The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: The Enduring Alliance [3 ed.] 9781032393285, 9781032391991, 9781003349235

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
About the Author
Foreword
Introduction
1 NATO Fortuna Redux?
2 Facing Down the Soviets
3 The Second Cold War
4 Strategic Vacation
5 Reinventing NATO
6 NATO 101
7 NATO Today
8 Future NATO
Bibliography and Further Reading
Index

Citation preview

THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

This book is the concise story of NATO. It considers the origins, development, challenges, structure, and direction of the Alliance against the backdrop of a changing world and a changing Europe, the changing relationship of the United States to its Allies, the twin threats posed by both Russia and terrorism, the emerging challenge of China, and the EU-NATO relationship. Crucially, the book considers the impact of new and emerging disruptive technologies on NATO planning, force and resources, as well as NATO’s place in a changing world. Women, peace, and security are discussed, together with NATO’s role in combating climate change. Central to the book is a debate over the future of deterrence and defense and the role of nuclear, conventional, cyber, and information strategies in a new deterrent posture. The book concludes by looking out to 2030 and beyond. The worldwide market will include academia, the student body on all aspects of IS, strategic studies, Cold War history, thinktanks, international institutions, and interested readers. Julian Lindley-French is Chairman of The Alphen Group (TAG). In April 2021, Lindley-French published a major new book titled Future War and the Defence of Europe (Oxford University Press) with U.S. General (Ret.) John R. Allen and U.S. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Frederick (Ben) Hodges.

Global Institutions Edited by Thomas G. Weiss, The CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA and Rorden Wilkinson, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

About the series The “Global Institutions Series” provides cutting-edge books about many aspects of what we know as “global governance.” It emerges from our shared frustrations with the state of available knowledge – electronic and print-wise – for research and teaching. The series is designed as a resource for those interested in exploring issues of international organization and global governance. And since the frst volumes appeared in 2005, we have taken signifcant strides toward flling many conceptual gaps. The books in the series also provide a segue to the foundation volume that ofers the most comprehensive textbook treatment available dealing with all the major issues, approaches, institutions, and actors in contemporary global governance. The second edition of our edited work International Organization and Global Governance (2018) contains essays by many of the authors in the series. Understanding global governance  – past, present, and future  – is far from a fnished journey. The books in this series nonetheless represent signifcant steps toward a better way of conceiving contemporary problems and issues as well as, hopefully, doing something to improve world order. We value the feedback from our readers and their role in helping shape the on-going development of the series. The United Nations Trusteeship Legacies, Continuities, and Change Edited by Jan Lüdert, Maria Ketzmerick and Julius Heise The North Atlantic Treaty Organization The Enduring Alliance Julian Lindley-French A complete list of titles can be viewed online here: www.routledge.com/ Global-Institutions/book-series/GI

THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION The Enduring Alliance Third Edition

Julian Lindley-French

Designed cover image: © Shutterstock Third edition published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 Julian Lindley-French The right of Julian Lindley-French to be identifed as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published by Routledge 2006 Second edition published by Routledge 2015 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-39328-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-39199-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-34923-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

For Ukraine

CONTENTS

About the Author Foreword

viii x

Introduction

1

1

NATO Fortuna Redux?

8

2

Facing Down the Soviets

27

3

The Second Cold War

50

4

Strategic Vacation

69

5

Reinventing NATO

86

6

NATO 101

98

7

NATO Today

105

8

Future NATO

120

Bibliography and Further Reading Index

148 158

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julian Lindley-French is Chairman of The Alphen Group (TAG), Senior Fellow at the Institute for Statecraft in London, Director of Europa Analytica, Fellow of the Canadian Global Afairs Institute and a member of the U.S.-German Loisach Group of the George C. Marshall Center and the Munich Security Conference. He has authored 12 books and many articles and reports. In January 2022 he published the TAG NATO Shadow Strategic Concept co-written (inter alia) by a former NATO secretary-general, a deputy secretary-general, a deputy of Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a chairman of NATO Military Committee, UK CHOD, COMUSAREUR, an assistant secretary-general of Policy Planning, a deputy assistant secretary-general, an assistant secretary of Defense and two ambassadors. In 2021, Lindley-French published a major new book titled Future War and the Defence of Europe (Oxford University Press) with U.S. General (Ret.) John R. Allen and U.S. Lieutenant General (Ret.) Frederick (Ben) Hodges. In 2022, Franck Kosmos Press published a German language edition. In 2021, he also published a report for CEPA in Washington titled Military Mobility: Moving Mountains for European Defence. In April 2021, he completed a major report for the European Parliament, titled Honest Broker? The EU, Strategic Autonomy and Security in the Future Arctic, while in September he completed another, titled The Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the Eastern Partnership. Lindley-French was educated at the University of Oxford, UEA, and at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He holds three advanced degrees, has held three professorial chairs (Professor of Military Art and Science and Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy, Netherlands Defence Academy and Special Professor of Strategic Studies, Leiden University) and senior policy and project positions for the EU, NATO and the UN. He was Vice-President of the Atlantic Treaty Association in Brussels and Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow of the National Defense University in Washington. In 2015, he was made an Honorary Member of the Association of Anciens of the NATO Defence College in Rome. He served General Sir David Richards and General Sir Nicholas Houghton on the UK Chief of Defence

About the Author

ix

Staf’s Strategic Advisory Group and was Head of the Commander’s Initiative Group (CIG) for Lieutenant General Sir Richard Shirref, COMARRC. In November 2017, he co-published the Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance (The GLOBSEC NATO Adaptation Reports). The fnal report was presented to the NATO Secretary-General. In 2022, he was appointed Director of the high-level The Future War and Deterrence Conference. In 2023, he published NATO: The Enduring Alliance (3rd Edition) and in 2024, he will publish The Retreat from Strategy.

FOREWORD

This Third Edition of Julian Lindley-French’s The North Atlantic Treaty Organization brings his excellent, succinct telling of NATO’s long story right up to date. NATO is the story of the world’s most powerful political-military alliance  – an alliance of liberal democracies that has stood as a sentinel and shield against autocracy and intolerance and which defned the West. LindleyFrench introduces the reader to the latest chapter in NATO’s journey from an American-led protectorate of Europeans ravaged by World War II facing the massed divisions of the Red Army in 1949 to the alliance of equals forged in freedom and a commitment to liberty. It is a commitment that shines as brightly today as it did when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed on an April day in Washington all those years ago. Lindley-French does not shy away from the many challenges and tensions that have sufused the NATO story. The Korean War and German rearmament pot-marked the 1950s. Sputnik and the missile gap opened the prospect of America de-coupling from Europe’s defense. The Thirteen Days of the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to the possible use of nuclear weapons, just as it may be today as Putin blunders and blusters in Ukraine. Détente in the late 1960s ofered a spring of hope, even as the Prague Spring was crushed. And then came the Euromissiles Crisis as an increasingly desperate Soviet Union failed in its costly attempt to divide North Americans and Europeans. In 1989, the Berlin Wall, that symbol of division came crashing down as Europe and the free world entered a new era of hope that was only possible because of the steadfastness of an Alliance that is as necessary today as it was then. The mark of NATO’s success was the many former Warsaw Pact adversaries that chose to join the Alliance as free states in the years after the Cold War. That they could choose was because NATO’s defense of freedom had prevailed. As North Americans and Europeans again face the threat of autocracy it is a very diferent Alliance that exists today in an ever-deepening partnership with that other great success story, the European Union. It is an Alliance that in

Foreword

xi

2022 has re-committed itself to the defense of freedom, both allies and democratic partners the world over. As a former secretary-general of NATO I had the great honor of serving our Alliance during tumultuous years in the wake of 9/11. It is often said that if NATO did not exist it would have to be invented. Thankfully, the Alliance does exist and will continue to exist, and the world will be far, far, better for the fact that it exists. Lindley-French brilliantly explains why. Professor Emeritus Jaap de Hoop Schefer, NATO Secretary-General 2004–2009 

INTRODUCTION

Massacre It is 17 July 2014. Flight MH17, a Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777-200 ER passenger aircraft, is cruising at 33,000 feet above Torez in the Donetsk Oblast of Eastern Ukraine with 283 passengers and 15 crew members on-board. It is some two hours into a routine fight from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Suddenly the plane vanishes from radar screens. Shortly thereafter pro-Russian separatists claim to have shot down a Ukrainian AN-26 military transport aircraft in the same area with a BUK surface-to-air missile. It is the greatest act of mass aviation murder in European history. The loss of MH17 also marks the moment when Ukraine’s civil war turns into a new confrontation between the Russian Federation and the West. That same day Islamic State fghters capture the Homs gas feld in Syria and kill some 270 Syrian soldiers, many of them brutally executed. The downing of MH17 and the advance of Islamic State captures NATO’s twenty-frst-century dilemma: can NATO close the gap between the emerging challenges and threats the Allies must face together and the power NATO must generate if it is to successfully deter aggressors and defend its members? A dilemma made more pressing by the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The core message of this book is that is precisely the challenge NATO has always faced, and will continue to face. It is what NATO is for. Taken together Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as well as the emergence of China as a proto-military and autocratic superpower, is a powerful reminder that illegitimate military power poses not just a danger to the democratic world of the twenty-frst century. As the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept implies, the nature and pace of systemic change are also forcing NATO to face tough questions about where membership of the Alliance ends and partnership begins. Since its founding in 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been a big security and defense organization tasked with crafting coherent deterrence and defense with and for members from very diferent

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-1

2

Introduction

strategic backgrounds and cultures.1 Such difering traditions and the diferent strategic visions they spawn create the political tension with which the Alliance has always had to contend. It will be made more complex by the accession of Finland and Sweden to the Alliance. At the core of NATO’s many contentions was and is a profoundly difering view of risk. Throughout the Cold War Americans sought to maintain the invulnerability of continental North America, while Europeans saw vulnerability as simply a fact of life; Americans saw security and defense as intrinsically linked to their ideas of power and liberty, while Europeans saw security and defense as intrinsically linked to where they lived; Americans saw the Cold War as a global struggle, Europeans as simply the latest chapter in a seemingly eternal European power struggle; and while Americans contained Soviet-communism, Europeans coped with Russians. For much of NATO’s existence Europeans were in retreat from global leadership, while Americans were assuming it. Today? In the wake of the failed U.S.-led campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, the crippling of their respective economies by the COVID-19 pandemic, the deep social and political divisions it has spawned and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, neither Europeans nor Americans are any longer sure of the foundations upon which the transatlantic relationship rests: their respective place in the world, the enduring value of the West as either idea or place or indeed the depth of their strategic relationship with each other. As NATO embarks on a new post-Afghanistan strategic mission with a major war raging in Europe, it faces a world in which an over-stretched and distracted America can no longer assume leadership, while a deeply divided Europe questions the very nature and utility of power and Europe’s place and role in the world. For all today’s uncertainty NATO’s story still remains one of success. That the Alliance made the major contribution to winning the Cold War cannot be questioned. The political solidarity of democracies is an awesome weapon when credible and cohesive, a fact that should not be lost on those seeking today to challenge the West. And yet, if NATO did not exist, someone would indeed need to invent it. The democracies will always need a big security and defense organization in which they can come together to deal with a twenty-frst century that seems all too capable of painting a big and very nasty picture. Equally, NATO has never been particularly comfortable, nor indeed successful, at dealing with the complexity of wars within states, which begs a fundamental question: where should the Alliance invest its main efort given the 360 degrees of threat to which its leaders routinely refer?2 The disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan followed the “war of all against all” that ground its way so tragically across the Balkans during the 1990s. Both conficts challenged the very purpose and utility of NATO. The Afghanistan campaign and the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession demonstrated the difculties the Alliance was forced to confront as

Introduction

3

it moved away from state-on-state peer confrontation à la Cold War, through the strategic vacation of the 1990s, to far distant strategic stabilization missions in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. Now, the Alliance must pivot back toward strategic peer-on-peer state competition with Russia (and China?) and its chilling frisson of Cold War. Today, NATO must confront a new-old threat, Russia. In 2014 Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine, and on 24 February 2022 Russian forces entered the rest of Ukraine, triggering the frst major state-on-state European war since 1945. President Putin has demonstrated through blood that President George H. W. Bush’s 1990 vision of a Europe whole and free is still a very long way from being realized, if it ever will be. Moscow has also reminded NATO’s Europeans that military power is still as much a currency of infuence and coercion as ever and that the EU, for all its geopolitical ambitions, is a bit like taking a lawyer to the OK Corral gunfght. This very twenty-frst-century reality is steadily being reinforced by China’s burgeoning military capability in East Asia and the threat it poses to the Republic of China (Taiwan). The August 2022 visit of then House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi led to major Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait. It also highlighted a dilemma at the very heart of NATO’s purpose: could the United States at one and the same time both lead the defense of Europe and protect Taiwan, to which it is committed? This book is about NATO’s changing world, its past, present and future and thus the answer to the question at the heart of this study: why does NATO endure? What is NATO’s place in a dangerously new/old world which its Founding Fathers (they were all men) would have understood better than many of today’s leaders – the world of Great Powers and Superpowers. The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept still dutifully refers to crisis management and co-operative security in the face of terrorism, state failure, regional confict, instability, and so on. And yet, Winston Churchill, Dean Acheson (and George C. Marshall), Ernest Bevin and Robert Schuman could have written much of the latest Strategic Concept with its renewed emphasis on collective defense and enhanced resilience, even if the emerging and disruptive technologies of hybrid, cyber and hyperwar would have seemed to them to be straight out of the pages of Buck Rogers.3 These men understood power and weakness and just what was needed to ensure minimum deterrence in the face of an apparently overwhelming threat. Above all, these great statesmen of the past had a clear and frm understanding of the need to deal with the world as it is, not as they would prefer it to be. That goal will not be easy to realize. Given the failure of both the United States and the Alliance in Afghanistan, the post-pandemic economic crash and yet another age of austerity the West is now facing, NATO’s future can no longer be taken for granted. Not for the frst time in its now long history, the Alliance

4

Introduction

faces a profound challenge to both project stabilizing power (even “defense” requires power projection) and at the same time protect people in such a way that is both credible and afordable. Given the circumstances, that means big change. NATO started life as a U.S.-led hub with European spokes. However, if NATO is to endure it must become a European hub into which American power can be plugged. There will be no Global NATO, but the Alliance must know its place in the world. By 2030, at the very latest, future NATO will thus need to be transformed into a U.S.-enabled pan-European military security organization built around a European high-end, frst responder force that can deal with all and any contingency in and around Europe. As is evident from the war in Ukraine, the crisis in Europe is being exploited by China precisely to stretch U.S. forces thin the world over. Therefore, helping the United States remain strong where she needs to be strong will be the quid pro quo of transatlantic burden-sharing in the second quarter of the twenty-frst century and the minimum European down-payment on a continued American security guarantee for Europe.

Seven Core Messages War is back: Nearly 75 years on from NATO’s founding a new unstable global balance of power is emerging and with it system-defning geopolitical competition between Great Powers. A major war has once again broken out in Europe and NATO is again required to deter and defend a dangerous, autocratic adversary. China and the Indo-Pacifc are now the enforced focus of American national security and defense policy. Strategic terror is mutating: Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are dead and his cohorts are but bit-part actors. Islamic State in the Middle East and its intolerant call for jihad does not mean the threat of Salafsm is expunged in the wake of its defeat in the Levant. The West and its partners are thus engaged in a Thirty Years War not of its making and which will efect Western societies as much as partner states. It is a war that will take sustained engagement across the diplomatic, informational military and economic (DIME). China is a European power: The twenty-frst century will be Asia’s age, typifed by the rise of China, but it will also be an age of global democracies and thus globalized, interconnected insecurity. China is thus a European power as much as the U.S. is an Indo-Pacifc power. Many European states are now in debt to Beijing and signifcant parts of Europe’s critical infrastructure are owned by Chinese state enterprises. The COVID pandemic has also revealed the control freakery of the Chinese state, which has been extended abroad by aggressive wolf warrior diplomacy. NATO is unlikely to confront China directly, but any power that impacts on the U.S. will impact on the Alliance. Security globalization will endure even if economic globalization does not: The postpandemic tensions between China and the West have challenged long-held

Introduction

5

shibboleths about economic globalization and mutual dependency. China takes a very realist view of power and order typifed by President Xi’s determination to make China the world’s pre-eminent power by 2049. The connectivity that is globalization is now under increasing pressure together with the supply chains that are its essence. Even as economic globalization retreats and mutates, security globalization, and the threat of regional crises rapidly becoming global crises will become more dangerous, not less. NATO must modernize its cornerstone collective defense instrument: Article 5 of the 1949 Washington Treaty remains the collective defense cornerstone of the Alliance. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine confrms the need for just such an instrument. However, to remain credible NATO collective defense is in desperate need of modernization. Deterrence is only credible if NATO is a credible warfghter. Created in an age of heavy metal when “defense” meant large numbers of aircraft and tanks focused on the North German Plain, today’s collective defense means signifcant numbers of technologically-advanced mobile forces, cyber, and missile defenses with all the necessary supporting architectures. Critically, NATO remains a nuclear alliance precisely because credible nuclear deterrence remains its ultima ratio regnum. New technologies will transform NATO’s battlespace: The transformation of the battlefeld is only just beginning. Over the coming 20 years artifcial intelligence, machine-learning, quantum computing, hypersonic weapon systems, intelligence drone swarms, Nanotechnologies and a host of other emerging and disruptive technologies will transform warfare into hyperwar in which machines will do much of the “deciding” and responding. NATO must be at the forefront of such developments to both deter adversaries and maintain interoperability between the U.S. future force and the European future force. Equally, a new balance will need to be struck between machine-enabled humans in warfare and human-enabled machines. The symbiotic relationship between mass disruption and mass destruction will be critical to NATO’s future defense: In a world so electronically dependent and yet so fractious with borders ever more virtual, if they exist at all, mass disruption could be akin to mass destruction for societies dependent on digital critical infrastructures. To prevail in what is going to be a big, dangerous century, NATO will need new partners, new strategy and new tools, but above all, a new place in the security of the states and peoples that today comprise the West and its democratic partners the world over.

The Structure of the Book The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: The Enduring Alliance goes back to NATO’s origins to paint a big security picture of the Alliance’s vital twentyfrst-century mission. The book deals with all of NATO’s fundamental factors:

6

Introduction

history, structure, policy, capability, and change. The center of gravity of the book is the strategic vision and political cohesion of the Alliance that makes NATO what it is: the enduring alliance. The book places NATO in the context of the change that has taken place over more than 70 years and indeed will take place in the years to come: the what, the why, the how, the when, and the what-next of NATO. Chapter 1 explores the Alliance in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 as Americans go to war .  .  . but Europeans do not. The challenges of going to Afghanistan are considered together with the politics of confrontation within the Alliance as Old Atlantic confronts Old Europe in the run-up to the Iraq War. Central to the chapter is the difcult search for a new strategic consensus as the sheer scale of the challenges posed by what President George W. Bush dubs the Global War on Terror become apparent. Chapter 2 demonstrates that crises, both internal and external, have long provided the essential political tension within the Alliance that has driven change. An in-depth analysis is undertaken of the events and people that shaped NATO from its very inception in the challenging aftermath of World War II to the dawn of détente. NATO grapples with a series of crises, from the Berlin airlift to the Korean War and the European Defense Community, from the Missile Gap to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and from France’s 1966 withdrawal from military NATO to the beginning of superpower dialog and détente. Chapter 3, The Second Cold War, explores the widening gap between Americans and Europeans during the Second Cold War and how the Euromissiles Crisis that dangerously de-stabilizes NATO actually refects the very pluralism that has always given this multi-voiced democratic security community its essential strength. From splits during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to friction over European integration and on to eventual victory in the Cold War, NATO somehow prevails as the essential platform for mutual military solidarity, the shield of democracy and a vital mechanism for internal Alliance crisis management. Chapter 4, Strategic Vacation, considers NATO’s search for a new role in the wake of the Cold War and examines the many challenges and contradictions imposed upon the Alliance by victory. Defense forces are cut across the Alliance, even as Yugoslavia collapses into a violent war of all against all. The chapter considers NATO’s enlargement and the stuttering relationship with an emerging European Union as both Brussels-based institutions begin a long and difcult journey to fnd an accommodation acceptable to all members of both institutions. Chapter 5, Reinventing NATO, looks at the many eforts to adapt the Alliance to the challenges and complexities of the 1990s and the search to become an efective crisis prevention and management agency. The search for a deeper

Introduction

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EU-NATO relationship is further explored, particularly the Berlin-plus mechanism for Alliance-enabled EU operations. The enlargement of the Alliance in pursuit of a Europe whole and free takes place in parallel with eforts to forge a partnership with Russia, which is quickly soured by the 1999 Kosovo War. Chapter 6, NATO 101, deals with the fundamentals of the Alliance and provides basic details of NATO’s contemporary membership, structure and responsibilities. NATO’s political and military decision-making structures are explained in depth. Chapter 7, NATO Today, considers the contemporary state of the Alliance in the wake of the disastrous 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and in the face of Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. It considers lessons from the war in Ukraine for the Alliance and how they relate to NATO Agenda 2030 and NATO Strategic Concept 2022, to which the June 2022 NATO Madrid Summit agreed. Chapter 8, Future NATO, ofers a radical NATO Strategic Concept to compare and contrast with the Alliance’s ofcial version. It questions the strategic ambition of the NATO Allies, their cohesion, military capabilities and security capacities before concluding with a challenge: can NATO endure given the fast-changing character of war and the technologies that will make both deterrence and defense far faster, far more complex, and far more dangerous than perhaps anything with which the Alliance has had to confront thus far? After all, NATO is history in the making, and history never stops. This, then, is the story of NATO: The Enduring Alliance.

Notes 1 Sir Lawrence Freedman in his 2013 book Strategy: A History suggests that strategy “is the central political art. It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest. In other words it is the art of creating power.” This is a challenge with which NATO has struggled throughout its existence. See Freedman, Sir Lawrence, Strategy: A History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) p. xiii. 2 The 2014 NATO Warsaw Summit Communique of 9 July 2016 stated, “Our eforts to enhance the Alliance's role in projecting stability will be guided by enduring principles, including a 360 degree approach, commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law, complementarity with international actors, in particular with the UN, EU, and the OSCE and focusing on NATO’s added value, local ownership and buy-in, partner involvement, inclusiveness, tailored cooperation, long-term commitment, prioritization and sustainability, and overall coherence.” https://www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/ofcial_texts_133169.htm 3 Buck Roger is an American science fction hero who frst appeared in a U.S. newspaper in January 1929. 

1 NATO FORTUNA REDUX?1

We must not forget all the other challenges to our security. Competition is rising between democracy and authoritarianism. Moscow and Beijing are openly contesting the rules-based international order. Terrorism and nuclear proliferation persist. Cyberattacks and climate disruptions are on the rise. All of this afects our security. Faced with this new security reality, NATO continues to adapt. At the Summit in Madrid, we will take decisions to strengthen our Alliance, and keep it agile in this more dangerous world.2 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, 22 June 2022

It is 11 September 2001. The morning rush hour is coming to its bustling end on the highways, byways, and subways of New York. High up in the twin towers of the World Trade Center people are settling down to work as the New York fnancial and legal center gets into its stride. Suddenly, at 8:46 a.m., as if from nowhere, an American Airlines Boeing 767 slams into the North Tower. Al Qaeda has begun its day of carnage. Two hours later over 3000 people are dead, the twin towers are no more, and parts of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania smolder with the wreckage of hatred, fundamentalism, and terror. In a few moments NATO’s world and its relationships are changed forever. It is the beginning of the end of European isolationism, and the end of the beginning of American unilateralism. It is also the beginning of a new NATO as strategic terror, state failure, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction combine with the re-emergence of Russia and China and rogue states to create NATO’s new world – a new world disorder. A strategic cocktail that is given added spice by the clash of Western civilizations, as American power confronts European institutionalism. After the contentions of the 1990s, big threat has returned to the Alliance with a profound shock and with it four parallel but entwined challenges: a collective response to 9/11, the completion of a post-Cold War Europe that is both whole and free, fnding a place for EU security and defense in the transatlantic relationship; and the role of Europeans in America’s global security mission.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-2

NATO Fortuna Redux?

9

9/11, Afghanistan and the Invoking of Article 5 On 12 September 2001, the Day After, what would have been unthinkable during the Cold War comes to pass. The North Atlantic Council (NAC) meets in emergency session to invoke Article 5. Only 15 years before, such a decision would have presaged nuclear Armageddon. Technically, NATO is at war – but against whom or what? That is the essential dilemma all NATO nations face in the early years of the twenty-frst century. The invoking of Article 5 is the clearest indication yet that the post-Cold War strategic vacation is over and the world is once again a very big and very dangerous place. While the United States welcomes the support of its Allies, Washington is too busy preparing its response to 9/11 and what will become known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT) to take much notice. Suddenly, the relatively local security (by historical standards) that has dominated so much of Europe’s isolationism since the end of the Cold War seems precisely that: small, almost irrelevant. Overnight, the prospect of Salafst jihadists, armed by fanatical beliefs and a seemingly global vision, becomes nightmarishly close to everyone in the Alliance. Al Qaeda, in one devastating action, afronts the United States with the frst lethal attack on its soil by a foreign force since the British (rightly) burned down the White House in 1814 and much of the rest of ofcial Washington. Americans go to war, Europeans do not. Equally, European support for America is genuine and heartfelt. The French newspaper Le Monde, proclaims, “We are all Americans.”3 It is a belief that on one level Europeans collectively believe but what to do? That same day, the UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1368 recognizing terrorism as a “threat to international peace and security,” while on 21 September the European Council states that “The fght against terrorism will, more than ever, be a priority objective of the European Union.”4 All the tensions and suspicions between Americans and Europeans that had so scarred NATO since the end of the Cold War seem to evaporate in the face of the new danger. The Global War on Terror has begun and leads to a series of frsts for the Alliance. On 4 October, NATO responds positively to a U.S. request for support, even though the Alliance is at best marginal to American strategy. On 7 October, following the refusal of the Taliban Government in Kabul to surrender Osama bin Laden and other senior Al Qaeda members, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, and Germany begin Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. On 9 October NATO launches Operation Eagle Assist and sends fve earlywarning (AWAC) aircraft to monitor the skies over North America, the frst time that NATO assets have been deployed in defense of continental North America.5 On 26 October, NATO deploys naval forces (STANAVFORMED) to the eastern Mediterranean as part of counter-terrorism operations to

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monitor shipping. Finally, on 25 November, U.S. troops move into southern Afghanistan alongside coalition forces from 12 NATO and non-NATO partners. It is the frst time since World War II that German forces have embarked on combat operations outside Europe. Kabul falls on 14 November and the Taliban are banished . . . or so it appears. Although marginal to U.S. strategy in Afghanistan NATO still has a vital role to play leading security and stabilization eforts in parallel but separate from the U.S. counter-terrorism mission. From the outset it is clear that the U.S. and its European Allies are going to be in Afghanistan for a long time, something which Europeans had not countenanced nor prepared for. On 22 December, the Interim Authority for Afghanistan is established under UN auspices, and the participants request the United Nations Security Council to authorize the early deployment to Afghanistan of a United Nations-mandated force to assist in the maintenance of security in Kabul and its surrounding areas. It is hoped that in time the force will be expanded to all of Afghanistan. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) starts a difcult and dangerous NATO presence in Afghanistan that is to last almost three times as long as World War II. It will also cost over 3500 Allied lives and the death of possibly 180,000 Afghans, as well as a huge amount of money. The campaign will also fail. On 18 December, NATO defense ministers meet to discuss how to conduct the campaign, with a particular emphasis on improving NATO’s ability to project its forces worldwide. On 20 December, the UN Security Council fnally authorizes ISAF to deploy, and on 21 December, the frst British troops arrive in Afghanistan to prepare the ground; the frst time in a century that British troops have entered the country in force.6 On 11 August 2003, NATO ofcially assumes political command of ISAF with its primary mission to protect the seat of the Afghan government in Kabul in the face of attacks by a Taliban steadily recovering from the shock of defeat. Over the next three years the mission is slowly extended across the country in the hope that once stabilization has been achieved, reconstruction can begin. On 31 July 2006, ISAF also assumes command of southern Afghanistan, while in October in eastern Afghanistan NATO forces replace American forces which are now operating under a separate command chain as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. It soon becomes clear that any pious hope that Afghanistan could become a functioning democracy that is neither a threat to itself nor others is misplaced. In January 2008, after seven years of fghting an ever more organized insurgency in Afghanistan and with some 3500 Americans already killed in a brutal war in Iraq, Barrack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States. His vice-president is one Senator Joe Biden and both are determined to extricate the United States from what they see as a diverting and ultimately futile foreign entanglement. In October 2009, Obama receives a grim assessment of the situation in Afghanistan from his commanders but still asks

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Congress and the Alliance for 30,000 extra U.S. and allied troops as part of a fnal “surge” to break the Taliban insurgency. In December 2009, an additional 33,000 U.S. forces are sent to Afghanistan, while on 2 May 2011 the Americans hit pay-dirt – Osama bin Laden is tracked down to a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed by U.S. Special Forces. In June 2011, claiming that America’s primary mission in Afghanistan has now been fulflled President Obama announces the withdrawal of the additional forces while in February 2013 a further 34,000 U.S. troops are also withdrawn. It is the beginning of the end of ISAF as the U.S.-led efort switches from extending the writ of the Kabul government across Afghanistan to supporting the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in what will prove a vain struggle to defeat the Taliban. At the May 2012 NATO Chicago summit President Obama announces the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, with control of Afghanistan to be handed over to Afghan forces via a transitional process that links Kabul’s political control of the provinces to the strengthening of Afghan National Army (ANA) to some 195,000 personnel and the Afghan National Police to 150,000. NATO’s main combat missions are wound down prior to the end of 2014, with the efort shifted to training, advising, and assisting Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). At the 2014 NATO Wales Summit a follow-on support mission is confrmed, titled “Operation Enduring Support.” It is a chimera, with the Afghan National Security Forces a Potemkin’s Village of corruption and weakness, the extent of which will soon be revealed. In February 2020, President Donald Trump cuts a deal with the Taliban in Doha to end the war in Afghanistan and in August 2021, the United States and its Allies withdraw from Kabul Airport amid chaos and acrimony, leaving thousands of desperate people at the mercy of the Taliban. On 15 August 2021, the forces of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIROA), bereft of their Allied mentors, simply collapse and the Taliban re-enter Kabul after 20 years in the wilderness. In a statement dripping with hypocrisy the 60 nations of the U.S.-led coalition issue a statement in which they say, “The Afghan people deserve to live in safety, security and dignity. We in the international community stand ready to assist them.”7

Assured Security: Dynamic Engagement? NATO endures. Twenty years on from the end of the Cold War, at the 2010 NATO Lisbon Summit, leaders had agreed that the Alliance would remain THE cornerstone security and defense alliance because of shared values and practices developed over many years AND because it is the only international organization in the world able to generate credible, legitimate military power relatively quickly across the crisis spectrum. However, Lisbon also dodged an essential question: are the allies willing to aford the ends, ways and means of alliance?

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On 17 May 2010, NATO publishes a document that will provide the platform for a new Strategic Concept and establishes the principles for three core Alliance tasks: collective defense, crisis management, and co-operative security. It also calls for engagement with Russia. NATO’s central purpose is to safeguard – by political and military means – the freedom and security of all its members: the transatlantic link which the Alliance embodies by which the security of North America is permanently tied to the security of Europe; the principle that the security of all Allies is indivisible, as an attack on one is an attack on all; sufcient combined military strength to be able to deter any potential aggression against the Alliance and thus ensures the political independence and territorial integrity of its members; and the equitable sharing of roles, risks and responsibilities, as well as benefts. NATO also reafrms the value and importance of membership through its links to other countries and organizations in order to help prevent and mitigate crises, promote stability, transparency and predictability, as well as lower levels of armaments with verifcation provided by arms control and non-proliferation agreements. The Alliance further reafrms its respect for the legitimate security interests of others and seek the peaceful resolution of disputes as set out in the Charter of the United Nations. Looking to the future, a cornerstone document, “NATO 2020: Assured Security: Dynamic Engagement,” also states that: “Between now and 2020 it [NATO] will be tested by the emergence of new dangers, the many-sided demands of complex operations, and the challenge of organizing itself efciently in an era where rapid responses are vital, versatility critical and resources tight.”8 Two years later, that message is reinforced at the pivotal Chicago Summit. The “Summit Declaration on Defense Capabilities: Towards NATO Forces 2020” states: “We have confdently set ourselves the goal of NATO Forces 2020: modern, tightly connected forces equipped, trained, exercised and commanded so that they can operate together and with partners in any environment.”9 The specifc challenge concerns the search for enhanced interoperability between Allied forces across an ever-widening bandwidth of tasks and the timely development of so-called enablers at a time of deep fnancial and economic stress following the banking and Eurozone crises of 2008–2010. The Declaration continues: In addition to essential national eforts and existing, proven forms of multinational cooperation such as in the areas of strategic airlift and airborne warning and control, we must fnd new ways to co-operate more closely to acquire and maintain key capabilities, prioritize on what we need most and consult on changes to our defense plans. We should also deepen the connections among the Allies and between them and our partners on the basis of mutual beneft. Maintaining a strong defense industry in Europe

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and making the fullest possible use of the potential of defense industrial cooperation across the Alliance remain an essential condition for delivering the capabilities needed for 2020 and beyond.10 The issue of cost versus capability is thus established and also dominates the September 2014 NATO Wales Summit. The problem is one of vision and political leadership. Since the 1990 London Summit, the Alliance has assumed there will be no major confict in Europe for the foreseeable future. However, between February and March 2014, Russia seizes Crimea from Ukraine and NATO Europe is wholly unprepared. Consequently, the Allies agree to “reverse the trend of declining defense budgets, to make the most efective use of our funds and to further a more balanced sharing of costs and responsibilities.”11 Despite a major campaign in Afghanistan, many NATO Europeans have cut their defense budgets drastically, some as much as 30 percent since 2001, while between 2014 and 2020, the United States plans to cut its defense budget by some $240 billion, more than the entire defense expenditure of NATO Europe. And yet, Russia’s 2009 Defense Modernization Program commits Moscow to spending some $700bn on new military equipment and a more professional military by 2020. The emergence of Islamic State across the Middle East and North Africa and Europe’s seeming inability to infuence events even on its own doorstep begin to challenge Europe’s long-cherished belief that soft power is the key to geopolitical infuence in the twenty-frst century.12

Out of Area or Out of Business13 The problem is profound contention over the purpose and utility of the Alliance. It is nothing new. NATO’s seemingly “who does what where and for how long” debate is as old as the “who pays for the Alliance” debate, which began with its inception in April 1949. For much of the 1990s such contention is refected in a debate over whether the Alliance should provide security and defense only on the territory of its members, or go beyond. 9/11 dramatically ends this “out of area debate” because it raises a fundamental question: if NATO is unable to play even a minor role in American security then what future has an Alliance built on and around the Americans? While there will never be a global NATO, the source, scope and nature of emerging defense threats and security challenges means NATO must at least take a global view. It is that dichotomy which highlights NATO’s essential political and military dilemma: agreeing on the need to act is one thing, but being able to act is something altogether diferent, and the Afghanistan campaign reveals the depth of this dilemma. At the end of the Cold War, the force-planning assumption of most Europeans was that they would not have to conduct major operations within Europe, let alone beyond it. There had been some signs during the 1990s that

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a new world would not be quite so accommodating for those Europeans who preferred to focus on EU integration and the building of a “new Europe,” but Europe’s leaders chose to ignore such indications. The 1991 ouster of Iraq from Kuwait took place when much of NATO’s Cold War forces and resources were still in place and could thus be adapted. Small “policing actions” were also undertaken by NATO Europeans in places like East Timor and Sierra Leone. The Wars of the Yugoslav Succession and the 1999 Kosovo War were brutal but small by historic standards, although they pushed Europeans and their respective armed forces to the limit of their capacity. Then came 9/11. Suddenly in late 2001 Europeans are asked to deploy very limited forces in “strength” to Afghanistan (of all places) where the Soviets had been defeated in the 1980s, and where only the Maxim gun and imperial “nous” had aforded the British “control” at the nineteenth-century height of British Imperial power.14 Afghanistan is just about the last place on Earth Europeans had expected to go, and the most unwelcome. The European allies face their perennial dilemma: how best to organize not enough capability in pursuit of far too much actuality. Al Qaeda and its cohorts also raise profound questions about the utility of force in the struggle against Salafst jihadism, and the balance to be struck between the protection of societies and the projection of power in pursuit of complex security ends. In October 2001, this dilemma is made plain when a “Road Map” is issued by the EU which includes moves toward a common European arrest warrant (which was only fnalized in 2014), calls for a common defnition of terrorism, as well as measures to disrupt terrorist groups and their nefarious activities, such as anti-money laundering measures. EU leaders also agree on increased cooperation between key European agencies such as Europol, Eurojust, and intelligence agencies. In fact, it is a road to nowhere and simply exposes the degree to which EU member-states disagree with each other over both the direction and prosecution of the struggle, and with the United States over Washington’s leadership of it. From the very outset strategic unity of efort and purpose in Afghanistan becomes mired in a wider structural dispute over strategic culture between the United States, which sees NATO as the organizer of American allies, and European states, such as France, for which the EU is the future locus for all European security and defense. To that end, EU foreign and defense ministers meet in Brussels on 19–20 November, 2001 to discuss all-important military capability improvements. The ministers agree a European Capabilities Action Plan (ECAP), which is markedly separate from NATO’s U.S.-driven Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) which had emerged from NATO’s 1999 Prague Summit and which addressed 55 identifed shortcomings in European military capabilities. While co-operation with NATO is highlighted, it is not central to the ECAP undermining NATO-EU relations at a critical moment. It is a sign of the struggle to come.

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Although 9/11 and Afghanistan undoubtedly exacerbate transatlantic divergence, the seriousness of the situation does at least inject a degree of political realism into European defense. On 14–15 December 2001, at the European Council meeting in Laeken, Belgium, EU leaders agree that the European Union must be able to carry out crisis management operations over the whole range of the Petersberg Tasks.15 That will only happen if the EU has access to NATO assets, invoking memories of Europe’s frst and failed attempt at defense integration in the early 1950s. Back then the European Defense Community (EDC) had also split the Alliance because it implied U.S.-inspired German rearmament less than a decade after World War II and the creation of a European Army. There is one major diference: in the 1950s the United States supported the EDC, but it is not so sure about the EU’s latest ambition. So, while Laeken confrms the 1999 Helsinki Goal of a European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) of some 50,000–60000 personnel, the Summit Declaration also states such a force would “not imply the creation of a European Army.”16

The Enigma of Russia17 9/11 has another efect: it changes (again) the complex relationship with the old enemy/new partner, Russia. For over a decade Russia wallows in post-Cold War decline and by 2001 it is but a shadow of its former Soviet self. In May 2000, Vladimir Putin becomes President of the Russian Federation, a young president who understands the game of power politics and wants to play it. For Putin, NATO is no friend of Russia and successive enlargements of the Alliance during the 1990s bring the Alliance ever closer to Russia’s borders, eradicating what Putin believes is an agreed bufer zone between Moscow and the West and which the Kremlin sees as an essential part of Russia’s defense. Putin also views NATO enlargement as the planned humiliation of Russia and the end of the Greater Russia in which this hardline Russian nationalist believes. Two factors help the Russian cause. First, 9/11 increases tensions between the West and much of the Middle East. Second, an increasingly German-centric Europe is ever more reliant on Russian energy, leading Berlin in particular to become increasingly ambivalent about its relationship with the United States and its role in NATO. Paradoxically, President George W. Bush thinks he has found a like-minded counterpart in Putin, not least because Russia is fghting its own “terrorist” war in Chechnya. The First Chechnya War had started in 1994 against Islamist separatists, a war that Russia wages typically both brutally and incompetently. In 1999, the Second Chechnya War had broken out following attempts by separatists to seize Dagestan. In May 2000, upon coming to power, Putin immediately imposes direct rule on Chechnya in support of pro-Russian militia. In a sign of times to come, Putin is both indiscriminate and relentless.

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Putin’s worldview is not the only problem for the West. Russia is a diffcult partner particularly for NATO. Moscow felt humiliated by the Alliance during the 1999 Kosovo War in which Serbia, a close and traditional Russian ally, was defeated by the Alliance partly with the aid of Moscow. Russia felt it got little in return from the West. Moscow cited Western hypocrisy when NATO forces attack the Serbs without what Russia sees as explicit authorization from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). President Putin is determined not to be marginalized again and begins the long journey to rebuild Russia’s infuence by modernizing the military and security apparatus of the Russian state. He also accelerates the retreat from democracy as internal power is consolidated in the hands of the Kremlin, the Siloviki (men of power), and President Putin himself. There were high hopes of co-operation in the 1990s, exemplifed by the May 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, which was agreed in parallel with NATO enlargement to states that were former members of the Warsaw Pact. By the early 2000s, Russian foreign and security policy was instead steadily retreating into a series of classical trade-ofs with the United States, Europe and an emerging and yet enigmatic China. Russia needs Europe, but Germany’s latest bout of Ostpolitik also leads much of Europe into energy dependence on Russia, something Moscow is only too happy to encourage so that it can exact a price for co-operating with the West. Energy dependence also means Europeans will pay for the Russian future force that will one day again threaten them. Moscow’s policy is a balancing act between coercion and co-operation, not least because Salafst jihadism poses as much of a threat to Russia as it poses to the West. The 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan had been driven by the perceived danger posed by Islamist fundamentalism to the southern republics of the then USSR. Al Qaeda had emerged out of the struggle of the Mujahedeen against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. President Putin also believes that Russia’s strategic location, its role as an energy exporter and its extensive strategic nuclear forces aford Moscow sufcient infuence to rebuild a strategic relationship on its terms with the only Western country that matters to the Kremlin: the U.S. Europeans are marginal to Putin’s Greater Russia strategy because they are the embodiments of weakness, bereft of the fundamental principles of power that infused much of the Cold War. NATO? For Moscow, the Alliance is not simply the embodiment of Cold War humiliation, a metaphor for Great Power politics, it is also proof of democratic Europe’s continued dependence on the United States and thus its weakness.18 It is also a long game. On the face of it Moscow is supportive of NATO and in the immediate wake of 9/11 ofers the Alliance solidarity. On 13 September 2001, the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council issues a statement condemning the attacks on New York and Washington. On 3 October, President Putin surprisingly suggests that Russia will not oppose NATO enlargement to

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the Baltic States, citing growing Russia-NATO co-operation. On 7 December 2001, NATO foreign ministers also announce a new, beefed-up NATO-Russia Council to strengthen ties with Moscow to further smooth the path to any further enlargement of the Alliance. However, there are limits. Russia also seeks a de facto veto over Alliance activities by demanding access to all Alliance decision-making, efectively seeking virtual membership of the Alliance. Not unexpectedly, NATO leaders refuse. U.S. policy does not help. On 13 December, President Bush announces the withdrawal of the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty to pave the way for the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense shield for continental North America. Putin says that while the move does not pose a threat to Russia it is a mistake and calls for the rapid creation of a new framework for the U.S.-Russian strategic relationship, something to which the Kremlin will return repeatedly. The Cold War architecture is slowly being re-cast, and to some extent resurrected. At least the bad old days of mutually assured destruction (MAD) still seem distant. In an event rich in political symbolism, on 23–24 May 2002, Presidents Bush and Putin sign the Treaty of Moscow. The Accord reduces stockpiles of nuclear weapons by two-thirds over ten years and agrees new co-operation on energy policy and counter-terrorism. The treaty also marks the end of the SALT–START process that frst began way back in 1972. The treaty also gives Putin what he craves, the appearance of strategic equality with the Americans which will drive much of Russian foreign and security policy for the next decade and beyond. For Putin, such prestige is the vital pillar for an increasingly authoritarian regime. Four days later, the frst meeting of the NATO-Russia Council takes place at which Moscow stresses that Russia and NATO must work together as equal partners in areas of common interest.

NATO and the Axis of Evil And then comes Iraq . . . again. On 29 January 2002, President Bush in his State of the Union address attacks North Korea, Iran, and Iraq. The Bush Doctrine is born. On 3 February, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, states, “the mission must determine the coalition,” and not vice versa. Otherwise, “the coalition is reduced to the lowest common denominator.”19 The immediate reactions of the European allies are twofold. Some fear strategic divergence, possibly the end of the transatlantic relationship. Some Europeans endeavor to convince themselves and Washington that their support legitimizes Washington’s Global War on Terror making them worthy partners. And, on the face of it at least, there is much to keep Europeans and Americans close but there is also a profound diference between the U.S. and European strategic ambition and respective military capabilities. Power matters, and while the United States goes global, much of Europe remains stubbornly

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and determinedly regional and wedded to a legal and institutional approach to international relations the Bush White House despises. European regionalism also accelerates the shift of political authority from NATO to the EU, partly due to European concerns about the U.S. commitment to the Alliance and partly due to the eclipsing by Germany of America’s traditional European allies Britain and France. On 15–16 March 2002, the Barcelona European Council declares that the EU is “available” to take over NATO’s operation in Macedonia, “on the understanding that the permanent arrangements on EU-NATO co-operation (known as Berlin-plus) would be in place by then.”20 It is a big “if ” because giving the EU access to NATO assets and capabilities is not as easy as many assume. It is still not. On 30 April, EU High Representative Javier Solana and NATO SecretaryGeneral Lord George Robertson meet for the frst time at NATO Headquarters in Brussels to discuss NATO-EU co-operation. On 14–15 May, NATO and EU foreign ministers meet in Iceland to continue discussions over the use of Alliance assets and capabilities by the EU. Little progress is made due to problems associated with the handover of assets to EU and Turkey’s concerns that Ankara will be excluded from EU decision-making during crises. This is followed by another meeting on 25 June between Robertson and Solana to discuss NATO and EU contributions toward counter-terrorism, the situation in the Balkans, and, critically, progress on EU access to NATO assets and capabilities under the Berlin-plus arrangements. A difcult agenda is about to become nigh impossible.

The Second Gulf War In April 2002, British Prime Minister Tony Blair gives a speech in the United States that outlines a new doctrine: strategic pre-emption. In an age of proliferation, Blair argues, threats have to be dealt with before they materialize and Saddam Hussein represents just such a threat. In other words, regime change is needed in Baghdad.21 Much of Europe demurs from Blair’s hubris seeing strategic pre-emption as taking the Global War on Terror toward state-onstate confict. Blair is dealing with a classic British dilemma: how to remain close to the Americans without becoming detached from Europe. In May 2002, hardline neoconservatives in Washington call for Saddam to be removed with or without a UN Security Council Resolution authorizing such action. The “neocons” frmly believe in U.S. unilateralism and the marginalization of international institutions in what they believe is America’s unipolar moment. NATO, like all institutions, is seen by the neocons as a brake on such ambition. Most Europeans take the diametrically opposing view that institutions are vital in and of themselves to prevent extreme state behavior. The post9/11transatlantic strategic consensus begins to falter. For the neocons state

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power reigns supreme, particularly American state power, and allies have to make a choice: they are either with “us” or against “us.” As Bush and Blair move closer over Washington’s desire to confront Iraq, France and Germany move closer in opposition bringing the Alliance to the brink, arguably, of its greatest ever split. Tony Blair cannot ignore the UN because he needs a UN Security Council Resolution to go to war for domestic British political reasons. Blair is caught in a trap. He supported the GWOT post 9/11 partly because it forced the Americans to prevent any support for the Provisional IRA in the north of Ireland. By painting Saddam and Iraq as efectively terrorists, Blair has no option but to support Bush. To assist Blair, and after much toing and froing, Bush agrees to give the UN route one further try, even though the Americans are determined to act come what may. On 17 September, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stages an impressive political rally to take the German elections, much of it on the back of anti-American and anti-war rhetoric. The Alliance is at a tipping point, a profoundly political moment further complicated by the planned enlargements of both NATO and the EU, with ten U.S.-friendly Central and Eastern European states about to join both the Alliance and the Union, much to the beneft of London and Washington, it is believed. France swings behind its old European partner Germany by joining Berlin in what both claim is an issue of legal principle and that all use of force must be authorized by the UN Security Council. Berlin and Paris also demand that UNMOVIC, the United Nations Monitoring, Verifcation and Inspection Commission, which is led by Swede Hans Blix, must be allowed to return to Iraq and given due time to complete its mission. As ever there are wider political issues at stake. Paris calculates that damaging London will help anchor the Franco-German axis at the center of an enlarged European Union. For Germany, in the midst of an election, and with much of the population against the use of force in any circumstances, an antiwar stance strengthens Schroeder’s campaign. In reality, both sides are playing power politics as Germany uses the Iraq crisis to fex its strategic and political muscles in and over Europe. The Iraq crisis takes place at a very particular moment in the European Union’s long development because Europe’s elite is trying to maintain the momentum of the integrative “European Project” in the post-9/11 world in the face of growing public skepticism. On 18 July 2002, Belgian prime minister and European arch-federalist Guy Verhofstadt warns that “the development of the [EU’s] European Security and Defense Policy is not making sufcient progress,” adding that “over the past few months, I have perceived a risk of re-nationalization of defense policies . . . the danger persists, in my opinion, in seeing both the European Union and NATO turn into toolboxes for supporting ad hoc coalitions.”22 The radicalization of U.S. security policy under George W. Bush, the slow pace of EU defense reform,

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and the re-emergence of Germany as an autonomous power also leave many smaller European allies trapped between loyalty to the United States through NATO and an EU dominated by France and increasingly Germany. For some in Eastern Europe, it even seems as though they are swapping the red star of the Soviet Union for the yellow star of the EU, and yet only the Americans can truly guarantee their security. Consequently, the split between the NATO’s big powers becomes magnifed, damaging both the Alliance and the EU. On 8 November, and after much wrangling between Washington, London, Paris, Berlin and, indeed, Moscow, UN Security Council Resolution 1441 is passed, giving Iraq one fnal opportunity to comply and dismantle any weapons of mass destruction it may have in its arsenal. The Resolution merely sets the scene for a coming drama with the UN Security Council warning Iraq it will face serious consequences if it continues to violate previous UNSCR resolutions calling on Baghdad to disarm. Critically, the resolution stops short of explicitly authorizing the use of force if Iraq continues in “material breach.” It is diplomatic ambiguity at its worst and will soon trigger a near-death experience for the Alliance. On 21 November 2002, French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin and German foreign minister Joschka Fischer call for common security and solidarity between those EU member-states who wish to co-operate more closely on defense. At a January 2003 Paris meeting to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, France and Germany propose transforming the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) into a European Security and Defense Union (ESDU). In fact, it is yet more Euro-defense rhetoric, political smoke and mirrors like Versailles’s gilded Hall of Mirrors designed to make European defense appear far larger than the sum of its parts and in which the “ESDU” is announced. Events move quickly. On 10 February 2003, Turkey invokes Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty, fearing that its “territorial integrity, political independence or security . . . is threatened” by Baghdad as a consequence of the impending war in Iraq.23 Under Article 4, the Alliance must consult whenever a member believes that its territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened. However, France, Germany and Belgium refuse to begin planning for any such contingency on the grounds that such a move would be premature and undermine UN eforts to resolve the crisis. France is particularly intransigent and it is only after Secretary-General Lord Robertson forces a decision through the NATO Defense Planning Committee (DPC), of which France is not a member, that aid for Turkey is approved. France is out-maneuvered and with France sidelined Germany drops its objections and Belgium soon follows suit. On 19 March 2003, the U.S., UK and other coalition forces begin the invasion of Iraq. Just over a month later, on 29 April 2003, the same day as

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American forces take Baghdad, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany agree to create a new rapid reaction force built around the Franco-German Brigade. The timing could not have been more provocative and the force is never more than a political gambit. This is because for all the rhetoric there can be no serious European defense without the British, Europe’s strongest military power, and no sustained serious operations without the support of the United States and thus NATO. However, the political split within NATO will continue to undermine Alliance unity for a decade and more. For NATO, the Iraq crisis has ceased to concern the existence or otherwise of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, but is about the future organization of Europe and its defense. France still believes the EU should become the eventual focus for Europe’s future defense but France’s perennial problem is that its vision for an autonomous European defense is founded on an alliance with a Germany that remains deeply ambivalent about military power and any use of force. Paris also needs the support of the British, who reject any EU demarche that might duplicate and thus weaken NATO. Paris knows it can only push its implicit Gaullist and long-held anti-Americanism so far.

The Re-building of the Alliance The deep split within the Alliance over Iraq strips away the pretense and empty rhetoric of the 1990s and confronts NATO’s European members with a stark reality: they remain as dependent as ever on the Americans for their defense in the fast-changing geopolitics of the twenty-frst century. America’s subsequent embroilment in Iraq also serves to remind Americans that in a complex world military power is not enough to prevail and must be both seen to be legitimate and consistent to be efective. As the crisis deepens the Alliance tries to maintain some semblance of business as usual. On 21–22 November 2002, at NATO’s Prague Summit, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia are invited to join the Alliance. It is a historic moment. At the same meeting, the gathered NATO Heads of State and Government replace the failed 1999 Defense Capabilities Initiative with the more modest Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) and agree to set up a 21,000-strong NATO Response Force (NRF) to act as the spearhead of a robust NATO crisis management capability. They also agree to streamline the Alliance’s command structure to emphasize the projection of capabilities rather than the defense of territory. Interestingly, France is at the forefront of such eforts.24 Eforts to further EU-NATO relations also continue. On 12–13 December 2002, EU leaders indicate the “Union’s willingness to lead a military operation in Bosnia following SFOR [the NATO Stabilization Force].”25 On 13 December, the North Atlantic Council also gives the go-ahead for the advancement

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of all “outstanding issues” regarding EU-NATO relations, while fnally, on 16 December 2002, Robertson and Solana sign “The EU-NATO Declaration on ESDP.” The Declaration provides for the “fullest possible involvement” of non-EU, NATO members in ESDP, in return for which the EU gains access to NATO planning, intelligence, and logistics assets and capabilities. Solana also declares that the EU will be ready by February 2003 to take over operations in Macedonia and that the EU will deploy an EU Force (EUFOR) to Bosnia by the end of 2003. On 10 June 2003, the EU’s Political and Security Committee (PSC) also adopts the “Basic Principles for an EU Strategy against Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction,” while on 12 June the EU deploys to Congo to prevent genocide with the full backing of the UN Security Council. Finally, on 25 June 2002, at the transatlantic summit in Washington, NATO and the EU launch the “Joint Initiative against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.” Unfortunately, friction is never far from the surface, which is not surprising given the mistrust between leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. After the British accept a 20 September Franco-German proposal for the EU to have autonomous military planning and operational capabilities, U.S. NATO ambassador, R. Nicholas Burns, warns that any EU plans to set up independent military headquarters are “the most signifcant threat to NATO’s future.”26

NATO beyond Iraq That NATO does not collapse in 2003 has far more to do with European weakness and the emerging geopolitics and strategic realities of the twenty-frst century than banal and increasingly threadbare appeals to shared values. By 2003, the world is beginning to take on a shape closer to the strategic challenge of the Cold War than the bumbling strategic vacation of the 1990s as new powers, such as China and India, emerge, and old powers, such as Russia, begin to reassert themselves. The dark side of globalization is also apparent as the threat of ever more destructive power falling into the hands of ever smaller, lethal actors hints at a dangerous fusion of power, technology, fanaticism and crime. It is a world in which new great power jostles with old great power, much of it no longer safely embedded in functioning security institutions, such as NATO and the EU. It is a world in which ever greater demands for energy re-create the conditions for renewed state competition as many elites in emerging powers see economic growth and prosperity as the legitimization of their power far more than any appeal to democracy. It is a world in which there is also an awakening of a possible threat to the planet itself through climate change. Thankfully, faced with this new reality, NATO members take a step back from the abyss into which the Iraq crisis threatens to propel them and begin to realize how close they came to destroying the Alliance and the cost to Europe such a loss would entail.

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Iraq triggered a crisis in the Alliance that was hard-wired into its DNA from the day it was created. When NATO was formed in 1949 Europeans had no option but to organize themselves under America. By 2003, in spite of the continuing disparity in power, the debate is about how to organize Europeans alongside Americans, particularly inside NATO. The facts are self-evident: the world is a dangerous place and getting more so; the transatlantic relationship remains the cornerstone of both European and world security; and there is only one set of democratic Europeans, be they in the EU, NATO or neither, all of whom can aford at best limited armed forces. While Europe and Europeans retain the right to determine their place in such a world, any action of note necessarily needs the support of the United States. The extent to which the Alliance and European institutions have gone full circle in their respective histories is demonstrated by the EU’s December 2003 “European Security Strategy” (ESS): “A Secure Europe in a Better World – A European Security Strategy.” Europe should be ready to share in the responsibility for global security and in building a better world. . . . An active and capable European Union would make an impact on a global scale. In doing so, it would contribute to an efective multilateral system leading to a fairer, safer and more united world.27 The ESS goes on to identify fve “key threats” which Europeans should engage: terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conficts, state failure, and organized crime. It also states: The transatlantic relationship is irreplaceable. Acting together, the European Union and the United States can be a formidable force for good in the world. Our aim should be an efective and balanced partnership with the USA. This is an additional reason for the EU to build up its capabilities and increase its coherence.28 NATO’s problem, as ever, is balancing the ends, ways and means of threat, cost, commitment and capability. On 29 June, at NATO’s Istanbul Summit, Alliance Heads of State and Government agree to expand the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan to add several provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) and to conclude operations in Bosnia. They also agree to ofer assistance to the Government of Iraq to train Iraqi security forces and decide to enhance Operation Active Endeavor in the Mediterranean as part of the Alliance contribution to counter-terrorism. Agreement is also reached to further transform the Alliance’s military crisis management capabilities and it is announced that the NATO Response Force will reach initial operational capability (IOC) in 2004.29

24

NATO Fortuna Redux?

There are also two initiatives that promise to move the Alliance beyond its original purpose of the collective defense in and of Europe. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) aims to strengthen engagement with countries in the broader Middle East and North Africa, through support for security sector reform and best practice advice on the democratic control of armed forces. In efect, the ICI creates a new concept of partnership fundamental to what is fast becoming NATO’s strategic stabilization mission. The Summit Declaration, “Our Security in a New Era,” also redefnes NATO’s mission in a new strategic age. Collective defense remains the core purpose of the Alliance, but the threats that NATO faces have changed substantially. . . . NATO is transforming its military capabilities in order to adapt to the changing strategic environment. . . . [T]ransformation is a process, not an event.30 A possible new transatlantic strategic consensus begins to emerge, not just between Europeans and North Americans but also between Europeans; but can such a consensus survive contact with the real world? That, in essence, is the story of NATO, a dynamic search for strategic consensus via the constant updating and adaptation of the Alliance mission. Throughout NATO’s now long story such consensus has never been a foregone conclusion because Americans, Canadians, and Europeans live in nation-states each of which has its own interests and domestic politics. It is not just the very nature of a military alliance of democracies, it is precisely the pluralism for which NATO was created to defend. Thankfully, the fundamental principle that led to the creation of NATO remains intact; the democracies of the Western World will defend each other – all for one and one for all. In a speech at London’s Mansion House on 10 November 1942 Winston Churchill, on hearing of then General Montgomery’s victory at El Alamein, famously said something that could just as well apply to NATO today: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”31 On the afternoon of 17 July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 is high above the eastern Ukraine steppe. Two hours into the fight 283 passengers and 15 crew are settling into a long routine fight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Some are reading books or e-readers, some are watching flms, while some are eating as others sleep. Some, no doubt, wonder what lies in store. Sadly nothing but death, for over 30,000 feet below a BUK M1 SA-11 mediumrange anti-craft missile belonging to the Russian Army’s Kursk-based 53rd Anti-Aircraft Brigade leaves its mobile launcher.32

Notes 1 During the Roman Empire at the end of the frst century BC Fortuna Redux was a form of the goddess Fortuna who oversaw one’s return from a perilous and dangerous journey.

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2 www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_196972.htm 3 Editorial, Le Monde, 12 September 2001. 4 The European Council, “September 11, 2001: Attack on America, Report of the Extraordinary European Council Meeting,” 21 September 2001, www.yale.edu/ lawweb/avalon/sept_11. 5 Operation Eagle Assist involved the control of American skies by NATO AWAC aircraft crewed by 830 personnel from 13 NATO nations, fying some 4300 hours on 360 operational sorties. 6 In 1895 Rudyard Kipling wrote a famous poem about the hellish conditions in Afghanistan. the last verse of which went: “When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rife and blow out your brains, An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, Go, go, go like a soldier, So-oldier ~of~ the Queen!” In 2009 a British soldier in Afghanistan re-wrote and updated Kipling’s poem. 7 See The Independent, “The U.S. Ambassador to the UN: The Afghan People Deserve to Live in Safety and Dignity,” 16 August 2021, www.independent.co.uk/tv/ editors-picks/us-ambassador-afghanistan-deserves-safety-vec0f1fca. 8 See “NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement – Analysis and Recommendations of the Group of Experts for a New Strategic Concept for NATO,” 17 May 2010, p. 5, www.nato.int/strategic-concept/experts.report.pdf. 9 “Summit Declaration on Defence Capabilities: Towards NATO Forces 2020,” 21 May 2012, www.nato.int/eps/en/natolive/ofcial_text_87594.htm 10 Ibid. 11 “Wales Summit Declaration,” Press Release, Issued by NATO, 5 September 2014. Article 4. 12 Above fgures author’s own research. 13 The quote “NATO must go out of area or go out of business” was attributed to staunch Atlanticist U.S. Senator Richard Lugar in 1993. 14 “nous” is a Yorkshire expression refecting a mix of experience and knowledge. 15 The so-called Petersberg Tasks were agreed at a meeting of the Western European Union in Schloss Petersberg, Germany, in June 1992 and commit its members to robust crisis management; humanitarian operations, peacekeeping and the role of combat troops in peacemaking. 16 European Council, Laeken, 14–15 December 2001. See Maartje Rutten, ed., “From Nice to Laeken – European Defense: Core Documents,” Volume II, Chaillot Papers 51 (Paris: European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2001), 185. 17 In 1939, Winston Churchill described Stalin’s Russia as “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Two years later Britain and the Soviet Union would be allies in the war against Nazism. 18 Isabelle Facon writes, “Since its early inception Russia has tended to prioritize military security in its grand strategy. Its initial aspiration for territorial expansion was dictated by a feeling of being threatened from every direction due to its location on a vast plain, with weak natural geographic defences.” Facon, Isabelle, “The Russian Way of War: In Crisis?” in Lindley-French, J. and Boyer, Y. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) p. 274. 19 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 283. 20 European Council, Barcelona Presidency Conclusions. See Korteweg, Rem, The Discourse on European Defence (The Hague: Clingendael Center for Strategic Studies – Netherlands Institute for International Relations, 2005) p. 33. 21 Sir Christopher Meyer, the British ambassador to Washington, says, “The speech was Blair’s doctrine of pre-emption. The lesson of 9/11 was . . . that you did not wait to be hit if you saw a threat coming. You dealt with it before it materialized. Saddam

26 NATO Fortuna Redux?

22 23 24

25

26 27 28 29

30

31 32

Hussein was such a threat. Doing nothing about him was not an option.” Meyer, Christopher, DC Confdential (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) p. 247. Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 288. Ibid., p. 298. “We are steadfast in our commitment to the transatlantic link, to NATO’s fundamental security tasks; to our shared democratic values; and to the United Nations Charter.” Prague Summit Declaration issued by the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Prague on 21 November 2002, www.nato.int/docu/pr/2002/p02–127e.htm. Presidency Conclusions, Copenhagen European Council, 12–13 December 2002, from Haines, Jean-Yves, ed., “From Laeken to Copenhagen – European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Papers 57 (Paris: European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2003) p. 170. Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 309. Ibid., pp. 312–313. The European Union, A Secure Europe in a Better World: The European Security Strategy (Paris: The European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2003) p. 20. Against the backdrop of advances made by Islamic State the 2014 NATO Wales Summit reafrmed the so-called NATO-Iraq Partnership as part of the Partnership and Co-operation Program, with a particular focus on political dialog, education and training of armed forces, response to terrorism, defense institution-building, border security and communications strategy. The Istanbul Declaration, Our Security in a New Era, issued by the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Istanbul on 28 June 2004, NATO Press Release 2004 (097), 28 June 2004, www.nato.int/ docu/pr/2004/p04-097e.htm Cohen, M.J., ed., The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations (London: Godfrey Cave Associates Ltd, 1986) p. 111. See, “MH17 Owned by Russian Brigade, Investigators Say,” BBC News, 24 May 2018, www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44235402

2 FACING DOWN THE SOVIETS

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually, and in concert with the other Parties, such action as is deemed necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Article 5, the North Atlantic Treaty, Washington, 4 April 19491

NATO has always been in crisis – and NATO has always endured. It is the nature of the transatlantic security relationship to struggle and yet overcome. That is the story of the early years of the Cold War as the Alliance steels itself for confrontation with Stalin’s Soviet Union and deals with a range of internally and externally-generated crises. Between 1949 and 1966 the First Berlin Crisis, the Korean War, German rearmament, the missile gap, the Second Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the withdrawal of France from military NATO sees the Alliance continually, almost routinely tested to the limit of political destruction. NATO endures because no internal controversy is ever greater than the challenge posed by the threat NATO must confront.

The Founding of an Alliance In the beginning, there was light. On a cool Washington day on 4 April 1949, 12 nations sign the North Atlantic Treaty as Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States become the founding fathers of the Alliance. As the clinking of champagne glasses fades, the morning after is sobering. The Western Allies estimate that while they could feld some 12

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-3

28 Facing Down the Soviets

active army divisions, they face an estimated Soviet strength of some 175 divisions. For the Americans, the reality is stark: if the Soviet Union is to be deterred from invading the democratic half of Europe, America will once again need to re-commit large-scale forces to Europe only four years after the end of World War II, during which Allied forces had been Moscow’s allies. Such a peacetime commitment to Europe would represent a revolutionary change in U.S. foreign and security policy and the abandonment of what the American people had hitherto regarded as a fundamental tenet of American foreign and security policy since the formal founding of the United States in 1783: the avoidance of entangling alliances.2 How had it come to this? On 22 February 1946, American diplomat George Kennan writes a diplomatic dispatch from Moscow that is to change U.S. policy profoundly. Kennan’s Long Telegram warns of the expansionist ambitions of the Soviet Union and that Moscow will use both overt and covert means to expand Sovietcommunism.3 Two weeks later, on 5 March, Winston Churchill, in a landmark speech in the United States entitled the “Sinews of Peace,” remarkable even by his oratorical standards, warns that an “Iron Curtain” is descending upon Europe from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic. Churchill goes on to say that a Communist east is now under Soviet infuence and “increasing measure of control from Moscow.” That very same day an agreement is signed between the U.S. and UK that will lead to perhaps the most powerful intelligence alliance ever established between countries – Five Eyes. The UK-USA agreement builds on wartime co-operation in which Britain was frmly in the lead and establishes principles and mechanisms for the sharing of high-grade intelligence which is then extended to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It also enables the U.S. to progressively supplant the importance of Britain to its dominions. An exhausted Britain has begun its precipitate decline. Between 10 and 25 March 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall visits Moscow and comes away frm in the belief that Kennan’s warning is essentially correct. Finally, on 12 March, President Harry S. Truman takes a historic step and outlines what is to become known as the Truman Doctrine  – the containment of Soviet expansionism. The Cold War has begun. The Cold War is essentially grand geopolitics; a confict between two superpowers, America and Soviet Russia. It is in turn an essentially classical struggle for superiority masked by two markedly diferent ideologies – Liberal Democracy and Leninist-Marxism. The struggle is focused on Europe (but not exclusively so) and defned by the manner by which the two superpowers organize their respective satellites and allies. The Cold War also generates several sub-plots, particularly within the West, that help give NATO’s story a particular edge and dynamism. At the center of the action is mighty America, which, with the eclipsing of the British Empire, is the world’s

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only truly world-spanning power. Pivotal to the Truman Doctrine is the rebirth of Europe from the ashes of war. Not the same Europe, but a new Europe – a democratic and economically vibrant Europe that will one day serve as another shining city on another hill in what Washington sees as the clarion call to freedom. There will be times when Washington will wonder whether European “freedom” is a good thing, but for better or worse the allies are inextricably linked to America by the Cold War. America’s world will not be a world of empires, but of self-determined associations unifed and exemplifed by American power and wealth. To that end, Washington immediately calls on Western Europeans to specify their needs with respect to U.S. aid as they struggle to recover from World War II. The Marshall Plan is born, the greatest act of self-interested largesse in strategic history . . . and the most successful.4 NATO was, in fact, a British idea. Ernest Bevin, the Labor Party Foreign Secretary, hated communism and believed that only a new alliance between Western Europe and the United States could deter Stalin. At Bevin’s urging, London seeks to reassure the United States by showing that Europeans would play their full part in any defense of Europe. In March 1948, in the immediate wake of the 1947 Marshall Plan, Britain pushes Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to sign the Brussels Pact which commits the signatories to aid each other in the event of an attack, establishing a principle that would become central to the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. In a triumph of British diplomacy, this commitment helps convince the United States to join a new alliance. Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, legendary victor over Rommel in the 1942 Battle of El Alamein, becomes the frst chairman of the Western Union’s Commanders-in-Chief Committee, based in Versailles. Montgomery later also becomes NATO’s frst Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), a post which remains British to this day. Today, NATO is synonymous with the Cold War confrontation of superpowers, but in 1949 Europeans were as much preoccupied with the possibility of a resurgent Germany as an aggressive Soviet Union. In February 1947, the United Kingdom and France had signed the anti-German “Treaty of Dunkirk,” while in March 1948, the “Brussels Treaty of Economic, Social and Cultural Collaboration and Collective Self-Defense” founded the Western Union.5 The “German Question” causes particular consternation in a France that is always suspicious of the motives and intentions of the Americans and British. In March 1949, the French newspaper Le Monde writes, “The rearmament of Germany is present in the Atlantic Pact as the seed in the egg.”6 For Paris, the North Atlantic Treaty will inevitably lead to German rearmament because German manpower will be needed to counter Soviet conventional military strength. Relations between Paris, London, and Washington have been tense

30 Facing Down the Soviets

for some time, not least because of U.S. insistence that France stop “dismantling” the industry and infrastructure of western Germany by way of war reparations. France also demands “unity of command,” in efect a strong French voice in U.S. policy, which helps set the tone of U.S.-French relations within the Alliance for the next 70 years. French concerns are equally evident when the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) is created on 23 May 1949. It is no coincidence that NATO had been founded a month earlier. For over a year, the Soviets had blockaded West Berlin to prevent the creation of a new German state. The First Berlin Crisis leads to a massive Allied airlift of supplies to feed and fuel the now divided and beleaguered former German capital, now isolated deep in Soviet-occupied Germany. Between June 1948 and May 1949, Britain’s Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force together deliver 2,326,406 tons of supplies and 1,500,000 tons of coal during 278,228 fights between the Allied occupation zone in western Germany and West Berlin. The tone and scale of the Cold War are thus established. On 25 July 1949, after bitter political wrangling in Washington, President Truman sends the Mutual Defense Assistance Act to Congress, efectively committing the United States to foreign alliances for the frst time in its history, even in peacetime. On 24 August 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty formally enters into force and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is ofcially born. On 27 January 1950, President Truman also approves an integrated defense plan for the North Atlantic area, while on 1 April 1950 the newly formed NATO Defense Committee approves the frst draft of a four-year defense plan. Entitled, “The Strategic Concept for the Defense of the North Atlantic Area,” it sets out the strategy for territorial defense and is, in efect, as its name suggests, NATO’s frst strategic concept. At the same time, National Security Council Document 68 (NSC-68) is completed outlining overarching U.S. security policy as Washington formalizes its own leadership of the free world. Entitled “United States Objectives and Programs for National Security,” NSC-68 proposes comprehensive Western rearmament, even though Britain and France remain steadfastly opposed to the rearming of Germany. Thus, even as NATO comes into being, the seeds of NATO’s frst major internal crisis are being sewn. Then, Moscow gives the Alliance a stark reminder of just why NATO is needed: on 30 July 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tests its frst atomic bomb. The American atomic monopoly is broken and the nuclear character of the Cold War is also established. It is a moot point as to whether the United States would have been quite so willing to commit to Europe’s defense if the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic bomb prior to April 1949.

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The German Question NATO is not the only show in town. The age of European integration is about to begin and with it an argument over sovereignty and political primacy in Europe that continues to this day. On 21 March 1950, West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer suggests an economic union between France and Germany to alleviate French fears of a revanchist Germany. On 16 April 1950, the so-called Schuman Plan (after French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman) is published, proposing the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and, with it, an eventual federation of European states focused on the Western Union. Events then move at some pace. On 9 May 1950, the French Cabinet approves the Schuman Plan stating: World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of a constructive efort proportionate to the dangers which threaten it. The contribution which an organized and living Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations.7 In 1950, the East-West strategic balance is still far too delicate for European political and economic integration to take center-stage  – that must wait until at least the 1990s – but not for the last time in NATO’s story it is transatlantic disagreement over the purpose and reach of the Alliance that acts as a catalyst for European integration. On 25 June 1950, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) invades the Republic of Korea (South Korea), and the Korean War begins. The United States regards the invasion as yet more evidence of a Soviet-backed plan to expand communism globally and wants Europeans to relieve the growing worldwide pressure on U.S. forces. That means more European manpower and that in turn implies the possible rearming of West Germany only fve years after the end of World War II. Europeans are not so sure. On 22 July 1950, the U.S. High Commissioner in Germany states that “it is very difcult to deny the Germans the right and the means to defend their own soil.”8 However, the British and French governments reafrm their opposition to West German rearmament, even though UK war minister Emmanuel (Manny) Shinwell confrms Western intelligence assessments that the Red Army has some 175 active divisions facing NATO in Europe. Something must be done. On 11 August, Winston Churchill, in a famous speech to the Council of Europe, suggests the creation of a United States of Europe, while the Strasbourg Resolution of the Council of Europe calls for “the creation, for a common defense of Europe, of a European Army under political institutions of a united Europe.”9 Some three weeks later, on 29 August 1950, wily West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer secretly ofers German participation in the defense of Western Europe.

32 Facing Down the Soviets

Matters move apace. On 9 September 1950, President Truman proposes an integrated military command to form the hard power heart of NATO, together with a West German contribution of ten divisions. The French reject the proposal out of hand. One day later, American forces land at Inchon on the Korean peninsula under a United Nations mandate, which immediately increases the pressure on Europeans to fnd more available military manpower. It is a need made even more pressing on 16 September when at the North Atlantic Council meeting in New York, NATO’s senior political body, Alliance leaders agree to place the Alliance’s defensive line as far east in Germany as possible, increasing the need for West Germany to contribute to its own defense. This so-called Forward Strategy, together with the integrated command structure that will soon become Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), becomes the beating military heart of the Alliance, and still is. Not for the last time Britain backs down in the face of American pressure, but France continues to refuse any West German military contribution to NATO collective defense. On 14 October, France proposes an alternative and very radical plan to rearm Germany, albeit outside of the NATO framework. The so-called Pleven Plan, named after the French prime minister of the day, proposes an integrated European Army on the condition that Germany is only able to rearm as part and under control of a supranational high command. On 28 October, France introduces the Pleven Plan to the Allies at a meeting of the NATO Defense Committee. This time, it is Washington that is not so sure. On 13 November, the United States reacts to the Pleven Plan with the Spofford Proposals, which calls for German rearmament but limits West Germany’s NATO contribution to no more than 20 percent of overall force levels in NATO Europe. Although Washington welcomes the creation of a European Army as a means of strengthening the Atlantic Alliance, it does so only if the force is militarily viable and operates within the NATO framework. France immediately rejects the Spoford Proposals because they imply German membership of the Alliance. It is external events that again change the political dynamic within the Alliance. Having crossed the Yalu River on 13 October, Chinese forces attack Republic of Korea forces. On 1 November, Chinese forces then attack elements of the U.S. 8th Cavalry, forcing NATO to confront a new reality: a possible all-out strategic war on the Korean peninsula (and possibly beyond) that would stretch U.S. forces to their limit. Faced with this reality France withdraws its opposition to German rearmament, and on 18 December the NATO Defense Committee approves the Spoford Proposals. On 19 December, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the hero of D-Day, becomes NATO’s frst Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR). Critically, it is also agreed that West Germany shall enjoy equality of rights and treatment. NATO is

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taking shape and Germany begins its long path back to strategic and political rehabilitation.10

The Rise and Fall of the European Defense Community On 9 January 1951, the Petersberg Conference convenes outside Bonn to discuss a West German contribution to the defense of Western Europe. However, on 12 February, under pressure from members of his own Labor Party, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee raises several conditions for West German rearmament. These include the rearmament of NATO to precede that of Germany and for the West German contribution to be wholly integrated into a European Army. The Paris Conference for the Creation of a European Army convenes on 15 February 1951 but it has only fve participants: France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium and Luxembourg. Britain is only an observer.11 Having called for a European Army Britain steps aside. It is to prove a watershed moment in the story of NATO, European integration and Britain’s place in Europe. The frst formal step is also taken on the road to European political integration. On 18 April 1952, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands sign the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, the forebear of what one will day become the European Union. It is not all plain sailing. On 4 June, the Petersberg Conference collapses due to West German insistence on equality of treatment and France’s determination to prevent it. On 3 July 1951, in what becomes known as the “U.S. change of heart,” Eisenhower suddenly calls for a European Federation and lends his support to proposals for a European Army. On 30 July, Eisenhower formally authorizes United States backing for the new European Defense Community and so begins America’s positive but often confused support for European integration and Washington’s a close but complicated strategic relationship with post-war Germany. Adenauer skillfully manipulates shifting Alliance politics as discussions then center on transforming West Germany’s status from that of an occupied power to that of an ally. France also shifts its position. Paris continues to veto equality of treatment for the Germans within the Alliance until Bonn accepts the subordination of West Germany within French-led European defense integration. NATO also embarks on the long road of enlargement. On 9 October 1951, a protocol is concluded inviting Greece and Turkey to become NATO members, marking the start of NATO’s role as a container of confict between members, as well as a defender of allies from confict. Athens and Ankara are in an almost perpetual state of confict, but Washington is profoundly concerned that both states are vulnerable to Communist agitation. The Mackinderesque

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twin strategies of engagement and enlargement are thus born as the Alliance’s security footprint extends across Europe.12 By the end of the year, the EDC is already in deep trouble due mainly to the ever-complex relationship between London and Paris. France says the EDC will fail unless the British join because Paris alone will be unable to counter-balance West German military power. Britain disagrees. Seizing the opportunity aforded him by Anglo-French discord on 3 February Adenauer suggests that West Germany might only join the EDC if NATO membership is also ofered. Under pressure from Washington, the United Kingdom eventually ofers its “support” for the EDC, although London continues to refuse to join and suggests instead a frm relationship should be established between the EDC and the Alliance. On 14 March, the Paris Conference asks the United Kingdom to enter into a formal treaty relationship with the EDC. In response, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden proposes the Eden Plan whereby the Council of Europe would exercise political control over the EDC. This would ensure the EDC remains an inter-governmental political body, rather than a supranational body to which Britain objects on the grounds that it threatens national sovereignty. However, on 9 May 1952, the “Traité Instituant la Communauté Européenne de Défense” is initialed in Paris, even though France remains uncertain as to the strength of its commitment in the absence of unequivocal British support and in spite of the 12 May visit to Paris by renowned British Field Marshal Harold Alexander to reassure the French of a close British military association with the EDC. On 15 December 1952, Adenauer further stirs the European political pot by suggesting a common foreign policy, saying that it is not possible to have a common defense policy without one. The seeds of another European power struggle are sewn. The EDC end-game is now in play. On 4 November 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower is elected president of the United States, while on 8 January 1953, René Mayer becomes French prime minister. In a shift in French policy Mayer immediately demands more “guarantees” from the United States and United Kingdom before France will ratify the EDC Treaty, implying no EDC without British membership. On 31 January, the new U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles embarks on a tour of Western European capitals to push for the EDC saying that NATO sufers from a “fatal weakness” without West Germany and the EDC.13 Critically, General Charles de Gaulle, French hero of World War II, bitterly attacks the EDC and fatally weakens it. Dulles responds by threatening to cut aid to France if the treaty is not ratifed by 1 April. It is not. French Gaullism and American Exceptionalism are set on a collision course within the Alliance that will endure. Churchill also attacks France for its “anti-British” position and makes it clear the United Kingdom will not join the EDC. “We are with them,” he states, “but not of them.”14 The EDC is

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fnished and European defense integration put on hold for at least another 70 years . . . it still is. All that is left is how to bury the EDC. On 29 October, the French Parliament formally calls on the United Kingdom to balance German power within the EDC. The British refuse. Instead, at the Bermuda Conference the British warn that if the EDC fails, then preparations must be made for West Germany to join NATO. On 14 December, Dulles further warns of an “agonizing reappraisal” of U.S. policy toward Western Europe if the EDC treaty is not ratifed.15 It is too late. Even though on 13 April the United Kingdom had signed an “Agreement Regarding Co-operation between the United Kingdom and EDC,” the 18 June appointment of long-time EDC opponent Pierre MendésFrance as French prime minister efectively ends any hope that France will ratify the EDC. On 30 August, the French Parliament adjourns discussion of the EDC Treaty sine die. The European Defense Community is dead and buried with it Europe’s frst great experiment in European Security and Defense Union. It would be another 30 years before the prospect of a truly autonomous European defense is again re-addressed and that too would fail. The primacy of the Alliance is established, and the way opened for German rearmament and West German membership of the alliance. The British move quickly to resolve the impasse and end any implicit suggestion that NATO remains an anti-German alliance. At the London Conference, between 28 September and 2 October 1954, it is agreed to terminate the occupation regime in West Germany, to invite Bonn and Rome to accede to the Brussels Treaty, to allow limited West German rearmament, and to invite West Germany to join NATO. In return, the United Kingdom commits itself to a permanent military presence on the continent for the frst time since the sixteenth century. On 23 October 1954, the four treaties implementing the so-called “EDC alternative” are signed in Paris. The Western Union becomes the Western European Union (WEU) and is expanded as part of an amended Brussels Treaty. In parallel, a Franco-German treaty foresees a “European status” for the disputed Saar/Sarre region, subject to a plebiscite (which subsequently votes for re-integration into West Germany). West Germany is invited to join NATO, and on 24 October 1954, less than a decade after the end of World War II, West Germany is formally invited to join the Alliance. The accession process is completed in May 1955. On 5 May 1955, by way of response, the Soviet Union creates the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO) as a counter-balance to the enlarged NATO. Moscow had been implacably opposed to West German rearmament and attempts to use Bonn’s accession to NATO to reinforce an impression of political legitimacy over the large swathe of Europe it occupies and which had already sufered from the brutal Nazi occupation during the war years. Lord

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Bruce Ismay, the frst NATO Secretary-General, is reported to have said that the purpose of NATO is “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down.”16 The Germans are no longer to be kept down but in check and the shape of Europe is set for the next 35 years.

The Changing Nature of Nuclear Deterrence By the early 1950s there are three atomic powers: the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom. On 12 August 1953, the nuclear stakes are raised when the Soviet Union explodes its frst hydrogen bomb, a device many times more powerful than the “smaller” atomic bombs that have existed since the August 1945 U.S. attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nuclear arms race is well and truly under way and triggers a debate about the balance to strike between nuclear and conventional forces in Alliance deterrence. As the Soviet nuclear capability grows, so do U.S. concerns about American vulnerability to a Soviet nuclear strike and with it European fears that Soviet nuclear capability could “de-couple” American military power from the conventional defense of Europe. For all their concerns the European allies are still unable to meet American demands for more forces. On 25 February 1952, the North Atlantic Council agrees the Lisbon Force Goals. The Alliance establishes a force target of 96 military divisions by 1958. The subsequent failure of Europeans to meet the Force Goals generates signifcant tension between the United States and the Allies as burden-sharing comes to dominate much of Alliance politics, and still does. As early as the North Atlantic Council meeting of 14–16 December 1954, and in spite of the Allies spending three and a half times more per year on defense in real terms than in 1949, it is evident that the Lisbon Force Goals are unattainable. European uncertainty over conventional capabilities is not simply a question of money. Many of them want the U.S. nuclear umbrella to be the core of Alliance deterrence and defense. Paradoxically, the inability of the European allies to close the conventional gap with the Soviet Union reinforces NATO as an essentially nuclear alliance, even as the frst cracks in Alliance nuclear solidarity also appear. The Americans develop tactical nuclear weapons to ofset perceived conventional weaknesses, thus shifting U.S. nuclear strategy toward a possible warfghting role for nuclear weapons on European soil. As early as October 1951, the United States carries out its frst test of so-called “baby bombs,” and on 15 September 1953, the U.S. reveals that it is deploying nuclear-capable 280 mm cannon shells to Europe. American nuclear policy is becoming multi-layered, driven by strategy, technology, and politics over which the European Allies have little control or say and yet to which they and their peoples are subject. Beware what one wishes for? NATO’s defensive posture soon becomes a metaphor for the

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nuclear sacrifce of West Germany in the event of a Soviet conventional attack across the inner-German border between the Federal Republic and Moscow’s satellite the German Democratic Republic (GDR). On 30 October 1953, President Eisenhower also approves a new national security doctrine, NSC-162/2, which is entitled “The New Look,” and advocates extensive reliance on nuclear weapons and strategic air power to deter Soviet expansion and aggression. Eisenhower also authorizes the expansion of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and lays the foundations for what will become known as NATO’s doctrine of Massive Retaliation. That same month NATO formally adopts NSC-162/2 and enshrines nuclear forces at the core of its defense strategy, with “frst use” of nuclear weapons a central pillar of Alliance defense. By the end of 1953, Allied defense spending is some 13 percent higher per year than in 1952 but it is seemingly still not enough. At the North Atlantic Council of 14–16 December 1953, the Alliance fnally gives up on achieving the Lisbon Force Goals and instead embraces nuclear deterrence. There are limits. The Europeans react skeptically when Eisenhower suggests that nuclear weapons have achieved “conventional status.” While the Europeans need the U.S. strategic deterrent (as American nuclear forces are dubbed) to deter the Soviet Union, they are also concerned that a so-called sub-strategic deterrent could lead to the de-coupling of America’s nuclear arsenal from European defense in the event that deterrence fails. A concern further strengthened some two years later when in July 1956 news leaks that the United States is planning to cut 800,000 personnel from the U.S. Army, which causes particular concern in Bonn which has only recently agreed to raise an army of 500,000. However, Europe is but one theater in the now global Cold War. On 13 March 1954, the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu in French Indo-China is attacked by Communist insurgents and falls two months later. At the subsequent Geneva Conference on Indo-China and Korea, France agrees to withdraw and the United States ofers to guarantee security in the region through a new regional security organization, the South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). The Cold War is marching beyond Europe as the two superpowers seek to outfank each other and a new word enters the Alliance’s lexicon: “Vietnam.”

Idealism, Nationalism, Imperialism, and Cynicism Dien Bien Phu also marks another division within the Alliance: American idealism versus European imperialism. Indeed, American pressure to decolonize fuels the Cold War as Soviet “idealism” seeking to replace imperialism in many of the former European colonies. Two conficts prove to be pivotal in this process: Algeria and Suez. Since November 1954, France has been embroiled in a struggle in Algeria, as separatists seek independence and

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by late 1955 some 517,000 French troops have been removed from NATO command to fght the insurgency. Such demands on French forces increase the strain on the Alliance as relations between East and West deteriorate. On 28–29 June 1956, a revolt by Polish workers is ruthlessly crushed by Soviet troops. And, on 23 October 1956, Hungary revolts but Moscow moves rapidly to crush the rebellion. Despite calls for Western help, there is little the Alliance can do, embroiled as it is in its own crisis: Suez. On 26 July 1956, President Nasser of Egypt “renationalizes” the Suez Canal depriving the British and French of a vital strategic artery to what remains of their respective eastern empires. On 31 October 1956, with British and French collusion, Israel attacks Egypt and under the pretext of separating Israeli and Egyptian forces, Britain and France invade. The United States, in the throes of a presidential election, is appalled by what Washington sees as blatant imperialism.17 The North Atlantic Council meeting of 13–14 December takes place in the midst of the Suez Crisis as the European allies faced by public unease demand some level of control over U.S. nuclear weapons stationed on their territory. The Alliance is again in crisis. In December, France and the United Kingdom are forced by Washington to withdraw from Suez, but the crisis has three rapid and profound consequences for NATO. The British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigns, the end of the Europe’s Imperial Age is accelerated, and France becomes more determined than ever to end any dependence on the United States and on 19 December 1956, France makes public it is developing an independent nuclear capability. However, while France vows never again to be humiliated by the United States, London takes the opposite view and efectively hands over British grand strategy to the Americans. Suez thus marks not just the end of the British Empire, but in efect the end of a once Great Power. Britain has been declining ever since. There is a depressing logic to British declinism. Security sovereignty is expensive for weak post-colonial European powers struggling to overcome the economic dislocation of World War II, and if they are to be “independent,” they must leverage power. France opts for European integration molded and modeled as an extension of French power, Britain chooses submission. On 25 March 1957, the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) is signed in Rome, by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands. The Treaty declares that its aim is to “lay the foundations for an ever closer union among the people of Europe.”18 Suez is a tipping point, both for the Alliance and Europe. German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer happens to be sitting in the ofce of French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau when Eden calls telling him that Britain is to withdraw from Suez. Adenauer’s response is clear and compelling: “Europe will be your revenge.”

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The Missile Gap On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union successfully launches a satellite into space. It is a seminal moment. Sputnik not only marks the beginning of the space race it also appears to demonstrate that Moscow is developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) technology that would end the invulnerability of the United States. If the Cold War thus far had been Euro-centric with that one act the struggle becomes intercontinental. The Cold War shifts up a gear. Not surprisingly the reaction in the West is swift. President Eisenhower meets with British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. On the agenda is a U.S. plan to provide the British with an “independent” nuclear deterrent and end the de-coupling debate by expanding the number of nuclear decision-centers with which Moscow must contend.19 London is concerned that nuclear parity between the superpowers could undermine America’s nuclear guarantee to NATO. Eisenhower is also keen to mend the rift with Britain over Suez. The British are also facing severe fnancial challenges and Washington fears that a humiliated Britain would simply turn in on itself. In May 1957, the United Kingdom announces the end of conscription and informs NATO that the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) will be reduced from 77,000 to 55,000. The announcement takes place just prior to the stationing of 60 U.S. Thor intermediate-range nuclear-capable ballistic missiles (IRBM) on British territory.20 Personalities shape history, and two other very diferent and complicated men in two very complicated countries assume power who will have a profound impact on the Alliance and the Cold War. On 27 March 1958, Nikita Khrushchev becomes First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and leader of the USSR. In time, Khrushchev will pioneer the doctrine of peaceful co-existence with the West, but he also emphasizes nuclear coercion and confrontation by the Soviet Union. On 1 June 1958, Charles de Gaulle becomes president of France and a new era of confrontation begins within the West. De Gaulle wastes no time. On 17 September, in a bid to break what he sees as domination of the Alliance by “les anglosaxons,” de Gaulle proposes a Triple Entente between Britain, France, and the United States. The ofer is rejected out of hand because it is seen as a French attempt to gain control over Alliance policy. In the American strategic mind, such “ententes” also hark back to the dark days of Great Power blocs before World War I and are thus fundamentally inimical to the U.S. idea of NATO. This rebuttal simply consolidates de Gaulle’s anti-British and anti-U.S. position and was probably designed as such by Paris, even if to some extent, de Gaulle was simply trying to formalize the political reality of the Alliance. The so-called Quad or Quint have always been the primary driver of change within NATO and continue to this day.

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Depending on the topic du jour, it is either a quad of the U.S., UK, France and Germany that drives discussions within the NAC, with Italy occasionally making the Quad a Quint. De Gaulle’s demarche is soon eclipsed by a much more pressing issue: the status of Berlin. The city has long been a source of tension between the Soviet Union and the West sitting as it does deep within the German Democratic Republic. On 10 November 1958, in a speech in Moscow, Khrushchev asserts that the Western powers have long since lost all legal rights to remain in Berlin and broken all agreements over a demilitarized Germany and declares that the Berlin situation must be “normalized” by Western powers quitting Berlin.21 The Second Berlin Crisis begins. In response, U.S. Secretary of State Dulles declares that Berlin will be held, and by military force if necessary. Moscow issues a double ultimatum: if Western Allied troops do not withdraw from Berlin, the USSR will sign a separate peace treaty with East Germany and transfer control of access routes between West Germany and West Berlin to the German Democratic Republic. The NATO Allies react swiftly. On 16–18 December 1958, the North Atlantic Council issues the Berlin Declaration which states, “The Berlin question can only be settled in the framework of an agreement with the USSR on Germany as a whole.”22 The West is determined to stay put and once again the Cold War hinges on the fate of Berlin. Unfortunately, 1959 does not start well for Alliance cohesion. In March 1959, as the situation in Algeria worsens, de Gaulle withdraws the French Mediterranean Fleet from NATO command. In June, de Gaulle attacks Alliance nuclear policy by stating that there can be no nuclear weapons on French soil that are not French. In November, de Gaulle also states that the defense of France must be French and presents a plan to develop a French nuclear force: le force de frappe. The strategic context is also changing. In December 1959, the USSR creates a Strategic Rocket Force (SRF) confrming, or at least appearing to confrm, that the United States is now vulnerable to a Soviet nuclear strike. Then, on 1 May 1960, U.S. pilot Colonel Gary Powers is shot down by a Soviet ground-to-air missile in his U2 spy plane on a reconnaissance mission high over Russia. Shortly thereafter Khrushchev walks out of Four Power Talks in Geneva over the future of Berlin and the crisis deepens. On 8 November 1960, John F. Kennedy is elected president of the United States, promising to close the so-called “missile gap” with the Soviet Union. As tensions develop American nuclear strategy begins to shift. NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) General Lauris Norstad tells the NATO Parliament that the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons must be necessarily high, a clear move away from Massive Retaliation. The shift is due partly to U.S. concerns for its own security, but also refects Western European fears about the use of

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tactical nuclear weapons on their soil and the growing presence of anti-nuclear campaigns, typifed by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the United Kingdom. NATO faces another nuclear dilemma: how to balance American control of nuclear weapons with the emergence of British and French systems (the French test their frst atomic device in February 1960) with the desire of non-nuclear Europeans for some control over the nuclear weapons stationed on their soil? In August 1960, U.S. State Department ofcial Robert Bowie suggests that a multinational submarine missile force could be established under joint command with common funding and joint crews to strengthen Alliance nuclear cohesion and confdence. In December 1960, the Multilateral Force, or MLF, is formally proposed by the United States to the North Atlantic Council. In a report titled “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future” the new Secretary of State Dean Rusk also suggests that the United States and NATO should move toward a much more fexible, graduated response to any Soviet conventional invasion of Western Europe. However, President Kennedy wants something from the Europeans in return, and in April 1961, in a speech to the NATO Military Committee, he calls on the Europeans to make signifcant improvements to Alliance conventional capabilities. Unfortunately, the Allies see the speech as little more than a thinly-disguised U.S. attempt to de-couple the U.S. strategic nuclear arsenal from the defense of Europe.23 Kennedy responds with the so-called Polaris Ofer, by which fve ballistic missile submarines would be placed under NATO command as part of a NATO Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF) and within the framework of the Multilateral Force initiative. The Europeans are once again divided. On 6 February 1962, Chancellor Adenauer announces that West Germany is prepared to participate in the MLF but President de Gaulle simply confrms that France will proceed with the construction of independent land, sea, and air-based nuclear weapons, most of which will be aimed at German soil. The crisis comes to a head in May when U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara bluntly tells a meeting of NATO foreign and defense ministers that the United States will no longer automatically respond with nuclear weapons in the event of a Soviet invasion. He also demands that U.S. control over all NATO planning as well as European conventional forces must be strengthened. It is not what the Europeans want to hear.24 Khrushchev and Kennedy also meet in Vienna to discuss the Berlin Crisis but reach no solution, as the Soviet leader again threatens a separate accommodation with East Germany if Soviet demands are not met. As the crisis deepens, 33,000 people fee from East to West Berlin and in July, Kennedy warns that any attempt to block Western access to Berlin will mean war. The Soviets call his bluf. Between 13 and 16 August 1961 the Berlin Wall is constructed and Churchill’s stark vision of an “iron curtain” descending across Europe becomes a

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long-gray concrete reality that will only be toppled in November 1989. Khrushchev’s “success” convinces him he can bluf the West into submission. The Cold War has arrived at its most dangerous moment – the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis is the frst direct U.S.-Soviet confrontation outside Europe and brings the world to the very brink of nuclear Armageddon. It will also eventually lead to a new chapter in Moscow-Washington relations. On 14 October 1962, the United States discovers extensive preparations under way in Fidel Castro’s Communist Cuba for the stationing of SS-3 and SS-4 intermediate-range ballistic missiles some 1500 miles/2500 kilometers from the United States. A surprise Soviet nuclear attack on the United States can no longer be ruled out. America must act. On 27 October, a U.S. U2 spy plane is shot down by a Soviet S-75 surface-to-air missile and its pilot, Major Rudolf Anderson, is killed. For 13 days the world teeters on the brink of nuclear holocaust as Soviet merchant ships loaded with missiles approach Cuba and the United States Navy prepares to stop them. After days of tense move and counter-move complicated by power struggles within both Moscow and Washington, Khrushchev fnally blinks and recalls the ships on 28 October. Quietly, and secretly, the United States signals to the Russians that it will remove Thor and Jupiter missile sites in Turkey and Italy which Moscow implies had triggered the crisis. Armageddon is avoided . . . just. The implications of the crisis for inner-Alliance strategy are profound. Kennedy quickly moves to confrm the ofer of Polaris submarines to the British and French as part of an “independent” nuclear deterrent. Washington believes it is the price the United States must pay for continued Alliance cohesion given Soviet nuclear parity. By giving the British and French nuclear systems, Moscow is forced to confront multiple nuclear decision-making centers. However, on 14 January 1963, de Gaulle rejects the Polaris Ofer and at the same press conference also rejects British membership of the European Economic Community.25 Alliance politics it seems are merging with the politics of European integration. That very same day, France and Germany sign the Elysée Treaty of Friendship, which not only reconciles the two countries, but establishes an essentially anti-British relationship that remains central to European integration to this day. If Britain is ever to join the EEC, it will be on French and German terms. The Elysée Treaty also provides for regular meetings between French and German ministers of defense, chiefs of staf, and other relevant military authorities. The balance of politics within the West is beginning to shift even if the balance of power remains much the same. Kennedy tries to repair the political damage to the Alliance. In his State of the Union Address on 15 January 1963, the President reiterates his vision for

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the Multilateral Force, claiming that such a force would be a source of confdence rather than contention. In the months that follow the MLF proposal receives at best lukewarm support from the European Allies, demonstrating the almost schizophrenic nature of Alliance politics in the early 1960s. The Allies want American nuclear protection but on their terms, while Americans want complete control and for Europeans to pay far more. In June 1963, on a visit to Germany, Kennedy famously tells Berliners, “Ich bin ein Berliner,” but even as he is preparing to speak, France withdraws the French Atlantic Fleet from NATO.26 On 22 November, President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president. The Alliance endures but the politics of Alliance are to get no easier.

France Walks Out Throughout 1964 the controversy over the Multilateral Force resonates within the Alliance. The British try, as they so often do, to fnd middle ground between France and the United States and, as they so often do, fail. London proposes “mixed manning,” whereby some nuclear weapons systems would be crewed by personnel from across NATO. The real problem is not technical, nor even strategic, but political. On 9 September, President de Gaulle drops a bombshell: France is to withdraw from military NATO, citing the need for French strategic independence and concerns over the faltering U.S. commitment to the nuclear defense of Europe. De Gaulle orders all NATO forces and ofcials to leave France by 1 April 1966. On 1 July 1966, French representatives step down from their positions in the integrated military structure of the Alliance, although cleverly, de Gaulle does not withdraw France from the political structures of NATO. France’s departure triggers a much-needed re-organization of the Alliance. On 26 October 1966, NATO establishes Brussels as its new headquarters, and on 10 November the Defense Planning Committee also requests that the Military Committee move from Washington to Brussels. A month later, on 14 December, a high-level Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) is created to give NATO members infuence over Alliance nuclear policy. Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel also seizes the moment to call for a fundamental reappraisal of the political, military, and economic aims of the Alliance and is charged by Alliance Heads of State and Government with preparing a report to that end.

Alliance Angst 1960s NATO is a strange combination of strength and weakness. On the one hand, the strengthening of the Alliance is apparent in the opening of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) at Mons, Belgium, on 31 March 1967. The frst meeting of the Nuclear Planning Group also takes

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place in Washington. On the other hand, all NATO forces leave France, and at the U.S.-USSR Glassboro Summit between 23 and 25 June 1967 President Johnson tells Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko that the United States is willing to enter talks on strategic arms control without even consulting the allies. Johnson also efectively cedes nuclear parity to Moscow. Given America’s deepening entanglement in Vietnam, the nuclear stalemate with the USSR is of particular concern to Europeans as many fear that Alliance deterrence may be failing. Signifcantly, on 29 March 1967, the frst French nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) Le Redoutable is launched, while on 2 October the frst British nuclear ballistic missile submarine HMS Resolution joins the British feet. It is no coincidence. A period of strategic adjustment then ensues. On 13–14 December 1967, the North Atlantic Council formally adopts Flexible Response as NATO strategy. Flexible Response is the antithesis of Massive Retaliation and proposes a graduated conventional and military response to any Soviet attack even if the new doctrine still enshrines nuclear weapons at the heart of NATO. It also precludes the United States from making any “no-frst-strike” agreement with the Soviet Union, implicit or otherwise. Consequently, U.S. strategy becomes progressively double-edged as Washington seeks to balance European concerns while developing a putative strategic relationship with Moscow, particularly as the situation in Vietnam deteriorates. American strategic over-stretch is something the Brezhnev regime in Moscow is only too happy to encourage and exploit by promoting proxy wars beyond Europe, while at the same time trying to split the Alliance by developing relationships with particular Western European states. Moscow also faces challenges. An uprising by the Czechs, the so-called Prague Spring, breaks out under the charismatic Czech Communist Party leader Alexander Dubcek, only to be brutally crushed in August 1968 when the Soviets and their proxies invade Czechoslovakia. The brutality and illegitimacy of Soviet rule in Central and Eastern Europe are again demonstrated as Moscow enunciates the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine: any move toward capitalism by one socialist country is a threat to all of socialism. Some 20 years after the beginning of the Cold War both sides are sufering from the costs of extended confrontation and arms control begins to take a central place in the Alliance efort to balance strategy, stability, and afordability. On 24–25 June 1968, the North Atlantic Council publishes a declaration calling for Mutually Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks to reduce the size of conventional forces in Europe. The talks take place at the insistence of the European allies in parallel with strategic nuclear arms control talks between the superpowers with the unstated aim of preventing Moscow and Washington developing an exclusive strategic relationship over their respective heads. A frst down-payment on enhanced nuclear stability and confdence-building is paid with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which is signed

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on 1 July 1968 simultaneously in Washington, London, and Moscow. A month later Moscow surpasses the United States in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles deployed, although the news is somewhat semantic because both superpowers possess enough nuclear weapons to render life on the planet extinct several times over. On 5 November 1968, America takes a new direction. Richard Millhouse Nixon is elected the 37th president of the United States. Nixon has very diferent priorities to President Johnson, extricating the United States from Vietnam being the most important. Nixon, and his advisor Dr. Henry Kissinger, also seeks the abandonment of classical containment in favor of a new global balance of power which will balance dialog and confrontation with Moscow. It is the start of the new American realism and with it comes détente. Washington starts to act in a very European way, which really worries Europeans.27

Détente and De-coupling Partly as a reaction to Nixon’s new American realism, European integration also gathers pace. On 3 October 1968, Pierre Harmel reports that Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg are to submit a plan to the Western European Union for co-operation between the European Economic Community and the United Kingdom in the felds of foreign, defense, technological, and monetary policy. A so-called Harmel Plan also calls on the seven WEU members to establish a European pillar within NATO and for European foreign policy co-operation, hitherto occasional, to be compulsory. On 13–14 November, NATO also agrees to the establishment of Eurogroup to better co-ordinate the defense activities of the European members of the Alliance. On 2 December, the six EEC members also agree to construct a European Community built on political, economic and monetary union and to open membership negotiations with the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. On 27 October 1970, the foreign ministers of the “Six” also formally adopt the so-called Davignon Report, or “Report on the Problem of Political Unifcation,” and endorse what becomes known as European Political Cooperation (EPC). A Political Committee is established with a specifc mandate to co-ordinate European foreign policies in what will eventually lead to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), the Common Security and Defense Policy and eventually the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. However, even as Europeans attempt to organize a new Europe, they are also being marginalized in American grand strategy. On 11 February 1969, Washington gives the go-ahead for the development of a new theater nuclear missile, a decision that is detected early by Soviet intelligence and Moscow counters by beginning work on its own version, the SS-20. On 25 July, the Nixon Doctrine is enunciated. Henceforth, the United States will adopt a

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classical carrot and stick grand strategy to force the Soviet Union back onto the defensive. Central to the strategy is a radical departure in U.S. policy: closer ties with Communist China and strengthened U.S. military capabilities to better enable Washington to negotiate with Moscow from a position of strength. The architect of the strategy is Henry Kissinger: my enemy’s enemy is my friend.28 In December 1969, the United States and Soviet Union agree to begin Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT). The talks take place above the heads of increasingly fractious European Allies fearful that the U.S. strategy of détente and the Soviet strategy of de-coupling will merge. The Allies face a Hobson’s choice because they can either support U.S. policy or see the U.S. act unilaterally; either way the U.S. will act. To assuage European concerns, the frst nuclear-capable U.S. F-111 bombers arrive in the United Kingdom, although the rapidly move backfres because while the Americans see no distinction between tactical and theater nuclear weapons and their strategic nuclear arsenal, Europeans most certainly do. Sensing an opportunity to split the NATO Allies, Moscow accelerates its eforts to deploy the RSD-10 “Pioneer” or SS20 missile, a multi-headed weapon that can strike anywhere in Western Europe, but not continental North America. This begs a question that goes to the heart of Alliance deterrence: would the Americans really go to nuclear war over Europe? It still does. Just as the strategic nuclear arms race slows, a new nuclear arms race begins in Europe with the Alliance frmly at its center, and even as the warfghting utility of nuclear weapons decreases (if they ever had any), their political utility and importance increases, particularly for the Europeans and the Soviets. To many Europeans, U.S. grand strategy and European security seem at odds, most notably in Germany. The tensions reveal the double-edged nature of détente because while the rhetoric of Cold War might have been dampened, neither side is actually disarming. Frustrated by what they see as European ingratitude and free-riding and with American forces bogged down in Vietnam in the wake of the disastrous 1968 North Vietnamese Tet ofensive, some American politicians begin to again raise the need for more equitable burden-sharing within the Alliance.29 In December 1970, NATO says that intelligence suggests that Warsaw Pact forces have undergone signifcant modernization which forces Eurogroup to embark on force improvements in spite of the economic difculties most are facing. The move is timely. On 13 February 1971, U.S. senator Mike Mansfeld tables a motion calling upon the Nixon White House to withdraw 50 percent of U.S. forces from Western Europe if the NATO Allies do not do more for their own defense. On 22–30 May 1972, President Nixon visits Moscow to sign the SALT I and Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaties. SALT I fxes ofensive nuclear capability at parity, while the ABM Treaty drastically limits the deployment of anti-missile systems, in efect formalizing the mutual vulnerability of both the United States

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and the USSR that has been fact for a decade. On 29 May, Brezhnev and Nixon also agree Six Basic Principles for Détente. Europeans do not know whether to be relieved or appalled by the document which reinforces a belief in Washington that Europeans simply do not know what they want and that in such circumstances the United States had better forge policy unilaterally. Washington has a point. Critically, on 3 June 1972, a Four Power Agreement also (and fnally) regularizes the status of West Berlin and paves the way for the “normalization” of relations between West and East Germany. It is no coincidence that as SALT II talks begin in Geneva in November, Mutually Balanced Force Reduction talks also start in Vienna. MBFR is the frst real European-European talks over the balance of conventional forces in Europe. By implicitly linking strategic arms control to the balance of conventional arms in Europe, Washington hopes European fears over possible de-coupling will be eased. It also makes arms control very much more political, particularly in Europe. MBFR also convinces many Europeans of the need to seek a strategic relationship with Moscow that is distinct from their relationship with the United States. At the June 1973 Copenhagen Summit the now enlarged EEC (Britain, Denmark, and Ireland joined on 1 January 1973) states: “The member states of the Community, the driving wheels of European construction, declare their intention of converting their entire relationship into a European Union before the end of this decade.”30 It may not have seemed so at the time but the Declaration is a tipping point every bit as important as the 1956 Suez Crisis. The ambition of some Europeans, most notably the French, is for European institutions to in time balance American and Soviet power via a new three-way European set of strategic relationships. On 21 December 1972, East and West Germany fnally recognize each other’s sovereignty and the political space is created for an emerging relationship between the two Germanys driven by West German Chancellor Willy Brandt the architect of Ostpolitik. It is a relationship between Germans that will prove over time at least as important as the transatlantic relationship and help eventually bring the Cold War to an end. For a feeting moment, it will also ofer the prospect of a Europe whole and free. And yet, for all the political progress, the Alliance remains fractious with détente the catalyst for the three great Alliance controversies of the 1970s: de-coupling, burden-sharing, and Euromissiles. It is going to be a bumpy ride.

Notes 1 NATO Handbook (Brussels: NATO Ofce of Information and Press, 2001) p. 528. 2 George Washington had warned against such alliances when he said in his farewell address on 17 September 1796, “It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliance with any portion of the foreign world.” Cohen, M.J., eds., The Penguin Dictionary of Quotations (London: Godfrey Cave Associates Ltd, 1986) p. 410.

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3 Kennan wrote, “In this [Communist] dogma, with its basic altruism of purpose, they found justifcation for their instinctive fear of the outside world, for the dictatorship without which they did not know how to rule, for cruelties they did not dare to infict, for sacrifces they felt bound to demand. In the name of Marxism they sacrifced every single ethical value in their methods and tactics.” Kennan, George F., “Long Telegram,” 22 February 1946, reprinted in Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) p. 447. 4 It would be a mistake to believe that the Washington Treaty met with universal acclaim in the US. Lawrence S. Kaplan wrote that in the ratifcation process, “it was obvious that America’s history of non-entanglement was not forgotten. The Truman administration felt the need to qualify the promises in Article 5. Unlike the clear commitments of the Brussels Pact’s Article IV, the U.S. framers of the Atlantic Alliance had to display a deference to unilateralism, even if the deference was more apparent than real.” Kaplan, Lawrence S., NATO Before the Korean War (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2013) p. 31. 5 The fve signatories to the Treaty expressed their determination “to take any and all steps which might become necessary should there be a return to a German policy of aggression.” See Grosser, Alfred, ed., The Western Alliance: European–American Relations since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1980) p. 85. 6 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 16. 7 “The Declaration of 9 May 1950” (The Schuman Declaration), www.cvce.eu/ content/publication/1997/10/13/84eb5a1a-64d7-4b77-bf0b-23e8a41edb/ publishable_en.pdf 8 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 27. 9 Speech by Winston Churchill at the Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 11 August 1950, www.cvce.eu/en/obj/address_given_by_winston_churchill_to_the_council_of_ europe_strasbourg_11_august_1950-en-ed9e513b-af3b-47a0-b03c-8335a7aa237d. html 10 Lawrence S. Kaplan writes, “Trouble developed as it had since the end of World War II, over France’s overriding conviction that while Germany’s resources should be harnessed by the allies, it should not be in a position to develop a centralized nation-state with an economy and polity that could pose a potential threat to the security of Europe.” Kaplan, Lawrence S., NATO Before the Korean War (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2013) p. 132. 11 There are fve other observers: Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.S. 12 Sir Halford John Mackinder was in many ways the inventor of geopolitics and geostrategy. His Heartland theory infuenced U.S. policy-makers and strategists during the Cold War. Mackinder’s theory, frst espoused in 1904, suggested that whoever controlled Eastern Europe controlled the “world island” (Eurasia) and whoever controlled that ruled the world. 13 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 41. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid., p. 43. 16 There is no specifc evidence that Ismay actually said this, but this now over-used quote has been attributed to him and it has passed into NATO folklore. 17 Churchill was ambivalent about the Suez operation. He begins by suggesting that “our American friends will come to realize that, not for the frst time, we [Britain] have acted independently for the common good.” However, after the failure of the Suze operation he says, “I would never have dared; and if I had dared I would

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18 19

20 21 22 23

24

25

26 27

28 29

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certainly have never dared stop.” See Roy, Jenkins, Churchill (London: Pan Books, 2001) p. 901. See www.eurotreaties.com/eurotexts.html#rometreaty However, there were those around Kennedy, such as Albert Wohlstetter and the RAND think-tankers, who did not like the idea of independent deterrents, not just because of the loss of US control but because they diverted resources away from improving conventional NATO forces. See Freedman, Lawrence, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 1989). An IRBM is a missile with a range of less than 2175 miles/3500 km. Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 60. See “Declaration of the North Atlantic Council, December 16, 1958,” www.nato. int/cps/en/natolive/ofcial_texts_17647.htm Bruce Kuklick has written an interesting analysis of the so-called “brains trust.” He points out the split between the realist/historicists of the Morgenthau and Kennan schools with the hard theorists, such as Albert Wohlstetter, Thomas Schelling and Herman Kahn that came out of RAND in the early 1960s to advise the Kennedy administration, and not always very well, seduced by the needs of their political masters. Hedley Bull famously contrasted the “classical” and “scientifc” approaches to international relations. See Kuklick, Bruce, Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). MacNamara in his 1989 book Out of the Cold suggests that the situation in the 1961– 1962 period was so dangerous that the Americans had no choice but to enforce discipline over the European allies. See McNamara, Robert S., Out of the Cold (London: Bloomsbury, 1990). von Merkatz, M. (rapporteur), “Press Conference by President de Gaulle (Extracts),” 14 January 1963, Western European Union Assembly, General Afairs Committee, Tenth Ordinary Session (Paris: Political Union of Europe, 1964), www.academia. edu/2830026/Charles_de_Gaulle_and_Europe_The_New_Revisionism Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 80. Kissinger himself wrote of the shift in U.S. policy that he helped to engineer “[t]he survival of mankind ultimately depended on the relationship of the two superpowers, but the peace of the world depended on whether America could distinguish between those responsibilities in which its role was merely helpful and those to which it was indispensable.” From Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) p. 707. This assertion is often attributed to Nicolo Machiavelli in Il Principe, but it was frst cited by Gabriel Manigault in his 1884 Political Creed. The Tet ofensive was a hybrid ofensive launched by regular North Vietnamese forces and the irregular Vietcong on 31 January 1968. The ofensive almost brought about the collapse of South Vietnam and the defeat of US forces. By the time it was eventually defeated, U.S. commander general Westmoreland suggested he would need an additional 200,000 troops to defeat the North. This would have required the mobilization of reserves and ended once and for all optimistic U.S. pronouncements about the war. “Declaration,” Meeting of the Heads of State or Government, Paris, 19–21 October 1972, First Summit Conference of the Enlarged Community (Paragraph 7). Reproduced from the Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 10, 1972, www.cvce. eu/en/obj/the_paris_summit_19_21_october_1972-en-24777afb-770d-4278b37f-18cac783a4ba.html

3 THE SECOND COLD WAR

Once the USSR was able to feld a serious second strike capability, presidents and their advisors – and their European NATO counterparts – clearly felt the need to develop options for responses to possible Soviet aggression, adventurism, or coercion that would draw strength from the U.S. nuclear capability without having to resort to the incredible threat to launch a massive nuclear strike that would invite the annihilation of the United States.1

As the United States embarks on a new geopolitical strategy European leaders oscillate between demanding more American missiles in Europe for their protection, or less as Western European public opinion becomes increasingly nervous. As Warsaw Pact forces modernize the NATO, Allies struggle to match them, crippled by the oil embargo imposed by Arab states in the wake of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War. However, the Soviet Union faces its own economic problems as the burden of confronting the United States and its Allies, allied to the cost of suppressing of its satellites in Central and Eastern Europe, begins to tell on Moscow. With the frst stirrings of Islamic Fundamentalism beginning to challenge Moscow’s authority in the south, and democratic aspirations destabilize its West, the Soviet Union is forced on the defensive along many of its borders. During a time of profound fracture and uncertainty, the Cold War moves toward a climactic conclusion.

The Forces of Divergence On 6 October 1973, Egyptian forces launch Operation Badr, cross the Suez Canal and attack Israeli forces, pitting U.S. client-state Israel against a raft of Soviet Arab client-states.2 So named after a Jewish religious festival, the Yom Kippur War sees rapid Arab gains in the early stages, but as the attack falters, the Arab coalition appeals to Moscow for help. For a brief moment it appears that the war could draw both superpowers into direct confrontation. On 25

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-4

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October, President Nixon orders U.S. forces onto a worldwide alert, but omits to inform the NATO Allies. Yom Kippur triggers more than Alliance gripes over U.S. crisis management. On 5 November, in an attempt to force the West to withdraw support for Israel, the mainly pan-Arab Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) announces a 25 percent cut in oil production levels. This decision leads to a doubling of the price of crude oil tipping European economies over into recession as the Americans and the Europeans split over what to do in the Middle East, a split that by and large continues to this day. On 6 November, EEC foreign ministers “strongly urge” both parties to the confict to return to the position they occupied on 22 October. They also call on Israel to end the occupation of territory it seized in the 1967 Six Day War. The European demarche runs directly counter to Washington’s position on the war and its unequivocal support for Israel and the United States reacts by issuing a veiled threat to withdraw forces from Europe. Intra-Alliance relations were already tense prior to the war. On 22 June 1973, the United States and USSR concluded an “Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War,” which caused deep consternation among the European Allies because the agreement precluded the use of nuclear weapons, a central feature of Alliance strategy. A group of visiting U.S. senators are shocked by the level of European anger and warn Washington of the dangers to NATO if the United States continues to bargain with the Soviets without consulting the Allies.3 To assuage European concerns at a meeting on 6–7 November of NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, the U.S. proposes establishing two committees, a Military Implications Team (MIT) and a Political Implications Team (PIT), charged with examining the likely impact of new U.S. intermediaterange nuclear systems on NATO strategy. Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles are introduced into the NATO Lexicon one part of an array of eforts by Washington to ease European fears about nuclear de-coupling, ease the costs to the American taxpayer for the defense of Europe at a time of economic duress, and address growing U.S. domestic complaints about a lack of equitable burdensharing. NATO’s Defense Planning Committee also begins to consider ways to reduce the burden of the Alliance on the United States. The two initiatives could not have come at a more testing moment for the Alliance. On cue nine EEC leaders agree “to speak with one voice in important world afairs.” Their aim is to both increase European infuence over the United States and further European political integration.4 Such demarches have always been two sides of the same Euro-coin. The question of nuclear weapons based in Europe on European soil in the defense of Europe now becomes front and center in the transatlantic relationship. Not surprisingly, Europeans (most notably Germans) are sensitive about the prospect of nuclear war on

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their territory, particularly when the United States again implies that nuclear weapons might have a warfghting role. On 10 January 1974, the so-called Schlesinger Doctrine (NSDM 242) stirs the European pot by stressing the possible use of low-yield nuclear warheads to strike Soviet military targets of opportunity to avoid what becomes euphemistically known as “collateral damage.”

The Eurostrategic Balance Against this tense political background NATO Heads of State and Government meet on 26 June 1974 to sign a Declaration on the Future of Transatlantic Relations, marking the 25th anniversary of the Alliance. Less than a month later, one NATO member, Turkey, invades Cyprus and comes close to war with another NATO member, Greece. And then, on 8 August 1974, President Nixon resigns rather than face impeachment for his role in the Watergate afair and the bugging of the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters in Washington. Although Vice-President Gerald R. Ford takes up the reins of power, U.S. leadership is badly weakened. On 14 August, Greece withdraws from NATO’s integrated command structure in protest at what it regards as the insufcient response of the Allies to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Shorn of a purposeful superpower, with two members on the brink of war, and a destabilizing debate about nuclear weapons in Europe, NATO is again in crisis. In November 1974, Moscow proceeds with the deployment of SS-20 missiles to Eastern Europe. The aim is to force the Europeans to treat separately with Moscow and progressively de-couple the defense of Europe from the United States. However, the deployment simply further destabilizes the European nuclear balance, not least because SS20s can strike forward American air bases and European cities almost without warning.5 Paradoxically, at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council on 12–13 December, the increased capacity of Warsaw Pact forces is noted just as the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark announce unilateral defense cuts, highlighting NATO’s enduring search for credible deterrence and defense that is both afordable and capable. To make matters worse, on 29 April 1975, Saigon falls to advancing North Vietnamese and Vietcong forces and a humiliated United States is forced to quit Vietnam. It is the nadir of the West. On 23 May 1975, with NATO now in deep crisis, Eurogroup agrees that the efectiveness of the European pillar must be improved and a year later, the European Allies, albeit under American pressure, reverse their decision to cut budgets and agree to a year-on-year 3 percent increase in defense expenditure. Not for the last time, few will honor this commitment as the gap between what Europeans need to spend for their own defense and what they are prepared to aford begins to grow ever wider.

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Unsure of American leadership, wary of Moscow’s overtures, economically weak, militarily challenged, and faced with the emergence of Moscowmanipulated Eurocommunism in Western Europe, as well as a modernizing Warsaw Pact, Europe’s leaders face an acute dilemma.6 Their frst instinct is to push for closer institutional ties believing political and economic integration will reduce costs through economies of scale. It is the start of a trend that will see Europeans repeatedly re-organize institutions during times of crisis without ever really addressing the underlying absence of capabilities and resources. At a Paris meeting of EEC Heads of State and Government further impetus is given to European integration as the nine member-states agree to co-ordinate their diplomatic action in all areas of international afairs which afect the interests of the European Community. For all the rhetoric, it is also self-evident that Europeans still need the Americans and NATO albeit a chastened, post-Vietnam America which not unreasonably demands Europeans better share the burden of defending Europe. Recognizing the danger to the Alliance even France begins to seek ways to co-operate again with military NATO, while European Allies begin another efort to improve their military capabilities through closer harmonization of their defense efort. If they cannot spend more, they will at least try to spend better, particularly in the area of arms procurement. On 2 February 1976, Eurogroup agrees to create an Independent European Program Group (IEPG) to better co-ordinate arms procurement, and for the frst time since 1966 France participates in such a meeting. Moreover, at a ministerial meeting of the Defense Planning Committee, amid concerns over Warsaw Pact modernization, the 1977–1982 NATO Force Goals are endorsed. Three days later, the European Allies together demand the United States replace the aging Honest John and Jupiter systems with new Cruise and Pershing 2 intermediate-range theater nuclear missiles (INF) to restore what is fast becoming known as the Eurostrategic balance. The United States is not deaf to European concerns, and on 3 October deploys a further 84 nuclear-capable F-111 bombers to Western Europe and initiates a study that will lead to the eventual replacement of the F-111s with Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM). At a North Atlantic Council meeting in Brussels on 9–10 December, the Alliance also unequivocally rejects Moscow’s demand that NATO renounce the frst use of nuclear weapons and limit the involvement of European states in alliances, which would simply have confrmed both Soviet conventional and nuclear superiority in Europe. In the fall of 1976 Jimmy Carter becomes the 39th president of the United States and immediately orders Presidential Memorandum 10, a full review of the U.S. force posture and structure in Western Europe. The Germans learn that as part of that review, U.S. forces would withdraw “temporarily” from the defense of German territory in the event of a Soviet invasion. Bonn is not happy. On 21 March 1977, the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” publishes an article that

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has the alleged backing of the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. It states that “Bonn is concerned that Jimmy Carter is a man ruling the White House whose moral and religious convictions are incompatible with the demands of world politics.”7 Not surprisingly, the relationship between Carter and Schmidt is soured, and the relationship deteriorates further as Carter and Schmidt confront each other over NATO’s Long-Term Defense Program (LTDP). To assuage European anger Carter orders Leslie Gelb, Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Afairs, to prepare a report explaining to the Europeans the detailed American technical and operational assumptions and analysis of the Eurostrategic nuclear balance. Unfortunately, the Gelb Paper simply reveals the extent of the gulf in understanding between the Americans and European Allies over theater nuclear forces (TNF). Its main fnding is that the deployment of cruise missiles, far from strengthening NATO as a nuclear alliance, could in fact de-couple the U.S. strategic arsenal from the defense of Europe precisely because it would create a Eurostrategic balance, thus reducing the credibility of the U.S. strategic deterrent. In fact, a Eurostrategic balance already exists, a suspicion that is reinforced when the Carter administration publishes estimates of casualties in the event of nuclear war: 140 million in the United States and 113 million in Europe. Two events conspire to further complicate what is now a major Alliance crisis. At a Geneva meeting between the U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, the Americans make a radical proposal without again frst consulting the Allies. If the Soviets put a moratorium on the deployment of SS-20s, the United States will delay the deployment of cruise missiles by three years. Then, on 6 June 1977, the “Washington Post” reports that the United States is also seeking to construct an enhanced radiation weapon or neutron bomb designed to destroy concentrated Soviet tank columns through minimal blast and so avoid so-called collateral damage. The Soviet propaganda machine goes into overdrive and captures the imagination of a resurgent anti-nuclear movement in Western Europe. In response, NATO Secretary-General Joseph Luns appoints a High-Level Group (HLG) to examine “outstanding strategic issues.” At the very frst meeting the Germans demand the Americans adjust their position in the SALT II talks to allow for the deployment of Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, but the Americans refuse. In a speech in London on 28 October Helmut Schmidt responds by making Bonn’s position clear: Strategic arms limitations confned to the U.S. and the Soviet Union will inevitably impair the security of the West European members of the Alliance vis-à-vis Soviet military superiority in Europe if we do not succeed in removing the disparities of military power parallel to the SALT negotiations.8

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Crucially, the British agree with him. In December, the USSR begins deployment of the SS-20 and East-West relations turn decidedly chilly. WestWest relations are not much better. It is the Americans who blink frst. In January 1978, the NATO High-Level Group suggests an “evolutionary upward adjustment” in NATO Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces (LRTNF) and, on 7 April, the United States abandons plans to deploy enhanced radiation weapons. On 20 August, the infuential British newspaper The Economist states what is by now blindingly obvious: “Some Europeans have always doubted whether the Americans would fght a nuclear war for Europe; and even the trusters are beginning to think that what might have been true when the United States had a commanding lead, is not necessarily true now.”9 NATO is not just locked in a struggle with the Soviets over the Eurostrategic balance, but also for the hearts and minds of the very people it was created to defend, a struggle that will test sorely Alliance political strength for the remainder of the Cold War. In August 1978, President Carter accepts an inter-agency report on LRTNF and publicly supports the deployment of Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles. The Europeans have their way. Soon they will wish they had not. In the midst of this turmoil Alliance leaders meet for an uneasy summit in Guadeloupe, and this time it is the Germans who face an embarrassing climb-down. Public opinion in the Federal Republic has come out strongly against the stationing of so-called Euromissiles on German soil. A frustrated U.S. National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, insists that the Germans accept the missiles even though there is little the Carter administration can do to force the German hand because 30 years after World War II democratic Germany has come of political age. Carter and Schmidt are not the only new political beasts shaping and changing the landscape of Alliance politics. On 3 May 1979, one Margaret Thatcher is elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Her frst outing on 30–31 May is to the North Atlantic Council in Washington to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Alliance. The celebrations are muted, even though on 18 June the SALT II Treaty is signed. However, the treaty is yet to be ratifed by either the U.S. Congress or the Supreme Soviet, while in September, Henry Kissinger tells Western Europeans to stop being unrealistic about the use of the American strategic nuclear arsenal in their defense: it is not going to happen. Still, NATO holds. On 14 November, and in spite of political difculties faced by leaders in several European countries, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) fnally agrees to deploy 464 Cruise and 108 Pershing 2 missiles in Europe by the end of 1983. All of the Pershing 2s are to be deployed in West Germany, while 160 Cruise missiles will be deployed in the United Kingdom, 96 in Italy and 48 each in Belgium and the Netherlands. The NPG

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also reafrms the need for arms control to be pursued in parallel to the deployments because of the unease of European leaders about the level of popular dissent. On 11–12 December 1979, NATO’s Defense Planning Committee adopts its fve-year force plan for 1980–1984, while at a special meeting of NATO foreign and defense ministers, it is confrmed that unless the Soviet Union withdraws the SS-20s, the Alliance will go ahead with deployment of Cruise and Pershing 2 by December 1983. The so-called “Dual-Track” is established committing NATO to deployment of the missiles, but leaving open the possibility of a negotiated settlement with the Soviets. European public opposition is not assuaged. On 15 December, The Economist states, “In recent months, the growing Soviet nuclear superiority in Europe has posed NATO with one of its greatest challenges yet, both from the Russians and from those West Europeans who are reluctant to face up to the need to restore the balance.”10 The only good news is that in September Spain indicates it would like to join NATO as Madrid transitions from Franco’s dictatorship toward becoming a European liberal democracy. One of the most ardent critics of Spain’s decision to join NATO is a Spanish socialist called Javier Solana Madariaga. He will one day become NATO Secretary-General.

The Second Cold War The Cold War is mutating. On 16 January 1979, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi is forced to leave Iran as Islamist fundamentalists seize power and America loses its main strategic partner in the Middle East. On 4 November, following President Carter’s decision to allow the former Shah into America for cancer treatment, violent anti-American demonstrations erupt in Tehran and conclude with the storming of the U.S. Embassy with the staf therein being taken hostage. Carter’s greatest crisis begins. Then, on 27 December 1979, alarmed by the spread of Islamist fundamentalism in its volatile southern republics, the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. The West reacts by accusing Moscow of blatant adventurism. However, while the United States sees the Soviet invasion of its southern neighbor as the end of détente; most Europeans disagree. The re-ordering of world order did not start with the fall of the Berlin Wall, but with the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Second Cold War is truly underway.11 On 3 January 1980, the U.S. Congress suspends ratifcation of the SALT II Treaty as a failing Carter administration recognizes there is no chance of Senate approval in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. On 23 January, the Carter Doctrine is enunciated committing the United States to a new policy of containment while reafrming the aspiration for détente. Nine EEC foreign ministers also attack the Soviet Union calling the invasion a serious violation of the principles of international relations as enshrined in the UN Charter.

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However, Americans and Europeans remain deeply split over what action to take against Moscow and NATO is still in trouble. In April, the Belgian government postpones again the announcement of its chosen base for the siting of Cruise missiles. In July, the United States boycotts the Moscow Olympics, while all the Western Europeans participate, including the British. A growing sense of strategic divergence is reinforced when on 25 July President Carter issues Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59), ordering a major build-up in American military capabilities and the development of a rapid deployment force to intervene anywhere in the world. Seven years after the end of the Vietnam War the template for the contemporary American military is established, along with an enduring and critical gap in military capabilities between the United States and its allies that continues to this day. Several European Allies even cut their armed forces, with the Netherlands announcing it is no longer able to comply with the 1977 decision to increase defense expenditure by a year-on-year average of 3 percent. Military-strategic divergence thus becomes enshrined at the heart of NATO as the United States begins to re-equip and prepare for a new military age, while most Europeans fnd the costs and burdens of security simply too expensive to bear, preferring instead to live with the risk relative weakness imposes.12 While the superpowers rattle swords over Afghanistan, four other events take place that are to shape NATO’s future. On 4 May 1980, Yugoslav leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito dies in Belgrade and Yugoslavia starts its long, slow descent into anarchy and chaos. In August, a new trade union movement Solidarnosc (Solidarity) is formed in Poland, under the leadership of a charismatic Gdansk shipyard worker, Lech Walesa. That same month Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invades Iran. Finally, on 4 November 1980, Ronald Reagan is elected the 40th President of the United States. The so-called New Right now controls both the White House and Downing Street. The Reagan-Thatcher years have begun. This new axis heralds yet another split in Europe that eventually leads to deeper European integration of a core Europe organized around Germany with America’s British ally increasingly marginalized within Europe. On one side of the argument stands the formidable fgure of pro-American, Eurosceptic British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, while on the other most of Continental Europe. The events of the 1980s, anti-Americanism and Britain’s perennially semi-detached status spur “core” Europe to redouble its eforts to play a distinct role in the world. In January 1981, the German and Italian foreign ministers Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Emilio Colombo respectively call for the strengthening of the political and security aspects of the EEC as part of the so-called Bonn-Rome Initiative. Europe’s battle-lines are further drawn when on 10 May Socialist François Mitterrand is elected President of France. Paradoxically, on 13 October, the London Report on European Political Co-operation (EPC) proposes

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strengthening the role of the supranational European Commission in crisis management, broadening the EPC mechanism to include political aspects of security, and for the frst time a bespoke crisis management mechanism. Between 6 and 12 November, the German and Italian Governments write to all EEC member-states presenting a draft European Act that includes a declaration of economic integration and proposals for tighter co-ordination in the political, security, and defense felds. This seminal document helps transform the European Economic Community into the European Community (EC) and establishes the political principles for the European Union of today. The Reagan administration has other concerns. The struggle with Moscow is entering what will become the Cold War end-game. Washington wastes no time in challenging the Soviet Union . . . and ofending most of its European Allies. On 9 May 1982, U.S. Secretary of State Al Haig, a former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, says the task ahead for this vital decade is the management of global Soviet power. On 19 October, President Reagan approves National Security Decision Directive 13 (NSDD-13) entitled “Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy,” which envisions fghting and winning an extended nuclear war. Europeans are horrifed. On 21 November, 400,000 people demonstrate against Cruise and Pershing missiles in the streets of Amsterdam and the Dutch government again postpones stationing the missiles on its soil, even though the Reagan administration begins negotiations with Moscow on an Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty as part of the “Dual-Track” strategy. In December, in an attempt to fuel West German public opposition to Cruise and Pershing, Moscow permits discussions between the two Germanys over NATO’s planned deployment. As so often with Soviet diplomacy just at the moment when it is making headway, the Soviets reveal their essentially illiberal – and incompetent – character. On 13 December 1981, under intense pressure from Moscow, Polish Communist leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski imposes martial law in response to a wave of strikes and civil unrest led by Lech Walesa and Solidarnosc. Moscow and its political creed are morally bankrupt and seen to be so. The pace of the Second Cold War accelerates. On 5 May 1982, NATO publishes an ofcial document on force comparisons with the Warsaw Pact that suggests the Western Alliance is alarmingly weak. It is time for a game of strategic poker, and in Ronald Reagan the Americans have just the man to play it.

Peace through Strength On 20 May 1982, the Reagan administration issues a new U.S. National Security Strategy (National Security Decision Directive 32) that confrms the U.S. decision to break the nuclear stalemate of mutually assured destruction that has persisted since the 1960s. If necessary, the Americans will fght and win a

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nuclear war. Again, most European Allies react with a mix of fear and incredulity, especially as Soviet doctrine seems to be moving in a similar direction. In December, National Security Decision Directive 75 (NSDD 75) establishes three long-term American objectives. First, the containment of Soviet expansion and a moderation in Soviet behavior. Second, the encouragement of peaceful change in the Soviet system toward greater liberalism. Third, the negotiation of new agreements in the interest of the United States. The Allies are sidelined by an administration willing to play hardball with both them and the Soviets. Reagan is in efect raising the stakes in a game of strategic poker with the Soviets under the rubric “Peace through Strength.” NATO and the European Allies are mere bystanders. In 1980, Reagan is blunt: “Let’s not delude ourselves; the Soviet Union underlies all the unrest that is going on. If they weren’t engaged in this game of dominoes, there wouldn’t be any hot spots in the world.” He goes on to call the Soviet Union the “evil empire.”13 The days of détente and peaceful co-existence suddenly seem a very long way of. On 23 October, Reagan further ups the stakes when he announces his backing for an initiative that he believes will render intercontinental ballistic missiles obsolete through a futuristic missile shield: the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), soon to be dubbed Star Wars, is born. European leaders, with the notable exception of Margaret Thatcher, are profoundly uncomfortable. At a meeting of the now ten EEC member-states (Greece had joined in 1981) a Solemn Declaration on European Union refects growing transatlantic tensions. Europe is resolved to “create a united Europe, which is more than ever necessary in order to meet the dangers of the world situation, capable of assuming the responsibilities incumbent on it by virtue of its political role, its economic potential and its manifold links with other peoples.” The statement goes on to assert that “by speaking with a single voice in foreign policy, including political aspects of security, Europe can contribute to the preservation of peace.”14 The Soviets are not cracking just yet. On 28 June, new Soviet leader Yuri Andropov characterizes the international situation as being established on two diametrically opposing world outlooks: socialism and imperialism. To make matters worse, in the midst of yet another war of words between Moscow and Washington, a tragedy ensues that pushes the world closer to war possibly than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. In a ghastly harbinger of MH17 on 1 September 1983 a Korean Airlines Boeing 747 fying from Anchorage to Seoul is shot down close to a Soviet nuclear submarine base on Sakhalin Island in Russia’s far-east, and 269 people lose their lives, including a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Soviets claim the plane was spying, but the United States says that the plane was simply of-course. The disaster, like so many, is the result of a series of errors and horrifc lapses of

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judgment. The loss of KAL 007 could not have come at a worse moment. On 28 September, in response to U.S. accusations, Soviet leader Yuri Andropov warns that American policy is on a militarist course and some European Allies for once agree. Even though Andropov also reafrms a Soviet commitment to “peaceful co-existence,” on 23 November, the Soviets walk out of the INF talks in Geneva. Reagan holds his nerve, and in December 1983, 572 Cruise and 108 Pershing 2 missiles begin their deployment to Western Europe, while Belgium fnally announces it will begin preparations to take Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles, although the Netherlands again postpones the deployment until 1988. Just how close did the world come to nuclear war? In November 1983, NATO conducted Exercise Able Archer, which the Soviet Union mistook as preparations for a nuclear strike by the Alliance. Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky later told British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that the Soviet Union had come perilously close to launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike.

The Cold War End-Game On 23 January 1984, the White House sends a report to Congress accusing the Soviet Union of seven violations of the 1974 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in an attempt by the Reagan administration to justify SDI, which itself is arguably in treaty breach. Impressed by U.S. resolve, and in deep internal crisis, Moscow proposes talks on the prohibition of the militarization of outer space and a moratorium on the testing and deployment of space-based weapons. The reason for the crisis is clear. On 9 February, Yuri Andropov dies of kidney failure and is replaced by octogenarian Konstantin Chernenko, who is clearly a very temporary solution to a growing Soviet leadership crisis as the Kremlin splits between reformers and ideologues. On 24 September, President Reagan addresses the UN General Assembly and states that “America has repaired its strength and we are ready for constructive negotiations with the Soviet Union.”15 In October, the United States suggests talks with Moscow covering arms limitations on all strategic ofensive and defensive weapons. Critically, on 6 November 1984, President Reagan is returned to power with a landslide victory in the U.S. presidential elections. Strengthened politically at home, Reagan promises to continue his policy of “Peace through Strength.” A month or so later, on 16 December 1984, Mikhail Gorbachev visits the United Kingdom. A 54-year-old senior Soviet party leader, Gorbachev is widely regarded as the next leader of the Soviet Union. He embarks on discussions with Margaret Thatcher after which he receives unusual praise from the British prime minister as a man with whom she can do business. Change is also apparent in European defense. On 24 October, at the initiative of the French and Belgian governments, a preliminary joint meeting of the

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foreign and defense ministers of the Western European Union (WEU) is held in Rome. The ministers agree to re-activate the WEU to strengthen Western Europe’s ability to contribute to its own defense and to enable France to play a fuller and more integrated role. For many Europeans the re-activation of the WEU is an attempt to pressure the United States to consult them more fully. To that end, the Rome Declaration calls upon WEU member-states to: hold comprehensive discussions and to seek to harmonize their views on specifc aspects of conditions of security in Europe, particular defense questions; arms control and disarmament, the efects of developments in EastWest relations on security in Europe; Europe’s contribution to the Atlantic Alliance . . . and the development of European co-operation in the feld of armaments.16 The Rome Declaration is also a frst step toward transforming the moribund WEU into the defense arm of the European Community. Americans, Europeans, and Soviets are slowly beginning to envision a very diferent Europe in a very diferent world from that of NATO’s founding in 1949. Euromissiles remain pivotal to European defense and the Soviet leadership is still not above trying to split NATO, albeit with a more subtle approach than hitherto. Moscow suddenly insists that progress on removing SS20s and Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles must not only be linked to the scrapping of SDI but limits to British and French nuclear systems. In January 1985, Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko states that it would “be unjustifed if the North Atlantic Alliance obtained a kind of addition, a bonus . . . in the form of the British and French armaments. This is the crux of the disagreement in connection with the discussion of the medium-range weapons problem.”17 On 10 March 1985, Konstantin Chernenko dies and as expected is replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev. On 12 March, the INF talks re-commence after a break of 15 months. At frst Gorbachev echoes Gromyko’s warnings over British and French systems, but the West refuses to budge. In July, Moscow unilaterally suspends deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe, and then on 2 July Gorbachev decisively breaks the old guard within the Soviet Politburo as Gromyko is relieved of responsibility for foreign afairs and strengthens his control over Soviet policy by appointing his aide Eduard Shevardnadze. That same month talks are held in the Kremlin between British and Soviet parliamentarians during which the Soviet Chairman suggests that the Soviet Union is ready to seek a common language with the EEC on concrete international questions. This represents a profound shift in Soviet thinking, for the frst time treating Western Europe as a distinct political identity. The Soviets still want to de-couple the United States from its European allies but are now prepared to treat the emerging European polity as a negotiating partner.

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This new thinking is also refected during a visit by Gorbachev to Paris during which he cites his economic imperatives implicitly admitting that Moscow can no longer aford the Cold War. If this is indeed strategic poker, it is Moscow that holds the weaker hand. A period of maneuvering ensues. On 3 October, Gorbachev ofers direct talks with Britain and France over strategic issues, saying that Moscow cannot ignore British and French nuclear systems because of what the Soviets regard as their growing capability. On 19–21 November, Gorbachev and Reagan meet in Geneva during which the latter tries to convince Gorbachev that SDI afords both the U.S. and the Soviet Union mutual beneft, but fails. Critically, both sides agree to accelerate progress toward a 50 percent cut in strategic weapons and Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces. It becomes abundantly clear in Geneva that Euromissiles are the key to ending the Cold War. Gorbachev ups the stakes. On 15 January 1986, he suddenly calls for the United States and USSR to reduce by half intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles (ICBM), although his call is dependent upon the mutual renunciation of the development, testing, and deployment of space-based weapons. Gorbachev also calls for the complete elimination of medium-range missiles in the European zone. In what becomes known as the ‘bolt from the blue’, Gorbachev also drops the demand that the Soviets receive “compensation” for British and French systems and merely suggests that they pledge not to build up their respective nuclear arsenals. On 10 March, recently appointed British NATO Secretary-General Lord Peter Carrington states bluntly that Britain and France cannot be expected to accept perpetual nuclear obsolescence. Gorbachev is not deterred. On 26 March, he redefnes the Soviet concept of security away from preparedness to take the ofensive to one of defense sufciency and on 11–12 October meets Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland. The Soviets further surprise the United States with a radical proposal to cut “strategic weapons” (ICBMs) by half in the frst fve years of any agreement and the remaining 50 percent over the following fve years. Much to the consternation of his ofcials, Reagan responds favorably and agrees to apply this formula to all ICBMs. Gorbachev also suggests the complete elimination of both U.S. and Soviet Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces in Europe, excluding British and French systems, but the talks fail when Gorbachev again demands scrapping SDI, a step too far for Reagan. The Americans are damned if they “do,” and damned if they “don’t.” The European Allies remain unhappy, concerned that while the United States seems happy to negotiate away systems the Europeans see as vital to their security, Washington seems unwilling to discuss SDI. On 25 October, French Foreign Minister André Giraud states that the withdrawal of all American missiles from Europe would weaken the security of Europe, especially in view of other imbalances, particularly conventional weapons. There is another factor at play.

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In 1987, the Soviet economy rapidly deteriorates. On 8 January, Gorbachev accepts failure in his attempts to link arms control to the U.S. abandonment of SDI and accepts that Euromissiles must be dealt with separately. On 3–4 March, the U.S. delegation tables a draft agreement which the Soviets accept in principle, including intrusive on-site inspections in the Soviet Union which have hitherto been a stumbling block. By early December all fnal issues of principle are agreed, and on 8 December 1987, amid much fanfare, “The Treaty between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Elimination of Their Intermediate and Shorter Range Missiles” (the INF Treaty) is signed by Reagan and Gorbachev in Washington, with both parties agreeing to eliminate all launchers and missiles within 18 months of the ratifcation of the treaty. After some 13 years the Euromissile Crisis is over. It is not quite the end of the Cold War, but it is certainly the beginning of the end.18 A year before another step had been taken on the road to European integration. On 17 February 1986, the Single European Act had been signed in Luxembourg. The European Economic Community became the European Community and European Political Co-operation was incorporated into the treaty, calling upon the signatories to formulate and implement a European foreign policy. For the frst time security and defense are also included in a founding European Act. Even before the formal end of the Cold War the re-organization of the European West has begun.

Preparing for the Post-Cold War On 27 October 1987, the WEU Ministerial Council adopts a Platform on European Security Interests, following a December 1986 proposal by French Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, which recognizes that, “the constitution of an integrated Europe will remain incomplete as long as it does not include security and defense, WEU foreign and defense ministers intend therefore to develop a more cohesive European defense identity.”19 The Platform not only links the future of the WEU to the European Community, but also represents a clear statement of intent to develop a European defense “identity” distinct from the Alliance. On 4 November, the Reagan administration, while welcoming the WEU Platform, hints at future discord. Washington emphasizes the “unshakable” nature of the U.S. commitment to the Alliance. On 11 November, the North Atlantic Council issues a similar statement, welcoming increased European defense eforts, but making it clear that it must take place within the Alliance stating that “a positive identity in the feld of European security within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance, [is] conducive to the strengthening of the transatlantic partnership and of the Alliance as a whole.”20 Given that many of these countries are precisely the same as those supporting the WEU

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Platform, the U.S. can be forgiven for detecting a certain political schizophrenia in Europe. INF changes the rules of the West-West game. On 13 November, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President François Mitterrand announce the setting up of a Franco-German Brigade, the frst step on the path to the creation of a Eurocorps. Furthermore, on 22 January 1988, a German-French Defense and Security Council is established. On 19 April, the WEU Council even invokes the modifed Brussels Treaty for the frst time since 1955 following attacks on Western oil tankers in open waters by Iran. Subsequently, Operation Cleansweep becomes the frst joint military operation conducted by the organization in its 40-year history. Slowly at frst, but with gathering vigor, the Cold War end-game gathers pace. On 23 March, Gorbachev calls for more private initiative in Soviet agriculture. On 14 April, Afghanistan and Pakistan sign an agreement, with the United States and USSR as guarantors, calling for the immediate withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan. On 23 May, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party agrees to separate the function of state and party, while on 29 June Soviet politicians and economists demand major reforms to allow democratization to proceed. On 3 July, the All-Union Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) endorses dramatic reforms of political institutions, and on 1 December, the Supreme Soviet approves the establishment of a new legislative body, the Congress of People’s Deputies. NATO’s great adversary is shriveling up without a shot being fred in anger. The year 1989 breaks with a mood of universal anticipation because it is clear Moscow no longer controls events in the eastern bloc. On 24 February, the Hungarian Socialist Workers’ Party renounces its constitutionally based claim to leadership. On 26 March, Soviet citizens for the frst time are allowed to choose from among several candidates in elections to the frst Congress of Soviet People’s Deputies. On 17 April, Solidarnosc is legalized in Poland and its representatives allowed to run for elected ofce. Not surprisingly, the 5 June elections result in a resounding victory for Solidarnosc, an event which triggers a series of by and large peaceful revolutions across Central and Eastern Europe as country after country takes back sovereignty which many had not known since 1939 and the outbreak of World War II. Euphoria mounts by the day until on 7 July Soviet President Gorbachev concedes that every socialist state has the right to choose its own political path as the Brezhnev Doctrine is replaced by the “Sinatra Doctrine.” Most Central and Eastern Europeans invited by Moscow to “do it their way”, but not all. They do just that as an irresistible surge of people power casts the division of Europe into history.21 On 19 August, some 900 East Germans fee over the so-called “green border” from Hungary to Austria, taking advantage of a “Pan-European Picnic” organized by the President of the Pan-European Union (and not without a

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hint of historical irony) Otto von Hapsburg. On 23 August, tens of thousands of Balts form a human chain between the capitals of Estonia and Lithuania to protest against the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 which had deprived them of their liberty. The next day, the Hungarian Government permits 108 East German citizens to leave for the West, while on 4 September, the frst of the mass Monday Demonstrations takes place in Leipzig, East Germany, as people demand a whole raft of freedoms long denied them. It is not all plain sailing. After some 7600 East German citizens are transported to the West on chartered trains from Czech territory, hardline East German leader Erich Honecker closes the border with Czechoslovakia. It is too late. On 7 October, Gorbachev travels to East Berlin and lectures Honecker on the need for reform, as Moscow efectively abandons the German Democratic Republic to its fate. As he arrives in East Germany 70,000 people demonstrate in Leipzig chanting, “We are the People.” On 18 October, Honecker resigns, replaced temporarily by Egon Kranz as the last vestiges of Communist Party control fast collapses. November 1989 dawns with the world holding its breath in anticipation. On 3 November, the East German Government permits its people to leave for the West via Czech territory. On 4 November, between fve hundred thousand and one million people demonstrate in favor of democratic reform and East German state television broadcasts the event live. On 7 November, the East German government steps down, and then, on 9 November, the unthinkable happens: tens of thousands of people converge on that most hated symbol of a divided Europe, the Berlin Wall. Slowly at frst, but with a steady increase in the hammering tempo of their determination, the wall is torn down slab by slab. At that moment there is neither West nor East Germans: just Germans. The German Question is fnally solved in favor of freedom and Europe’s future decided. In the midst of East Berlin’s jubilant chaos is a humiliated, angry young KGB ofcer – one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The Cold War is truly at an end as democracy ripples across a Europe more whole and freer by the day. It is a stunning moment in history that could only have been dreamed of back in the nervous 1950s as NATO got to grips with the towering menace of the Red Army. NATO did nothing, but NATO meant everything. NATO did not win the Cold War, the valiant people of Central and Eastern Europe did that, but without NATO victory would have been impossible. This was their moment. What was the West going to do about it? As it turned out, the end of the Cold War was not the end of history as some would have it, but merely a pause in Russia’s difcult relationship with democracy and the West.

Why NATO Won the Cold War NATO won the Cold War for three reasons. First, NATO proved itself a durable political as well as military mechanism that served the pluralistic community of democracies for which it was designed. The many arguments and dissensions

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that rocked the Alliance throughout the Cold War were in fact part of its strength. Second, over the length of the Cold War the Alliance developed an internal identity. Day after day, week after week patient NATO civilians and military personnel established the largest and deepest set of transnational politico-military relationships ever known. Third, the power of solidarity and the deterrence NATO generated proved decisive. In a sense, NATO became the quintessential crisis management tool, even as it conducted collective defense. Not so much during crises between the superpowers, which after the Cuban Missile Crisis they handled by and large directly. Rather, it was the management of crises between Alliance members and the ability of NATO to evolve political and strategically that in the end proved crucial. The Alliance changed so markedly between 1949 and 1989 that by the fall of the Berlin Wall NATO was an entirely diferent body. In 1949, NATO was a mechanism for the organization of Europeans behind American leadership. By 1989, it had become the forum for the political conduct of the strategic transatlantic relationship. There were those Americans who continued to believe they could return to the “good old days” when the Soviet threat by and large organized Europeans on their behalf, but those days were long gone. Each impulse toward European integration came at a time when America and the leading Europeans were in disagreement over strategy or when America was perceived to be weak. The Korean War took place in parallel to the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community. The creation of the European Economic Community occurred as the Soviets began to develop their own advanced nuclear systems. Britain negotiated its membership of the EEC in the late 1960s at a time when the Special Relationship was in a particularly poor state, while European Political Co-ordination happened against the backdrop of disarray in the second Nixon administration, the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, and tensions over the Yom Kippur War. The re-activation of the WEU took place in the midst of the Euromissiles Crisis, and the European Union emerged as the Soviet Union collapsed. A political balance of power was always implicit within the Alliance with NATO acting as a mechanism for the governance of that balance. That is precisely why in 1966 the French left military NATO, but did not leave political NATO. It was, and is, ever thus. The Warsaw Pact ultimately failed because it lacked the political vigor and rigor that only democracies can invest in alliances. Unable to challenge the Soviet Union directly, as so tragically demonstrated in Berlin in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Prague in 1968, the Warsaw Pact became an instrument of tutelage. For all America’s many faults its central belief in the power of liberty was the winning idea that NATO embodied, reinforced by the clunking presence of the Soviet Union. As a postscript to the Cold War, on 31 August 2022, the last Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev died aged 91. Many consider Gorbachev a hero for allowing the Berlin Wall to fall in November 1989. In fact, Gorbachev

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was simply facing reality by recognizing his eforts to reform the Soviet system in which he believed had failed. The moral bankruptcy of the Soviet Union was revealed to its fullest extent on 14 January 1991 in Vilnius, Lithuania, when 14 people were murdered by Soviet forces acting on Gorbachev’s orders as they struggled for their freedom. It was not until August 1991 that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania broke free from the Soviet Union in the throes of its collapse, and even to this day they are threatened with a Russia seemingly incapable of change for the better. Gorbachev was certainly a pivotal fgure in the end of the Cold War but the real heroes of that systemic struggle were in Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and other Central and Eastern Europeans who seized their freedom from oppression. However, there was something more, something deeper, more profound than simply the balance of power that kept NATO together. The rest of the book explores just what that “something” was, and is, and whether the Alliance will endure in an age of renewed Russian expansionism, the emergence of China and a world which seems again to be returning to old-fashioned ideas of power and new-fashioned ideas of fanaticism.

Notes 1 Colby, Eldridge A., The United States and Discriminate Nuclear Options in the Cold War in Larsen, Jefrey A., and Kartchner, Kerry M., On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014) p. 66. 2 Operation Badr was the Egyptian codename for the attack across the Suez Canal and the seizure of Israel’s Bar Lev Line on 6 October 1973. The attack was initially successful and marked the start of the Yom Kippur War. On 14 October the Egyptians launched an ofensive in the Sinai Desert to support the hard-pressed Syrians. The Israelis decisively defeated Egyptian forces and gained the initiative in the war. 3 Kissinger is himself interesting on this subject. “Many eforts were undertaken to avoid the dilemma of possessing a huge arsenal that could not be used and whose use could not even plausibly be threatened. Complicated war scenarios were devised. But neither side, to the best of my knowledge – and for some of the period I was in a position to know – ever approached the point of actually using nuclear weapons in a specifc crisis between the two superpowers.” Kissinger, Henry, World Order (London: Allen Lane, 2014) p. 334. 4 “Communiqué,” Meeting of the Heads of Government, Paris, 9–10 December 1974, http://aei.pitt.edu/1459/01/Paris_1974.pdf 5 The so-called Forward Base System envisaged the forward deployment of U.S. nuclear-capable aircraft in Europe to reassure the European Allies that strategic arms limitation talks would not lead to de-coupling. However, the Randians, in particular, believed these forces so vulnerable to Soviet attack that they lowered the nuclear threshold. 6 Raymond Garthof writes, “Eurocommunism was the term coined in 1975–76 to denote the new current of Western European communism that stressed independence of action for each party and embodied varying degrees of democratic and pluralistic tendencies.” See Garthof, Raymond L., Détente and Confrontation: American–Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1985) p. 490.

68 The Second Cold War 7 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defense 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 123. 8 Ibid., p. 125. 9 “All the Fun of Rearmament,” The Economist, 20 August 1978. 10 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defense 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 130. 11 The Second Cold War is a phrase coined by Professor Fred Halliday. He looks at the Cold War as structured slightly diferently to this author: “Cold War II is the most recent of four major phases into which post-1945 history can be divided. . . . They are: Phase I, the First Cold War 1946–53; Phase II, the period of Oscillatory Antagonism 1953–69; Phase III, Détente, 1969–79; Phase IV, The Second Cold War, 1979 onwards.” See Halliday, Fred, ed., The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso Books, 1989) p. 3. 12 Gompert, Kugler, and Libicki make the point efectively: “In the two decades are the Vietnam War, the United States invested heavily in the technologies that would enable it to project power, penetrate enemy airspace, and use strike forces to thwart a large-scale armored ofensive .  .  . the European allies, being preoccupied with the defense of their borders, concentrated on relatively stationary ‘main defense formations’.” Gompert, David C., Kugler, Richard L., and Libicki, Martin C., Mind the Gap: Promoting a Transatlantic Revolution in Military Afairs (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1999) p. 13. 13 See LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia and the Cold War 1945–1990 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991) p. 302. 14 European Council, “Solemn Declaration on European Union,” Stuttgart, 19 June 1983 (the Stuttgart Declaration), reproduced from the Bulletin of the European Communities, No. 6/1983, http://aei.pitt.edu/1788/ 15 Address by President Ronald Reagan to the UN General Assembly, 24 September 1984 https://2009-2017.state.gov/p/io/potusunga/207336.htm 16 Declaration of the Council of Ministers of the Western European Union, Rome, 26–27 October 1984 (the Rome Declaration), www.cvce.eu/content/ publication/2003/7/11/c44c134c-aca3-45dl-9e0b-04d4d9974ddf/publishable_ en.pdf 17 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defense 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 154. 18 Although James Baker, the US Secretary of State, did not negotiate INF he ofers some interesting insights into American thinking. “The INF Treaty was a breakthrough in that it not only eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, it codifed two principles that would become critical to Bush [senior] arms-control policy. To get to zero weapons, the Kremlin, which had much higher levels of forces, had to make larger cuts than the West. This concept of ‘asymmetrical reductions’ became critical when we discussed conventional arms, in which Soviet advantages were even greater. In addition, the treaty also required extensive, intrusive verifcation regimes. Previously, arms control had generally relied on ‘national technical means’ – namely, spy satellites. The INF Treaty made on-site inspections a reality.” Baker, James A., III, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace 1989–1992 (New York: Putnam, 1995) p. 84. 19 Western European Union, “Platform on European Security Interests,” The Hague, 27 October 1987, www.weu.int/documents/871027en.pdf 20 North Atlantic Council, “Final Communiqué,” Brussels, 11 December 1987, www. nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c871211a.htm 21 After a 1960s song written by Paul Anka, and made famous by Frank Sinatra.

4 STRATEGIC VACATION

To protect peace and to prevent war or any kind of coercion, the Alliance will maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces based in Europe .  .  . the overall size of the Allies’ forces, and in many cases their readiness, will be reduced and the maintenance of a comprehensive in-place linear defensive posture in the central region will no longer be required. . . . Alliance forces will require enhanced fexibility and mobility and an assured capability for augmentation when necessary. For the Allies concerned, collective defense arrangements will rely increasingly on multinational forces, complementing national commitments to NATO. NATO’s New Strategic Concept, November 19911

For much of the 1990s, NATO would be focused on four consequences of victory. First, a re-assessment of the value and scope of American leadership. Second, the adjustment from collective defense to collective security. Third, the search for a new balance between cost-efectiveness and political legitimacy in promoting security. Fourth, the striking of a credible balance between European aspirations, European cohesion, and European capabilities. In many ways, the 1990s would turn out to be a security experiment for Europe, which was not entirely successful. As the Cold War ends the complexity of constructing a new and stable European political edifce also leads to a strange form of European isolationism as Europeans become overly focused on building their own shining city on the hill and their own very regional sense of manifest destiny.2 NATO ceases to be the macro-defense shield of the West and becomes instead the micro-manager of instability and insecurity across the continent. NATO fnds itself trying to bring some order to failing military cohesion and increasing political fragmentation, in the face of markedly reduced defense budgets. An underlying political dynamic also comes to the fore as France and then Germany fnally see an opportunity to shape Europe in their image through an ideal of European political union that estranges Britain from the “European Project.” A demarche that will frst reinforce a divide between Europeanists and Atlanticists camps within the West, and eventually lead to Brexit. DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-5

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The Alliance also spends much of the 1990s trying to cope with a shift in power and utility that would have destroyed most alliances in previous ages. The gap between what American and European militaries can do rapidly expands, as does the gap on how the Allies see the utility of force. The gap is reinforced by an American tendency to see great and overwhelming military power as vital to avoiding entangling engagements, reinforced by a European tendency to see the end of Cold War as the end of history.3 It is the triumph of short-term politics over long-term strategy that will in time render much of Europe all but defenseless as much of NATO Europe goes on strategic vacation, while America prepares for a new age of hyper-power and a global presence very distinct from Europe. There are many reasons for Europe’s vacation from reality but essentially it is exhaustion. While the United States has been engaged in systemic confict since only 1941 and gained from it, Europeans had been locked in continuous struggle since the Franco-Prussian War ended in 1871, and paid an enormous price. It is time to recoup the costs of struggle, even though victory also imposes burdens and responsibilities on the victors that few are ready or willing to face. Squaring the new NATO circle proves no easy task.

NATO and the Re-ordering of Europe At the landmark London Summit of 5–6 July 1990, the North Atlantic Council begins the re-organization of NATO and its mission. NATO reduces its forward presence and nuclear weapons are henceforth deemed weapons of last resort. The great 50-year nuclear debate is over – at least for the time being. A new NATO Strategic Concept (the what, why, when, where, and how of NATO) is also published as an authoritative statement of NATO’s new mission. It lays out a broad approach to security, encompassing complementary political and military means and emphasizing co-operation with other states that share the Alliance’s objectives. NATO also makes a commitment to non-aggression with Warsaw Pact members, confrming that the two organizations are no longer enemies, and invites Central and Eastern European leaders to address the Alliance. And, NATO leaders announce that the “Alliance will do its share to overcome the legacy of decades of suspicion,” and that they are “ready to intensify military contacts, including those of NATO Military Commanders with Moscow and other Central and Eastern European capitals.”4 The long road to NATO enlargement is under way. President Mitterrand also announces that France will withdraw all troops from Germany by 1994 . . . as do the Soviets. However, Alliance politics remain as complex as ever, with the past ever present. France and Britain are particularly lukewarm about German re-unifcation but German Chancellor Helmut Kohl sees a historic opportunity to end the division of his country and with

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American support drives the process forward. By July, both London and Paris bow to the inevitable, albeit not always with good grace, and begin jockeying for position with a Germany that within 20 years will become Europe’s most powerful state, but least assured strategic actor. On 12 September, the “Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany” (also known as the TwoPlus-Four Treaty) is signed by the Federal Republic of Germany, the German Democratic Republic, France, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States. For the frst time since the end of World War II a united Germany is accorded a peace treaty and full sovereign rights. Finally, on 3 October 1990, all Allied sovereign rights over Germany cease as German re-unifcation takes place with seven newly created länder acceding to the Federal Republic of Germany. West and East Germany are ofcially no more. The formal end of the Cold War takes place in Paris, as eras so often do. On 19 November 1990, the “Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty” is signed by 22 states representing NATO and the Warsaw Pact at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE).5 The treaty provides for equal ceilings for major weapons systems and equipment for both groups of states, which are then translated into national limits for each state. The participating states also sign the “Charter of Paris for a New Europe”, establishing the permanent bodies of the CSCE, and NATO and the Warsaw Pact issue a statement that they are no longer enemies. Deep cuts to Alliance armed forces follow. On 25 July 1990, the United Kingdom cuts military manpower by 18 percent and British forces in Germany by half to 30,000. All other European states follow suit, seduced by the opportunity of a so-called “defense premium.” The Americans are not immune and in April announce the Base Force Plan and the restructuring of U.S. forces and their commands, although it is a relatively minor pruning compared with the European Allies. The 1990s also start a new trend in European defense as defense cuts become euphemistically known as “defense modernization,” with mobility the new buzzword. At a meeting of the NATO Defense Planning Committee (DPC) on 28–29 May 1991, NATO begins its adjustment away from main defense forces to lighter rapid reaction and crisis management forces. The DPC also announces the creation of a 30,000-strong Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) under British leadership designed to respond to crises anywhere in and around Europe. This refects a British need to cut forces and to pre-empt French attempts to make the European Community the focus of European crisis management. The creation of the ARRC also presages the “out of area” debate and the growing perception that NATO will need to engage crises beyond Europe as the “burden” of victory rapidly becomes apparent. On 19 November, a “Transatlantic Declaration” is issued heralding a new era in U.S.-European relations.6 In fact, while the Declaration celebrates the

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enduring importance of the transatlantic relationship, there is an element of defensiveness therein that is to run through the 1990s as the stumbling march of the European institutions toward European Union continues. But then . . .

The First Gulf War On 2 August 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait. On 17 January 1991, after months of military build-up and Baghdad’s continued ignoring of repeated UN demands for its withdrawal from Kuwait, a U.S.-led coalition begins Operation Desert Storm. It is not a NATO operation and the pointed avoidance of Alliance planning assets and capabilities by the U.S. military is a sign of things to come. Equally, in many ways, Operation Desert Storm is the large-scale, frepower and maneuver campaign for which the Alliance prepared over many years – against an enemy trained and equipped by the Soviet Union. Three weeks into the war, the Iraqis become so desperate to escape the coalition air onslaught that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein even sends his air force to seek refuge with his arch-enemy Iran. On 24 February, the ground war Operation Desert Saber starts and two days later Iraqi forces retreat from Kuwait in disarray. The retreat is not quick enough. At the Mitla Gap the Iraqis are massacred by American and British air and tank power as the coalition implements Air Land Battle, a doctrine frst adopted by the U.S. Army in 1982 and which was at the heart of NATO’s military strategy during the latter years of the Cold War. Designed to counter Warsaw Pact numerical superiority Air Land Battle attacks reserve forces, choke points and killing zones to terrifying efect on what becomes known as the “road of death” between Kuwait and Basra. It is a sobering example of what might have happened if the Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG) had ever crossed into West Germany. On 27 February, Kuwait is liberated and coalition forces cease hostilities. Although the performance of American personnel and equipment is hyped by Washington, with footage of cruise missiles even going through windows to hit targets, the frst Gulf War is a ftting accompaniment to NATO’s European victory. The United States is militarily supreme as it demonstrates American superiority in a classical military engagement and Vietnam seems a distant memory. The Europeans do well, particularly the British, but they are by and large an adjunct, which is also a sign of things to come. On 3 April, the UN Security Council passes Resolution 687 demanding that Iraq unconditionally accept the destruction, removal, or rendering harmless of all chemical and biological weapons and prohibits missiles with a range greater than 150 km. To ensure compliance the UN Security Council creates the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) to carry out intrusive on-site inspections and mandates the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

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to verify Iraqi nuclear disarmament. At the moment of victory the seeds of a future war are sown. Saddam Hussein remains in power.

NATO versus EU On 9–10 December 1991, the landmark “Treaty on European Union (TEU)” is approved at Maastricht. Title V of the Treaty contains, “Provisions on a common foreign and security policy,” with Article J.4.1 stating as its goal, “the implementation of a common foreign and security policy, including the eventual framing of a common defense policy, which might in time lead to a common defense.”7 On 10 December, the Western European Union is re-defned as the defense component of the European Union and a means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance. For all the careful wording, the separate political tracks that started back in the 1950s with the European Coal and Steel Community and the failed European Defense Community become apparent now they are released from the shackles of Cold War. On 12 December, the Maastricht European Council agrees that the EU will henceforth take joint action over disarmament, arms control, nuclear non-proliferation, and economic aspects of security, hitherto the preserve of the superpowers. Competition between the EU and NATO is implicit, slow at frst but nevertheless insistent and consistent and often a competition conducted via political metaphors over how best to strengthen the European pillar of the Alliance itself. At its heart are diverging strategic cultures reinforced by a growing belief in Europe that “soft power” will be the power currency of the age. Europeanist and Atlanticist camps slowly entrench around their respective champions with France and Germany on one side, and Britain and the United States on the other. In February 1990, France and Germany had re-afrmed their commitment to a European Union, and on 14 October, Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand proposed expanding the Franco-German Joint Brigade into a Eurocorps. The United States, long wary of exclusively European formations, threatens to pull out of Europe at the North Atlantic Council meeting in Copenhagen on 6–7 June 1991, if the European Community takes responsibility for security matters. The battle lines of the 1990s are drawn. There is another Europe. At the Copenhagen meeting the frst tentative steps toward NATO enlargement are taken and although Allied ministers refuse to give security guarantees to Central and Eastern European states they make it clear that European security is indivisible. On 7–8 November, at NATO’s Rome Summit, the fnal communiqué represents a historic shift in the Alliance’s mission as NATO is charged with assuring the security of the entire Euro-Atlantic space. It states, “For the Allies concerned, collective defense arrangements will rely increasingly on multinational forces, complementing national commitments to NATO.”8 On 20 December, the North Atlantic

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Co-operation Council (NACC) is created as a “Consultative Forum” for NATO members and nine Central and Eastern European countries. This initially includes the Soviet Union, although at the closing session Moscow insists that all reference to the Soviet Union be deleted from the document, which is also a sign of things to come. As Europe consolidates, the Soviet Union implodes. On 24 April 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev announces his resignation as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, but it is rejected. On 12 June, Boris Yeltsin is elected President of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR), and on 1 July, the Warsaw Pact is formally dissolved. Between 20 August and the end of December, Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan declare independence from the USSR. Lithuania had bravely declared independence in March 1990 and was the frst “Soviet Republic” to do so, but it had to struggle for its freedom. Finally, in August 1991, a desperate coup attempt by the old Communist Guard fails in Moscow and the fate of the Soviet Union is sealed. Boris Yeltsin emerges as the new Russian (no longer Soviet) strong man. On 21 December, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is set up as a successor grouping to the Soviet Union and the USSR ceases to exist. On 24 December, Yeltsin informs the SecretaryGeneral of the UN that the name “Russian Federation” should be used by the United Nations in place of the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics”. The Soviet Union becomes a footnote in history, albeit a large one, and in its place the West must now deal with a humiliated, unstable, bankrupt nuclear Russia uncertain of itself or its place in the world.

Echoes Between 31 May and 3 June 1990, Washington and Moscow agree to recommence the Strategic Arms Limitation Reduction Talks (START) to reduce risk of an accidental launch of nuclear weapons, including the removal of warheads from all multi-tipped missiles (MIRVs). Once the neurotic, obsessive epicenter of the Cold War, by 1990 such weapons seem passé even though secure control over former Soviet nuclear forces is no longer assured and becomes a central issue for the Alliance. In 1991, Kazakhstan briefy becomes the world’s newest and third largest nuclear power. On 29 January, President George H.W. Bush announces cuts to the Strategic Defense Initiative. Always primarily a political device designed to break the back of the Soviet strategic efort, the United States is many years from ever achieving an “air-tight” missile defense system. SDI is re-designated as Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) designed to protect the United States from unauthorized or accidental attacks from former Soviet warheads,

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and frst mention is made of possible attacks by so-called “rogue states,” a fear that will come to dominate U.S. leaders in years to come.9 Finally, on 31 July 1991, the START Treaty is signed, reducing the nuclear arsenals of America and Russia to a limit of 3500 warheads apiece. In so doing, the relative importance and weight of the modernizing British and French capabilities increases, the very thing that so worried Moscow back in the early 1980s.

The Yugoslav Meltdown If the Treaty on European Union heralds post-Cold War European ambitions, the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession remind them of its enduring legacy. The Yugoslav tragedy, for that is what it is, also demonstrates that collective security is as devilishly difcult to maintain as it ever was and raises profound questions on both sides of the Atlantic about the respective roles Americans and Europeans will play in the post-Cold War world. The problem with European defense is that it is more about the search for European political identity than meaningful defense and Yugoslavia’s meltdown reveals that. Reality is not meant to intervene, not just yet. The United States and United Kingdom insist that NATO remain at the heart of European security, whereas the French are slowly building a cobweb of security and defense institutions with Paris at its center to strengthen France’s political position in Europe. Key to the French strategy is Germany, which although deeply committed to European integration is not ready to abandon the Alliance which assured its defense for so long. The Wars of the Yugoslav Succession raise a new German question: what role will the new Germany seek to play? Yugoslavia had long been of concern to both superpowers worried that its complex mix of ethnic and religious rivalries dating back centuries could trigger a “doomsday scenario,” sitting as it does on the dividing line between Slavic, Turkic and Western cultures. Although nominally Communist, Yugoslavia had always been a semi-detached member of the Soviet bloc under Marshal Tito. With superpower overlay now removed, there was little or nothing to prevent those tensions re-surfacing, especially after a hardline nationalist Slobodan Milosevic is elected President of Serbia in May 1989. In 1991, war breaks out in Yugoslavia and immediately demonstrates the uncertain foundations of European solidarity. While most Europeans want to preserve the Yugoslav state Germany breaks ranks and insists upon recognizing Slovenian and Croatian independence. France and Britain are deeply concerned about the dangers of such an act and the complex spread of minorities across the Western Balkans. On 10 December 1991, UN Secretary-General Pérez de Cuellar warns that the selective recognition of the Yugoslav republics might exacerbate the confict, particularly in Bosnia and Macedonia. The scene for tragedy is now set. On 23 December, Germany formally

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recognizes Slovenia and Croatia forcing the other Europeans to follow suit. The new Germany is fexing its muscles. A new power-game of great power and institutional politics that is to so complicate the Balkan tragedy is now underway. The United States does not want to get involved in nation-building, but nor does Washington want the Europeans to lead. The Europeans, with the partial exception of a London trying to bestride a Europe and America drifting apart, are keen to apply “soft power.”10 Long-used to American leadership, Europeans are unsure about the utility and capability of their military power if needed, while Russia looks on powerless at the agony of other Slavs. The scene is set for the 1990s not only in Yugoslavia but across Europe and the wider transatlantic relationship, and as NATO’s moment of victory ends, it is clear that squaring the peace circle of the 1990s will not be easy. The security landscape the Alliance surveys is far from pretty and its ability to act decisively is already shrinking.

Enlargement and Estrangement In a speech in Mainz, West Germany on 31 May 1989, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush had set the challenge for the 1990s. “The passion for freedom cannot be denied forever. The world has waited long enough. The time is right. Let Europe be whole and free.”11 For all the tragedy in the Balkans the 1990s is also the great age of enlargement as the Alliance embraces the nations of the former Warsaw Pact. They mainly want American protection from Russia, NATO membership as a means to that end, and EU money and membership which many feel they are owed by the West. But, by their joining NATO, the Alliance ceases to be the power organization prospective members seek to join, thus creating a new NATO dilemma. Institutional shadow-boxing ensues. As the 1990s unfold, it becomes ever more apparent that for France and Germany, European integration is actually a metaphor for their own power leadership of Europe with progress (or otherwise) on European defense a litmus test of their ambitions, even as the situation in the former Yugoslavia deteriorates. On 19 June 1992, at the WEU Petersberg Summit in Bonn, WEU countries adopt the Petersberg Declaration whereby, “forces answerable to WEU (FAWEU) can henceforth undertake humanitarian missions, rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and the tasks of combat forces in crisis management (including peacemaking).”12 In June, the WEU holds its frst major exercise and, on 1 July, a provisional staf is established for Eurocorps. On 10 July, the WEU agrees to dispatch a naval force to the Adriatic to prevent the fow of arms to former Yugoslavia. On 28 August, WEU ministers also agree to send a 5000-strong force to undertake a humanitarian mission to the former Yugoslavia, while on 14 September, the UN Security Council expands the strength and mandate

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of the Anglo-French-led UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) therein. UNPROFOR had been established on 21 February to “create the conditions of peace and security required for the negotiation of an overall settlement of the Yugoslav crisis.”13 The force was also meant to ensure the demilitarization of the three UN Protected Areas (UNPA) and the protection of those residing within them. On 9 October, the UN Security Council establishes a no-fy zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina as European public opinion become nightly witnesses to atrocities on television which drives demands for action. The siege of Sarajevo by Bosnian Serb forces begins and the discovery of Serb death camps dominate the headlines in most Western newspapers across Europe. Something must be done. Europe’s leaders, by contrast, are a case study in weakness and irresolution. During the early phases of the war they oscillate between simply trying to ignore it and ofering the parties to the confict eventual EU membership. The end of the Cold War was not meant to be like this. There is little European stomach for military engagement and it becomes progressively evident that only U.S. leadership will end the confict. Unfortunately, if most Europeans are on strategic vacation, the United States is otherwise engaged. On 3 November 1992, William (Bill) Jeferson Clinton is elected President of the United States and, as he had put it so eloquently during the election campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” upon which his administration will focus.14 On 29 December 1992, an Austrian tourist and a hotel worker are killed by a bomb attack in Yemen. A little-known group claims responsibility. It is called Al Qaeda.

Strategy, History, and Technology In January 1993, departing U.S. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney identifes four critical areas for a U.S. national defense strategy: strategic defense and deterrence, forward presence, crisis response, and reconstitution. Of these four areas only crisis response strikes any real note with the European Allies. The divergence between the United States and many of the European Allies is not only political and strategic, but also driven by a growing defense technology and investment gap that increasingly hampers Allied operations. The division becomes all too apparent when Chancellor Kohl announces German troop cuts well below those agreed in the 1990 Two-Plus-Four Treaty. German reunifcation is proving to be too great a drain on the fnances of the Federal Republic to sustain a broad defense posture. German military weakness also convinces Paris that its ambitions for European defense will also need to be tempered, at least for the time being. France believes in European defense as a matter of long-held principle, but it faces exactly the same dilemma it faced in

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the 1950s and 1960s; European defense is too focused on institution-building and not enough on military capability-building. Germany is not alone in facing a defense dilemma, and as the Europe capacity to act weakens, the need to act grows. In an efort to ofset national capability gaps, several multinational military formations are formed. On 1–2 October 1992, the Headquarters of the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (HQARRC) is activated in Bielefeld, Germany, comprised mainly of elements from the old British Army of the Rhine now reinforced by allies. Spain, France and Italy create EUROFOR and EUROMARFOR, and on 30 March 1993, the Dutch and Germans agree to create the German-Netherlands Corps. The Dutch are a prime European example of how smaller allies are searching for a new balance between military capability and afordability, as they are already members of the UK-Netherlands Amphibious Force (UKNLAF) and have closely integrated the Royal Netherlands Navy with the Royal Belgian Navy.15 On 8 April, the German Constitutional Court also agrees that Luftwafe aircrew can take part in NATO operations over Bosnia-Herzegovina, even though it is outside the NATO area. It is not an easy decision and causes signifcant political ructions within Germany but, on 21 April, Germany also agrees to send 1600 troops to Somalia. The only way to resolve a growing capability-afordability-commitment dilemma is to harmonize the European defense efort, but that is easier said than done. It is a need made more pressing as the United States begins to experiment with Network Centric Warfare (NCW) and military digitization that is well beyond the reach, technology and cost of most Europeans. On 25–26 May, at a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Europeans at least agree to stabilize defense budgets. It is a start. Squaring the European Euro-defense circle comes to the fore of European politics. At the Copenhagen European Council on 21–22 June 1993, a report is presented on the future of European security interests and common principles for the future Common Foreign and Security Policy. On 22 June, the Belgian government announces that it will join Eurocorps and, between 21 and 29 October, the WEU carries out Exercise Ardente 93 in Italy, a 10,000-strong exercise simulating the rescuing of civilians in a war-torn environment. On 5 November, Eurocorps is fnally inaugurated, prompting German defense minister Volker Rühe to assert that “Eurocorps is the central building stone for European defense. We are creating an instrument for a joint foreign and security policy of the Europeans. At the end of the road Europe’s unifcation will be waiting.”16 It is a road long traveled. The reason for such hyperbole is not hard to fnd. On 1 November 1993, the Treaty on European Union enters into force as the European Community becomes the European Union (EU). An annex to the treaty states, “WEU will be developed as the defense component of the European Union and as a means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance.”17

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The creation of the EU is juxtaposed by the terrible slaughter in Bosnia, just a few hundred kilometers from Brussels. On 6 May 1993, the UN Security Council passes Resolution 824 declaring Sarajevo, Tuzla, Zepa, Gorazde, Bihac, and Srebrenica so-called “safe areas.” Slowly the Alliance fnds itself drawn in to the strife as NATO and WEU combine naval forces to better enforce the UN embargo against Serbia, the architect of the war. On 10 June, NATO foreign ministers also agree to ofer protective air power should UNPROFOR be attacked and the UN request it. Sadly, such acts do not impress the Bosnian Serbs who continue their relentless onslaught. Finally, on 2 August, and in the face of continued slaughter, the United States proposes air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs, which the NATO Allies reluctantly accept, even if the Americans are wary of ground operations, a fear deepened by the death of 18 U.S. Rangers in Somalia on 3–4 October, and the decision by President Clinton to withdraw U.S. forces from the Horn of Africa by 31 March 1994. On 26 February 1993, a huge bomb is detonated in the garage of the North Tower of the World Trade Center by Islamist fundamentalists claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda. NATO was (and is) America’s only truly entangling alliance, and thus a leitmotif of U.S. engagement beyond its shores. Washington is concerned that European defense is becoming mired in EU institutional politics and moves to re-energize NATO. The main objective is to develop a NATO future force built on a new U.S. force concept: the Revolution in Military Afairs (RMA). At a NATO defense ministers’ meeting on 8–9 December 1993, Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) are introduced to create robust, multinational triservice forces for the conduct of non-Article 5 operations. Ministers stress their commitment to improving their ability to participate in a range of operations to facilitate closer co-operation between NATO and the WEU in this feld, including the possibility of making Alliance assets available for use in European-led operations following consultation within the Alliance. An aim of the concept of Combined Joint Task Forces is to give further impetus towards achieving this.13 The statement represents the frst formal consideration of the use of NATO assets and capabilities for operations outside the Alliance framework and refects Washington’s growing concern about the “duplication” by Europeans of key strategic assets at a time of deep defense cuts. A sticking point soon becomes apparent: the release mechanism for NATO assets and capabilities to the WEU/ EU. France and the United States cannot agree . . . again. At the pivotal NATO Brussels summit, on 10–11 January 1994, the gathered Heads of State and Government give their “full support to the development of

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a European Security and Defense Identity,” within the Alliance. The delicate relations between NATO and the EU are also succinctly captured by the Summit Communique: The emergence of a European Security and Defense Identity will strengthen the European pillar of the Alliance while reinforcing the transatlantic link and will enable European Allies to take greater responsibility for their common security and defense. The Alliance and the European Union share common strategic interests.18 To that end, the leaders also “support strengthening the European pillar of the Alliance through the Western European Union, which is being developed as the defense component of the European Union,” so that WEU states can utilize the “ collective assets of the Alliance,” and that CJTF be developed “as a means to facilitate contingency operations, including operations with participating nations outside the Alliance,” should NATO as a whole choose not to act.19 The caveat is important because it implies a “NATO-frst” stipulation to which Paris strenuously objects and which blights NATO-EU relations to this day. The great age of Cold War engagement is giving way to the great age of NATO enlargement. The Brussels summit also launches the Partnership for Peace (PfP) Program to enhance the ability of non-NATO partners to work closely with Alliance forces and to prepare many of them for eventual membership. Partnership for Peace highlights another dilemma: how to ensure that new members can contribute to crisis management operations, commensurate with their size, capability, and thus NATO’s need to be efective, as well as inclusive. It is an acute dilemma. The Alliance is, after all, founded on task, cost and responsibility-sharing, even if the costs of operations continue to “lie where they fall” on members so engaged. Enlargement changes the character of the Alliance as Membership Action Plans (MAPs) and Individual Partnership Programs (IPPs) become the focus for much of the work at NATO Headquarters. PfP is launched just as the Bosnian end-game starts. On 5 February, a bomb explodes in a market square in Sarajevo killing 68 and wounding more than 200 people. On 9 February, NATO issues an ultimatum to the Serbs: they must pull back all heavy weapons to a 20-kilometer exclusion zone around the Bosnian capital and hand them over to UN control by 20 February, or face attack. On 28 February, NATO forces shoot down four Serbian Galeb fghter-bombers violating the no-fy zone, but as with all things in former Yugoslavia, the end-game is protracted, complicated, and deadly.

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The EU Alternative On 12 July 1994, speaking at celebrations to mark the de-activation of Allied forces in Berlin, Chancellor Kohl specifes what he sees as the essential problem of European defense. Europe, he suggests, needs America to continue to play a central role in European security, but it is also in the U.S. interest that Europe assumes greater responsibility for itself and international security. By 1994, the European propensity to free-ride on the United States is well established as few of them want to spend money on defense and even fewer have any real stomach for robust crisis management. For some of the smaller Europeans free-riding makes perfect economic sense as whatever they spend on defense it will never aford them any real infuence over their larger allies while collective security operations are not seen as vital to their interests. An already complicated relationship between NATO and the EU further deteriorates as Americans embark on force modernization while Europeans do not, even though the Balkans has demonstrated the need for more efective European crisis management. For once it is a transatlantic split with France and the United States on the same side, even if they seek diferent solutions. Both Paris and Washington are frustrated at the irresolution of many Europeans. As ever, Europeans seek institutional and organizational solutions to fnd a balance between strategy and afordability none of which provide muchneeded capability. On 29 June, the WEU presents a report to NATO on the criteria and modalities for the efective use of Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs). Once the North Atlantic Council has approved the use of a CJTF by the WEU, NATO will select a CJTF Headquarters from one of its major subordinate commands and prepare it for deployment. Easy enough, but the sticking point remains control over the assets and the specifc mechanism for the release of NATO assets and capabilities to WEU Command. On 12 July, the German Constitutional Court confrms that German force deployment may be deployed for all UN and NATO operations should there be a parliamentary majority. In efect, the German debate is the bell-weather of the “out of NATO area debate.” Two days later, and for the frst time since 14 June 1940, German troops march down the Champs Elysées in Paris as part of the Bastille Day celebrations. The political balancing act that Germany must perform between Washington and Paris is implicit in the symbolism of the two events, as is Europe’s 54-year journey and the indispensable role the Alliance played in realizing such a historic reconciliation. Even in the midst of the Byzantine politics of European defense France never loses its grasp of defense reality. The Balkans tragedy has demonstrated that Europeans will not for the foreseeable future be in any position to provide for their own security and defense. For Paris, the key to Europe’s future defense becomes the involvement of the powerful, but deeply skeptical British

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in EU security and defense eforts. The French strategy is simple: push for formalized European defense inside the EU and agree with the British ad hoc arrangements that over time may be institutionalized. It is a strategy very much in the spirit of Jean Monnet, spiced by a touch of Gaullism. The British, for their part, keep the door open to such a demarche, partly because London is frustrated by a lack of U.S. support for British forces in Bosnia. On 29–30 September 1994, French defense minister François Leotard suggests a rapprochement between France and military NATO, but the AngloFrench truce does not last long. In October, UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, echoing the tensions over the European Defense Community in the 1950s, says of EU security and defense ambitions, “Security goes to the heart of the functions of the nation-state,” and “public opinion would not understand or accept it if these responsibilities appeared to have been surrendered to a supranational body, however worthy.” Subtly, Hurd leaves the door open for more Anglo-French co-operation by adding that “although both countries difer occasionally . . . neither for Britain nor for France is there attraction in a vision of Europe which erodes national identity.”20 This provokes a tart response from the French as President Mitterrand warns of potentially lethal contradictions between northern and southern memberstates of the European Union. The French Permanent Representative to the WEU also warns that the more Europeans depend upon Alliance assets, the more they will need assets of their own to prevent the political subordination of the EU to NATO. Mitterrand then goes far beyond anything London would be prepared to accept when he publicly wonders about a European nuclear deterrent, while his Prime Minister, Alain Juppé, even talks about “dissuasion concertée”: a concerted European deterrent. France’s other European partners are no keener on this idea than London, particularly the Germans. With further echoes of the failed Multilateral Force proposals of the early 1960s, it demonstrates that France’s strategic ambition for European defense goes far beyond that of Britain, a point underlined when, on 10 June 1995, France, Italy and Spain launch the Helios 1A satellite, the frst European military observation satellite system. Washington is particularly concerned that France is duplicating expensive American assets and shifting the cost of its ambitions on to European partners at a time of weak European defense budgets. For France, Helios 1A is a symbolic re-statement of Gaullist principles that is to inform the presidency of the new French President Jacques Chirac.

NATO and the Bosnian End-Game European vacillation is confronted by Balkan tragedy. Between 6 and 16 July 1995, 7000 Bosnian Muslim men are massacred in and around Srebrenica and some 23,000 women and children are deported to Muslim territory. It is the

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most egregious act of ethnic cleansing yet seen during the Wars of the Yugoslav Succession. Worse, the massacre takes place after poorly-supported and poorlyled Dutch troops, lacking a clear mandate and rules of engagement, hand over the Srebrenica safe haven to besieging Bosnian Serb forces. Action must fnally be taken. On 21 July, the London Conference warns the Bosnian Serbs that an attack on Gorazde (another UN safe haven) will be met by substantial and decisive airpower, but on 26 July the Zepa safe haven also falls to the Bosnian Serb Army. Finally, on 30 August 1995, after many ceasefres and many broken promises, and following another mortar attack on civilians in Sarajevo which leaves 38 dead, NATO starts Operation Deliberate Force. With the credibility of the Alliance, EU, the UN and the West on the line, a protracted bombing campaign is launched to degrade the ability of Bosnian Serb forces to continue their ethnic cleansing. For Europeans, it is all too evident that only when the Americans fully engage will the Bosnian Serbs fnally be forced to the negotiating table, but by then over 200,000 people have been killed. On 20 September, after some 3515 sorties by NATO aircraft, the campaign is brought to an end and the Bosnian Serbs capitulate. The Americans take over. The leaders of all the warring factions are taken to an airfeld in Dayton, Ohio and are told they will not leave until peace is agreed. On 21 November 1995, the “General Framework Agreement on Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina” is signed. In the fnal negotiations the leading Europeans are even locked out of the map room as the deal is struck by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. On 14 December, the General Framework Agreement is again signed in Paris, ofering a political fg-leaf to the Europeans, while on 15 December, the UN Security Council authorizes the deployment of an Implementation Force (IFOR) under NATO command, which duly begins work on 20–21 December, alongside the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) and the International Police Task Force (IPTF). Europe is humiliated. Srebrenica is thus not only the beginning of the end of the Bosnian Serb Army, it is the beginning of the end of strategic vacation. NATO must get back to work.

Notes 1 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept, Part IV – Guidelines for Defense, Paragraph 46” agreed by the Heads of State and Government, North Atlantic Council, Rome, 7–8 November 1991, www.nato.int/ docu/comm/49-95/c911107a.htm 2 President Reagan said: “And then John Winthrop, who would later become the frst Governor of Massachusetts, reminded his fellow Puritans there on that tiny deck that they must keep faith with their God, that the eyes of all the world were upon them, and that they must not forsake the mission that God had sent them on, and they

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Strategic Vacation must be a light unto the nations of all the world – a shining city upon a hill.” See the Archives of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, “Remarks at the Opening Ceremonies of the Statue of Liberty Centennial in New York, New York, 3 July 1986,” www.reagan.utexas.edu/search/speeches/speech_srch. html In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote, “Assuming that liberal democracy is, for the moment, safe from external enemies, could we assume that successful democratic societies could remain that way indefnitely? Or is liberal democracy prey to serious internal contradictions, contradictions so serious that they will eventually undermine it as a political system? There is no doubt that contemporary democracies face any number of serious problems, from drugs, homelessness and crime to environmental damage and the frivolity of consumerism.” Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992) p. xxi. The North Atlantic Council, “London Declaration on a Transformed North Atlantic Alliance Issued by the Heads of State and Government Participating in the Meeting of the North Atlantic Council,” London, 5–6 July 1990, www.nato.int/docu/ comm/49-95/c900706a.htm CFE continues to remain a source of contention between NATO and Russia. The September 2014 NATO Wales Summit states, “We Are Also Concerned by Russia’s Pattern of Disregard for International Law .  .  . [and] Its Long-standing Non-implementation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE).” Wales Summit Declaration, 5 September 2014, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_ 112517.htm While focused determinedly on the economic relationship and establishing biannual consultations between the European Community and the U.S., the Declaration afrms that “To achieve their common goals, the European Community, and its Member-States and the United States of America will inform and consult each other on important matters of common interest.” The Declaration does not mention NATO by name, merely suggesting, “In appropriate international bodies . . . they will seek close cooperation.” In some respects, this is the start of a direct US–EC relationship that some have feared will one day eclipse NATO. See Transatlantic Declaration on EU-US Relations, http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/ us/economic_partnership/declaration_1990.htm Treaty on European Union, Provisions of a Common Foreign and Security Policy, Title V, Article J.4.1, December 1991, www.europa.eu/legislation_summaries/ institutional_affairs/treaties/treaties_masstr icht_affairs/treaties/treaties_ maastricht_en.htm NATO, “The Alliance’s New Strategic Concept, Agreed by the Heads of State and Government,” Rome, 7–8 November 1991, www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/ c911107a.htm The label “rogue state” frst appeared in the 1994 edition of Foreign Afairs, when then U.S. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake labeled fve nations as rogue states: North Korea, Cuba, Iran, Libya under Muammar Gaddaf and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. They are dangerous states that routinely break international law and pose a threat to others. In his 2004 article in Foreign Afairs, Professor Joseph Nye coined the phrase “soft power” to distinguish it against the hard power of armed force, as part of a balanced and broad set of state tools for efective foreign engagement. See Nye, Joseph S., “The Decline of America’s Soft Power,” Foreign Afairs 83, No. 3, May/June 2004, 16–20. See “A Whole Europe, A Free Europe,” speech by President George H.W. Bush, 31 May 1989, http://voiceofdemocracy.umd.edu/bush-a-whole-europe-textual/ authentication

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12 Western European Union, “Petersberg Declaration,” Section II, Paragraph 4, Western European Union, Council of Ministers, Bonn, 19 June 1992, www.weu.int/ documents/920619peten.pdf 13 The mandate lasted from February 1992 to March 1995 and was to ensure three so-called “United Nations Protected Areas” were maintained and the people therein protected. The “UNPA” at Srebrenica collapsed catastrophically. See www.un.org/ Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/unprof_p.htm 14 Clinton’s focus was cutting the budget defcit of the Reagan years and ofering a middle-class tax cut but he was no lightweight on matters international. In his memoirs he writes of the importance of NATO as the Berlin Wall fell: “Our long standof against Communist expansion was ending with the victory of freedom, thanks to the united front presented by NATO and the constancy of American leaders from Harry Truman to George Bush.” See Clinton, Bill, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004) p. 353. 15 A recent report on the Netherlands’ Armed Forces reinforced this point: “. . . weakness in European defense planning has been laid bare – the Netherlands is no exception  – as years of tension between military guidance to political leaders and the choices made by those leaders is clear to see for all but the most strategically myopic.” See Lindley-French, Julian, and Tjepkema, Anne, Between the Polder and a Hard Place: The Netherlands and Defence Planning Challenges for Smaller European Countries, RUSI: Whitehall Report 2–10 (London: RUSI, 2010) p. 3. 16 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defense 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 215. 17 Ibid., p. 215. 18 NATO, “Declaration of the Heads of State and Government,” Ministerial, Meeting of the North Atlantic Council/North Atlantic Cooperation Council, Brussels, 11 January 1994, www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c940111a.htm 19 NATO, “Final Communiqué,” Paragraph 4, Defense Planning Committee and Nuclear Planning Group (NATO Press Communiqué M-DPC/NPG-2(93)75), Brussels, 9 December 1993, www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c931209a.htm 20 Lindley-French, Julian, A Chronology of European Security and Defense 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) p. 223.

5 REINVENTING NATO

As Europeans look at the best way to organize their foreign and security co-operation the key is to make sure that any institutional change is consistent with the basic principles that have served the Atlantic partnership for ffty years. This means avoiding what I would call the Three Ds: de-coupling, duplication and discrimination. First, we want to avoid de-coupling: NATO is the expression of the indispensable transatlantic link. It should remain an organization of sovereign allies, where European decision-making is not unhooked from broader alliance decision-making. Second, we want to avoid duplication: defense resources are too scarce for allies to conduct force-planning, operate command structures, and make procurement decisions twice – once at NATO and once more at the EU. And third, we want to avoid any discrimination against NATO members who are not EU members. U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright, Financial Times, 7 December 1998

Chastened by failure in their own backyard, the majority of European states fnally accept that the political ambitions for European defense are well ahead of military reality. Given that there is little appetite in Europe for the kind of expenditures that would realize such a robust capability, the choice is simple: better defense integration and co-ordination within the EU, or a new strategic consensus with the United States . . . or something in between. What of the Americans? Washington in the 1990s sees its role as a global strategic reserve underpinned by a desire to avoid becoming the “world’s policeman,” which is challenged by fractious reality. At times, the U.S. debate seems almost akin to the isolationism of the 1920s and 1930s.1 However, power imposes responsibility and the greater the power, the greater the responsibility. Difering levels of power also imposes difering strategic methods which becomes ever more apparent in the NATO of the 1990s. For the American military, frepower and maneuver are the credos of efectiveness, whereas for Europeans, it is stabilization and reconstruction. Somewhere in the middle is a working strategic consensus, but the very imbalance in power between the United States and its Allies makes fnding such a balance very difcult. There is also a split within DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-6

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Europe. The two countries that enjoy a residual strategic tradition, Britain and France, remain relatively robust about the use and utility of force compared with other Europeans, and are better prepared for robust peacekeeping and peacemaking. However, like all Europeans, they lack sufcient military depth, particularly military personnel. The debate within the Alliance in the second half of the 1990s thus becomes focused on how to generate sufcient European forces across the confict spectrum able to carry out both crisis response operations (CROs) and peace support operations (PSOs). There is logic to this. Not only are such forces in demand, but with enlargement impending such operations represent the kind of tasks that new members should also be able to undertake. Peacekeeping also suits Germany and Italy, who by and large remain on strategic vacation, frequently raiding defense budgets to pay for their other “essential” public services in their increasingly welfarized states. Only the Americans really see peacekeeping as a subset of the warfghting for which they believe all NATO militaries should continue to prepare. By 1996, the Alliance is again deeply split along political, military, technological, economic, doctrinal, and even cultural lines. What all agree is that the Bosnian fasco has been a wake-up call and change is needed. But what change and how much will it cost?

Berlin-plus Not for the frst time France makes a move. On 17 January 1996, the French ambassador to NATO says France will fully participate in NATO’s Military Committee, although not in the Defense Planning Committee or the Nuclear Planning Group, albeit for a price. On a visit to the U.S. French President Jacques Chirac stresses NATO “reform,” which is in reality a metaphor for automatic EU access to NATO assets and capabilities, particularly the Combined Joint Planning Staf (CJPS). The United States responds by agreeing with France that Combined Joint Task Forces can also operate under nonNATO command, so long as a prior decision has been taken by the North Atlantic Council and all NATO members. There is a catch. While France is keen to have one umbrella decision prior to any European-led operation, Turkey insists on a decision by the Council each time a request for NATO assets is made. On 3–4 June 1996, the Berlin North Atlantic Council agrees to reinforce the European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) within the Alliance to include a new command structure and to support EU-led operations using NATO assets and capabilities. The Berlin-plus process is born. For all the apparent progress Paris and Washington remain deeply mistrustful of each other and it is not long before discord threatens to derail even

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the modest Berlin-plus proposals. On 25–26 September, at an informal meeting of NATO defense ministers, France threatens to halt its limited re-integration into the NATO military command structure unless two top command positions are given to Europeans, particularly Allied Forces South (AFSOUTH). The United States mistakenly takes this to mean the French are seeking to control the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which was not their intention. As so often in relations between Paris and Washington a non-argument spirals into confrontation, not least because of a sub-text over information security. On 6 May 1996, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana and WEU Secretary-General José Cutileiro sign a security agreement setting out the procedures for protecting and safeguarding classifed information and material. However, the Americans remain concerned about how the highly classifed material they provide might be used because the Americans suspect France of having leaked NATO intelligence to the Serbs during Operation Deliberate Force.2 In May, French Foreign Minister Hervé de Charette again warns that France will slow its re-integration into NATO’s integrated military command structure if Europe’s role in the Alliance does not become more autonomous, while France and Germany also call for deeper European defense co-operation. On 9 December, Kohl and Chirac sign an agreement on mutual security and defense in which they state their readiness to undertake a dialog on the role of nuclear deterrence in European defense. The search for strategic consensus goes on. On 3 December, the United States and EU issue a “New Transatlantic Agenda” in which the respective roles of both NATO and the EU are spelled out. We are committed to the construction of a new security architecture in which the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Union, the Western European Union, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Council of Europe have complementary and mutually reinforcing roles to play.3 An EU-U.S. Action Plan is also adopted and at the North Atlantic Council, on 10 December, ministers confrm NATO’s readiness to lead a Stabilization Force (SFOR) to succeed the Implementation Force (IFOR) in Bosnia, subject to UN Security Council mandate. Importantly, they also agree further steps to transform Alliance military capabilities and to prepare for the enlargement summit planned for Madrid in July 1997. On 13 November, a car bomb explodes outside a building belonging to a U.S. security frm in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Nine people die. Al Qaeda is believed to be responsible.

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NATO, Russia, and Enlargement Russia has never liked NATO enlargement. The sight of all the former Warsaw Pact countries queuing up to join the old NATO enemy puts Russia’s sense of its own humiliation into stark relief. Moscow has also long made it clear that it does not want Allied forces stationed on the soil of any new members. If Europe is to be secure Russia cannot be ignored so the Alliance moves to massage Russia’s deeply-bruised ego. On 20–21 March 1996, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana visits Moscow ostensibly to discuss civil emergency co-operation, but also to persuade the Kremlin to accept NATO enlargement. However, Moscow remains steadfastly opposed to any Alliance structures on the territories of the new NATO members: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. They also remain fatly opposed to the stationing of NATO forces in the three Baltic States, should they too become Alliance members. On 2–3 December 1996, at the OSCE Lisbon Summit, the Russians make their opposition abundantly clear at the adoption of the “Declaration on a Common and Comprehensive Security Model for Europe,” even as President Clinton’s State of the Union address calls for NATO enlargement to be completed by 1999. Fortunately, Moscow wants something: special status in Washington that sets them above other Europeans. Washington is happy to oblige, or at least appear to. On 27 May, “The Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation” establishes the NATORussia Permanent Joint Council (PJC). The hope is that the Act will be an important step to normalizing relations between the two former enemies, not least because the impending enlargement of the Alliance could mean the difference between a Russia that is a reasonably constructive partner in European security, and a Russia that is most decidedly not. The Founding Act “defnes the goals and mechanism of consultation, co-operation, joint decision-making and joint action that will constitute the core of the mutual relations between NATO and Russia.”4 It is a high-water mark in NATO-Russia relations, opens the way to NATO enlargement, but it is not to last. On 30 May, the fnal meeting of the North Atlantic Co-operation Council takes place as its successor, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) is inaugurated. The EAPC brings together the 19 Allies and 27 Partner Countries from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, as well as traditionally neutral countries including two future members of the Alliance, Finland and Sweden. NATO’s transformation from classical military alliance to comprehensive security organization is almost complete . . . but not quite. On 8–9 June, at the NATO Madrid Summit the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland are formally invited to join the Alliance, while on 26 September, the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council holds its frst meeting of foreign

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ministers. In December, NATO also signs Accession Protocols with the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Finally, on 12 March 1999, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary become the frst former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO. It is a historic moment. 1997 proves to be a pivotal year. On 2 May, Tony Blair is elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. On 23 July, Slobodan Milosevic, President of Serbia, becomes President of what is left of Yugoslavia. On 16–17 June, the EU’s Amsterdam European Council incorporates the WEU’s Petersberg Tasks into the Common Foreign and Security Policy opening the way for the eventual integration of the WEU into the EU. The Council also creates the post of High Representative for the CFSP and the man proposed is none other than NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. The political symbolism is there for all to see. Events are also beginning to move beyond Europe. On 15 July, the U.S. Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States reports that North Korea and Iran will be able to infict major destruction on the United States within fve years of a decision to acquire such a capability, ten years in the case of Iraq. Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative is about to be re-born at the behest of the Commission Chairman  – one Donald Rumsfeld. Less than a month later, on 7 August, 257 people are killed and more than 5000 injured in simultaneous attacks against U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda claim responsibility. On 20 August, President Clinton orders cruise missile attacks on a compound where it is believed Al Qaeda is housed in Afghanistan and a chemicals factory in Sudan.

St Malo and EU Crisis Management On 25 October, during a meeting in Portschach, Austria, Tony Blair breathes new life into the search for European strategic consensus by making the most pro-European statement on defense of any British leader since Suez. There was a willingness which the UK obviously shares, for Europe to take a stronger foreign policy and security role . . . A Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union is necessary, it is overdue, it is needed and it is high time we got on with trying to engage with formulating it. He also adds that “ we need to make sure that the institutional mechanism in no way undermines NATO, but rather is complementary to it.”5

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There is more. On 3–4 December, in a groundbreaking agreement the United Kingdom and France issue the St Malo Declaration, which states (very carefully): The Union [EU] must be given appropriate structures and a capacity for analysis of situations, sources of intelligence, and a capability for relevant strategic planning, without unnecessary duplication, taking account of existing assets of the WEU and the evolution of its relations with the EU. In this regard it will also need to have recourse to suitable military means (European capabilities pre-designated within NATO’s European pillar or national or multinational European means outside the NATO framework).6 In an efort to move the NATO-EU debate forward, and to provide the bridge between the United States and Europe to which it aspires, the United Kingdom lifts its decades-long veto on an autonomous European defense, so long as it remains NATO-compatible. It is a typically Blairite gamble. Those in favor of a maximal interpretation of European defense move to capitalize on the British shift, but while Britain and France agree on the need for efective European crisis management they are still deeply divided over the so-called fnalité of European defense. For Paris, the politics of European defense are as important as the substance; for the British, it is still capabilities and efectiveness that matter. On 7 December, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reinforces that very point. While she endorses the Franco-British initiative she says that Europe must avoid the “3Ds – no duplication, no discrimination and no decoupling.”7 On 11–12 December, the European Council “welcomes the new impetus given to the debate on a common European policy on security and defense” and, a little over a year later, on 13–14 March 1999, the German Presidency of the EU submits a paper entitled “Strengthening the Common Policy on Security and Defense.” For France this is the political green light it has been seeking since the early 1950s to lead Europe toward full strategic “autonomy” from the United States and it will soon have a powerful new ally. On 27 October, Gerhard Schroeder is elected Chancellor of Germany. Between 9 and 16 December 1998, UNSCOM inspectors leave Iraq complaining that their work is being obstructed and the United States and the United Kingdom launch missile and air strikes to force Iraq to fully comply with UN weapons inspections.

The Kosovo War In Kosovo, a region Serbs see as sacred to their national identity but in which 90 percent of the population are of Albanian extraction, violence breaks out.

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On 9 March 1998, the Contact Group, a relatively new grouping comprising the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Italy, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, call upon President Milosevic to take rapid and efective steps to stop the violence and engage in a commitment to fnd a political solution through dialog. The Contact Group also demands that all Serb special police units are withdrawn and all actions against the civilian population cease. The Group also says that any solution to the problem must recognize the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and take into account the rights of the Kosovo Albanians. Given the situation on the ground the policy is clearly unworkable. On 31 March, the UN Security Council adopts Resolution 1160 imposing an arms embargo on Yugoslavia which the EU supports and throughout May, June and July over 13,000 refugees cross over the border into Albania as the ghastly experience of Bosnia seems about to be repeated. On 12 June, the Contact Group calls for an immediate ceasefre, the withdrawal of all Yugoslav and Serbian security forces, the admission of international monitors and fresh talks. That same day, NATO launches Operation Determined Falcon over Macedonia involving 85 aircraft from 13 Alliance members and which is designed to intimidate the Belgrade government, but it has little efect. On 24 June, Tony Blair warns that the use of NATO air and ground power remains an option unless Belgrade pulls out of Kosovo and NATO begins planning for military operations against what is left of rump Yugoslavia. Russia is implacably opposed. On 24 September, NATO defense ministers give SACEUR General Wesley Clark authorization to ask members for the forces necessary to carry out military operations, but with Russia opposed, the Pentagon wrangling over the rules of engagement, and time still needed to build up NATO’s strength in the region, the Allies agree to give diplomacy one last chance. On 6 February 1999, peace talks begin in Rambouillet, France. On 23 February, the talks are adjourned and fnally collapse on 15 March. On 19 March, all international observers are told to leave Kosovo as the fnal countdown to war begins. On 22 March, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke travels to Belgrade in a last-ditch attempt to convince Milosevic to climb down, but to no avail. Although a specifc UN Security Council Resolution authorizing the use of force cannot be obtained due to Russian and Chinese objections, on 24 March, NATO begins Operation Allied Force. Belgrade responds by declaring a state of war. The Kosovo War has begun. The war continues until 11 June when the NATO air campaign is suspended and Serbian troops begin their withdrawal from Kosovo. On 10 June, Resolution 1244 is adopted by the UN Security Council establishing an international security presence in Kosovo that NATO will lead. Then, Russian armor suddenly makes an unexpected move across the border from Bosnia and occupies Pristina Airport, close to the Kosovar capital. After negotiations between

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Russian and British commanders a modus vivendi is reached and bloodshed avoided as British, French, German, U.S. and Italian troops then move into the region and occupy their respective zones as part of NATO’s Kosovo Force (KFOR). It is still there. NATO succeeds because of over-whelming NATO frepower and because the Allies retain solidarity during the crisis, but there are some worrying developments. First, the United States insists that the war plan for the campaign is developed in the Pentagon and not NATO’s Combined and Joint Planning System (CJPS) so as to avoid “war by committee.”8 Second, the war plan is shaped to suit U.S. forces, the Americans then accuse the European Allies of not having done enough. In fact, the European Allies are willing to do more but the campaign is dictated by a U.S. desire not to get involved on the ground or to take risks with air crew. It is the British, French, Italians and Germans that push for a ground intervention and Milosevic only starts to talk seriously when the Europeans begin to mass troops on the Albanian border with Kosovo. While NATO in the end succeeds divisions remain that point to an uncertain future for Alliance unity of efort and purpose.

Power and Divergence NATO’s 1999 Washington Summit and the EU Helsinki Summit come at a pivotal moment in the West’s search for a new strategic consensus. On the one hand, the United States is beginning to transform its military and will soon be technically out of reach of many Europeans. On the other hand, the emerging big security picture is slowly restoring great power to the fore, shifting the organization, focus, and application of hard power front and center of international relations. Europeans are thus faced with an ever-deepening dilemma. As military equipment becomes more advanced and complicated, the unit cost of weapons systems spirals. Many of them are reducing defense budgets and they seek to resolve the dilemma by sacrifcing the mass for their respective forces for small forces that aford them some interoperability with U.S. forces but at the expense of any strategic depth. The result is inevitable: Europe’s Bonsai militaries of today.9 Consequently, the two summits are replete with strategic contradictions, precisely because they concern the organization and application of hard power. The Washington Summit focusses on the rehabilitation of NATO, the enduring American-led European security power hub. Helsinki focusses on the creation of a new European power hub, albeit without the power. While NATO’s strategic landscape has changed beyond all recognition since the 1950s, the relationships between the Alliance’s members still bear a striking resemblance. The United States remains the indispensable nation, but enjoys nothing like the control or infuence it once did within the Alliance. The United Kingdom is still America’s indispensable European ally, but is steadily becoming

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marginalized in Europe. France is France – brilliant, visionary, and politically incompetent frustrated by the refusal of fellow Europeans to follow its lead. Germany is once again united and a model European democracy, but profoundly unsure over its role in the wider world or Europe’s defense, even as Berlin emerges as Europe’s leading political and economic power. The rest try to strike a balance between the demands of the United States, their own nowingrained habit of free-riding, and the reluctance of their political leaders to take any risk or plan for the longer-term. For the three former Warsaw Pact countries now NATO members, and the six in waiting, the Alliance is not the alliance they expected. With the Kosovo War under way Alliance Heads of State and Government gather in Washington to mark the fftieth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty. Javier Solana is still NATO Secretary-General, but widely expected to take over as High Representative of the CFSP, with British Defense Secretary George Robertson tipped as Solana’s replacement. Fifty years on there is a certain historical symmetry as the frst Secretary-General, Bruce Ismay, was also British. The fnal communiqué of NATO’s Washington Summit refects the high and low politics of Alliance life. Inspired by events in Kosovo, an American desire to avoid nation-building, European political ambitions, and European military weakness the Americans fnally reconcile EU eforts to build up its own security and defense, so long as such EU-led missions are separable but not separate from the Alliance. Capabilities become the American currency for assessing European seriousness, which in turn raises an important question for Europeans. How much are Europeans prepared to invest to keep the United States engaged in Europe’s security? It is a question that will split the Alliance asunder a few years hence. By 1999, America and much of Europe simply do not share the same strategic view, while some Europeans lack any strategic view at all, and simply seek the “comfort” of a purely regional EU security and defense policy increasingly organized around soft power Germany. At least a new Strategic Concept is agreed and it is the frst to be published. The 1999 Strategic Concept also lays out the blueprint for a twenty-frst-century NATO and is a triumph of American statecraft refecting the steady deterioration of the strategic environment and the challenges NATO must face as the Alliance endeavors to reach across the spectrum from collective defense to collective security. The Concept also afrms that the Alliance’s “essential and enduring purpose” is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members through both political and military means by afrming democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and expresses the commitment of the Allies not only to common defense, but to the peace and stability of the wider Euro-Atlantic area.10 The Strategic Concept also re-establishes the core tasks of the Alliance. Collective defense remains the cornerstone mission of the Alliance, but NATO

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is also to undertake crisis prevention and management and help build partnerships vital to the security of the Euro-Atlantic Security Community. It reconfrms that the threat of general war has all but disappeared from Europe, but other risks have emerged since 1991 with which the Alliance must now contend, such as inter alia ethnic conficts, human rights abuses, political instability, economic fragility, the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and their means of delivery, organized crime, and terrorism. The 1999 NATO Strategic Concept is thus a comprehensive approach to security and defense that champions the enduring centrality of the transatlantic link and the indivisibility of European and North American security, but above all the maintenance of efective military capabilities vital for efective operations, “from collective defense to crisis response operations.” It also calls for the development of a European Security and Defense Identity which builds upon the Berlin-plus process and emphasizes close co-operation between NATO, the WEU and “if and when appropriate,” the EU.11 Confict prevention and crisis management operations, such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo, remain “a key aspect of NATO’s contribution to Euro-Atlantic peace and security,” partnership, co-operation and dialog, both in Europe and beyond and the Strategic Concept places particular importance on the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Partnership for Peace and the Mediterranean Dialog; enlargement, and arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. It also calls for “special relationships” with both Russia and Ukraine.12 The problem is that much of the Strategic Concept is fantasy as NATO cannot escape the reality that as ever more tasks are assigned to the Alliance the smaller European forces and resources become. In an attempt to resolve this dilemma the Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) is launched in Washington, an American test of European seriousness across several over-lapping areas of military capability; mobility and deployability, sustainability, survivability and interoperability in addition to some 58 separate categories of military capability weaknesses and shortfalls the Americans call on the Europeans to address. The EU is facing much the same set of challenges. At the Helsinki European Council, on 10–11 December 1999, the Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG) commits the EU by 2003 to be able to deploy within 60 days, and sustain for up to one year a force of 50,000 to 60,000 military personnel, capable of undertaking the full range of Petersberg Tasks. A standing Political and Security Committee is established to provide strategic political guidance during crises, together with a Military Committee (EUMC) made up of national chiefs of defense staf (CHODs) or their representatives and supported by a military staf. EU leaders also call on the supranational European Commission to create a civilian rapid reaction capability and pledge the capabilities necessary to ensure efectiveness. Echoing NATO’s Washington Summit, the EU calls for forces that are deployable, sustainable, interoperable, fexible, mobile and

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survivable as the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) is formally inaugurated. EU leaders also call for appropriate arrangements for consultation, co-operation and transparency to be established between the EU and NATO, and for the necessary dialog, consultation, and co-operation with non-EU members of NATO. Complementarity between NATO and the EU is the key issue, together with the role of non-EU NATO members in EU-led operations, most notably Turkey. On 15 June 2001, newly-elected President George W. Bush delivers a speech in Warsaw in which he addresses EU-NATO relations head on: “I believe in NATO membership for all of Europe’s democracies that seek it and are ready to share the responsibilities that NATO brings . . . All nations should understand that there is no confict between membership of NATO and membership of the European Union.” Echoing Eisenhower many years before, Bush says, “My nation welcomes the consolidation of European unity, and the stability it brings. We welcome a greater role for the EU in European security,” although European security must be “properly integrated with NATO.” He also exhorts Europeans to look to the future and asserts that the basis for our mutual security must move beyond Cold War doctrines. .  .  . We must confront the shared security threats of regimes that thrive by creating instability, that are ambitious for weapons of mass destruction, and are dangerously unpredictable. In Europe, you are closer to these challenges than the United States. You see the lightning well before we hear the thunder. Only together, however, can we confront the emerging threats of a changing world.13 Then, on 7 May 2000, one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, a former KGB ofcer who witnessed the humiliation of the Soviet Union at close quarters in Berlin in 1989, becomes President of the Russian Federation. On 11 September 2001, America is struck by the lightning of fanaticism and hears the thunder of hatred in a way no European ever imagined. It is a plot that was also hatched in Europe. The twin threats of the twenty-frst century come early for the Alliance and continue to test it to this day.

Notes 1 Madeleine Albright is illuminating on Clinton’s view of NATO. “By the time President Clinton took ofce, an obvious question had arisen. With no superpower enemy, why NATO? The President’s answer was that it remained the cornerstone of European security. Although the Soviet threat had vanished, other threats such as terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and ethnic cleansing had taken its place.” Albright, Madeleine K., Madam Secretary: A Memoir (London: Macmillan, 2003) p. 253.

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2 These suspicions were to come to a head in 1997. As Human Rights Watch puts it, “The US distrust was mainly based on an incident from mid-1997, when the US discovered that a French liaison ofcer in Bosnia, Herve Gourmelon, was leaking plans of [Radovan] Karadzic’s arrest. . . . The French Defense Ministry claimed that the liaison ofcer had ‘maintained various contacts consonant with his orders’ and denied these contacts jeopardized the arrest.” 3 Diferently to the 1990 Declaration this one afrms the role of NATO, as it states, “We afrm the indivisibility of transatlantic security, NATO remains, for its member, the center-piece of transatlantic security, providing the indispensable link between North America and Europe.” The European Union and The United States of America, “The New Transatlantic Agenda,” Madrid, December 1995, http://eeas. europa.eu/us/index_eu.htm 4 NATO, “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation,” Paris, 27 May 1997, www.nato.int/cps/en/ natolive/ofcial_texts_25468.htm 5 Rutten, Maarte, “From St Malo to Nice – European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Papers 47 (Paris: Western European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2001) p. 3. 6 The St Malo Declaration, 3–4 December 1998. See Rutten, Maarte, “From St Malo to Nice – European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Papers 47 (Paris: Western European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2001) p. 8. 7 See Albright, Madeleine K., “The Right Balance Will Secure NATO’s Future,” Financial Times, 7 December 1998. See Rutten, Maarte, “From St Malo to Nice – European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Papers 47 (Paris: Western European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2001) pp. 10–11. 8 General Wesley Clark, SACEUR at the time of Kosovo, puts it this way: “As for NATO, political approval from each member nation has been necessary before any military plans can be developed, the general political reluctance in the West to signal readiness to use force means that the Alliance’s military planning will almost inevitably be too slow. When called to act, the plans are unlikely to go far enough to deal with the range of contingencies that might arise.” See Clark, Wesley K., Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Afairs Press, 2001) p. 422. 9 Bonsai is the Japanese art of growing miniature trees in pots. Its European counterpart grows miniature militaries in policy. 10 NATO Handbook (Brussels: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2001) p. 44. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid. 13 Bush, George H.W., “Remarks by the President in Address to Faculty and Students of Warsaw University,” Warsaw, Poland, 15 June 2001, www.whitehouse.gov/news/ releases/2001/06/20010615-1.html

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The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened. Article 4, the North Atlantic Treaty, Washington, 4 April 19491

NATO today is a strategic security and defense hub designed to project legitimate military and power if freedom and democracy are threatened. NATO is also at a strategic crossroads. 2014 was pivotal for the Alliance. The ISAF mission in Afghanistan mission had formally ended in December, while in the preceding September, the NATO Wales Summit agreed a Defense Investment Pledge of 2 percent GDP to be spent on defense by 2024, of which 20 percent should be spent annually on equipment. However, the critical event harked back to the Cold War. Between February and March 2014, Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine and increased its eforts to destabilize the Donbas in Eastern Ukraine. 2014 opened a new chapter in NATO’s now long story, even if the fundamental mission of the Alliance remains the same as 1949: to safeguard the freedom and security of its member nations through political and security means founded upon the values of democracy, liberty, rule of law, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. NATO is frst and foremost a strategic forum for consultations between North Americans and Europeans on security issues of common concern and for facilitating joint action. The July 2016 Warsaw Summit focused, inter alia, on strengthening deterrence and defense and projecting security beyond NATO’s borders. The June 2018 Brussels Summit considered NATO’s role in the fght against terrorism and more equitable transatlantic burden-sharing, something U.S. President Donald J. Trump pushed hard for, while the June 2021 Brussels Summit also agreed the NATO 2030 reform agenda which was then agreed at the 2022 Madrid Summit. These vital reforms include strengthening the Alliance as a forum for political consultations, reinforcing collective defense through increased readiness and modernizing defense capabilities through more investment, as well as developing Alliance-wide resilience to render Allied societies less vulnerable to attack DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-7

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and coercion. A new “defense accelerator” is also agreed modelled on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DIANA, or the Defense Innovation of the North Atlantic, is designed to harness new technologies in the future defense of Europe and became active in 2023. There are also measures to uphold the rules-based international order, such as deepening partnerships and stepping up training and capacity-building for partners. And then, on 24 February 2022, Russia invades Ukraine. The day after, a virtual extraordinary NATO Summit is held at which NATO leaders unanimously condemn the Russian invasion as “the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.”2 They commit to support Ukraine and say the Alliance will ensure strong and credible deterrence and defense.

NATO 101 On 24 February 2022, NATO returns to its roots as collective deterrence and defense once again become the Alliance’s primary mission. The strategic vacation is fnally over and the age of crisis management and strategic and regional stabilizing, while still important, once again becomes secondary. A resurgent and aggressive Russia has refocused Alliance minds on war, how to prevent it, and if needs be fght it – both now and into the future. NATO today has 32 members and operates by consensus in that all 32 nations have to agree before a decision is taken. The members are Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and the United States.3 NATO is also a small organization with the total number of civilian staf working at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in 2022 only some 1000, while a total of 6000 work in agencies and commands.4 In addition to the 32 members there are 20 members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, 6 members of the Mediterranean Dialog, 4 members of the Istanbul Co-operation Initiative, and 9 members of the so-called Partners across the Globe, although co-operation with Afghanistan is suspended. NATO also has partnership agreements with the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The Alliance operates from two major sites in Belgium. The political hub is the new NATO Headquarters in Zaventem on the outskirts of Brussels, which was opened in May 2017. The military hub is Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and is some 52 kilometers (33 miles) from Brussels at Mons. Apart from 14 E-3 airborne early-warning aircraft (AWACs) based in Germany, and a feet of RQ-4D remotely piloted aircraft which are part of

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the Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) Program, all other “NATO” assets and capabilities belong to the member nations. The costs of most operations continue to “lie where they fall” in NATO jargon, i.e., with the members, although a debate is underway about more common funding, while the cost of the Alliance itself is less than one-half of one percent of the defense budgets of all the members. The North Atlantic Council, or NAC, remains the chief political body with powers of decision. The NAC consists of Permanent Representatives from each nation at ambassadorial rank. It meets at least once a week when it is known as the Permanent Council, but the NAC can also meet at Foreign Minister, Defense Minister, and Heads of State and Government level, when it is designated as a “summit” which normally takes place in June and December each year. The Council remains the only body that derives its authority directly from the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty and every other committee supports the NAC. Since the June 2010 reform of NATO committees the next most senior committee is the Defense Policy and Planning Committee (DPPC), which is normally chaired by the Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) for Policy and Planning. The DPPC is responsible for military transformation, defense capabilities, agency reform, common-funded acquisition, and missile defense and oversees the NATO Defense Planning Process (NDPP). The senior political fgure in the Alliance is the Secretary-General, who is always a European. At the time of writing (February 2023), the current holder is the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, who took up his post in October 2014 and who is coming to the end of his tenure. The job of the SecretaryGeneral is to prepare the work of the North Atlantic Council in his capacity as Vice-Chairman of the NAC and to act as interface between the Permanent Representatives and the NATO staf. There have been 13 “Sec-Gens,” with the following inauguration dates: Lord Bruce Ismay (United Kingdom) 12 March 1952, Paul-Henri Spaak (Belgium) 16 May 1957, Dirk U. Stikker (Netherlands) 21 April 1961, Manlio Brosio (Italy) 1 August 1964, Dr. Joseph Luns (Netherlands) 1 October 1971, Lord Peter Carrington (United Kingdom) 25 June 1984, Dr. Manfred Wörner (Germany – died in ofce 13 August 1994) 1 July 1988, Willy Claes (Belgium  – resigned 21 October, 1995) 17 October 1994, Javier Solana (Spain) 1 December 1995, Lord George Robertson (United Kingdom) 14 October 1999, Jaap de Hoop Schefer (Netherlands) 5 January 2004, Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Denmark) 1 August 2009 to 1 October 2014, and Jens Stoltenberg (Norway) 1 October 2014 to the present day. The Secretary-General is supported by a Private Ofce, a Deputy Secretary-General, and seven Assistant Secretaries-General responsible for Political Afairs and Security Policy, Operations, Emerging Security Challenges, Defense Policy and Planning, Public Diplomacy, Defense Investment, Executive Management, the NATO Ofce of Resources, and the NATO Ofce of

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Security. In addition there are fve other Principal Ofcials: the Directors of the Private Ofce, the Secretary of the Council, the NATO Spokeswoman, the Director of Policy Planning, and the Director of the NATO Ofce of Security. The long-standing Nuclear Planning Group, as its name suggests, considers all nuclear matters: deployment, safety, security and survivability of nuclear weapons, communications and information systems, arms control, and nuclear proliferation. The NPG does not control weapons systems or targeting, which remains frmly under the control of the three nuclear-armed members: Britain, France, and the United States. Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) is the senior military ofcial and is always American, chosen by the U.S. president and confrmed by the NAC. The current SACEUR is General Christopher G. Cavioli of the U.S. Army and he oversees the NATO Force Structure (NFS) and Allied Command Operations (ACO). There is no assigned term for a SACEUR who can be in post from one to eight years. SACEUR usually holds the additional post of Commander of U.S. European Command (COMUSEUCOM). Prior to General Cavioli there have been 19 SACEURs: General Dwight D. Eisenhower, General Matthew B. Ridgway, General Alfred M. Gruenther, General Lauris B. Norstad, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer, General Andrew J. Goodpaster, General Alexander M. Haig, General Bernard W. Rogers, General John R. Gavin, General John M. Shalikashvili, General George A. Joulwan, General Wesley K. Clark, General Joseph W. Ralston, Marine Corps General James L. Jones, General Bantz J. Craddock, Admiral James Stavridis, General Philip Breedlove, General Curtis Scaparrotti, and General Tod Wolters. The oddity is the Military Committee (MC) which, although subordinate to the NAC and the Defense Policy and Planning Committee, has a special status as NATO’s senior military authority. The day-to-day work of the Military Committee is undertaken by Military Representatives, or Mil Reps, acting on behalf of national chiefs of defense, or CHODs. The Military Committee oversees the International Military Staf and the Supreme Allied Commanders. The Military Committee makes its recommendations to civilian political decision-makers. The Military Committee is NATO’s oldest permanent body and has been chaired by outstanding fgures, such as General Omar Bradley (United States: 1949–50), Admiral of the Fleet, Earl Mountbatten of Burma (United Kingdom: 1960–1961) and, inter alia, General Klaus Naumann (Germany: 1996–1999), Admiral Giampaolo di Paola (Italy: 2008–2011), General Knud Bartels (Denmark: 2012–2015), General Petr Pavel (Czech Republic: 2015–2018), and Air Chief Marshal Baron (Stuart) Peach (United Kingdom: 2018–2021). The current Chairman (or CMC) is Admiral Rob Bauer of the Netherlands. The 2002 NATO Prague Summit stood up both Allied Command Transformation and Allied Command Operations. Until 2009 Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation (SACT) was an American ofcer, but it has been

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a French ofcer ever since. Allied Command Transformation (ACT) is based in Norfolk, Virginia while Allied Command Operations and Allied Command Transformation are supported, inter alia, by the Joint Warfare Center, the Joint Force Training Center, and the Joint Analysis and Lessons-Learned Center. ACT also has responsibility for Alliance-wide defense education and training.

The NATO Force and Command Structures The NATO Force Structure is supported by two Allied Joint Force Commands based in Brunssum, Netherlands, and Naples, Italy, respectively. These two strategic commands are in turn supported by several subordinate component commands, the NATO Response Force, and nine deployable High Readiness Force commands, all of which are under national command, apart from Eurocorps. At the 2014 Wales Summit it was agreed to establish a new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to strengthen strategic reassurance and collective defense.5 At the 2022 Madrid Summit it was decided to go further. The NATO Force Structure works in close conjunction with the NATO Command Structure. It is a critical relationship because it ensures the necessary availability of properly validated headquarters trained and exercised for the command of operations in theater to a common standard. The Force Structure is the military center of gravity of the Alliance as both national and multinational forces and headquarters are committed to it on a permanent or temporary basis and thus provide the forces needed for the conduct of operations. Deployable headquarters are under the remit of the Command Structure and are usually deployed during the frst phase to provide command and control. The Force Structure then provides additional and so-called “follow-on” joint HQ capabilities. National forces are made available to the Alliance for operations at what is known as “graduated readiness” via mechanisms for the Transfer of Authority (TOA), which is in accordance with NATO policy and procedures. Force readiness is critical because it denotes the state of a force and its utility in any confict over time and distance. All forces committed to the Alliance come under the command of SACEUR and the direction of the Military Committee. There are two types of NATO forces depending on their state of readiness, High Readiness Forces (HRF) and Forces of Lower Readiness (FLR). Together, HRF and FLR form the Graduated Readiness Forces (GRF), with Graduated Readiness Forces Headquarters (GRF HQs) providing the necessary command and control (C2). HRF readiness should range from 0 to 90 days and include capabilities for an immediate response (from 0 to 30 days in the case of the enhanced NATO Response Force). FLR should be at readiness from between 91 to 180 days and are normally used to sustain deployed HQs and forces.

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The NATO Force Structure also incorporates a range of capabilities, including headquarters able to undertake land, air and maritime operations (and increasingly cyber and space operations), special operations and other combat forces, and appropriate supporting assets. The NATO Defense Planning Process is designed to ensure that capabilities are always available from the nations in the sufcient quantity and quality requested by commanders. There are other supporting elements, including Joint Logistic Support Groups, NATO’s Combined Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear (CBRN) Defense Task Force and nine component land commands able to operate at corps level, plus fve maritime component commands. During crisis response operations, air operations are conducted by a Joint Force Air Component (JFAC), with the Allies providing personnel. Only fve Allies can provide such a component, namely France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. The NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force ensures Allied commanders have airborne surveillance and battle management capabilities, with a new system known as DARS (deployable air surveillance) that will shortly augment NATO AWACS by controlling both air assets and BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense). The NATO Response Force is a high-readiness multinational force with land, air, maritime, and Special Forces components that can be deployed rapidly. The NRF ofers political fexibility by ofering a rapid demonstration of force or enabling the establishment of a more sustained NATO military presence under both Articles 4 and 5. The NRF is also a vehicle for the development of advanced Alliance capabilities. The NRF has a bespoke military headquarters, exercises and an Immediate Response Force (a joint force of up to 13,000 high-readiness troops), as well as a Response Forces Pool of around 15,000 troops. The operational command of the NRF alternates between NATO’s two Joint Force Commands in Brunssum and Naples. NATO has several education facilities, including the NATO Defense College in Rome, and the NATO School in Oberammergau. There are also joint training centers in Poland and Norway, all designed to ofer opportunities to train and learn together. They are supported by Allied Command Transformation and 28 Centers of Excellence under the Joint Force Trainer and cover a wide range of specialist skills, such as cyber defense, counter-terrorism, strategic communications, and IED protection. The original aim was to get more value out of NATO structures and to promote greater synergy with national academies with the aim of promoting skills and expertise to give NATO forces a comparative advantage through enhanced human capital. Parliamentary oversight is provided by the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) (formerly the North Atlantic Assembly). In addition to the Parliamentary Assembly, Atlantic Treaty Associations (ATAs) were created on 18

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June 1954 to enable voluntary and non-governmental organizations to support the work of the Alliance.

Notes 1 NATO Handbook (Brussels: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 2001) p. 527. 2 Statement by NATO Heads of State and Government, Brussels 24 March 2022, www. nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ofcial_texts_193719.htm?selectedLocale=en 3 At the time of writing, Finland and Sweden had not formally joined. 4 All above fgures from the NATO Website, www.nato.int/ 5 The 5 September, 2014 “Wales Summit Declaration” states, “We will signifcantly enhance the responsiveness of our NATO Response Force by developing force packages that are able to move rapidly and respond to potential challenges and threats. As part of it, we will establish a Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF), a new Allied joint force that will be able to deploy within a few days to respond to challenges that arise, particularly at the periphery of NATO’s territory.” See www.nato.int/cps/ en/natohq/ofcial_texts-112964.htm?mode=pressrelease

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Articles NATO’s job is to preserve peace and protect people: its core business is deterrence and defense. To those ends, NATO has three core tasks: collective defense, crisis prevention and management, and co-operative security. The Alliance also has a further priority which is to enhance resilience because if the home base cannot be protected, or cannot recover from an attack quickly, it will be politically far harder to project the power contemporary and future defense requires. As NATO states: Each NATO member country needs to be resilient to resist and recover from a major shock such as a natural disaster, failure of critical infrastructure, or a hybrid or armed attack. Resilience is a society’s ability to resist and recover from such shocks and combines both civil preparedness and military capacity. Civil preparedness is a central pillar of Allies’ resilience and a critical enabler for the Alliance’s collective defense, and NATO supports Allies in assessing and enhancing their civil preparedness.1 There are four articles of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty that form the core of the Alliance’s obligations. They are thus:

Article 3 In order more efectively to achieve the objectives of this Treaty, the Parties, separately and jointly, by means of continuous and efective self-help and mutual aid, will maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-8

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Article 4 The Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.

Article 5 The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Article 6 For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack: on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France (inapplicable since July 1962), on the territory of Turkey or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer; on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.2

The Afghanistan Debacle What happened in Afghanistan was a monumental failure of the United States, the Western Allies and NATO. On 16 August 2021, U.S. President Biden said, “Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on the American homeland.”3 That statement marked the end of a campaign in which 2455 U.S. military personnel had been killed since the frst American soldiers arrived in strength

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in Afghanistan in 2002, along with over 1200 other coalition personnel and more than 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police. At least 47,000 Afghan civilians have been killed with almost 400,000 Afghans displaced since May 2021 alone. It is also believed over 50,000 Taliban fghters were killed in the confict. The cost alone of training and equipping the now-collapsed Afghan National Army (ANA) was some $88bn/€75bn/£64bn, while President Biden said the United States spent over $1.5 trillion on the failed campaign to render Afghanistan no longer a threat to itself or others in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.4 The causes of the failure were manifold but they go to the heart of the NATO challenge today. There was a catastrophic failure of leadership which was epitomized by the chaotic September 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which raises profound questions about whether the Allies any longer have the political capacity, military capability, or strategic patience to stay the course over any prolonged campaign. The arbitrary manner in which the Trump administration decided to agree “peace” with the Taliban at the Doha talks, which was confrmed by President Biden, gifted the Taliban a victory and humiliated NATO. The Taliban were aforded not only an unconditional victory, but violent Salafst jihadis the world over reveled in an immense propaganda coup and a powerful recruiting tool. Many interpreted the defeat of the West as fulfllment of prophesy that a Muslim army would defeat infdels in the so-called Khorasan, which includes parts of Afghanistan. President Biden justifed the withdrawal by suggesting that the terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan. Al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula, al Nusra in Syria, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing afliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our attention and our resource. And that, “There was only the cold reality of withdrawing our forces or escalating the confict and sending thousands more American troops back.”5 Twenty years on from the December 2001 invasion Western powers were certainly right to be looking to Afghans to decide their future and in a terrifying way they have, or at least had it decided for them. It has been implied that the rise of China and the return of Great Power competition means it is no longer possible for the United States and its Allies and partners to commit such large parts of their respective forces and resources to one central Asian country. In fact, the Allies have a far better understanding of Afghanistan than 20 years ago, and it was precisely for that reason the strategy of inserting Western structure into the ANSF had been settled upon. It was also the removal of that Western backbone of Afghan forces that had such catastrophic consequences for Afghans and NATO. Over the past few years the United States and NATO had succeeded

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in striking a balance in which the number of forces involved was relatively limited. In other words, the United States and its NATO Allies should have been able to meet the challenges posed by the likes of China and Russia while still maintaining the mission in Afghanistan. Why does this matter to NATO today? The problem was neither a lack of military capability nor of capacity, but rather an absence of political will, something President Putin clearly identifed and partly explains why he has been increasingly willing to defy the West, both in Syria, to which he deployed Russian forces in September 2015 in support of the Assad regime, and, of course, Ukraine. The Afghanistan debacle also raises a whole series of issues concerning Alliance cohesion. President Biden stated, “Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be creating a unifed, centralized democracy.”6 And yet, it was that mission to which the United States signed up to in December 2002 in the Bonn Agreement because that was the price many Europeans demanded for committing to a long-term campaign in Afghanistan.7 In December 2001, when coalition forces entered Afghanistan, the West could have mounted a far simpler search-and-destroy counter-terrorism mission, which was the essential purpose of Operation Enduring Freedom. However, leaders decided instead to build a functioning Afghanistan that would no longer be a threat to itself or others, and which became the mission of the UN-mandated mission of the International Security Assistance Force, and from January 2015 NATO’s Resolute Support Mission. Such a commitment was also the promise made to the Afghan people and which was betrayed, a betrayal witnessed the world over. The hard truth is that the West failed in its mission in Afghanistan because it never really committed to meeting the challenge, and because the United States and its Allies could never agree to what end they were fghting. Presidents Obama, Trump and now Biden, all signaled that their real concern was how best to get out of Afghanistan and thus limit any adverse impact this entangling engagement might have on their electoral chances. Europeans? Most of them had been trying to get out of Afghanistan since the day they arrived, or at the very best limit their exposure. It is questionable whether a stable and democratic Afghanistan could ever have been established, which raises a whole plethora of questions about the political and military ends, ways, and means of the entire campaign. Afghan politics and the endemic corruption in both Kabul and provincial capitals meant that from the outset “stability” in Afghanistan rested on eforts to build governing institutions that were sufciently respected by the Afghan people, sufciently robust, and capable of governing the country for the good of all Afghans. It failed. The Biden administration justifed the withdrawal because Americans were tired of “forever wars” and that forging competent governance in Afghanistan was impossible. Throughout the campaign hard-pressed Allied commanders had too often been forced by their political masters to grapple with a deadly paradox caused by such political weakness:

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leaders in Washington did not believe in nation-building, while leaders in Europe who insisted on it signally refused to invest in it. Consequently, the counter-terrorism campaign and the stabilization and reconstruction campaign at best only ran in parallel, but at times came into confict as the Americans, their allies, and partners failed to extend the writ of the Kabul government across the country to Afghanistan’s fractious Hazzara, Pashtun, Tadjik, and Uzbek citizens. It was a failure reinforced by an Allied efort that was unevenly spread across a host of so-called “provincial reconstruction teams” (PRTs), all of which were diferent depending on which country was responsible, the level of investment they were willing to make, and the risks they were willing to take.8 Political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic not only failed to take ownership of the campaign, they often refused to see what was happening. On 8th July 2021, President Biden said, The Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped (personnel)  – as wellequipped as any army in the world – and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban . . . The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted of the roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.9 From the outset the entire campaign was predicated on the belief that in time credible Afghan National Security Forces could be fashioned from the many militias that roamed the country and a shared Afghan identity forged sufciently robust to provide efective pan-Afghanistan security. It was the plan of the late Donald Rumsfeld and it was that plan which failed so catastrophically. NATO SecretaryGeneral Jens Stoltenberg’s 17th August claim that the collapse of the Afghan government was due to the failure of the Afghan National Army is thus correct in a very narrow sense, even if the actual reasons the ANA collapsed are manifold and far more complex and not simply due to poor leadership or low morale. While the ANA had some 30,000 excellent Special Forces, much of the rest of the ANA was an immature force with its Kandaks (battalions) organized around and dependent on U.S. command and strategic enablers, most notably air power, technology, planning, and logistics. Contrary to what President Biden said in July, the real strength of the Afghan National Army was nothing like 300,000 because much of the force was made up of so-called “ghost soldiers” who simply did not exist, even though their pay was routinely claimed by the commanders. Much of the rest of the force was poorly-fed, poorly-led with much of their fuel and ammunition sold of on the black market even before it reached them. On 4th July 2021, much of the U.S. hard core of the Afghan force was catastrophically withdrawn over a 24-hour period, leading

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to much of a now leaderless ANA melting away as the Taliban marched across Afghanistan’s 400 districts. Only the 201st Corps and the 111th Capital Division stood their ground and they were destroyed. The “ANA” was only ever going to be credible as a force if the United States and its Allies would remain there to support them for the foreseeable future, not least because over 40 percent of the ANA was comprised of the Pashtun, who also form the core of the Taliban. What is of particular concern is the fate of the Western-supplied weapons and systems that were in the ANA’s arsenals, and which are still in Afghanistan. President Biden also said, “We conduct efective counter-terrorism missions against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have permanent military presence. If necessary, we’ll do the same in Afghanistan.”10 It is certainly the case that both technology and the understanding of a shifting threat have changed profoundly since 2001, but Afghanistan remains substantially the same, and in the efective absence of NATO, the political legitimacy for action has also disappeared, as well as trust of the Allies in each other. The heady ideological mix of Deobandi fundamentalism and the Pashtunwali code of honor suggests Afghanistan could again become a source of terrorism again whatever the blandishments of the Taliban leadership. Western intelligence ofcials are also concerned that the picture they have built up of Afghanistan over many years will steadily degrade. The Taliban are unlikely to be able to exercise control over all of the country’s territory as warlords and other tribal leaders also seek to reassert their authority over their respective areas.

Consequences Actions have consequences. For all America’s failings in Afghanistan, European complaints are also misplaced given the weakness of the European efort in Afghanistan over the past 20 years. Most Europeans were only present in Afghanistan out of a sense of obligation to the United States following the 12th September 2001 invoking of NATO Article 5 collective defense. Few ever really believed in the campaign, and all of them in one way or another, with the possible exception of the British and Canadians, limited their commitment and their operations, and in particular their respective rules of engagement to such an extent that the required level of campaign unity of efort and purpose was never achieved. The failure in Afghanistan is thus as much European as American and severely challenges European ideas of security in which values and interests have merged to the point where policy has become often little more than strategic virtue-signaling. Europeans will never come of age as strategic actors if, after each war, they simply complain about American policy and actions when, time after time, it is Americans bearing the overwhelming burden of risk and cost. For their part, Americans will never get Europeans to be capable allies unless they force them to come of age. That is the essential Alliance dilemma

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revealed in Afghanistan. After all, NATO is essentially a European organization for Europeans. Europe’s tendency to fake security was ruthlessly revealed in Afghanistan with profound implications for NATO. For almost three decades Europeans have been touting a values-based approach to security while relying on the United States for hard defense. The EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, which should be a vital stabilizer of Europe’s fractious and dangerous strategic neighborhood, is a paper tiger. It should not be. The ability of Europeans to put a EU fag on complex operations, other than a NATO, United States, or national fag, remains an important political multiplier for crisis management and co-operative security. Both CSDP and ESDP have been in existence for over 25 years and yet their tiny missions bear little or no relation to the claims of utility the EU routinely makes for them, or the impact they have on the ground. Rather, Europeans seem to be eternally practicing for a return to the real world which never quite happens, even as they expect the Americans to defend them and routinely criticize the Americans in the manner of so doing. Sadly, free riding on the Americans is now hard-wired into European political and strategic DNA. That statement is in no way to disrespect the sadly many brave Europeans who gave their lives in Afghanistan, but if NATO is to be more than a rhetorical alliance, the Afghan debacle must fnally mark the bonfre of false European assumptions and strategic illusions. There are three things NATO will not survive: European defense pretense, European strategic illiteracy, but above all, European isolationism dressed up as European exceptionalism. Sadly, there is a danger that European failure in Afghanistan will reinforce the delusion that somehow soft security can substitute for hard reality, particularly where it really matters: Europe.

NATO Strategic Concept 2022 NATO’s future began at the Madrid Summit between 28 and 30 June 2022, at which the Strategic Concept 2022 was launched. Unlike many of its seven predecessors, Strategic Concept 2022 is a politico-strategic vision rather than a military-technical concept as NATO adapts to a third era in its now long story.11 The Concept’s primary focus is on identifying the principles, parameters and guidance necessary for the development of the policies, planning, structures, capacities and capabilities the Alliance will need to cope in an age of renewed strategic competition, and at a time when crisis management is still no less important than deterrence and defense. Improved transatlantic burden-sharing is thus central to the Strategic Concept together with the creation by 2030 of a more balanced Alliance in which the European allies produce a sufciency of capabilities and enablers for them to take more responsibility alongside, as well as in support of the United States for collective

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defense, most importantly as credible frst responders in the event of crises and emergencies in and around Europe. Therefore, Strategic Concept 2022 builds on the NATO 2030 Agenda by seeking to make the Alliance both more efective and efcient through greater political cohesion in the wake of the Afghanistan debacle. The Agenda can be thus summarized: enough forces to deter and engage crises, the building of more stability and strategic partnerships, enough European forces able to respond quickly to any crisis in and around the Euro-Atlantic area, deeper and faster political consultation, strengthened defense and deterrence, improved resilience, preservation of NATO’s technical edge, the upholding of the rulesbased order, increased training and capacity-building, and the need to combat and adapt to climate change.12 At the core of Strategic Concept 2022 is the renewed need for credible deterrence and defense as it was published against the backdrop of a major war in Europe and strategic concepts always tend to refect the crise du jour. Like all such documents, it is a trade-of between what needs to be done and what can be aforded. It is also one half of a two-part strategic realignment of NATO, the other part being the 2019 Military Strategy, which adds much of the classifed detail which is implicit in both the Strategic Concept and the Agenda. There are three critical components for credible NATO deterrence and defense: lessons for the near term from the Ukraine War; future force interoperability between the United States and its allies at the higher end of confict and the balance to be struck between technology, manpower and afordability. In many respects, the Madrid Summit was the deterrence summit: a muchneeded dose of Allied strategic realism that committed the Alliance to regenerate a credible and relevant threat of force against a threatening strategic peer competitor if necessary. It implied the collective will and future capability to act does and will exist, together with a shared understanding of the need for the required speed and relevance of action, with all of the above allied to a clear capacity to infict punishment. Consequently, NATO’s traditional posture of deterrence by punishment is once again to be reinforced by deterrence by denial. This is vital because the tragic and criminal slaughter of Ukrainian citizens by Russian forces means it is no longer acceptable to aspire merely to “rescue” the citizens of Allied countries 180 days into a brutal occupation. Rather, the fght will need to be taken forward against any aggressor from the moment they set a foot on NATO soil. NATO’s New Force Model is thus an act of deterrence in its own right but will need to be delivered and quickly. The plan is for some 300,000 mainly European troops to be placed on high alert (although not high readiness) which is ambitious to say the least given the poor state of many Allied armed forces.13 Finland and Sweden’s accession to the Alliance will also signifcantly extend

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NATO’s strategic footprint, its border with Russia, and its presence on both the northern and eastern fanks of the Alliance, requiring a new “concept of victory” across a much expanded Area of Responsibility (AOR). As part of a new Forward Defense concept the forward-deployed forces on the Alliance’s eastern fank will thus be increased in both size and weight.14 At its core, Strategic Concept 2022 seeks to realign tasks with capabilities by re-confrming the three core tasks of deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and co-operative security and afrm the importance of resilience of the “home” base whilst scaling the tasks implicit therein in the context of a fast changing and deteriorating strategic environment. The Strategic Concept certainly strikes all the right political chords. NATO’s purpose and common values are all stressed, particularly on women and security, while reference is also made to further command and control reform and the need for digital transformation, with strong passages on cyber war, and the growing threat of emerging and disruptive technologies. There is also a call for more common funding and defense capacity-building. Strategic Concept 2022 also reafrms that NATO remains a nuclear alliance, but one that remains committed to a nuclear-free world. Russia, and its invasion of Ukraine, pervades all 16 pages of a concise Strategic Concept which has a marked change of tone compared to its 2010 forebear, which still described Russia as a “strategic partner,” even though Russia had invaded Georgia two years prior in 2008. For example, it states, The Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered peace and gravely altered our security environment. Its brutal and unlawful invasion, repeated violations of international humanitarian law and heinous attacks and atrocities have caused unspeakable sufering and destruction.” China is also for the frst time cited as a “systemic challenge” and terrorism the “most direct asymmetric threat.15

Hard Power and Hard Choices There is, as ever, an elephant in NATO’s increasingly large room. Several actually. Can ambition, politics, strategy, and afordability be aligned? The Military Strategy is perhaps the best litmus test of NATO’s seriousness because it is centered on SACEUR’s Area of Responsibility-wide Strategic Plan (SASP) and the Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic area (DDA). There are two main pillars: the NATO Warfghting Cornerstone Concept (NWCC) and the Deterrence Concept. The New Force Model at the heart of the Strategic Concept is the consequence of the Military Strategy, the most striking feature of which is the call for the enhanced NATO Response Force (eNRF) of some 40,000 troops to be transformed into a 300,000-strong future

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force, with 44,000 troops kept at high readiness. Critically, for the frst time in NATO’s history all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defense role and all such forces will be consolidated within one command framework. While the new force will be held at 24 hours “Notice to Act,” the bulk of the NATO Force Structure will be held at 15 days “Notice to Move,” which will be a marked improvement over the current structure in which some forces are anything up to 180 days’ notice to move. A new Forward Defense strategy will also see heavy equipment pre-positioned near NATO borders. The new force will be mainly European with those Allies with forces on NATO’s Eastern and South-Eastern Flanks agreeing to expand deployed battalions to brigades. For example, the British have two battlegroups deployed to Estonia and they have now committed to adding an additional battlegroup. The United Kingdom will also commit an extra 1000 troops and a carrier-strike group to the defense of Estonia, although just how a British carrier-strike group can help defend Estonia is open to question. Critically, the United States will send an additional 3000 troops to the Baltic Sea Region, with 2 more squadrons of F-35s stationed in the United Kingdom, and 2 U.S. Navy destroyers sent to Spain. A force of that size and with the necessary level of fghting power would normally mean that with rotation of forces through a mission, there would always need to be a force of some 100,000 kept on high alert, which will be extremely expensive for NATO European allies grappling with high infation and post-COVID economies. A NATO standard brigade is normally between 3200 and 5500 strong, and given that both air and naval forces will also need to be included, a land force of, say, 200,000 would need at least 50 to 60 European rapid reaction brigades together with all their supporting elements. At best, there are only 20 to 30 today and there are already concerns being expressed about such Force Goals by some Allies. That is precisely why Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the NATO Defense Investment Pledge of 2% GDP on defense of which 20% to be spent annually on new equipment must now be viewed as “more of a foor than a ceiling.” In August 2022, Stoltenberg also called on Allies to increase defense budgets even further above the commitments the European allies have already made. Germany is (apparently) leading the way with its commitment to markedly increase its defense budget, which is vital given that the Bundeswehr will in future become the central pillar of NATO land deterrence on the eastern fank. However, the much lauded Zeitenwende (turning point) in German defense policy seems at the time of writing (February 2023) more a case of “heir andert sicht nicht viel” (nothing much changing here). It is a sense reinforced by the January 2023 appointment of Boris Pistorius, a regional politician with little experience of defense at all. The United Kingdom has also committed to spend at least 2.5 percent GDP on defense “this decade,” while the Netherlands has

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committed to a 5.4 percent real terms increase in defense expenditure over the 2022 defense budget allied to spending 2 percent GDP on defense by 2024. However, given infation, that fgure will fall rapidly post 2024. Stoltenberg wants more Allies to follow suit. In an August 2022 interview with Sky News in the United Kingdom he said, “the brutal reality is that faced with Russia’s military build-up, and the will to use force against neighbors, there is a need to invest more in defense.” He went on: We need to spend more on defense. I have been a politician myself for many, many years. And I know that, of course, it’s always tempting to spend on healthcare, on education, on infrastructure, instead of spending on defense. But when we live in a more dangerous world, when we see the aggressive actions of President Putin against a sovereign, peaceful nation in Europe – Ukraine – and all the threatening rhetoric against NATO allies, then we need to invest more.16

Burdens While the Strategic Concept is partly a consequence of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine, the U.S. National Defense Strategy (NDS) is a no less important driver. For the frst time, the NDS places a particular premium on the support of allies and partners, particularly NATO. NDS 2022 also implies a greater role for allies in assisting the United States to meet its strategic goals and challenges, particularly in and around the European theater. This is because China and the Indo-Pacifc are aforded a higher priority than Russia and Europe in NDS 2022, even though Russia is described as an “acute threat.” There are also profound implications for the new NATO future force, in particular, the challenge of maintaining interoperability in high-end conficts with the U.S. future force. The U.S. future force will be built on three principles: “integrated deterrence” and credible combat power (including nuclear forces); efective campaigning in the gray zone; and “building enduring advantage” by exploiting new, emerging, and disruptive technologies. For the NATO Allies, the message is clear: if the U.S. security guarantee for Europe is to be credibly maintained, Europeans are going to have to share the defense burdens of so doing far more equitably, with at least 50 percent of NATO’s minimum capability requirements by 2030, which is probably the least the Americans will expect of them.17 That will mean Europeans taking on far more strategic responsibility than hitherto within the framework of the Alliance, with all Allies developing an expeditionary mind-set, even the Finns. The prize? Greater European strategic responsibility will in time inevitably lead to greater European capacity for tactical, and eventually strategic autonomy.

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NATO and Ukraine Taken together, Strategic Concept 2022, NATO Agenda 2030, and the Military Strategy are NATO’s Big 2030 Plan and merge the political and the military into the politico-military Alliance that is and always has been NATO. There are two phases much of which will need to run concurrently. Phase one involves identifying, learning, and acting upon the lessons of the Ukraine War to bolster deterrence, defense, and resilience in the short term. NATO’s support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2014 seizure of Crimea has been extensive and was reinforced at the  Madrid Summit by the Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine. This includes fuel, protective equipment for portable anti-drone systems, and secure communications. The Alliance is also helping modernize the Ukrainian Armed Forces over the medium term by bringing them up to NATO interoperability standards, as well as helping to strengthen Ukrainian security and defense institutions. The Alliance also reafrmed the Open Door policy for eventual membership of NATO for both Georgia and Ukraine. There are several other clear lessons from the war in Ukraine for the Alliance, perhaps the most pernicious of which is that war is a giant black hole into which people and materiel vanish at an alarming rate far beyond that envisaged by peacetime establishments. These lessons can be thus summarized. NATO European forces will need far more robust logistics forward-deployed, reinforced with enhanced and far more secure military supply chains. Far more materiel will also be needed, most notably ammunition. If NATO deterrence and defense are to be credible, Allies will also need to rebuild and build infrastructure to assist military mobility and remove all legal impediments to rapid cross border movements in a pre-war emergency. Deployed NATO forces will also need much improved force protection with one vital identifed need being to reduce the detectability and thus digital footprint of force concentrations (so-called “bright butterfies”). The war in Ukraine has also revealed the vulnerability of armor unsupported by infantry and helicopters in the battlespace, as well as the need for NATO forces to be able to dominate both fres and counter-fres. Much of the vulnerability of Russian forces is due to the efectiveness of expendable drones, strike drones, and loitering systems armed with precision-guided munitions. NATO forces also need an awful lot more of all such systems across the tactical and the strategic future battlefeld. Enhanced land-based, protected battlefeld mobility will also be essential, together with increased force command resilience. The Ukrainians have been able to detect and “kill” Russian forward (and less forward) deployed headquarters repeatedly. The war in Ukraine has also revealed the extent to which the defense has dominated the ofense if forces are reasonably matched. While no one envisages a return to some kind of twenty-frst-century equivalent of the Maginot

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Line, secure pre-positioned capabilities and access to individual ready reserves will be vital. There is one other lesson NATO leaders and commanders still need to learn given the attritional nature of the war: do not sacrifce signifcant mass to aford a little maneuver.

Beyond the Horizon NATO must also look beyond 2030 and develop a hard-core future war concept if the deterrence by denial model now enshrined in NATO doctrine is to be credible. NATO remains the indispensable military interoperability mechanism between the armed forces of Europe and North America. In SHAPE, the Alliance has a planning and command mechanism unsurpassed for the generation and management of coalitions, allied to an unrivaled body of combined and joint doctrine. NATO Standards, built up over 70 years plus, represent a body of shared multinational military knowledge, expertise and experience hitherto unknown which will be critical to future force interoperability and highly attractive to potential partners. Equally, NATO cannot escape the contemporary political realities of the transatlantic relationship of which it is a part and the lack of a shared strategic culture within Europe both of which could pose a distinct threat to Alliance cohesion. The Afghanistan debacle highlighted many of the dilemmas NATO must overcome if it is to succeed not simply endure in its doubtless many future missions. In addition to the Military Strategy SACEUR and his team must also set the future force agenda with something akin to the 1952 Long-Term Defense Plan if they are to forge a markedly transformed military instrument of power by 2030. Such a plan would need to include strengthened forces postures, new structures and forces; a much expanded NATO Readiness Initiative with supporting plans and concepts; transformed training and exercises not dissimilar to the famous Battle Schools set up by General Harold Alexander during World War II which gave troops a real understanding of what it was like to advance under live fre; together with a proper understanding where capability, capacity, manpower and interoperability meet, especially when it involves new emerging and destructive technologies. In other words, the true test of Madrid’s legacy will be the standing up by 2030 at the very latest of a high-end, collective, U.S.-interoperable, strategically autonomous (if needs be) European-led Allied Mobile Heavy Force able to operate as a powerful frst responder in a pre-war emergency in and around Europe and across the multi-domain of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information, and knowledge from seabed to space and at the highest levels of confict complete with its own combat support and enablers. Nothing less will sufce to meet the ambition implicit in the NATO 2022 Strategic Concept. Are Europeans up to the challenge? Some leaders are already looking to slide out of their respective commitments

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(Germany?) partly because they never really understand what they have signed up to until their fnance ministers present the bill/check. So, here’s a novel idea. Turn the NATO Defense Planning Process on its head. Let the experts identify the defense architecture NATO will need by 2030 and beyond, together with the capabilities, capacities, structures, and organization to support it. Then, sit down again and agree how it can be aforded and felded. Critics suggest that the Strategic Concept’s conciseness is a weakness – that it is light on facts. What did they expect? NATO’s strategic and political goals are now far more closely aligned with NATO’s Military Strategy, the frst such demarche since 1962, implying a new relationship between efectiveness, efciency, and afordability. Critics also fail to understand the purpose of a Strategic Concept and its relationship with the NATO Military Strategy. A NATO Strategic Concept is essentially a contract between leader and practitioner in which the former instructs the latter about what they must minimally ensure and assure over the coming decade or so while the leaders publicly commit to securing those goals. It is not a public relations document per se, even if it does play such a role.

Notes 1 www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_132722.htm 2 The North Atlantic Treaty, www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/ofcial_texts_17120. htm 3 Remarks by President Biden on Afghanistan, 16 August 2021, White House Briefing Room, www.whitehouse.gov/briefng-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/16/ remarks-by-president-biden-on-afghanistan/ 4 See, Biden’s Fateful Afghanistan Decision: A Briefng in Two Instalments, Aspenia online, 20 August 2021, https://aspeniaonline.it/bidens-fateful-afghanistandecision-a-briefng-in-two-instalments/ 5 Remarks by President Biden on Afghanistan, 16 August 2021, White House Briefing Room, www.whitehouse.gov/briefng-room/speeches-remarks/2021/08/16/ remarks-by-president-biden-on-afghanistan/ 6 Ibid. 7 Christophe Laurenti writes, “The agreement aimed to create a new constitution, an independent judiciary, free and fair elections, a centralized security sector, and the protection of the rights of women and minorities such as religious and ethnic groups. This model of state-building in Afghanistan was based on a ‘maximalist model of post-confict reconstruction’ that emerged in the 1990s as a result of international interventions in the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa and East Timor.” In Cave des Ponts, 30 January 2022, https://laurenti.ch/cavedesponts/bonn-agreement-of-2001/ 8 The author wrote several major reports following a visit to Afghanistan and when supporting the commander of the NATO Allied Rapid Reaction Corps. 9 Remarks by President Biden on the Drawdown of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, White House Briefng Room, 8 July 2021, www.whitehouse.gov/briefngroom/speeches-remarks/2021/07/08/remarks-by-president-biden-on-thedrawdown-of-u-s-forces-in-afghanistan/ 10 The U.S. war in Afghanistan is over, but the war on terror continues. Chris Megerian, Los Angeles Times, 3 September 2021, www.latimes.com/politics/story/ 2021-09-03/afghanistan-counterterrorism-challenges

NATO Today 119 11 The NATO 2022 Strategic Concept (Brussels: NATO). 12 NATO: United for a New Era, report to the North Atlantic Council, June 2021. 13 The diference between high alert and high readiness is semantic. High alert concerns the quality of being alert, while high readiness is the state or degree of being ready. 14 A concept of victory concerns war aims and defnes what it will take to overcome an enemy or threat and how to understand what such a goal has been achieved. 15 The NATO 2022 Strategic Concept (Brussels: NATO). 16 Sky News UK interview with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, 24 August 2022, https://news.sky.com/story/nato-countries-need-to-spend-more-ondefence-as-alliance-faces-russias-military-build-up-says-head-of-organisation-12680085 17 See the Globsec NATO Adaptation Initiative, One Alliance the Future Tasks of the Adapted Alliance, November 2017, www.globsec.org/projects/globsec-natoadaptation-initiative-2/

8 FUTURE NATO

What of future NATO? NATO is a warfghting alliance. To deter war and maintain the Euro-Atlantic peace, it must be able to fght and prevail in war. In future, NATO’s ability to prevail in any such war will depend ever more on ever more militarily-capable Europeans. This book started with the shooting down of MH-17 by Russia in July 2014 in a war that is disfguring Europe with a profound danger of escalation precisely because President Putin justifes his invasion of Ukraine on what NATO was and what he says it may become. The war in Ukraine is also a very European war, both civil war and state-on-state war. That is precisely the kind of pan-security threat with which the Alliance has had to contend for much of its existence and will have to contend going forward. Therefore, the book concludes by looking to NATO’s future in a world very diferent from 1949, but in some ways frighteningly similar. A sign of NATO’s future was evident at the 2022 Madrid Summit, which was joined by Indo-Pacifc Partners in the form of the Australian, Japanese, South Korean and New Zealand prime ministers. The message was clear: while there will never be a global NATO, the Alliance must take its place in a fast-changing world as part of an emerging worldwide community of democracies. Given NATO’s changing geopolitical context, allied to the changing character of warfare, the future of the Alliance will thus depend on the level of strategic ambition Allies are willing to invest and NATO’s grip over emerging and disruptive technology that are profoundly transforming the way of war. To meet that challenge, any NATO Strategic Concept worthy of the name needs to capture that ambition. Therefore, to conclude this book, a Shadow Strategic Concept is ofered to compare, contrast and contend with the ofcial version to demonstrate the challenges the Alliance must face in the coming decade and beyond as warfare merges and accelerates across a spectrum of hybrid war, cyber war and hyper-fast, technology-enabled hyperwar.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349235-9

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Part I: Preserving Peace and Protecting People1 1 Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has profoundly changed NATO’s strategic environment and the threats with which the Alliance must contend. Therefore, this Strategic Concept: Preserving Peace and Protecting People sets three overarching goals for the Alliance: to be sufciently strong militarily, to be more united politically and to adopt a broader global approach to security and defense. The world is changing fast and not necessarily for the better. At their June 2021 summit meeting in Brussels, Alliance heads of state and government invited the Secretary-General to lead the process toward a new NATO Strategic Concept, which is presented herein. The mission of this Strategic Concept is to defend the Alliance’s territories, populations, values and forces. It has fve essential elements: protecting our values, reinforcing NATO military power, strengthening Alliance societies, adopting a global outlook, and preserving the Alliance as the vital institutional link between Europe and North America. 2 After almost 20 years, NATO-led military operations in Afghanistan came to an abrupt end, raising questions about the Alliance’s cohesion and credibility. The Alliance pays tribute to those who lost their lives or were wounded, and expresses deep appreciation to all the men and women who served in either the International Security Assistance Force or the Resolute Support Mission. The manner by which the Coalition departed Afghanistan must be addressed because what happened in Afghanistan has potentially profound political, strategic and economic implications for the West and the Alliance. These implications must and will be addressed in the form of a host of lessons that the Alliance must learn, all of which are germane to this Strategic Concept. These include the setting of realistic political objectives; the need for strategic patience; the role of the Alliance in promoting better governance, rule of law, and economic development in an inherently unstable environment; improved campaign design; tighter political-military cohesion; the need for consistent and appropriate rules of engagement; better intelligence-sharing, as well as sustained stabilization and reconstruction, and partnerships with other institutions and partner nations; the establishment of an appropriate set of metrics to measure progress; and, above all, enduring unity of efort and purpose. The Alliance will both learn and apply these lessons. 3 The “heart” of the Alliance is the shared values of a unique democratic community. Indeed, the preamble of the Washington Treaty declares that the Alliance is “founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.” It is precisely such values that set NATO apart from traditional balance-of-power interstate alliances. This, together with NATO’s ability to adapt to change is why the Alliance endures. The Strategic

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Concept thus builds on these values, principles and traditions, as well as on the seven previous strategic concepts to better prepare the Alliance for a new age in which those principles are once again threatened by states that have systems of government inconsistent with our values and that seek to discredit democracy and those who aspire to the freedom it brings. In recent times, these external threats have been joined by internal challenges to the basic values that Alliance nations have vowed to defend and protect. Therefore, the upholding of our rules-based order will be further assured by reinforcing the transatlantic pact between North America and Europe by Europeans becoming ever more central to European defense. This will further ensure that the Alliance is sufciently politically robust to face the worst possible combination of situations and circumstances. Strengthened political cohesion will be further reinforced by a renewed culture of strategic realism and pragmatism at the highest levels of authority, with a clear-eyed recognition that at times of crisis the Alliance must also act at the speed of relevance. Critically, NATO will remain the unique, essential, and indispensable transatlantic forum for consultations and joint action on all matters related to the individual and collective security of the allies, as set out in Article 4 of the Washington Treaty. Any security issue of interest to any ally can be brought to the attention of the Alliance to share information, exchange views, and, where appropriate, forge common approaches. The Alliance will always take a robust approach to deterrence and defense against any possible, threatened, or actual aggression, ranging from transnational threats and irregular warfare to major state-on-state war. This is because the Alliance faces a range of threats that are fast evolving. Russia remains a frst-order threat to the Alliance as demonstrated by its brutal invasion of Ukraine, but terrorism and instability around the Mediterranean and across the Middle East and North Africa must also be regarded as persistent threats to the security of the Alliance as a whole. However, the greatest single game-changer between 2010 and 2023 has been the rise of China as a military superpower and the consequent renewed great-power competition, which is a systemic challenge for the entire transatlantic community, European security, and much of the free world beyond. China’s close relationship with Russia adds to the strategic complexity with which the Alliance must contend, not least because the United States and its armed forces are committed to supporting democracies in both the Indo-Pacifc and Europe. The Alliance must also play its full and appropriate role confronting other challenges posed by emerging and disruptive technologies, future pandemics and climate change, all of which are potential catalysts for ever more dangerous systemic competition and instability. Therefore, we, the Allies, pledge that by 2030, the European allies and Canada will provide at least half of the Alliance’s overall military capabilities, as

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measured by the minimum military requirements established by the NATO military authorities. This will ensure that the burdens of collective defense are shared more equitably with the United States, enabling the European allies to assume primary responsibility for crisis management in and around Europe. The credibility of the Alliance is built on proportionate and legitimate fghting power and only by having the capacity to fght and win wars will NATO accomplish its primary mission to preserve the peace. To retain such credibility in a changing world now demands greater European strategic responsibility and thus European allies willing to develop European capabilities sufcient to conduct high-end crisis-management operations in Europe’s strategic neighborhood without the current heavy reliance on US capabilities and enablers. The U.S. military presence in Europe will remain strong, reinforced by forward-deployed forces and prepositioned stocks. 8 The allies remain committed to meeting the 2014 Defense Investment Pledge and the capability targets that will further improve the readiness of all allied forces and which will strengthen and modernize the NATO Force Structure to meet current and future defense needs. NATO will also maintain an appropriate mix of conventional, nuclear, and missile defense capabilities for the purposes of deterrence and defense, while also adapting Alliance capabilities and tactics for operations in other domains, such as space and cyberspace.

Part II: NATO’s Evolving Strategic Environment 9 Mass disruption and mass destruction are merging into a continuum of risk, challenge, and threat with which the Alliance must contend through a prism of defense, deterrence, and engagement. NATO will preserve, defend and restore the integrity and security of the Euro-Atlantic area in all circumstances by employing such forces and resources as may be necessary as part of a strengthened force posture that combines fexible response with forward presence. NATO will further adapt to the fast-changing character and conduct of war, which now stretches across a mosaic of information war and cyber war, as well as increasingly precise and more rapid “conventional” war (also known as hyperwar) and nuclear war. However, even with a marked increase in the competence of Alliance military capability and capacity, forces and resources will always be limited in scope given the scale of the challenges implicit in NATO’s full mission spectrum. An afordable balance must thus be struck between the maintenance of credible deterrence and defense on the Alliance’s northern and eastern fanks; efective security engagement in and around the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and North Africa; and ensuring and assuring the security of the North Atlantic and the global commons from seabed to space, which are vital to the strategic and operational functioning of the Alliance.

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10 The Russian Federation must understand the determination of the Alliance to meet its treaty obligations in full. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has rendered dialog with Russia extremely difcult. The door will always be open to the resumption of such dialog but only when Russia respects the values, principles, trust and commitments outlined in the NATO-Russia Founding Act and other agreed documents that underpin the NATORussia relationship. However, Russia’s aggressive actions and the increasingly challenging behavior of Belarus constitute the most pressing and immediate threat to allied security and defense, a challenge NATO will meet and continue to meet. Crucially, NATO will now fast-track Ukraine’s future membership of the Alliance. Russia’s growing military presence in Belarus and the driving of thousands of desperate migrants toward Poland further point to consistent Russian aggression around Russia’s borders driven from and by the Kremlin and designed to undermine the security and stability of allies in the region. 11 NATO will resist all and any Russian eforts to establish military superiority in any area of Europe or any area of technology. Russia’s pattern of aggressive coercion is reinforced by Moscow’s continued eforts to destabilize much of Europe by both lethal and non-lethal means with the aim of extending its fat across much of Eastern Europe. Russia is also engaged in research, development, and production of advanced munitions, all of which aim to establish a clear military advantage over NATO. The Arctic Sea, Svalbard, North Cape and Finnmark, the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine and the Black Sea region are all areas where Russia is active and NATO is and will respond to this challenge. 12 Terrorism challenges the rules-based international order by seeking to undermine democracy and stability across the globe. Consequently, terrorism must also be seen as a primary threat to the Alliance. It is also a major factor in mass irregular immigration into the Euro-Atlantic area, together with human trafcking and organized crime, which now operate in Europe on an unprecedented scale. The terrorist threat has changed since September 2001 and the attacks on New York and Washington. Al-Shabab is well established in Somalia, while al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and al-Nusra in Syria continue to undermine the stability of Europe’s strategic neighborhood, including the Mediterranean region. Thanks to the eforts of the Global Coalition against Daesh, the group has sufered major setbacks, but it continues in its eforts to re-constitute in Syria and Iraq, establish afliates in multiple countries across Africa and Asia, and extend its infuence into Europe. NATO will adapt to such changing threats and better understand collectively their scale and scope, the interaction between them, and where best the Alliance can assist in dealing with them as part of broader eforts by the international community.

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13 The rise of China as a military, economic, and political superpower will be the defning change factor in the coming decade, with profound implications for the Alliance. While NATO seeks to maintain a constructive dialog with China, Beijing’s growing infuence and military and economic power present challenges that the Alliance will address. The sheer speed and growth of Chinese military capabilities across the mosaic of hybrid, cyber, and hyperwar is a particular cause of concern to the Alliance. China also poses wider challenges that range across civil-military fusion, statesponsored industrial espionage, state-subsidized eforts to monopolize key markets, control of rare-earth and supply-chain monopolies, coercive and targeted foreign direct investment to gain sensitive technology/critical infrastructure, and eforts to dominate 5G networks and standards development in critical technology sectors. 14 NATO’s Overarching Space Policy will ensure secure allied access to space services, products, and capabilities that will be increasingly essential for the conduct of the Alliance’s operations, missions, and activities. NATO considers that attacks to, from, or within space represent a clear challenge to the security of the Alliance, the impact of which could threaten national and Euro-Atlantic prosperity, security, and stability, and could be as harmful to modern societies as a conventional military attack. Such attacks could even lead to the invocation of Article 5, although any such decision would be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis. Work will be accelerated to deepen and expand the Alliance’s use of space as an operational domain, including through the NATO Space Centre in Germany and the Space Centre of Excellence in France. The Alliance will further strengthen space domain awareness and better integrate space into allied activities, including training and exercising, resilience, and innovation eforts. The allies’ presence will be fully in line with international law and NATO will ofer full support to international eforts to promote responsible behavior in space. 15 The primary aim of “gray zone” confict is to exploit political tensions between allies and social tensions within them. The Alliance will help counter hostile information activities, the malicious use of ever more sophisticated emerging and disruptive technologies, espionage, and targeted attacks, all of which have the aim of undermining confdence in the legitimate, democratic leadership vital to sound security and defense. NATO will also develop more sensitive indicators and tools to contend with “gray zone” confict between peace and war. With the bandwidth of coercion becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex, strategic coercion is being employed against the Alliance and the allies that, while short of all-out war, remains a clear and present danger. Both state adversaries and terrorists seek to exploit such tensions by using any weakness

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or vulnerability to their advantage. China and Russia routinely employ a range of economic, political, and information warfare instruments against the allies, such as threats to energy supplies, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and systems, propaganda targeted at vulnerable segments of society, political subversion, and the implicit threat of military power as part of a complex array of strategic coercion.

Part III: Reinforcing and Rebalancing the Transatlantic Relationship Equitable Burden-Sharing 16 NATO is a vital component in the respective security polices of the United States and Canada and will become more so with the rise of China and other challenges U.S. armed forces face the world over. The United States will continue to lead collective defense operations against a major adversary in Europe, but by 2030 a more equitable sharing of Alliance burdens will be achieved, built on the principle of shared risks, responsibilities, and costs. Canada and the European allies will provide more high-end forces and capabilities to complement U.S. forces across the Euro-Atlantic area. Even if shared burdens at times lead to a more equitable division of labor, this by no means suggests a division of responsibility. All Alliance members will continue to share responsibility for NATO’s goals and missions even when labor is sensibly divided. 17 Since the 2014 NATO Wales Summit, European allies have made considerable eforts to increase defense expenditure, with several nations now meeting the 2 percent of GDP goal, of which 20 percent per annum should be spent on new equipment under the Defense Investment Pledge. The United States also reafrmed its commitment to the defense of Europe through the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) in the wake of Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea. The EDI led to the frst increase of US forces in Europe since the end of the Cold War, together with the prepositioning of equipment and stocks, more joint exercises, and improved infrastructures. Building on the progress achieved to date, the allies will, as a matter of urgency, continue eforts to commit more cash, capabilities, and contributions in support of NATO’s core missions.

European Strategic Responsibility 18 Realizing greater European strategic responsibility will be vital to more efectively rebalancing transatlantic military roles, thus easing legitimate U.S. concerns over burden-sharing while creating a more efective Alliance

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by realizing European strategic ambitions. Therefore, enhanced European strategic responsibility is not only a prerequisite for improved transatlantic burden-sharing, it also promotes more equitable consultations on politico-strategic and politico-military matters, ensuring European allies have a greater say in the Alliance and promote greater collective ownership of missions and operations. Such an amplifcation of European capabilities will also aford Europeans the opportunity to take on more responsibility for crisis management within the framework of the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, or through coalitions of the willing and able outside of the EU framework. The ultimate goal is for the European allies to become efective frst responders in possible future crises in the Middle East and North Africa, and to take the lead, where appropriate, for cooperative security missions, such as training partners around the Black Sea or in the Western Balkans. 19 The EU remains a unique and essential partner for the Alliance, with enhanced consultations and practical cooperation vital to the success of both institutions in an increasingly complex security environment. While recognizing the distinct strategic identities of the two institutions, a deeper strategic partnership between NATO and the European Union will be fostered, building on a now long and privileged partnership epitomized by the January 2023 “Joint Declaration of EU-NATO Cooperation” which stated that, “As the security threats and challenges we are confronted with are evolving in scope and magnitude, we will take our partnership to the next level on the basis of our long-standing cooperation. We will further strengthen our cooperation in existing areas, and expand and deepen our cooperation to address in particular the growing geostrategic competition, resilience issues, protection of critical infrastructures, emerging and disruptive technologies, space, the security implications of climate change, as well as foreign information manipulation and interference.” With the bulk of Europe’s defense capabilities outside the EU, arrangements are now also needed to establish mutually agreed enhanced coordination where possible between Alliance and EU defense-planning processes, and thus to promote greater coherence between their respective outputs. Such arrangements will need to be agile and responsive to EU needs in return for a much closer involvement of socalled third countries in the planning and conduct of EU operations. Only then will non-EU NATO allies commit forces and resources to the full spectrum of EU civil-military crisis-management operations.

Part IV: NATO’s Core Tasks and Responsibilities 20 The Strategic Concept reafrms the three core tasks of collective defense, crisis management, and cooperative security, and it further establishes a

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new priority of enhanced resilience to better enable the Alliance to meet the threats and challenges posed by the changing security environment. The Strategic Concept also rebalances the ends, ways, and means of allied security and defense and better meets the requirement for enhanced resilience and more equitable sharing of costs and risks. Collective Defense: The Alliance will continue to lead the collective defense of Europe and the allies reafrm the frm and binding commitment to always assist each other in the event of an attack, in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. NATO reasserts its determination to deter and defend against any threat of aggression, and against emerging and increasingly dangerous security challenges where they threaten the fundamental security of individual allies or the Alliance as a whole. Crisis Management: The Alliance will continue to apply and adapt its unique, robust set of political and military capabilities to address the full spectrum of crises before, during, and after conficts. An appropriate and tailored Alliance mix of political and military tools to help manage developing crises will also be better delivered in partnership with strategic partners, most notably the European Union. Cooperative Security: The Alliance continues to recognize that it is afected by, and can afect, political and security developments beyond its borders. The Alliance will engage actively to enhance international security, through partnership with relevant countries and other international organizations; continue to contribute to arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament; and keep the door open to membership of the Alliance. The Alliance will also strengthen partnerships through enhanced defense capacity-building. To reinforce the core tasks, enhanced resilience will be a priority. The principle of resilience is anchored in Article 3 of the Alliance’s founding treaty. By establishing the Strengthened Resilience Commitment and the baseline requirements, the Alliance has also reafrmed that national and collective resilience is a vital component of credible deterrence and defense and the efective fulfllment of the Alliance’s core tasks. Cyberattacks and information warfare on critical civilian and military infrastructures, as well as on critical information fows between the state and its citizens, are now deemed clear and present dangers. The allies will strengthen eforts to reduce their own vulnerability and that of NATO to such threats as a whole and work closely with the EU to strengthen all transnational aspects of resilience. Such cooperation will help ensure that, whatever the nature and scale of an attack or other disruptive events, continuity of government, essential services to the population, and civil

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support to the military will be maintained in all circumstances, thus further strengthening deterrence.

Modernizing the NATO Force Structure 25 The Alliance will commit to further strengthening and modernizing the NATO Force Structure to meet current and future deterrence and defense needs. This will ensure a fexible, agile, and resilient multi-domain force architecture designed to ensure the right forces are always in the right place at the right time. Command and control will also be modernized and better tailored to support NATO’s 360-degree posture, dynamic force management, improved response system, and more agile planning. Consequently, increased emphasis will be placed on the interdependence of geography, domains, and readiness. Improved readiness will be particularly important, and the allies are fully committed to continue improving the readiness of their forces and thus the Alliance’s rapid-response capability. Implementing the NATO Readiness Initiative in full is essential to establishing an Alliance culture of readiness. 26 The Alliance and the allies will also further invest in a host of advanced military capabilities in order to meet new and enduring challenges across all operational domains. The aim is for NATO to be able to deliver an array of robust and sophisticated capabilities across all domains, including heavier, more high-end, technologically advanced, and better-supported forces and capabilities at the required state of readiness in sufcient capacity to be rotated efectively for the duration of any crisis. The Alliance will also continue to improve and adapt the sustainability, deployability, and interoperability of capabilities for a demanding strategic environment, particularly for the successful conduct of high-end operations. National capability development plans will support the full and timely generation of such capabilities in line with the NATO Defense Planning Process. 27 Preserving the Alliance’s technological edge will be vital. Both the Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund are important steps forward in meeting both the challenge and the opportunity of emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT). One of the Alliance’s strategic priorities must be to compete successfully with authoritarian states that seek to achieve dominance in EDT, such as artifcial intelligence, hypersonic missiles, autonomous drone systems, quantum computing and machine learning, robotics, big data analytics, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies and bioengineering. NATO will also

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act as a coordinating institution for information sharing and collaboration between allies on all aspects of EDT that have a bearing on their security.

Allied Command Operations Mobile Heavy Force 28 To ensure the Alliance meets its core commitments by 2030, Canadian and European allies will stand up a NATO Allied Command Operations Mobile Heavy Force (AMHF). The AMHF will consolidate all Allied Rapid Response Forces into a single pool of forces supported by the requisite force structure. The AMHF will act as a high-end, frst responder Allied Future Force able to act from seabed to space and across the domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information, and knowledge. The AMHF will be sufciently robust and responsive, and held at a sufcient level of readiness to meet any and all threats to the territory of the Euro-Atlantic area in the frst instance, with sufcient capacity to also support those frontline nations facing transnational threats such as terrorism. The AMHF will build on the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force and the enhanced NATO Response Force, as well as those very high readiness forces that will emerge from the NATO Readiness Initiative. 29 The AMHF will enable NATO to better exploit emerging and disruptive technologies and maintain a high degree of interoperability with fast-evolving U.S. forces. The AMHF will also act as a vehicle for the introduction into the Allied Order of Battle of artifcial intelligence, super/quantum computing, big data, machine learning, drone swarming, and autonomous capabilities (for example, manned-unmanned teaming, decoys, relays, and networked autonomous systems), hypersonic weapon systems to enable an allied capability to engage in hyper-fast warfare. This capability will be crucial to deterrence in the future. 30 The AMHF will help give shape and meaning to greater European strategic responsibility. Such responsibility and the autonomy it fosters are a function of relative military capability and capacity and must be seen as such. Together with enabling combat support and combat service support, the AMHF will be deployable in several guises and under more than one fag, including as a NATO-enabled European coalition (both EU allies and partners) or as a framework for coalitions of the willing and able. 31 To ensure the AMHF is stood up in a timely manner, the European allies, together with Canada, will by 2030 invest sufcient resources to ensure they collectively meet at least 50 percent of NATO’s Minimum Military Requirements identifed by the strategic commanders, including fully usable forces required for covering the whole spectrum of operations and missions, as well as the strategic enablers required to conduct multiple demanding large- and smaller-scale operations. Such operations will be

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conducted both alongside U.S. forces in a variety of regions inside and outside SACEUR’s area of responsibility, as well as autonomously when agreed. 32 NATO is and will remain Europe’s principal provider of military security. Defense ministers will decide and direct the necessary details in their Political Guidance for Defense Planning, based on the guidance given in this Strategic Concept. Such a set of contingents of fully capable forces and capabilities provided by European allies will at the same time provide a pool of forces they could draw from for autonomous crisis response missions and operations within the EU.

Equipping NATO for the Future 33 The Alliance will conduct a further shared assessment of the systems needed to prepare both allied forces and mission-critical non-military national assets for a wide range of debilitating future contingencies, such as attacks on critical national infrastructures, cyberattacks, and other more exotic threats. The Alliance will also move to strengthen the interface between defense planners and a wider technology community than hitherto and encourage defense industrial partners to further consider innovative applications of dual-use technologies, as well as new cross-domain multinational partnerships. 34 The Alliance also recognizes that defense industries are an important element of national economic development and technological innovation and provide highly qualifed jobs in many allied countries, and it will thus seek to ensure the equitable sharing of work. Consequently, the Alliance will make certain that any process of adaptation is based on fair competition, reciprocal arrangements, and open to partners beyond the traditional defense, technological, and industrial bases. The Alliance also recognizes that the integration of high technology into allied forces must not come at the expense of afordability, ease of maintenance, logistics, training, and exercising, which will remain vital. 35 It is vital that NATO maintain its technological edge where it still enjoys it and regain it where it has been lost. More European strategic responsibility also requires a stronger European pillar of the Alliance. Therefore, the European allies will ensure that Europe’s defense industry becomes more innovative and competitive, as well as a strong partner for transatlantic cooperation. The Strategic Concept also presupposes a host of new partnerships and none will be more important than in acquisition and procurement, with a particular focus on the development and application of emerging and disruptive technologies. The cost of procurement must be markedly reduced and the pace of procurement cycles accelerated if the allies are to

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meet the defense investment objectives implicit in this Strategic Concept. The European allies face a particular challenge in conducting collaborative research and technology (R&T). The allies will increase collaborative R&T spending, which remains below 2007 levels. In addition to meeting the Capability Targets, the European allies also commit to doubling both their respective national and collective R&T investment by 2030. 36 Realizing such a shift will require signifcant reform to the Defense, Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB). Therefore, the Alliance will undertake an urgent shared assessment of the DTIB in partnership with the EU to consider how existing industries can be better harnessed and new industrial partners successfully engaged. This shared assessment will help establish a reasonable and sustainable level of necessary operational capabilities. Realistic future requirements will thus be defned far more in terms of the operational capability the Alliance will need than in terms of any specifc capacity. Given the nature and scope of emerging threats, understanding the systems, platforms and technologies that Alliance forces will require, the interaction between them, and at what level of capacity to generate required efects is a matter of urgency.

Effective Crisis Management 37 NATO is an Alliance built on political will, military capability, and security capacity, the preservation, adaptation and development of which will be vital going forward. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan demonstrated the vital need for Alliance political and military cohesion during crises and campaigns. However, while NATO played a vital role in the fght against terrorism, a stable Afghanistan was not achieved. Therefore, the planning and conduct of future campaigns will require the allies to collectively and continuously assess their strategic interests and match ambitions to realistic and achievable goals that actively contribute to security, stability, and, ultimately, peace. The capacity of NATO to engage with other international partners that can reinforce Alliance eforts to generate legitimate and relevant change across the civilian and military spectrum will be particularly important. 38 NATO’s train, advise, and assist missions will better embrace and understand the political and cultural norms of the host nation and the ability of any society and its security and defense establishments to efectively absorb capacity-building and training. The Alliance will also ensure efective mechanisms are in place to promote the military interoperability and political dialog required by close collaboration with operational partners. Allies will also improve mechanisms to strengthen the relevance of reporting

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from the feld and promote more interactive real-time discussions at the highest levels within NATO. While allies successfully carried out a mass evacuation operation from Afghanistan under extreme duress, NATO as an organization will develop a stronger capability to support short-notice non-combatant evacuation operations.

Arms Control, Disarmament, and Non-Proliferation 39 Arms control is a cornerstone of the rules-based international order, but its efectiveness is slowly being eroded by powerful states, such as Russia, that deliberately fout treaty terms for narrow advantage, such as in the case of the now abrogated 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. Allies will help develop a strategy for future nuclear arms control to encompass non-strategic nuclear weapons, newly deployed Russian intermediate-range missiles, and destabilizing new delivery systems, such as nuclear-tipped hypersonic and advanced cruise missiles and torpedoes. NATO supports eforts toward strategic risk reduction, which can make important contributions to regional and international security. In particular, transparency and dialog can help avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation. 40 “The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” (NPT) remains the essential bulwark against the spread of nuclear weapons, the cornerstone of the global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament architecture, and the framework for international cooperation in sharing the benefts of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, science, and technology. The allies remain strongly committed to the full implementation of the NPT in all its aspects, as an irreplaceable platform, and the strengthening of the NPT across its mutually reinforcing three pillars. 41 The Alliance also reafrms its resolve to seek a safer world for all and to take further practical steps and efective measures to create the conditions for further nuclear disarmament negotiations. The allies fully support the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons in full accordance with all provisions of the NPT, including Article VI, in an ever more efective and verifable way to promote international stability, based on the principle of undiminished security for all. NATO will also be prudent to ensure no potential enemy gains a critical advantage. The three NATO nuclear weapon states have also repeatedly emphasized their commitment to fulflling their respective national obligations under the NPT insofar as international conditions allow. NATO continues to favor negotiated solutions to reduce tensions and nuclear and conventional forces in Europe, but the Alliance has also made clear that it will not accept unverifable, unbalanced, and destabilizing proposals or ultimatums.

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42 The Alliance remains committed to conventional arms control as a foundation of a stable Euro-Atlantic security architecture and will thus seek to preserve, strengthen, and modernize conventional arms control in Europe based on key principles and commitments, including reciprocity, transparency, and host-nation consent. Unfortunately, Russia’s continuing aggressive military posture, refusal to fully comply with its obligations under the “Treaty on Open Skies”, ongoing selective implementation of the “Vienna Document”, and long-standing failure to implement the “Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe” continue to undermine security and stability across Europe. 43 The Alliance underscores the importance of modernizing the “Vienna Document”, welcomes the broad support for its comprehensive modernization package, and looks forward to intensifed discussions in the Forum for Security Cooperation in the belief this will lead to consensus on an updated “Vienna Document”. To revive the “Treaty on Open Skies”, it is essential that all parties fully implement its provisions. NATO will continue to actively support ongoing discussions at the OSCE, including through the Structured Dialog.

Partnerships and the Open-Door Policy 44 Partnership is either a route to eventual membership through the OpenDoor policy of the Alliance or, for some partners, an end in itself. The Alliance will reinforce the Building Integrity Policy and Program in support of partners preferring either. Corruption and poor governance undermine democracy, the rule of law and economic development, and thus constitute challenges to security. Implementing measures to improve integrity-building, promote the fght against corruption, and foster good governance and democracy will be of continued importance to the Alliance as proof of commitment to the shared values eventual membership will demand. 45 With the Arctic and Northern Europe an increasingly contested space, the accession to the Alliance of Finland and Sweden will greatly reinforce the integrity of the Euro-Atlantic area, most notably in the Arctic and Finnmark. Canada is an Arctic power and is directly afected by the combined impacts of climate change and the growing Chinese and Russian presence in that region. Canada will establish a NATO Centre of Excellence on Climate and Security to better understand the interaction between the two. The Alliance will also fully support Canada and Norway in their respective eforts to ensure the Arctic remains a region of peace and exploration, but will resist any eforts to militarize the sea, or any claims that go beyond current agreements on demarcation.

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46 The Alliance reafrms its support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova within their internationally recognized borders and calls on Russia to withdraw all of its forces in Ukraine and those it has stationed on the territories of those countries without their consent. The Alliance will never recognize Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and will do all in its power short of war with Russia to reverse Russia’s annexation of Crimea, Donbas and other areas of Ukraine. Ukraine will be ofered fast-track membership of the Alliance via an accelerated Membership Action Plan (MAP). The door also remains open for eventual NATO membership for Georgia. In the interim, NATO will continue to support both Georgia and Ukraine to improve the resilience of their respective armed forces and to help deter any aggression. Particular eforts will be made to further strengthen the Enhanced Opportunities Partnerships, which is part of the Partnership Interoperability Initiative launched at the NATO Wales Summit in September 2014. Australia, Finland, Georgia, Jordan, Sweden, and Ukraine each have tailored partnerships with NATO to promote efective interoperability between their respective armed forces and those of the Alliance. 47 In view of the continued aggression by Russia and Russian-led forces in eastern Ukraine, the Alliance will launch a Ukrainian Deterrence Initiative (UDI) as an extension of the Alliance’s Enhanced Opportunity Partner program. Under the UDI, the allies will do all they can to assist Ukraine to defend itself and expel Russian forces, dissuade Russia from launching further aggression, and thus increase Kyiv’s leverage in pursuit of a political settlement to the war. The UDI will include the provision of military equipment and training, as well as eforts to enhance Ukraine’s resilience against cyberattacks, disinformation, economic and energy warfare against critical infrastructures, and political subversion. The UDI will also establish a function-driven form of partnership, making it a formal Alliance responsibility to help train Ukrainian armed forces and to facilitate their acquisition of modern defensive weapons backed by common funding. Similar support will be ofered to Georgia. 48 Defense capacity-building eforts, such as NATO Mission Iraq, are particularly important to the Alliance in the fght against terrorism as part of joint eforts with partners to help stabilize the Euro-Atlantic area and beyond. The Mediterranean Dialog promotes political consultations and bilateral and multilateral practical cooperation involving countries around the Mediterranean Sea. The Istanbul Cooperation Initiative promotes practical cooperation on a bilateral basis across a broad swath of the Middle East and the Alliance will continue to seek to deepen such vital partnerships and intensify such cooperation.

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49 The Alliance will support the preservation of democratic peace the world over. Deeper partnerships will be forged with fellow democracies in the Indo-Pacifc region, such as Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and India. The Alliance will in parallel also seek deeper consultations with China, possibly through the creation of a NATO-China Council.

Women, Peace, and Security 50 NATO’s Policy and Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security will better prepare the Alliance to address the challenges of today and tomorrow. In accordance with its values, the Alliance fully recognizes the critical importance of women’s full, equal, and meaningful participation in all aspects of peace and security, as well as the disproportionate impact that confict has on women and girls, including confict-related sexual violence. The Alliance is fully committed to implementing in full the Women, Peace and Security Agenda set out by the UN Security Council. 51 The 2019 Policy on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse will also hold the Alliance to the highest standards of behavior in keeping with its values. Working together with partners, international organizations, and civil society, the NATO 2030 Agenda will also advance gender equality, ensure equal promotion opportunities in allied armed forces, integrate gender perspectives, and foster the principles of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in all that NATO does, including operations, missions, and activities.

Uncontrolled Migration 52 The Alliance will continue to assist allies in meeting the challenge of uncontrolled migration. In accordance with international law, all ships that sail, including NATO ships, are required to rescue people in distress at sea, and will continue to do so. Allied vessels will also continue to live up to their respective national responsibilities to fully meet obligations to help ease the sufering of desperate people displaced by confict and prevent terrorists from exploiting their plight. As part of eforts to ease the humanitarian crisis, allied maritime forces have been deployed in the Aegean Sea and contribute critical, real-time information to Greece and Turkey. Standing NATO naval forces use allied maritime and air assets to conduct reconnaissance, monitoring, and surveillance of illegal crossings in the territorial waters of Greece and Turkey, as well as in international waters, and they share whatever relevant information they fnd with the Greek and Turkish coast guards and authorities. Such eforts will continue.

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Energy Security 53 The Alliance will play its full part in strengthening energy security with the NATO Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ENSEC COE) continuing to provide qualifed and appropriate expert advice on questions related to operational energy security. The ENSEC COE will further assist Strategic Commands, other NATO bodies, allies, partners, and civil and military entities by ofering guidance to the capability-development process, mission efectiveness, and interoperability in the near, medium, and long terms, as well as by providing comprehensive and timely subject matter expertize on all aspects of energy security. Such eforts will include costefective solutions to support military requirements, energy efciency in the operational feld, and improved interaction with academia and industry.

Human Security 54 The Alliance has long recognized the importance of human security, which focuses on risks and threats to populations in confict or crisis areas, and how to mitigate and respond to them. Taking a human-security approach is a refection of Alliance values and makes NATO more operationally efective. The Alliance remains committed to ensuring that all eforts are made to avoid, minimize, and mitigate any potential negative efects on civilians arising from allied missions or operations. These goals are underscored in the Policy for the Protection of Civilians and the Policy on Preventing and Responding to Confict-Related Sexual Violence, a landmark demonstration of the allied commitment to addressing such violence, which inficts long-term stigma and trauma on individuals and families, contributes to their marginalization, destroys the social fabric of communities, triggers displacement, fuels armed actors’ activities, fosters prolonged confict and instability, and acts as an impediment to sustainable peace and reconciliation. NATO will also play its full role in combating the trafcking of human beings. The Alliance will continue to work with others to mitigate the impact of confict on children as part of Children and Armed Confict and Cultural Property Protection. NATO will further assist in building a network with expert partners, international organizations, and civil society to further the Alliance’s Human Security Agenda, and it will initiate robust policies and clear operational guidelines in support of lasting peace and security and the common defense of allied populations.

Climate Change 55 Climate change is one of the defning challenges of this era. It is a threat multiplier that impacts allied security, both in the Euro-Atlantic area and in

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the Alliance’s wider strategic neighborhood. Through the NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan, the Alliance aims to become the leading international security organization when it comes to understanding and adapting to the impact of climate change on security. Climate change puts allied resilience and civil preparedness to the test, afects planning and the resilience of military installations and critical infrastructure, and creates harsher conditions for operations. The Action Plan will increase allied awareness, adaptation, mitigation, and outreach eforts while ensuring a credible deterrence and defense posture, upholding the priorities of the safety of military personnel and improving operational and cost efectiveness. To increase awareness, NATO will conduct annual assessments of the impact of climate change on its strategic environment, as well as on missions and operations. 56 To further adapt to climate change, NATO will also incorporate climatechange considerations into its full spectrum of work, ranging from defense planning and capability development to civil preparedness and exercises. NATO will reduce the negative environmental impact of its operations (both civilian and military) and seek improved energy efciency and a marked reduction in its carbon footprint. To contribute to the mitigation of climate change, drawing on best practices of allies and taking into account their diferent national circumstances, NATO will develop a mapping methodology to help the allies measure greenhouse-gas emissions from military activities and installations. These measures could contribute to formulating voluntary goals to reduce such emissions. NATO will also strengthen exchanges with partner countries as well as with international and regional organizations that are active on climate change and security issues.

Part V – Alliance Forces in the 2020s The Alliance’s Force Concept 57 Alliance power is ultimately fghting power. During the Cold War, NATO’s military power provided the bedrock for a credibly powerful conventional and nuclear deterrent. In the wake of the Cold War, the “peace dividend” eroded allied military power over time. That will now change. The next ten years could well see the equivalent of 70 years of past military technological development. Consequently, this Strategic Concept reafrms the enduring military role of the Alliance and its fundamental military tasks in light of the fast-changing nature of contemporary and future risks and threats. 58 The Alliance is taking toward the Military Strategy through the implementation of two signifcant military concepts. The Concept for the

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Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic Area provides a single coherent framework to contest, deter, and defend against the Alliance’s main threats in a multi-domain environment and thus strengthen NATO’s preparedness to address pervasive instability and strategic shocks. The Warfghting Concept provides a long-term vision for maintaining and developing NATO’s decisive military edge. The Deterrence and Defense Concept will guide enhanced advance planning to respond to potential crises and conficts, as well as further improve the use and organization of allied forces and capabilities in all operational domains and ensure more efective command and control. Through the implementation of the Warfghting Concept, the Alliance will ensure that it continuously develops its military and technological advantage as the character of confict evolves. 59 The Deterrence and Defense Concept will provide the foundation for all the core military tasks, based on the following principles: a manifest determination to act jointly to defend the Euro-Atlantic Area against all forms of aggression; a recognizable capability and capacity to respond efectively, regardless of the level or nature of aggression; the fexibility to prevent a potential aggressor from predicting with confdence any specifc allied response to aggression; and the implacability to convince even the most fanatical of enemies that they will run an unacceptable degree of risk regardless of the nature of any attack. 60 The NATO Force Structure (NFS) is an overarching framework for force generation, military planning, and operational command and control that addresses both military deterrence activities in peacetime and defense actions in crisis and confict. This includes rapid and efective deployment to NATO’s periphery where needed in a crisis as well as for collective defense operations. The Alliance will strengthen and modernize the NFS so that it will always act as a fexible, agile, and resilient multi-domain, multiple front force architecture ensuring the right forces are in the right place at the right time. This will strengthen modern command and control tailored to support NATO’s 360-degree posture, dynamic force management, improved response system, and force planning. Further planning and operational synergies will be identifed to meet the threat from Russia to the Euro-Atlantic area and the terrorist threat both within and outside, together with the EU and other partners. The NFS will be further adapted to better exploit the technologies of the future battlespace as well as make use of synthetic exercising and simulations. The Alliance will constantly address and update the scale of threats, as well as optimize responsiveness and readiness. 61 The Alliance will ensure that the NATO Command Structure (NCS) remains robust, resilient, and ready to undertake all elements of efective command and control in the event of simultaneous challenges across all domains and across the full spectrum of missions, including large-scale

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operations for collective defense. Allies’ contributions to command and control through the NFS and national headquarters, as well as their enhanced relationship with the NCS, will include the provision of strengthened hostnation support. Such support will remain essential to improving the Alliance’s regional understanding, vigilance, and ability to rapidly respond to any threat from any direction. 62 The Defense and Deterrence Concept is built on a concept of direct defense and is thus designed to defeat an aggressor on any level at which a fght takes place, including in the gray zone between peace and war. Such a direct defense capability in any contingency is a deterrent because it can either defeat an aggressor or impose intolerable costs. Efective direct defense exists when any aggression can be successfully countered, at whatever place, time, level, and duration it occurs. The direct defense concept includes the use of all available capabilities as may be authorized, either on a pre-planned or case-by-case basis. The minimum requirement for credible direct defense is efective forces-in-being at a sufcient level of readiness, capability, and capacity. On land, such NATO forces must have the capability to defend forward with sufcient defense-in-depth, while at-sea NATO forces must have the capability to defend wherever aggression occurs.

Alliance Nuclear Forces 63 The fundamental purpose of allied nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression. As long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear Alliance. Given the deteriorating security environment in Europe, a credible and united nuclear Alliance is thus essential. Nuclear weapons are also unique and the circumstances in which they would be used remain extremely remote. However, NATO reiterates that any use of nuclear weapons against the allies would fundamentally alter the character of a confict. The Alliance has the capabilities and resolve to impose costs on an adversary that would be unacceptable and far outweigh the benefts that any adversary could hope to achieve, including the frst use of nuclear weapons. 64 The strategic forces of the Alliance, particularly those of the United States, are the supreme guarantee of the security of allies. The independent strategic nuclear forces of the United Kingdom and France have a deterrent role of their own and contribute signifcantly to the Alliance’s overall security. The separate centers of decision-making of these three allies further contribute to deterrence by complicating the calculations of potential adversaries. NATO’s nuclear deterrence posture also relies on US nuclear weapons forward-deployed in Europe, as well as UK and French capabilities and infrastructure. In response to the more challenging security environment,

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steps are also being taken to ensure UK, French, and U.S. nuclear forces remain safe, secure, and efective. 65 National contributions of dual-capable aircraft to the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence mission remain vital. However, such capabilities must be reinforced and upgraded to remain credible in the face of rapidly developing air-defense systems. As such, the Alliance reafrms the imperative to ensure the broadest possible participation by allies concerned in the agreed nuclear-sharing arrangements in order to demonstrate Alliance unity and resolve. Allies will also continue to ensure greater coherence between the conventional and nuclear components of the deterrence and defense posture; consider the role and utility of other technologies in the Alliance’s deterrence posture, such as ofensive and defensive cyber; strengthen efective strategic communications; and enhance the efectiveness of allied exercises to maintain and consistently demonstrate NATO’s enduring commitment to credible deterrence.

Air and Missile Defense 66 Missile defense can complement the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence, but it cannot substitute for them. The challenge for efective missile defense will also increase with the deployment of hypersonic missile systems and maneuverable reentry vehicles (both ballistic and glide). Therefore, the Alliance will continue to develop and strengthen the Integrated Air and Missile Defense capability as an integral element of the Alliance collective defense. The ultimate aim is to provide full coverage and protection for all NATO European populations, territories, critical infrastructures, and forces against the increasing threat posed by the proliferation of advanced ballistic and cruise missiles. 67 Any such capability will also be established on the political principles agreed at the 2022 Madrid Summit – which include the indivisibility of allies’ security and solidarity, the equitable sharing of risks and burdens taking into account the level of threat, afordability, and technical feasibility – and in accordance with the latest common threat assessments agreed by the Alliance. Should international eforts reduce the threats posed by the proliferation of ballistic-missile proliferation, NATO missile-defense plans and capabilities will adapt accordingly.

Cyber Defense 68 NATO’s Comprehensive Cyber Defense Policy recognizes that in certain circumstances the impact of signifcant malicious cumulative cyber activities might be considered as amounting to an armed attack of Article 5

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signifcance. Any decision as to when a cyberattack is deemed sufciently severe to warrant the invoking of Article 5 will be taken by the North Atlantic Council on a case-by-case basis.

The Alliance’s Force Posture 69 To safeguard allied territories and populations, and to preserve the free use of sea, airspace, cyberspace, space, and the global commons, the Alliance will develop a fexible conventional deterrent and defense force posture supported by a credible nuclear deterrent, together with the strengthening of the forward-presence concept. NATO will always deploy sufcient combat-ready and balanced land, air, and naval forces as far forward as is consistent with a sound military posture. Such actions will be taken together with the rapid deployment of component headquarters and logistics, early identifcation of the scale of any aggression across the domains of land, sea, air, space, cyber, and information to prevent an aggressor seizing or holding all and any parts of the Euro-Atlantic area. If an aggressor remains intent on an aggressive purpose, NATO will confront them with such resistance that they will be compelled to withdraw or risk further escalation which, if necessary, could include the controlled use of advanced conventional, cyber, and/or nuclear weapons. 70 The Alliance will maintain a credible arsenal of conventional, cyber, and nuclear capabilities as necessary to achieve NATO’s objectives and communicate to an aggressor that in the event of any loss of allied territory, no fait accompli will ever be accepted and that the Alliance will commit all necessary means to recover seized territory from hostile occupation. NATO will also continuously interdict all and any terrorist groups, via all necessary civil and military means, and in conjunction with allies and partners. NATO will also seek to identify their aims and means, their specifc intentions, and disrupt and destroy their forces. 71 The Enhanced and Tailored Forward Presence will be merged into a Continuous Forward Presence (CFP) and equipped with the necessary sufcient ground, sea, air, and digital forces. CFP forces will be deployed from Estonia to Turkey and held at a sufciently high state of readiness to ofer prompt, integrated support in times of tension, or take rapid action against any limited or major aggression. The responsibility for felding the bulk of these committed forces will over time fall mainly on the European allies as some U.S. forces shift toward the Indo-Pacifc. 72 The 2018 NATO Readiness Initiative (NRI) committed the allies to having 30 battalions, 30 air squadrons, and 30 naval combat vessels ready to use within 30 days. NRI was not about new forces, but increasing the readiness of forces that could be made available for collective defense

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and crisis-response operations. Continuous eforts are underway to meet as agreed the NRI’s political ambition, including a SACEUR readiness reporting system to enable accurate assessments of available forces. The NRI was also designed to further enhance the readiness of existing national forces, as well as to improve their ability to move within Europe through enhanced military mobility and to transit safely across the Atlantic in the event of an emergency.

The Alliance and Future War 73 Hyperwar is machine-enabled, super-fast warfare. By 2035, hyperwar will be a reality and the Alliance must be prepared. Hyperwar is defned by speed of command and action that will be far faster than today, much of it automated, with adversaries likely to be little concerned about ethical considerations over the introduction of artifcially intelligent enablers into command chains and cycles. In view of the speed with which an enemy could undertake an attack, the Alliance’s political and military command and control structures will need a real-time capability to continuously assess enemy capabilities and indicators of attack, supported by, but not subject to, artifcial intelligence, big data, and machine-learning capabilities. 74 Therefore, the critical element in modernizing the NATO Command and Force Structures will be decision-making machinery capable of acting at the speed of relevance. Any such capacity will be particularly important with regard to the declaration of alert measures, including the considered but rapid devolution by the North Atlantic Council of command authority to senior commanders, the assignment of forces and resources, the use of ad interim ofensive digital and conventional military capabilities while decisions are being made by the NAC concerning mobilization, the deployment of reinforcements, particularly from across the Atlantic, and the potential use of advanced conventional, cyber, and nuclear weapons, including highly destructive artifcial intelligence (AI)enabled autonomous capabilities or systems. 75 The NATO Artifcial Intelligence Strategy has four aims: to lay a foundation for the development and use of AI for defense and security, to accelerate and bring into the mainstream AI adoption in capability development, to address AI-related security policy considerations, and to safeguard against the threats from malicious AI use. All NATO AI applications will be developed and used in accordance with national and international law, including international humanitarian law and human rights law. AI applications will also be developed and used with appropriate levels of judgment and care with clear human responsibility maintained in order to ensure accountability. NATO policy will be appropriately understandable and

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transparent, including through the use of review methodologies, sources, and procedures. 76 The strategy will include verifcation, assessment, and validation mechanisms at either the Alliance or national level. AI applications will also have explicit, well-defned uses with the safety, security, and robustness of such capabilities subject to testing and assurance across their entire life cycle, including through established NATO and/or national certifcation procedures. Critically, AI applications will be developed and used according to their intended functions and will allow for appropriate human-machine interaction, an ability to detect and avoid unintended consequences, and the ability to take steps, such as disengagement or deactivation of systems, when such systems demonstrate unintended behavior. Proactive steps will be taken to minimize any unintended bias in the development and use of AI applications and in data sets. 77 Deeper partnerships with the private sector will be sought with the aim of identifying gaps in collective defense cooperation in areas such as securityrelated AI strategies, norms, and research and development, as well as of safeguarding against the malign and aggressive use of AI, quantum computing, hypersonic missiles, and drone technologies and other automated systems as the conduct and character of warfare changes and such technologies accelerate the speed of warfare. To that end, a headwork strategy will be established in conjunction with the allies, supported by the NATO Industrial Advisory Group.

Preserving Peace and Protecting People 78 We, the political leaders, reafrm the values and principles this unique democratic security Alliance was created to secure and defend. We will ensure that the Alliance has the necessary fnancial, military, and human resources to fulfll its core missions efciently and efectively. We remain frmly committed to preserving the efectiveness of the world’s most successful political-military Alliance. Our Alliance thrives as a source of hope because it is based on common values of individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and because our common essential and enduring purpose is to safeguard the freedom and security of its members. These values and objectives are universal and perpetual, and we are determined to defend them through unity, solidarity, strength, and resolve.

NATO’s New Idea Agility, adaptability, credibility, and capability have been the four pillars upon which NATO was established and must continue to be established. Lose any one of those four pillars for whatever strategic, political, or fnancial reasons

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and NATO fails. It is as simple as that. In the twenty-frst century Europeans and North Americans must together pause to refect on just how important their alliance is to them. They should consider from whence NATO came, the journey it has made, and the challenging journey still to come. Critically, they must think (and ultimately act) hard about democratic peace in the world beyond Europe, not the world they would like, but the world as it is. NATO’s bottom-line is thus clear: for the Alliance to endure, as it must, Europeans and Canadians are going to have to rehabilitate coercion and hard power as central planks in their security and defense. Above all, Europeans are going to have to do far more for their own defense simply to preserve the U.S. security guarantee. The rise of China, the strategic criminality of a failing Russia, and a host of other challenges mean the United States will need to be in all place in strength all of the time. The plain fact is the United States no longer has the strength to perform such a role unilaterally and perpetually and must look to the Allies to assist, but capable allies. Future war, and there will be future wars, will be preceded by the engineering by autocratic adversaries of multiple, simultaneous crises the world over designed specifcally to destroy the ability and the capacity of the United States to respond in strength. Therefore, in such circumstances, the minimum European and Canadian down-payment on a future NATO will be the AMHF, the rapid standing up of a high-end, frst responder European future force able to operate to efect across air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge. It will be a force that must be fully interoperable with its United States counterpart and able to engage across the future war mosaic of hybrid, cyber, and hyper-fast hyperwar. That aim was implicit in the Madrid Summit Declaration and explicit in the NATO 2022 Strategic Concept but it needs to go far further, far faster. However, such ambition will also need to take place at a time of acute economic and political stress in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many welfarized European states continue to face tough spending choices as they perpetually trade of between health security, human security and hard security. NATO is the solution, not the problem, because it is essentially a burden and cost and risk-sharing mechanism designed to ensure all of its nations  – big, medium and small – can meet the ends, ways and means of security and defense in any and all circumstances. Nothing more, nothing less. However, for NATO to endure, the nations must say what they mean and mean what they say. The commitment to reverse the trend of declining budgets must be adhered to and built upon. As former Secretary-General Stoltenberg said, the Defense Investment Pledge must be seen as a baseline, not as a ceiling. More investment will be needed to ensure NATO not only adapts but transforms itself to meet the coming challenges. At the end of the long day if deterrence and defense are to be credible, NATO must have the relative albeit minimum capacity and

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capability to fght and win a major war because that is the way to ensure the unthinkable remains the undoable. The twenty-frst-century world needs a strong West and the West needs a big NATO. However, the “West” is no longer a place; it is an idea of liberal democracy, freedom, and free markets that stretches across the world. The anchor of this new idea remains the Euro-Atlantic Community which remains the best hope for preserving the international rules-based order the West itself created. A failure of strategic imagination now will also condemn to failure the system of institutionalized balance, legitimacy, and stability the West gave the world in the wake of World War II, and the world will be immeasurably more dangerous for it. In such circumstances, the West will fnd itself no longer the master of its own security destiny, but bufeted and damaged by events imposed upon it by others. Only a strong global democratic community with the Old West at its core will guarantee a stable twenty-frst century and prevent the ascendancy of both global hyper-nationalism and hyper-fundamentalism. NATO is the Old West, but the need of the New West for NATO remains as strong as ever, if not stronger, because it is the one organization capable of organizing truly credible, legitimate, and stable coercive power in a world marked by instability and even chaos. However, NATO is only as strong as the sum of its parts. Until those European Allies that play at defense wake up and smell the geopolitical cofee and match words with deeds, the danger is that NATO will always be behind someone else’s curve. That means tough choices in a tough world. Familiar excuses will not wash. NATO’s dangerous and changing strategic environment is not going to go away and those that make such excuses will simply transfer the cost of their security onto those that do not. If there can be no taxation without representation, there can be no representation without commitment, and that means a willingness of all NATO nations to invest proportionately in relevant and capable military forces to keep the peace.

NATO: The Enduring Alliance? For over 70 years NATO has preserved peace and strengthened the foundations of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law across the Euro-Atlantic Community based on the principle of indivisible security. The Alliance has now grown from 12 members to 32 members, expanding the zone of freedom and liberty. The future security and defense of NATO members now depends ever more on partners across the globe who share the Alliance’s enduring commitment to democratic peace and collective security. And yet, the Alliance today faces perhaps the most complex set of challenges in its history and must continue to deter, defend, and engage all threats to the Euro-Atlantic area. Urgency is thus the defning feature of NATO today given both the nature and

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extent of the challenges to the values of the Alliance and the increased threats to NATO citizens compared with even 2022, when the last NATO Strategic Concept was drafted. The fulflling of NATO Strategic Concept 2022 will thus prove (or otherwise) the determination of the allies to preserve peace and protect people. The pivotal question is whether in the wake of the Afghanistan debacle NATO has the collective political will, forces, and resources to meet the “360 degree” challenge of contemporary and future collective deterrence and defense, crisis prevention and management, and cooperative security within the context of the strategic environment of the 2020s and beyond. One thing is clear: if the vision implicit in NATO Strategic Concept 2022 is to be realized Europeans are going to have to do far more to make NATO work. In time, NATO Strategic Concept 2022 could well come to be seen as a landmark document that set the direction of travel for the Alliance in a new age of strategic competition, in much the same way as the December 1967 MC14/3. However, that will only happen if the Alliance has the collective courage to grip the future. If not, another false dawn could one day be NATO’s last. NATO’s journey has been a long one that is only just beginning. The Alliance will endure only if its members ensure it is constantly adapting to meet the challenges of the coming age, not the past. If not, they will be failing history. It would not be for the frst time. NATO IS the Enduring Alliance, but only time will tell if it remains so. Is today 1949 re-visited? In the words of the third-century Roman historian Vegetius, NATO’s mission is clear: si vis pacem para bellum.2

Notes 1 The Alphen Group Shadow NATO Strategic Concept was written by the author and presented to the NATO Secretary-General’s Ofce in Brussels in February 2022. It was co-written (inter alia) by a former NATO secretary-general, a deputy secretarygeneral, a deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, a chairman NATO Military Committee, UK CHOD, COMUSAREUR, an assistant secretary-general of Policy Planning, a deputy assistant secretary-general, an assistant secretary of Defense and two NATO ambassadors. It was subsequently published by the German Marshall Fund, the Norwegian Atlantic Committee and the Canadian Global Afairs Institute. 2 In fact, si vis pacem etc. was adapted from a phrase used by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, who actually said, “Therefore, let him who desires peace prepare for war.” It has come to mean peace through strength and is also the motto of Britain’s Royal Navy.

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Garton-Ash, Timothy, Free World – Why a Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our Time (London: Allen Lane, 2004). A call for the West to be re-generated in pursuit of its idealist and realist goals. Global Strategic Trends: The Future Starts Here: Sixth Edition (London: Crown Copyright, 2018). Huldt, Bo, et al., Strategic Yearbook 2006 (Stockholm: Swedish National Defense College, 2006). The 2006 annual analysis of the changing strategic environment. International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), “Defending Europe: Scenario-based Capability Requirements for NATO’s European Members,” April 2019. Kaplan, Lawrence S., NATO Before the Korean War (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 2013). An academic view of the years running up to the formation of NATO and the Korean War, with a particular focus on US politics and debates. Kaplan, Robert D., Warrior Politics – Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (New York: Random House, 2002). An application of classical security theory to the modern world. Kissinger, Henry, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Towards a Diplomacy for the TwentyFirst Century (New York: Touchstone, 2001). An analysis of the impact of power upon classical foreign policy. Kissinger, Henry, World Order (London: Allen Lane, 2014). A strategic overview of world order in the early years of the twenty-frst century and Kissinger’s prescriptions for managing the balance of power. Kupchan, Charles A., The End of the American Era (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002). What to do with American foreign and security policy as Pax Americana gives way to strategic uncertainty. Lake, Anthony, Six Nightmares (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 2002). Six scenarios for asymmetric attack, from a former National Security Advisor. Larsen, Jefrey A., and Kartchner, Kerry M., eds., On Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). An insightful compendium examining the development of thinking about the use of nuclear weapons in limited nuclear war. Lindley-French, Julian, “Euronukes?” Aspenia, nos. 27–28 (Rome: Aspen, 2005). An analysis of the non-role of British and French nuclear weapons in European defense. Lindley-French, Julian, “The Revolution in Security Afairs: Hard and Soft Security Dynamics in the Twenty-First Century,” in Anne Aldis and Graeme P. Herd (eds) Soft Security Threats and European Security (London: Routledge, 2005). An analysis of the gaps within Europe over the use of coercion. Lindley-French, Julian, Terms of Engagement: The Paradox of American Power and the Transatlantic Dilemma Post-11 September (Paris: European Union  – Institute for Security Studies, 2002). An analysis of the dilemma of classical great power in a non-classical world. Lindley-French, Julian, and Algieri, Franco, Why Europe Needs to Be Strong . . . and the World Needs a Strong Europe (Gütesloh: Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2005). A plea to the 2005 December European Council to take European defense seriously. Lukes, Steven, ed., Power (Oxford: Blackwells, 1986). Series of essays by the great and the good on the nature and defnitions of power. Marrione, Alessandro, de France, Olivier, and Fattibene, Daniele, Defence Budgets and Co-operation in Europe: Developments, Trends and Drivers, Istituto Afari Internazionale (Rome: IAI, 2016).

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Mearsheimer, John J., The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York and London: Norton, 2001). A realist look at the history of power politics and why Great Powers are doomed to compete. Meijer, Hugo, and Wyss, Marco, The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015: A Secure and Prosperous United Kingdom (London: TSO, 2015). The National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington, DC: The Ofce of the President of the United States, 2006). The Notifcation on Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) to the Council and to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Afairs and Security Policy (Brussels: EU, June 2017). Persson, Gudrun, The War of the Future: A Conceptual Framework and Practical Conclusions: Essays on Strategic Thought (Rome: NDC, 2017). Smith, General Sir Rupert, The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (London: Allen Lane, 2005). A study by a former senior British commander to demonstrate the possibilities and the limits of the use of force in complex political environments. The Strategic Review of Defence and National Security: Key Points (Paris: French Republic, 2017). Tardy, Thierry, ed., Peace Operations After 11 September, 2001 (London and New York: Frank Cass, 2005). A collection of essays looking at the changing context, particularly of UN peace operations in the wake of 9/11. Zaborowski, Martin, ed., Friends Again? EU-U.S. Relations After the Crisis (Paris: European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2006). A series of essays looking at the state of contemporary US-EU relations.

NATO Allin, Dana H., “NATO’s Balkan Intervention,” IISS Adelphi Paper 377 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of NATO’s engagement in the Balkans. Binnendijk, Hans, Gompert, David C., and Kugler, Richard L., “A New Military Framework for NATO,” Defense Horizons, no. 48 (Washington: National Defense University, May 2005). Call for the further transformation of NATO to prepare it for the challenges of the twenty-frst century. Biscop, Sven, ed., E Pluribus Unum? Military Integration in the European Union (Brussels: Royal Institute for International Relations (IRRI-KIIB), 2005). A look at how Europeans are to close the gap between the security environment, their military capabilities and political aspirations. Brimmer, Esther, ed., The EU’s Search for a Strategic Role (Washington, DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations/Johns Hopkins University, 2002). An in-depth study of the relationship between EU political cohesion and grand strategy. David, Charles-Philippe, and Levesque, Jacques, eds., The Future of NATO: Enlargement: Russia and European Security (Montreal and Kingston: McGill and Queens University Press, 2005). Canadian study on the future of NATO that combines theoretical, policy and analytical approaches.

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Clark, Wesley K., Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat (New York: Public Afairs Press, 2001). A personal account by the former Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, with a particular focus on the conduct of the Kosovo War. Clinton, Bill, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004). Personal account of the former president’s time in ofce. Dobbins, James, Jones, Seth G., Runkle, Benjamin, and Monandas, Siddarth, Occupying Iraq: A History of the Provisional Authority (Washington, DC: RAND, 2009). A history of the early days of the coalition occupation of Iraq post 2003. Freedman, Lawrence, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 1989). A broad-sweep analysis of the evolution of nuclear strategy from the birth of the bomb to the end of the Cold War and into the Reagan years. Freedman, Lawrence, The Future of War: A History (London: Allen Lane, 2017). Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992). A call for the US to make the most of its victory in the Cold War by championing liberal democracy, freedom of expression, movement and open markets. Garthof, Raymond L., Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1985). Geoană, Mircea, “NATO 20/2020: 20 Bold Ideas to Reimagine the Alliance after the 2020 US Election,” 11 December 2020, www.nato.int/cps/fr/natohq/opinions_180063.htm Glaser, Charles L., Analyzing Strategic Nuclear Policy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). An intensely detailed analysis of the politics of the Cold War from the Nixon administration to the Reagan administration. Gnesotto, Nicole, ed., European Security and Defence Policy – The First Five Years (1999– 2004) (Paris: European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2004). A collection of essays exploring the performance of the ESDP. Grehan, John, The Berlin Airlift: The World’s Largest Ever Air Supply Operation (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2019). Grosser, Alfred, ed., The Western Alliance: European-American Relations since 1945 (London: Macmillan, 1980). A broad history of the Western Alliance from 1945 to the 1970s from a European’s viewpoint. Hagelstam, Axel, “Cooperating to Counter Hybrid Threats,” NATO Review (2018), www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2018/11/23/cooperating-to-counter-hybridthreats/index.html Halliday, Fred, ed., The Making of the Second Cold War (London: Verso, 1989). How détente became Cold War. Ikenberry, John G., After Victory (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2001). Historical analysis of what states do with victory, applied to the US in the wake of the Cold War. Jenkins, Roy, Churchill (London: Pan Books, 2001). A magisterial biography of Winston Churchill by a senior British politician. Kampfner, John, Blair’s Wars (London: Simon & Schuster, 2003). A journalist’s view of Tony Blair and his activist security policy. Kissinger, Henry, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). The history of Realpolitik from sixteenth-century Europe to the end of the Cold War. Kuklick, Bruce, Blind Oracles: Intellectuals and War from Kennan to Kissinger (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). An analysis of the role of academics in strategy and policy, and their struggles with each other and those in power.

154

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LaFeber, Walter, America, Russia and the Cold War 1945–1990, Sixth Edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991). Historical overview of the Cold War. Lindley-French, Julian, “In the Shade of Locarno: Why European Defense is Failing,” International Afairs 78: 4 (2002). Historical study of why democratic European security and defense policy has always been slow to react to change. Meyer, Christopher, DC Confdential (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005). Personal recollections of a former British ambassador to Washington. Priest, Dana, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military (New York: Norton, 2003). The personal view of an American journalist embedded with American forces peacekeeping in dangerous places. Freedman, Lawrence, “The Revolution in Strategic Afairs,” IISS Adelphi Paper 318 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Essay exploring the need for conceptual strategic thinking in a new strategic environment.

Military/Technical Adams, Gordon, Ben-Ari, Guy, Logsdon, John, and Williamson, Ray, Bridging the Gap: European C4ISR and Transatlantic Interoperability (Washington, DC: The George Washington University, 2004). A detailed look at the gap between the capabilities of US and European forces. Bronk, Justin, Next Generation Combat Aircraft: Threat Outlook and Potential Solutions, Occasional Paper, November 2018 (London: RUSI, 2018). Center for Research and Education on Strategy and Technology (CREST), Coalition Military Operations: The Way Ahead Through Co-operability – Report of a French-German-UK-US Working Group (Arlington, VA: US Center for Research and Education on Strategy and Technology, 2000). Analysis by a “steering committee” of the conduct of future military coalitions. Center for Research and Education on Strategy and Technology (CREST), Future Military Coalitions: The Transatlantic Challenge, Report of a French-German-UK-US Working Group (Arlington, VA: US Center for Research and Education on Strategy and Technology, 2002). Further elaboration by a “steering committee” of the challenges posed by future military coalitions. Cooper, Julian, Russia’s State Armament Programme to 2020: A Quantitative Assessment of Implementation 2011–2015 (Stockholm: FOI, 2016). Di Paola, Giampaolo, and Lindley-French, Julian, Afording and Equipping the Alliance (Bratislava: GLOBSEC, 2017). Fiott, Daniel, “Digitalising Defence: Protecting Europe in the Age of Quantum Computing and the Cloud,” Brief, no.4 (European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2020), www.iss.europa.eu/sites/default/fles/EUISSFiles/Brief%204%20Defence. pdf Flournoy, Michèle A., ed., QDR 2001: Strategy Driven Choices for America’s Security (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 2001). One insider’s look at the policy and planning drivers behind the 2001 Quadrennial Review. Flournoy, Michèle A., and Smith, Julianne, eds., European Defense Integration: Bridging the Gap Between Strategy and Capabilities (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2005). In-depth CSIS study of the challenges facing European defense integration and its relationship to the US and NATO.

Bibliography and Further Reading

155

Gompert, David C., Kugler, Richard L., and Libicki, Martin C., Mind the Gap: Promoting a Transatlantic Revolution in Military Afairs (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1999). A warning of the military-technical gap within the Alliance, and proposals for how to close it. Hagman, Hans-Christian, “European Crisis Management and Defense: The Search for Capabilities,” IISS Adelphi Papers 353 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). A European study into the capabilities gap between European defense and its missions. Heisbourg, François, ed., “European Defense: Making it Work,” Chaillot Papers 42 (Paris: Western European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2000). High-level study of how to move forwards in European defense. Hooker Jr., Richard D., How to Defend the Balkans (Unpublished, 2017). Husain, Amir, The Sentient Machine: The Coming Age of Artifcial Intelligence (New York: Scribner, 2017). Husain, Amir, and Allen, John R., Hyperwar: Confict and Competition in the AI Century (Austin: SparkCognition Press, 2019). Husain, Amir, and Allen, John R., “On Hyperwar,” Naval Institute Proceedings (Annapolis: United States Navy Institute, July 2017). Johnson, Andrew, ed., Wars in Peace: British Military Operations since 1991 (London: RUSI, 2014). Khalil, James, and Zeuthen, Martine, “Countering Violent Extremism & Risk Reduction: A Guide to Programme Design & Evaluation,” Whitehall Paper 2–16 (London: RUSI, 2015). Kilcullen, David, et al., A Great Perhaps? Confict and Convergence (London: Hurst, 2016). Krause, Joachim, and Bruns, Sebastian, eds., Routledge Handbook of Naval Strategy and Security (London: Routledge, 2016). Langton, Christopher, ed., The Military Balance 2005–2006 (London: Routledge, 2005). Annual analysis of defense commitments and armed forces of the world’s states. Lavrov, Anton, Russian Military Reform from Georgia to Syria (Washington, DC: CSIS, November 2018). Lutz, Rachel Anne, Military Capabilities for a European Defence (Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Afairs, 2001). An analysis of European military defciencies and how to resolve them. Nuno, Frank, and Standley, Vaughn, “Bolt Out of the Blue: Nuclear Attack Warning in the Era of Information and Cyber Warfare,” in War on the Rocks, 14 June 2018, https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/bolt-out-of-the-blue-nuclear-attack-warning-in-the-era-of-information-and-cyber-warfare/ Persson, Gudrun, ed., Russian Military Capability in a Ten Year Perspective (Stockholm: FOI, 2016). Sarotte, Mary-Elise, “German Military Reform and European Security,” IISS Adelphi Paper 340 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). An analysis of the political, economic and military difculties associated with reforming the German armed forces. Segers, Nico, Enhancing Resilience against Unconventional Attacks on Allied Nations: Enter the NATO Counter-Hybrid Support Teams (Brussels: Atlantic Forum, 2020), https:// atlantic-forum.com/content/enhancing-resilience-against-unconventional-attacksallied-nations-enter-nato-counter-hybrid Thomas, James P., “The Military Challenges of Transatlantic Coalitions,” IISS Adelphi Paper 333 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). The problems of coalitions involving forces with very diferent capabilities, traditions and political rule of engagement.

156

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Offcial Declarations “2018 European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) Factsheet,” U.S. European Command Public Afairs Ofce, 8, https://nl.search.yahoo.com/search?fr=mcafee&type=E211NL0G0 &p=European+Defense+Initiative “Active Engagement, Modern Defense – Strategic Concept for the Defense and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” 8, 20 November 2010, www.nato.int/strategic-concept/pdf/Strat_Concept_web_en.pdf “Defence Ministers to Agree NATO Readiness Initiative,” 7 June 2018, www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/news_155348.htm “Global Strategic Trends: The Future Starts Here: Sixth Edition” (London: Crown Copyright, 2018) NATO Communiqué, 18 November 2018, www.nato.int/cps/ en/natohq/news_160671.htm “The National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies,” 2017 edition (Crown copyright: London, 2017) “The NATO Wales Summit Declaration,” www.nato.int/cps/en/ natohq/ofcial_texts_112964.htm “NATO 1952 Strategic Concept” (Brussels: NATO). “NATO 1967 Strategic Concept” (Brussels: NATO). “NATO 1999 Strategic Concept” (Brussels: NATO). “NATO 2021 Strategic Concept” (Brussels: NATO). “NATO 2022 Strategic Concept” (Brussels: NATO). “NATO Brussels Summit Declaration,” 11 July 2018, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ ofcial_texts_156624.htm “NATO Madrid Summit Declaration,” 29 June 2022, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ ofcial_texts_196951.htm?selectedLocale=en “NATO Warsaw Summit Communique,” 8–9 July 2016, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/ ofcial_texts_133169.htm North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, “Cyber Defence Pledge,” 2016, www.nato.int/cps/ en/natohq/ofcial_texts_133177.htm North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, “NATO’s Approach to Space,” 2019, www.nato.int/ cps/en/natohq/topics_175419.htm North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, “NATO’s Response to Hybrid Threats,” 2021, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_156338.htm Press conference by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg following the meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Defence Ministers’ Session, 7 June 2018, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_155264.htm?selectedLocale=en Refection Group Appointed by the Secretary General, “NATO 2030: United for a New Era,” 2020, www.nato.int/nato_static_f2014/assets/pdf/2020/12/pdf/201201Refection-Group-Final-Report-Uni.pdf “The Wales Declaration on the Transatlantic Bond,”www.gov.uk/government/publications/ nato-summit-2014-wales-summit-declaration/the-wales-declaration-on-thetransatlantic-bond “Wales Summit Declaration,” 5 September 2014, www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_ 112517.htm

References Rutten, Maartje, ed., “From Nice to Laeken, European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Paper 51, vol. II (Paris: European Union  – Institute for Security Studies, 2002). Collection of ofcial documents.

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Haines, Jean-Yves, ed., “From Laeken to Copenhagen, European Defense: Core Documents 2003,” Chaillot Papers 57, vol. III (Paris: European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2003). Collection of ofcial documents. Korteweg, Rem, The Discourse on European Defence (The Hague: Clingendael, 2005). A collection of core documents and speeches relevant to European security and defense. Lindley-French, Julian A Chronology of European Security and Defence 1945–2007 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Blow by blow timeline of European security and defense. Rutten, Maartje, ed., “From St Malo to Nice – European Defense: Core Documents,” Chaillot Papers 47 (Paris: Western European Union – Institute for Security Studies, 2001). Collection of ofcial documents. United States Defence Intelligence Agency, “Challenges to Security in Space,” 2019, www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/ Space_Threat_V14_020119_sm.pdf

Online Sources Charles de Gaulle Archive CNN Council on Foreign Relations European Union Council of Ministers European Union online at: Eurotreaties at: European Navigator at: European Defense at: The Heritage Foundation Human Rights Watch Keesings Online Archive NATO Source Watch Western European Union Worldwide School Yale University

www.charlesdegaulle.org www.cnnstudentnews.com www.cfr.org http://ue.eu.int http://europa.eu.int www.eurotreaties.com www.ena.lu www.european-defence.com www.heritage.org www.hrw.org www.keesing.com www.nato.int www.sourcewatch.org www.weu.int www.worldwideschool.org www.yale.edu

INDEX

The letter ‘n’ indicates a reference to notes. Abbottabad, Pakistan 11 Adenauer, Konrad 31, 33, 34, 38 advanced military capabilities 129 afordability 44, 77–8, 81, 112, 113 Afghanistan: NATO’s credibility and cohesion 121, 132; Soviet invasion 16, 56; Soviet withdrawal 64; U.S.-led campaign 2, 9–11, 14, 106–11 Afghan National Army (ANA) 11, 107, 109–10 Afghan National Police 11 Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) 11, 107, 109 “Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War” (1973) 51 Air Land Battle doctrine 72 Albright, Madeleine K. 86, 91 Alexander, Harold 34, 117 Algeria 37–8, 40 Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS) 100 Allied Command Europe Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) 71, 78 Allied Command Operations (ACO) 101, 102 Allied Command Operations Mobile Heavy Force (AMHF) 130–1 Allied Command Transformation (ACT) 101–2, 103 Allied Joint Force Commands 102 Allied Mobile Heavy Force 117 al-Nusra Front 124 Alphen Group Shadow NATO Strategic Concept 147n1

Al Qaeda 124; 9/11 attacks 8, 9; attacks on U.S. embassies (1997) 90; complex security 14; emergence 16; Riyadh car bomb (1996) 88; World Trade Center bomb (1993) 79; Yemen bomb attack (1992) 77 Al-Shabab (militant group) 124 ambition, politics, strategy, and afordability 113 American Exceptionalism 34 American idealism 37 American realism 45 American unilateralism 8; see also United States (US) Anderson, Rudolf 42 Andropov, Yuri 59–60 Anglo-French co-operation 82 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaties 17, 46–7, 60 Arctic 124, 134 Area of Responsibility (AOR) 113 arms control 44–5, 133–4 arms limitations talks 60 Artifcial Intelligence Strategy 143–4 Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF) 41 Atlantic Treaty Associations (ATAs) 103–4 atomic powers 36 Attlee, Clement 33 austerity 3–4 Australia 120 Axis of Evil 17–18 “baby bombs” 36 Balkans 2, 75–6, 82–3

Index Baltic States 16–17 Barcelona European Council (2002) 18 Battle Schools 117 Belarus 124 Belgium 57, 78 Berlin Crises 30, 40, 41 Berlin Declaration 40 Berlin North Atlantic Council 87 Berlin-plus process 87–8 Berlin Wall 41–2, 65 Bermuda Conference 35 Bevin, Ernest 29 Biden, Joe 10, 106–10 Big 2030 Plan 116 bin Laden, Osama 4, 9, 11, 90 Blair, Tony 18–19, 90–1, 92 Blix, Hans 19 “bolt from the blue” 62 Bonn Agreement 108 Bonsai militaries 93 Bosnia 22, 79, 87, 88 Bosnia-Herzegovina 77, 78 Bosnian Serbs 77, 79, 83 Bowie, Robert 41 Brandt, Willy 47 Brexit 69 Brezhnev Doctrine 44, 64 Brezhnev, Leonid 47 “bright butterfies” 116 British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) 39 British declinism 38 British Empire 28–9, 38 British Imperial power 14; see also United Kingdom (UK) Brussels 43 Brussels Summit (1994) 79–80 Brussels Summit (2018) 98 Brussels Treaty (1948) 29, 64 Brzezinski, Zbigniew 55 Building Integrity Policy and Program 134 Bundeswehr 114 burden-sharing 36, 126 burdens of collective defense 122–3 Burns, Nicholas 22 Bush, George H. W. 3, 74, 76 Bush, George W. 15, 17, 19, 96 Canada 134 capability-afordability-commitment dilemma 77–8 capability gaps 78 Carrington, Peter 62

159

Carter Doctrine 56 Carter, Jimmy 53–7 Castro, Fidel 42 Cavioli, Christopher G. 101 Charter of Paris for a New Europe 71 Chechnya wars 15 Cheney, Dick 77 Chernenko, Konstantin 60, 61 Chicago Summit (2020) 12 chiefs of defense (CHODs) 101 Children and Armed Confict and Cultural Property Protection 137 China 1, 3, 4–5, 32, 115, 122, 125 Chirac, Jacques 63, 87 Churchill, Winston 24, 28, 31, 34–5, 41–2 classifed information 88 climate change 137–8 Clinton, William (Bill) Jeferson 77, 90 coercion and hard power 145 Colby, Eldridge A. 50 Cold War 2, 28–9 Cold War architecture 17 Cold War end-game 60–5 collective defense 5, 12, 127–8 Colombo, Emilio 57 Combined Joint Planning Staf (CJPS) 87, 93 Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs) 79, 80, 81 Commander of U.S. European Command (COMUSEUCOM) 101 Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, EU) 45, 90 common foreign policy 34 Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP, EU) 45, 111, 127 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 74 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) 64 Comprehensive Assistance Package for Ukraine 116 Comprehensive Cyber Defense Policy 141–2 comprehensive security organization 89 Concept for the Deterrence and Defense of the Euro-Atlantic area (DDA) 113, 138–9 “concept of victory” 113 Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) 71

160

Index

confict prevention 95 Congo 22 Congress of Soviet People’s Deputies 64 consensus decision-making 99 Contact Group 92 Continuous Forward Presence (CFP) 142 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty 71 conventional arms control 134 conventional capabilities 36 “conventional” war see hyperwar cooperative security 12, 127–8 Copenhagen European Council (1993) 78 Copenhagen Summit (EEC 1973) 47 core tasks 105, 127–8 corruption and poor governance 134 costs of operations 100 cost versus capability 13 Council of Europe 31, 34 COVID-19 pandemic 2 Crimea 3, 13, 98 crisis management 12, 21, 66, 95, 128 crisis response operations (CROs) 87, 103 Cruise missiles 51, 53, 54–6, 58, 60, 61 Cuban Missile Crisis 42–3 cyber war 123, 141–2 Cyprus 52 Czechoslovakia 44 DARS (deployable air surveillance) 103 Davignon Report 45 Day After (12 September 2001) 9 Dayton, Ohio 83 de Charette, Hervé 88 Declaration on Future of Transatlantic Relations (1974) 52 “defense accelerator” 99 Defense and Deterrence Concept 140 defense budgets 13, 114–15, 145 Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) 14, 21, 95 defense capacity-building 135 defense cuts 52, 71 defense expenditure 37, 52, 93, 126 defense industries 131 Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) 99, 129 Defense Investment Pledge (2014) 98, 114, 123, 126, 145–6 “defense modernization” 71 Defense Planning Committee (DPC) 20, 56, 71

Defense Policy and Planning Committee (DPPC) 100 “defense premium” 71 defense sufciency 62 Defense, Technological and Industrial Base (DTIB) 132 defense technology and investment gap 77 de Gaulle, Charles 34, 39–40, 41, 42, 43 democratic peace 136 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) 31, 90 democratic values 121–2 Deobandi fundamentalism 110 deployable headquarters 102 Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR) 29 détente 45–6 deterrence 5, 37, 112–13 Deterrence and Defense of the EuroAtlantic area (DDA) 113, 138–9 Dien Bien Phu (French Indo-China) 37 diplomatic, informational military and economic (DIME) 4 “dissuasion concertée” 82 Doha peace talks 107 drones 116 dual-capable aircraft 141 “Dual-Track” strategy 56, 58 Dubcek, Alexander 44 Dulles, John Foster 34, 40 “duplication” of strategic assets 79 East Germany 37, 47, 64–5, 71; see also Germany; West Germany East Timor 14 East-West strategic balance (1950) 31 The Economist 55, 56 “EDC alternative” 35 Eden, Anthony 34, 38 Eden Plan 34 Egypt 38, 50–1 Eisenhower, Dwight D. 32, 33, 34, 37, 39 Elysée Treaty of Friendship (1963) 42 emerging and disruptive technologies (EDT) 129–30 energy security 137 Energy Security Centre of Excellence (ENSEC COE) 137 Enhanced and Tailored Forward Presence 142 enhanced NATO Response Force (eNRF) 113–14

Index Enhanced Opportunities Partnerships 135 enhanced radiation weapons 55 enhanced resilience 105, 128 enlargement 70; Baltic States 16–17; Copenhagen (1991) 73; and engagement 33–4; post-Cold War 80; Prague Summit (2002) 21; and Russia 15–16, 89–90 Estonia 65, 114 EU Force (EUFOR) 22 EU Helsinki Summit (1999) 93 EU-NATO co-operation (Berlin-plus) 18 “The EU-NATO Declaration on ESDP” (2002) 22 Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) 89, 99 Euro-Atlantic security architecture 134 Eurocorps 64, 73, 76, 78, 102 Euro-defense rhetoric 20 EUROFOR 78 Eurogroup 45, 46, 52, 53 EUROMARFOR 78 Euromissiles 55, 61, 62, 63, 66 Europe: and Afghanistan 110; Bonsai militaries 93; capacity to act 78; crisis management 91; dilemmas 14; energy dependence 16; Imperial Age 38; infuencing events 13; rebirth 29; sharing defense burdens 115; stabilization and reconstruction 86; as strategic actors 110–11; strategic culture issues with US 14; strategic responsibility 126–7; strategic vacation 77; transatlantic relationships 23; weaknesses 16; and Yugoslavia 77 European Army 15, 31, 33 European Capabilities Action Plan (ECAP) 14 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 31, 33, 66 European Commission 58 European Community (EC) 45, 53, 58, 63, 73 European Council 9, 15 European defense: capability-afordability-commitment dilemma 77–80; defense cuts 71; fnalité 91; force-planning post-Cold War 13–14; free-riding on Americans 81, 111; political ambitions and military realities 86; and political identity 75

161

European Defense Community (EDC) 15, 33–6, 34–5 European demarche 51 European Deterrence Initiative (EDI) 126 European Economic Community (EEC) 42, 58, 66 European Federation 33 European “freedom” 29 European imperialism 37 European integration 33, 53, 76 European isolationism 8, 9, 69 Europeanist and Atlanticist camps 73 European military capabilities 14–15 European military observation satellites 82 European Political Co-operation (EPC) 45, 57–8, 63 European Political Co-ordination 66 European political identity 75 “European Project” 19, 69 European Rapid Reaction Force (ERRF) 15, 95–6 European regionalism 18 European security 46 European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) 80, 87 European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) 19, 20, 96, 111 European Security and Defense Union (ESDU) 20, 35 “European Security Strategy” (ESS) 23 European Union (EU): autonomous defense 21; Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) 45, 90; Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) 111, 127; crisis management operations 15; essential partner for NATO 127; and European defense 81–2; “European Security Strategy” (ESS) 23; EU-U.S. Action Plan 88; foundation 78–9; integration of WEU 90; and NATO 20, 73–4; Political and Security Committee (PSC) 22; “Road Map” (2001) 14; and Soviet Union collapse 66 Eurozone crises (2008–10) 12–13 EU-U.S. Action Plan (1996) 88 Exercise Able Archer 60 Exercise Ardente 78 expendable drones 116

162

Index

F-111 bombers 46, 53 Facon, Isabelle 25n18 fake security 111 Federal Republic of Germany see Germany; West Germany Finland 2, 112–13, 134 First Berlin Crisis (1948–9) 30 First Chechnya War (1994) 15 First Gulf War (1991) 72–3 frst use of nuclear weapons 53 Fischer, Joschka 20 Five Eyes 28 Flexible Response strategy 44 Force Concept 138–40 Force Goals 53, 114 Force Posture 142–3 Forces of Lower Readiness (FLR) 102 Ford, Gerald R. 52 Forward Defense strategy 113, 114 Forward Strategy 32 Four Power Agreement (1972) 47 four-year defense plans 30 France: Algeria 37–8; and autonomous European defense 21; as brilliant, visionary, and politically incompetent 94; EDC Treaty 34; Elysée Treaty of Friendship 42; European defense 77–8; European integration 76; Europe strategic “autonomy” 91; EU security and defense 81–2; “German Question” 29; IEPG meetings 53; and Indo-China 37; nuclear force 40; nuclear weapons 40, 41, 42, 62, 140–1; participating in NATO’s Military Committee 87; Petersberg Conference (1951) 33; rapprochement with military NATO 82; Suez Crisis (1956) 38; “Treaty of Dunkirk” 29–30; and US relations 87–8; and WEU 60–1; withdrawing from military NATO 43 Franco-German axis 19 Franco-German Brigade 20–1, 64, 73 Franco-German treaty (1954) 35 Franco-Prussian War (1870–1) 70 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 53 free-riding on Americans 81, 111 French Atlantic Fleet 43

French Gaullism 34 Fukuyama, Francis 84n3 future wars 143–4, 145 Gelb, Leslie 54 “General Framework Agreement on Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (1995) 83 Genscher, Hans-Dietrich 57 Georgia 116, 135 German-centric Europe 15 German Democratic Republic (GDR) 37, 47, 64–5 German-French Defense and Security Council 64 German-Netherlands Corps 78 “German Question” 29–33, 75 German re-unifcation 70–1, 77 Germany: Elysée Treaty of Friendship 42; European defense 21, 94; out of area debate 78, 81; peacekeeping 87; recognizing Slovenia and Croatia 75–6; role in the world 94; Second Gulf War 19; Zeitenwende in defense budgets 114; see also East Germany; West Germany “ghost soldiers” 109 Giraud, André 62 Global Coalition against Daesh 124 globalization 4–5, 22 global NATO 4, 13, 120 Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS) 74–5 Global War on Terror (GWOT) 9, 17–18 Gorazde, Bosnia and Herzegovina 83 Gorbachev, Mikhail 60–7, 74 Gordievsky, Oleg 60 Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIROA) 11 “graduated readiness” 102 Graduated Readiness Forces (GRF) 102 “gray zone” conficts 125–6 Greater Russia 15, 16; see also Russia Greece 33, 52 Gromyko, Andrei 44, 54, 61 Ground-Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) 53 Group of Soviet Forces Germany (GSFG) 72 Guadeloupe summit (1979) 55

Index Haig, Al 58 Hapsburg, Otto von 65 hard-core future war concept 117 Harmel, Pierre 43, 45 Harmel Plan 45 Helios 1A satellite 82 Helsinki European Council (1999) 15, 95 Helsinki Headline Goal (HHG) 95–6 High Readiness Forces (HRF) 102 Holbrooke, Richard 83, 92 Homs gas feld (Syria) 1 Honecker, Erich 65 Human Security Agenda 137 Hungary 38, 64 Hurd, Douglas 82 Hussein, Saddam 18, 19, 57, 72 hydrogen bombs 36 hyper-power 70 hyperwar 3, 5, 120, 123, 125, 143, 145 Immediate Response Force 103 Implementation Force (IFOR) 83, 88 Independent European Program Group (IEPG) 53 Individual Partnership Programs (IPPs) 80 Indo-Pacifc area 115 Indo-Pacifc Partners 120 information war 123 INF Treaty (1987) 58, 61, 63, 64, 133 Integrated Air and Missile Defense capability 141 integrated military command 32 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) 39, 62 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 72–3 International Police Task Force (IPTF) 83 International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) 10, 11, 23, 108 interoperability 12 Iran 56, 90 Iraq 2, 17, 91, 124 Iraq war (1991) 14, 72–3 Iraq war (2002) 19–23 “iron curtain” (Churchill) 41–2 Islamic State 1, 4 Islamist fundamentalism 16, 56 Ismay, Bruce 36, 94 Israel 38, 50–1 Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) 24, 99, 135

163

Istanbul Summit (2004) 23 Italy 87 Japan 120 Jaruzelski, Wojciech 58 Johnson, Lyndon B. 43, 44 “Joint Declaration of EU-NATO Cooperation” (2023) 127 Joint Force Air Component (JFAC) 103 Joint Force Trainer 103 Juppé, Alan 82 Kazakhstan 74 Kennan, George 28 Kennedy, John F. 40, 41, 42–3 Khorasan 107 Khrushchev, Nikita 39, 40, 41–2 Kipling, Rudyard 25n6 Kissinger, Henry 45, 46, 49n27, 55 Kohl, Helmut 64, 70–1, 73, 77, 81 Korean Airlines KAL 007 59–60 Korean War 31, 32, 66 Kosovo Force (KFOR) 93 Kosovo War 14, 16, 91–3, 94 Kranz, Egon 65 Kuklick, Bruce 49n23 Kuwait 72–3 Laurenti, Christophe 118n7 Leotard, François 82 Lisbon Force Goals 36, 37 Lisbon Summit (2010) 11 Lithuania 65, 74 logistics forward-deployment 116 loitering systems 116 London Conference (1954) 35 London Conference (1995) 83 London Report on European Political Co-operation (EPC) 57–8 London Summit (1990) 13, 70 Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces (LRTNF) 55, 62 Long Telegram (Kennan) 28 Long-Term Defense Plan (1952) 117 Long-Term Defense Program (LTDP) 54 Luftwafe 78 Luns, Joseph 54 Maastricht European Council 73 Macedonia 18, 22, 92 Macmillan, Harold 39

164

Index

Madrid Summit (2022) 102, 111, 112, 117–18, 120 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH 17 1, 24, 120 Mansfeld, Mike 46 Marshall, George C. 28 Marshall Plan 29 mass disruption and destruction 5, 123 Massive Retaliation doctrine 37 Mayer, René 34 McNamara, Robert 41 Mediterranean Dialog 99, 135 medium-range missiles 62 Membership Action Plans (MAPs) 80, 135 Mendés, Pierre 35 Meyer, Christopher 25–6n21 military capability 14, 78 Military Committee (MC) 43, 101 Military Implications Team (MIT) 51 Military Representatives (Mil Reps) 101 military-strategic divergence 57 Military Strategy (2019) 112, 113, 116 Milosevic, Slobodan 75, 90 Minimum Military Requirements 130–1 “missile gap” 40 Mitterrand, François 57, 64, 70, 73, 82 “mixed manning” 43 modernization 5, 129–30 Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlevi 56 Moldova 135 Monday Demonstrations (Leipzig) 65 Le Monde 9, 29 Monnet, Jean 82 Montgomery, Bernard Law 29 Moscow Olympics 57 Mujahedeen 16 Multilateral Force (MLF) 41, 43 multi-tipped missiles (MIRVs) 74 mutually assured destruction (MAD) 17, 58–9 Mutually Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) 44, 47 Nasser, Gamal Abdel 38 National Security Council Document 68 (NSC-68) 30 National Security Decision Directive 13 (NSDD-13) 58 National Security Decision Directive 75 (NSDD 75) 59 nation-building 109 NATO: enduring alliance 146–7; founding 27–30; profound

challenges 3–4; purpose and utility 13; winning the Cold War 65–7 “NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement” 12 NATO 2030 Agenda 98–9, 112 NATO Airborne Early Warning & Control Force 103 NATO Artifcial Intelligence Strategy 143 NATO assets 79–80, 99–100 NATO Centre of Excellence on Climate and Security 134 NATO Climate Change and Security Action Plan 138 NATO Command Structure (NCS) 102, 139–40, 143 NATO Defense College 103 NATO Defense Committee 30 NATO Defense Planning Process (NDPP) 100, 103 NATO-EU co-operation 18 NATO-EU debate 91 “NATO-frst” stipulation 80 NATO Force Structure (NFS) 101, 102–3, 129–30, 139, 143 NATO Headquarters (Zaventem, Belgium) 99 NATO High-Level Group 55 NATO Innovation Fund 129 NATO Mission Iraq 135 NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) 103 NATO Readiness Initiative (NRI) 117, 142–3 NATO Response Force (NRF) 21, 23, 102, 103 NATO-Russia Council 17 NATO-Russia Founding Act (1997) 16, 89, 124 NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council (PJC) 16, 89–90 NATO School, Oberammergau 103 NATO Space Centre 125 NATO Standards 117 NATO Warfghting Cornerstone Concept (NWCC) 113 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 65 neoconservatives (neocons) 18–19 Netherlands 85n15, 114–15 Network Centric Warfare (NCW) 78 “new Europe” 14 New Force Model 112–14 “The New Look” (NSC-162/2) 37

Index New Right 57 New START Treaty 133 New Strategic Concept (1991) 69 new technologies 5, 99 New Transatlantic Agenda 88 New York 8 New Zealand 120 9/11 attacks 8, 13, 14, 15, 16 Nixon Doctrine 45–6 Nixon, Richard 45, 46–7, 51, 52 “no-frst-strike” agreements 44 Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) 133 Norstad, Lauris 40 North Atlantic Co-operation Council (NACC) 73–4, 89 North Atlantic Council (NAC) 9, 21–2, 36, 38, 44, 53, 100 North Atlantic Treaty (1949) 27, 29–30, 48n4, 105–6, 121; Article 3 105; Article 4 20, 98, 106, 122; Article 5 5, 9, 27, 106, 110, 128, 141–2; Article 6 106 Northern Europe 134 North Korea 31, 90 North Vietnamese Tet ofensive 46 nuclear debate 70 nuclear deterrence 36–7, 140–1 Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) 43–4, 51, 55–6, 101 nuclear stalemate 44 nuclear war 46, 51–2, 123 nuclear weapons 36, 40–1, 53, 140–1 Obama, Barrack 10–11 oil crisis (1973) 51 Old West 146 Open Door policies 116 Operation Active Endeavor 23 Operation Allied Force 92 Operation Badr 50–1 Operation Cleansweep 64 Operation Deliberate Force 83, 88 Operation Desert Saber 72 Operation Desert Storm 72 Operation Determined Falcon 92 Operation Eagle Assist 9–10 Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) 9–10, 108 “Operation Enduring Support” 11 Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) 51

165

OSCE Lisbon Summit (1996) 89 “out of area debate” 13–15, 71, 81 Overarching Space Policy 125 pan-European military security organizations 4 “Pan-European Picnic” 64–5 Pan-European Union 64 Paris Conference for the Creation of a European Army (1953) 33, 34 Partners across the Globe 99 Partnership for Peace (PfP) Program 80 Partnership Interoperability Initiative 135 partnerships 99, 134–6 Pashtuns 110 Pashtunwali code of honor 110 peaceful resolution of disputes 12 peaceful revolutions 64 peacekeeping 87 peace support operations (PSOs) 87 “Peace through Strength” policy 59, 60 peer-on-peer state competition 3 Pérez de Cuellar, Javier 75 Permanent Council 100 Pershing 2 missiles 51, 53, 54–6, 58, 60, 61 Petersberg Conference (1951) 33 Petersberg Declaration (1992) 76 Petersberg Tasks 15, 25n15, 95 Pineau, Christian 38 Pistorius, Boris 114 Platform on European Security Interests (WEU, 1987) 63–4 Pleven Plan 32 Poland 38, 57, 64 Polaris Ofer 41, 42 “policing actions” 14 Policy on Preventing and Responding to Confict-Related Sexual Violence 137 Policy on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse 136 political and military cohesion 132 Political Implications Team (PIT) 51 post-9/11transatlantic strategic consensus 18–19 post-Cold War 13–14, 63–5 post-colonial European powers 38 post-pandemic economic crash 3 Powers, Gary 40 Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) 21 Prague Spring 44 Prague Summit (1999) 14

166

Index

Prague Summit (2002) 21, 101 pre-positioned capabilities 117 Preserving Peace and Protecting People 121–3, 144 Presidential Directive 59 (PD-59) 57 Presidential Memorandum 10 53 Principal Ofcials 101 Pristina Airport 92–3 procurement 131–2 projecting stabilizing power 4 Protection of Civilians policy 137 “provincial reconstruction teams” (PRTs), 109 Putin, Vladimir 3, 15–16, 96, 108 Quad/Quint 39–40 Rambouillet peace talks (1999) 92 rapid reaction forces 114 Reagan, Ronald 57–60, 62 Reagan-Thatcher years 57 Le Redoutable, FS 44 “reforms” 87 Republic of China (Taiwan) 3 Republic of Korea (South Korea) 31, 120 research and technology (R&T) 132 Resolute Support Mission 108 Resolution, HMS 44 Response Forces Pool 103 “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future” (Rusk) 41 Revolution in Military Afairs (RMA) 79 Reykjavik, Iceland 62 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 88 “Road Map” (2001) 14 Robertson, George 18, 20, 94 “rogue states” 75 Rome Declaration (1984) 61 Rome Summit (1991) 73 RSD-10 “Pioneer” missiles see SS-20 missiles Rühe, Volker 78 rule of law 94, 98, 121, 134, 144, 146 rules-based order 122, 124 Rumsfeld, Donald 90, 109 Rusk, Dean 41 Russia: and 9/11 15, 16; buffer zone with the West 15; coercion and co-operation 16; Defense Modernization Program (2009) 13; dialog with 124; dissolution of Soviet Union

74; enigma 15–17; first-order threat 122; humiliated in Kosovo 16; invading Ukraine 1, 2, 99, 113, 124; and NATO enlargement 15, 16, 89–90; peer-on-peer state competition 3; post-Cold War decline 15; seizing Crimea 3, 13, 98; undermining stability in Europe 124, 134; vetoing Alliance activities 17; see also Greater Russia Saar/Sarre region, Germany 35 SACEUR’s Area of Responsibility-wide Strategic Plan (SASP) 113 safer world for all 133 Sakhalin Island, Russia 59 Salafsm 4, 9, 14 SALT–START process 17 SALT I Treaty 46 SALT II talks 47, 54 SALT II Treaty 55, 56 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 77, 80 Schlesinger Doctrine (NSDM 242) 52 Schmidt, Helmut 54 Schroeder, Gerhard 19, 91 Schuman Plan 31 Second Berlin Crisis (1958) 40 Second Chechnya War (2000) 15 Second Cold War 56–8, 68n11 Second Gulf War (2003) 18–21 Secretary-Generals 94, 100–1 security globalization 4–5 security sovereignty 38 Serb death camps 77 Serbia 16, 92 sexual violence 136 Shadow Strategic Concept 120 Shevardnadze, Eduard 61 Shinwell, Emmanuel (Manny) 31 Sierra Leone 14 “Sinatra Doctrine.” 64 “Sinews of Peace” speech (Churchill) 28 Single European Act 63 Six Basic Principles for Détente 47 Six Day War (1967) 51 socialism and imperialism 59 Socialist Workers’ Party (Hungary) 64 “soft power” 73, 76 Solana, Javier 18, 22, 56, 89, 94 Solemn Declaration on European Union 59

Index Solidarnosc (Solidarity) 57, 58, 64 Somalia 78, 124 South East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) 37 South Korea (Republic of Korea) 31, 120 Soviet Long-Range Theater Nuclear Forces 62 Soviet Union 27–47; Afghanistan 16, 56, 64; de-coupling strategies 46, 61–2; as “evil empire” 59; expansionist ambitions 28; frst atomic bomb 30; as a footnote in history 74; hydrogen bombs 36; “idealism” and imperialism 37; imploding 74; moral bankruptcy 66–7; nuclear stalemate 44; peaceful co-existence with the West 39; space race 39; Strategic Rocket Force (SRF) 40 space-based weapons 60, 62 Space Centre of Excellence, France 125 space race 39 Spain 56 Special Relationship 66 Spoford Proposals 32 Sputnik 39 Srebrenica massacres 82–3 SS-20 missiles 46, 52, 54, 55, 56, 61 Stabilization Force (SFOR) 88 STANAVFORMED 9–10 START Treaty (1991) 75 state competition 22 St Malo Declaration 91 Stoltenberg, Jens 8, 100, 109, 114–15, 145 Strasbourg Resolution (1950) 31 Strategic Arms Limitation Reduction Talks (START) 17, 74 Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) 46–7, 54–5, 56 Strategic Concept 70, 120, 127–8, 131–2, 138 Strategic Concept (1999) 94–5 Strategic Concept (2010) 12 Strategic Concept (2022) 1, 3, 111–13, 115–17, 147 strategic consensus 88, 93 strategic cultures 14 Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) 59, 60, 62–3, 74, 90 Strategic Environment 123–6 strategic pre-emption doctrine 18

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strategic realism 112 Strategic Rocket Force (SRF, USSR) 40 strategic terror 4 strategic vacation (1990s) 3, 9, 22, 70, 77, 87, 99 strategy and afordability 81 Strengthened Resilience Commitment 128 strike drones 116 sub-strategic deterrents 37 Suez Crisis (1956) 38 “Summit Declaration on Defense Capabilities” (Chicago 2022) 12–13 Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) 32, 101, 117 Supreme Allied Commander, Transformation (SACT) 101–2 Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) 32, 43, 99, 117 Sweden 2, 112–13, 134 Syria 1, 124 tactical nuclear weapons 36 Taiwan (Republic of China) 3 Taliban 9–11, 107, 110 technological edge 129, 131 Tehran 56 terrorism 124 Tet ofensive (1968) 46, 49n29 Thatcher, Margaret 55, 57, 60 theater nuclear forces (TNF) 54 3Ds (no duplication, discrimination and de-coupling) 91 Tito, Josip Broz 57, 75 train, advise, and assist missions 132 “Traité Instituant la Communauté Européenne de Défense” 34 “Transatlantic Declaration” (1991) 71–2 transatlantic divergences 14–15 transatlantic forum 122 transatlantic relationships 23, 117, 126–7 transatlantic strategic consensus 24 transatlantic tensions 59 Transfer of Authority (TOA) 102 “Treaty of Dunkirk” (1947) 29 Treaty of Lisbon (2007) 45 Treaty of Moscow (2002) 17 Treaty of Rome (EEC, 1957) 38 Treaty on European Union (TEU, 1991) 73, 78 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968) 44–5 Triple Entente (de Gaulle) 39

168

Index

Truman Doctrine 28 Truman, Harry S. 28, 30, 32 Trump, Donald J. 11, 98, 107 Turkey 18, 20, 33, 52, 87 twenty-frst-century dilemmas 1 Two-Plus-Four Treaty (1990) 71, 77 U2 spy planes 40, 42 UK-Netherlands Amphibious Force (UKNLAF) 78 Ukraine: fast-track NATO membership 124, 135; Flight MH17 1; NATO support 116; Russian invasion 1, 2, 99, 113, 124; Russia seizing Crimea 3, 13, 98 Ukraine War 116–17, 120 Ukrainian Deterrence Initiative (UDI) 135 UN Charter 12 uncontrolled migration 136 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) see Soviet Union United Kingdom (UK): defense budgets 114; defense of Estonia 114; and EDC 34–5; European Army 33; marginalized in Europe 93–4; membership of the EEC 66; military manpower 71; “mixed manning” of nuclear weapons 43; nuclear weapons 39, 41, 42, 62, 140–1; Suez Crisis (1956) 38; “Treaty of Dunkirk” 29; troops in Afghanistan 10; use and utility of force 87 United States of Europe 31 United States (US): “baby bombs” 36; Base Force Plan 71; and the Cold War 2; Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat 90; control over NATO planning 41; defense budgets 13; entangling alliances in foreign policy 28; EU 88; Europe and strategic culture 14; force posture and structure in Western Europe 53–4; future force 115; gap with European militaries 70; global strategic reserve 86; leadership of the free world 30; looking to Allies to assist 145; Mutual Defense Assistance Act 30; National Defense Strategy (NDS) 77, 115; National Security Strategy 58–9; neoconservatives 18–19; Network Centric Warfare

(NCW) 78; nuclear policy 36–7; nuclear war in Europe 55; nuclear weapons 41, 140–1; relations with France 30, 87–8; and SEATO 37; strategic deterrent 37; strategic over-stretch 44; Suez Crisis (1956) 38; Tehran Embassy 56; unilateralism 18 UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) 83 UN Monitoring, Verifcation and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) 19 UN Protected Areas (UNPA) 77 UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) 77, 79 UN Security Council (UNSC): Kosovo War 16; Resolution 687 72; Resolution 824 79; Resolution 1160 92; Resolution 1244 92; Resolution 1368 9; Resolution 1441 20; UN-mandated force Afghanistan 10; Women, Peace and Security Agenda 136; Yugoslav crisis 76–7 UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) 72, 91 “U.S. change of heart” 33 U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). 99 U.S.-USSR Glassboro Summit (1967) 44 values-based approach to security 111 Vance, Cyrus 54 Verhofstadt, Guy 19 Very High Readiness Joint Task Force 102, 130 Vienna Document 134 Vietnam War 52 Villepin, Dominique de 20 vulnerability 2 Walesa, Lech 57, 58 Wales Summit (2014) 11, 13, 98, 102, 126 “war by committee” 93 Warfghting Concept 139 Warsaw Summit (2016) 98 Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact) 16, 35, 46, 66, 74 Wars of the Yugoslav Succession 2, 14, 75–6, 82–3

Index “Washington Post” 54 Washington Summit (1999) 93–4 Washington Treaty (1949) see North Atlantic Treaty (1949) the “West” as an idea 146 West Berlin 30, 47 Western Europe 61–2 Western European Union (WEU): defense component of EU 73; “EDC alternative” 35; Exercise Ardente 78; invoking the Brussels Treaty 64; Petersberg Summit 76; Petersberg Tasks 90; Platform on European Security Interests 63; re-activation 61, 66 Western Union 29, 31, 35

West Germany 30–6, 47, 55, 71, 77; see also East Germany; Germany Women, Peace and Security Agenda (UN) 136 World Trade Center 8, 79 Xi Jinping 5 Yeltsin, Boris 74 Yemen 77 Yom Kippur War (1973) 50–1 Yugoslavia 57, 75–7, 90, 92 al-Zawahiri, Ayman 4 Zeitenwende (turning point) 114 Zepa safe haven 83

169