NATO'S New Roles:
A Vision From Inside The Alliance

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the current counter-terrorist operations is that the world's strongest military alliance, NATO, is nowhere in sight.

The formerly 16, now 19, allies spent decades planning for jointly defending one another from an attack. Yet when the military operations in Afghanistan began, the White House essentially asked NATO to stay out of the conflict, despite its offers of help and the gallant gesture of evoking the mutual defense clause in the Washington Treaty. NATO's formal participation is limited to the deployment of a handful of Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft in the United States, and the alliance's modest naval assets in the Middle East.

Some individual alliance members, such as Britain, are fighting alongside U.S. troops but their assistance is bilateral, not through NATO.

Some observers say that NATO's role as a fighting alliance is over, or will at best be limited in future to peacekeeping. The Russian government would like NATO to become a political forum that could easier incorporate its former Cold War foe. U.S. officials have yet to specify NATO's relevance to their anti-terrorism campaign, and the form and extent of future military participation by NATO allies.

But what lessons is NATO itself drawing from the experience? Alliance Secretary-General Lord Robertson, speaking to reporters at the National Press Club in Washington, last week, presented six areas that NATO needs to target to better adjust to the terrorist threat. But will this help make the alliance more relevant to the new war against terrorism? Find below an analysis of each of Lord Robertson's six points.

Lord Robertson:

"We should make better use of the political tools that we have available in NATO to cope with terrorism…. We have the habit and the mechanisms for co-operation, and strong experience in working together in Brussels and on the ground. The 46 nation Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council [19 NATO allies plus all Partnership for Peace countries]…enables us to mobilize a coalition for the long haul."

Analysis:

NATO historically has worked as both a forum for political consultation in times of crisis, and as a command center for coalition war fighting. The alliance is already serving as a forum to keep the allies appraised of the current operations and to solicit their involvement. But the United States is unlikely to use NATO for command of the current operation or any other campaign conducted in defense of the United States itself. The Pentagon brass resent the lengthy consensus-building process inherent in NATO's decision-making, which, they say, compromises the mission and safety of U.S. forces. The U.S. General Accounting Office agreed with them in a July 2001 study, which concluded that the need to maintain NATO cohesion during the 1999 air war against Yugoslavia forced the Pentagon to depart from its war fighting doctrine, possibly prolonging the war and increasing risks to U.S. forces. NATO will remain the focal point of military operations that do not involve direct threats to the United States, such as peacekeeping and peacemaking. In these kinds of operations, NATO involvement adds legitimacy to the mission. Allied involvement also allows the United States to conserve part of its military resources for conflicts elsewhere.

Lord Robertson:

"We need to move forward the NATO-Russia relationship…. We should be able to transform a nervous partnership of former enemies into a practical friendship that benefits both sides."

Analysis:

NATO's past attempts to bring Russia into Western security structures ended with mixed results; even alliance officials admit that joint consultative bodies are not working fully. Moscow has historically tended to view NATO's activities (especially enlargement) as irritating or even threatening, rather than engaging. The terrorist events are now serving as a catalyst for renewed cooperation. A constructive NATO-Russia relationship would, by its very existence, open door to more fruitful cooperation on counter-terrorism between Russia and the United States. As for the impact of such cooperation on NATO itself, if the alliance becomes the center stage for counter-terrorism and related activities (such as non-proliferation, see below), Russia's full involvement in these efforts would make NATO dramatically more likely to succeed. The military campaign against Afghanistan has already benefited from Russian intelligence on this country. Given Russia's vast WMD arsenal (and its business contacts with some of the countries suspected of harboring or aiding terrorists), a NATO non-proliferation effort excluding Russia would be unlikely to succeed.

Lord Robertson:

"We need to focus even more strongly on non-proliferation and missile defense…we can never be certain of 100% success [of non-proliferation efforts]. That is why defense against ballistic missiles is here to stay.

Analysis:

Non-proliferation is not only the first line of defense against ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction; preventing the migration of deadly technology to the wrong hands is also the most effective kind of defense. NATO can play a useful role on several levels. Allies themselves will need to tighten control over exports of their military technologies, among the most advanced and lethal in the world, to countries outside the alliance. NATO could also use its extensive contacts with, and powerful influence over the Partnership of Peace countries to incorporate them into allied non-proliferation measures. However, a lot of missile and WMD technology may already be in the hands of terrorist groups and potential or actual state sponsors of terrorism. The alliance could play an essential role in leading non-military as well as military operations against WMD capabilities of terrorist groups and their sponsors. These activities might include intelligence-sharing and actual military strikes, where necessary.

Lord Robertson:

"We need much closer interaction and intelligence-sharing between our military and civilian security agencies… we can, and must, do better to break down the artificial barriers between agencies and 'join up' or overall response."

Analysis:

Just as the appointment of Gov. Tom Ridge to streamline the work of U.S. intelligence and security agencies highlights need for better teamwork within the United States, allies also need to do improve cooperation across borders. NATO countries do currently share intelligence but on a limited, selective basis and mostly processed intelligence, rather than raw data. Encouraging greater information exchange would require several changes. First, allies would need to tighten rules and procedures for handling sensitive information in each individual NATO country. The Bosnia operation, for example, was plagued by leaks from NATO nations to the Bosnian Serbs. Second, allies (including the United States) must improve their intelligence gathering capabilities, both in the field of human and electronic intelligence. Lastly, the allied countries would need to change the culture of secrecy and turf wars that permeates the intelligence field.

Intelligence sharing is one area in which NATO can arguably make the most difference. Combating terrorism cannot be accomplished without effective cross-border cooperation. NATO already has many of the necessary mechanisms in place, such as procedures for handling sensitive information. Much of the intelligence gathered by NATO countries is of importance not just to military planners but also to civilian agencies prosecuting terrorists or trying to prevent future attacks. The allied tradition of intelligence sharing in support of military operations should be extended so that law-enforcement agencies benefit as well.

Lord Robertson:

"We need to move ahead with a European Security and Defense Policy…. Europeans can expect a tougher U.S. stance on transatlantic burden sharing…. The United States needs capable and effective European forces with which to co-operate, or on which to rely in peace support mission where the Alliance as a whole is not engaged."

Analysis:

Better equipped and more powerful allies will be better able to serve as partners in the war against terrorism. But Lord Roberston's emphasis on the European Security and Defense Policy is also an acknowledgment that NATO will continue to perform its other duties, such as peacekeeping, and that the European allies will have to take on a gradually bigger portion of those responsibilities. The United States will not be there in as substantive a way as it used to. In 1995, U.S. forces represented a full one third of NATO's mission in Bosnia. In 1999, U.S. supplied only 15 percent of troops for the Kosovo operation. And in 2001, the Pentagon sent no forces to help NATO in Macedonia besides those already deployed there in support of the Kosovo mission. When asked if America's war against terrorism means even less U.S. support to NATO's Balkan missions, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld answered essentially yes, saying that the United States will have deploy some of its troops and equipment out of the Balkans and into the Middle East.

A stronger European military force may make NATO allies somewhat more important to the fight against terrorism but, more importantly, it will make them better allies, from the U.S. point of view, by assuming military responsibilities previously borne by the United States.

Lord Robertson:

"We must look at the financial implications which arise from these new challenges and tasks. If we want to do a proper job in the fight against terrorism, we need the right tools."

Analysis:

Money is just one component of security; most European allies suffer not from "too little military" but from too much of the wrong type. The good news is that most Europeans are already moving away from fielding large standing armies towards building lighter forces, ones that can be deploy faster, farther, and with less logistical support — in other words, the types of armed forces that are more suitable for fight against terrorism, among other things. But Lord Robertson is right in suggesting that many of the transformation processes are based on overly optimistic assumptions about the underlying costs. Germany, for example, plans to fund most of its reforms through savings achieved by force cuts, disregarding the high initial costs and the fact that most savings materialize only years after the cuts are made. Higher defense spending would help boost Europe's — and by extension NATO's — ability to assist in the war against terrorism and other NATO activities (see above).

By Tomas Valasek CDI Senior Analyst tvalasek@cdi.org

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