiating from a position of strength.

The Harmel Method – Still Relevant

The world today looks very different than in the times of the Cold War with its bipolar structure. Nevertheless, the Harmel method is still relevant for the Alliance as it deals with the complex security challenges on its doorstep. With the illegal annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of the Donbas region, Russia has undermined the European security architecture that it committed to when it signed the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in 1990. Russia’s expansion of its military, its shortfalls in implementing arms control agreements, and its hybrid activities are further causes for concern.

NATO has responded to these challenges, and it has done so in the spirit of the Harmel report, combining deterrence and dialogue, collective defense and cooperative security. At the Warsaw summit in 2016, NATO decided to pursue a strategy of enhancing defense capabilities on the one hand and being open to dialogue on the other. Since then, a package of measures has been implemented to improve NATO’s deterrence and defense capabilities – e.g. by establishing an enhanced forward military presence in the Baltic states and Poland, as well as a tailored forward presence in Romania, Bulgaria, and the Black Sea.

These presences, which include the German-led multinational battalion in Lithuania, demonstrate that in a crisis the Alliance will engage as a whole. At the same time, NATO has made sure that the scope and scale of this new military presence is in line with its defensive nature and does not contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act.

Furthermore, NATO remains open to dialogue. The NATO-Russia Council, which had been suspended in the immediate aftermath of the annexation of Crimea, reconvened in May 2016 and has since met five more times. These meetings provide an important opportunity to openly exchange views on difficult and controversial issues, such as the situation in Ukraine, and raise concerns regarding Russia’s role. The NATO-Russia Council also offers an appropriate framework to discuss issues of common concern, such as risk reduction and transparency. Reciprocal briefings, e.g. on exercises, can help to create more predictability in order to prevent incidents or accidents that might otherwise lead to dangerous unintended escalation. Following a discussion on air safety in the NATO-Russia Council, an expert group including experts from Baltic Sea states identified best practices and recommended measures to enhance air safety over the Baltic Sea.

Dialogue of this kind by no means represents a return to business as usual. Military and political cooperation between NATO and Russia remains suspended. There is a clear consensus within NATO that normalization of relations will not be possible as long as Russia maintains its position on the Ukraine conflict and does not implement the Minsk agreements. But at the same time, it is obvious that the current deep crisis of the European security architecture cannot be overcome by just enhancing defense capabilities. It will require political efforts to incrementally re-establish a security order based on OSCE principles and commitments. To get there, we need to continue the dialogue, as difficult as it may be – but we also need Russia to change its behavior.

On the Way to the 2018 Brussels Summit

In the coming months leading up to the next NATO summit in July 2018, the Alliance will focus on further adaptations in line with the Harmel logic. These will specifically involve reforming NATO’s command structure, which has to properly reflect the dramatically altered and more complex security environment as well as the Alliance’s renewed focus on collective defense. Further work is also required to create the conditions for rapid deployment in the framework of a sustainable reinforcement strategy.

NATO also needs to fill its capability gaps. This will take time, and it will require that sufficient funds be made available. The Defense Investment Pledge agreed at the NATO summit in Wales is an important cornerstone in this respect. It is a good sign that the European members of NATO (and Canada) increased their defense spending by 3.8 percent in 2016 and an estimated 4.3 percent in 2017, while Germany has increased its defense expenditure by more than 13 percent since 2014. Even more important than the mere budget figures is the will to develop the necessary capabilities and contribute to operations.

Dealing with the political dimension of the NATO-Russia relationship will be another key task in the run-up to the 2018 summit. Meaningful and periodic exchanges with Russia within the NATO-Russia Council remain necessary. In light of an increase in troop deployments and the frequency of military exercises, miscommunication poses a potential threat to security and stability in Europe. In order to reduce risks and enhance transparency, functioning lines of military communication between Russia and NATO are necessary. Initial contact has been established between the Chairman of NATO’s Military Committee, SACEUR, and the Russian Chief of Defense; more steps of this kind need to follow. The Structured Dialogue within the OSCE provides another forum to discuss threats to the Euro-Atlantic security order.

The Necessity of Unity

Never since its inception has NATO undergone such far-reaching changes in such a short period of time. Since the watershed moment of 2014, the Alliance has been undertaking its biggest effort in collective defense since the end of the Cold War: European allies have turned the corner on defense spending, the Alliance is committed to projecting stability beyond its borders, and it is adapting to new threats such as cyber and hybrid attacks.

But we must not forget that there is major unfinished business left over from the times of Harmel. The Harmel report stated that “the ultimate political goal of the Alliance is to achieve a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe accompanied by security guarantees.” Fifty years after the adoption of the Harmel report and 27 years after the end of the Cold War, this goal seems more and more elusive. To bring it back within our grasp, we need to heed the lessons of the Harmel report, safeguarding necessary defense capabilities and pursuing diplomatic efforts to defuse tensions at the same time. Choosing only one while neglecting the other would not only thwart our efforts to re-establish the Euro-Atlantic security architecture; it would also undermine our credibility.

Implementing such a strategy will require strong political will and unity within the Alliance. Demonstrating both will be a major task for the next NATO summit in July 2018. As we go through a time of transition on both sides of the Atlantic, there is ample reason to remind ourselves that the strength of the Atlantic Alliance always relied on shared values and common interests between the North American democracies and Europe. And it relied on the ability of NATO’s nations to agree on, pursue, and implement a long term strategy. The dual-track approach based on the Harmel method needs to be part of this. Only if the Alliance demonstrates this strategic sense of common purpose will it be able to operate effectively and protect our countries and our people.

The post Useful Principles appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Brussels is no stranger to handling security for visiting foreign leaders. At least four times a year, the leaders of every country in the European Union gather close to the city center – and yet life continues. The visit of a US president, however, is a different story. The entire city will shut down. Lucky for the Belgians, Trump is arriving on a public holiday.

In addition to the world’s largest security detail, Donald Trump will also bring with him the baggage of a ballooning political scandal. Recent revelations over collusion with Russia, subverting the course of an investigation into that collusion, and passing on classified information to the Russians are likely to hang over Trump as he attends a summit of NATO members. The new information revealed last week has magnified impeachment speculation in Washington to a fever pitch.

It is no secret that most Europeans were not happy about Trump’s election. During the campaign he denigrated the EU and advocated for its dissolution. He called NATO obsolete and suggested the US would not honor its commitment to defend members.

One might expect, therefore, that European leaders would be welcoming the possibility of impeachment. But Europeans are far more concerned over a long-drawn-out investigation, and what a possible impeachment process would mean for global security. A world in which the most powerful nation is distracted by domestic political scandal is an inherently more dangerous one. It might render the US unable to act decisively in the event of a sudden global conflict. And there is increasing anxiety about who might be vying to fill the power vacuum in such a world.

False Hope

Before Trump took the decision to fire James Comey, the FBI director leading the investigation into the US president’s ties to Russia, Europeans were just starting to feel reassured. Trump appeared to have done an about-face on NATO, suddenly deciding it is no longer obsolete. The EU, too, is now A-OK.

Trump seems to have withdrawn his previous support of Europe’s far-right populists after they lost elections in France and the Netherlands, and as their poll numbers sink in Germany. He also appears to be backtracking on his promise to pull the US out of the nuclear control deal with Iran, an agreement that was negotiated by the Obama administration alongside European allies.

Were it not for the escalating Russia scandal at home, Trump might have been facing a somewhat reassured audience in Brussels. But given the serious charges against him – particularly the allegation that he passed on top-secret intelligence to Russia and did not share it with US allies in Europe – it is likely going to be a skeptical room. More importantly, it is going to be a very nervous room.

European leaders will be desperately seeking reassurance from Trump that his “Russia thing” is not going to paralyze the US. Of course, this is not a reassurance Trump can provide.

A Nervous Bunch

Last week Foreign Policy magazine reported that America’s NATO partners are tailoring the meeting to accommodate the US president’s notoriously short attention span. They are limiting their speeches to between two and four minutes. The Economist and Politico have reported that NATO allies are walking on eggshells, terrified of upsetting a president who has amassed a global reputation for being vindictive.

Trump is expected to repeat his demand that European NATO members increase their defense spending, arguing that the US should not be shouldering the vast majority of the burden in protecting the continent. The allies will ask Trump to recommit to NATO’s Article 5, a founding principle stipulating that an attack on one member is an attack on all. He is the first US president who has not explicitly endorsed that principle since NATO was founded in 1949.

To underline that point, NATO has asked Trump to dedicate a memorial that has been constructed from remnants of the World Trade Center. The monument was built at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels and it specifically marks the invocation of Article 5 after the September 11, 2001 attacks – the only time the article has ever been invoked in NATO’s history. America’s NATO allies participated in the invasion of Afghanistan because of that invocation. By placing him in front of that memorial, Europeans hope to remind Trump that there is a favor to return.

He is not expected to do so. He may be too distracted to notice.

The post Driven to Distraction appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.