Heads of state and government in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) met in Warsaw over the weekend to discuss their response to the multiple threats and challenges facing the transatlantic community. The Cipher Brief spoke with Jeff Rathke, Deputy Director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and a former U.S. diplomat, about what NATO and developments at the summit mean for U.S. and European security.
The Cipher Brief. Can you run through the highlights and major outcomes of the Warsaw Summit this?
Jeffrey Rathke: To touch upon a few of the major issues, you have on the one hand the deterrence and defense aspect of NATO, and the most obvious big decision is the one to deploy multinational military forces along the eastern edge of NATO territory – that is, in the Baltic States, Poland, and also in Romania. Four battalions will be deployed in the three Baltic States plus Poland will be deployed, which means around 1,000 NATO soldiers will be permanently present in each of those countries. In Romania, there will be a multinational brigade which will have participation by other NATO allies. This is important, because since NATO took in new members in central and eastern Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000s, there has never been a significant NATO force presence in those countries. That is for many reasons having to do with Russia and the NATO-Russia Founding Act. Since Russia’s increasingly aggressive behavior – most recently in Ukraine starting in 2014, but also before that in Georgia in 2008, and its aggressive behavior in the skies and at sea – NATO allies have decided it is important to have their forces forward as a deterrent to Russia.
If you look at NATO’s relations with the EU, that’s another important area where NATO has over the last couple of years increased its cooperative relationship with the EU. The reason this matters is because the EU has its own security and defense policy. It has capacities, especially in the civilian area, that NATO doesn't have, and therefore, it’s really important for these two organizations to cooperate together. One of the areas where they have agreed to intensify their relationship is in cyber defense, where they will coordinate the ways in which the EU and NATO respond to cyber elements of security policy.
They have also decided to intensify their relationship at sea. NATO has played an important role in supporting the EU in the Aegean Sea to help bring the migration crisis under some control. There is a looming need for similar measures in the central Mediterranean, where there has been a spike in refugee flows from Libyan territory – people trying to get to Italy. So also finding a way to bring that under control is a priority.
This is the first summit where Montenegro participated as a soon-to-be member. That sends an important signal that NATO’s door remains open to other European countries who have aspirations for membership and who meet the criteria.
Afghanistan is an important topic for the alliance as well, because there are questions about continuing the deployment of forces in Afghanistan beyond 2016. The decision last week by President Barack Obama to keep U.S. force levels at higher than planned levels – about 8,400 troops –provides the backbone and framework for NATO allies, who are also contributing significant numbers of troops to the training and support mission, to continue doing so. So that puts the footing of the NATO support mission – which is primarily training and advising – on a firmer basis for the future.
I’ll mention as well the decision of NATO leaders to designate cyber as a domain equivalent to land, maritime, and air operations. That will open the door for NATO to develop further cyber defense planning as part of its overall military planning. It does not go all the way to allowing or providing a doctrine for offensive cyber operations across NATO as a whole, but of course several NATO allies have those capabilities – not only the U.S. That’s a process that will likely move in parallel with the development of cyber defense planning within NATO.
TCB: Will the four rotating battalions in the Baltics and Poland meet the NATO goal of deterring Russia, and can you talk about the leadership of those battalions? The U.S., UK, Germany, and Canada are leading the battalions. France is not a leader, and the U.S. is only heading up one. Can you describe those dynamics?
JR: In our recent CSIS report, which contained recommendations for the long-term presence of U.S. land forces in central Europe, our recommendation was that the battalions in the Baltics and Poland should be rotational and continue for at least a ten-year period. There will be 24/7 and 365 days/year presence of NATO forces, in addition to the host country forces in each of those countries. That’s important because looking at Russia’s military doctrine and how Russia has conducted military operations in recent years, in particular in Ukraine, it’s very important that NATO has forces ready in case Russia decides to carry out some kind of incursion or invasion. That may be highly unlikely, but it has happened elsewhere in Europe, so NATO needs to be prepared. And Russia needs to know if they were to contemplate such an incursion, they would not only come into contact with the armed forces of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania but also major NATO allies.
With respect to the allied countries that are making the contributions, the good news is that three out of these four battalions will not be led by the U.S., that is other allies are stepping up to make significant contributions. From a burden-sharing perspective, that is good news. The lead nations are the UK in Estonia, Canada in Latvia, Germany in Lithuania, and the U.S. in Poland, but in addition, there are other countries that have already made commitments to be a part of these multinational formations. For example, Denmark and France have made or will make commitments, as well as Belgium. Other allies in the course of the coming months will likely make their own offers to participate. An important aspect of that is there’s not a time limit on these deployments. They will continue as long as necessary.
You’re right that France is not leading one of the battalions. The French argument is that they have a lot of demands outside of the NATO context, especially in Africa in the Sahel as well as internally since the November terrorist attacks in Paris. Still, I would be the first to say it would be better for NATO to have France in more of a leading role on a deployment like this.
TCB: Do you think that having two traditionally ‘dovish’ countries in the alliance – Germany and Canada – leading two of these battalions sends a signal about the NATO alliance in general?
JR: It ‘s not a question of dovish versus not dovish. Rather, what we’ve seen over the last couple of years is a change, not only in the U.S. perception of security, but also in the way NATO allies look at the transatlantic security challenge. For example, Germany, which does not look at military options as a first resort, has over the last couple of decades gotten more and more involved in military deployments, both within NATO’s territory and outside of NATO’s territory, in operations with NATO and also in operations with the EU and in the United Nations. It is significant that Germany, which has always placed an emphasis on the balance and complementarity of deterrence and defense on the one hand and political dialogue on the other hand, has taken this step. In Canada, the government led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was expected to take a softer approach than his predecessor government, so the return of Canadian land forces to Europe is a significant development.
TCB: Was there any discussion surrounding NATO-EU cooperation about intelligence-sharing, specifically with regards to thwarting future terror attacks?
JR: If you look at the text of the Joint Declaration of NATO and the EU, it doesn’t specifically address intelligence sharing, but it is an element. The first element in the agreement is that they’re going to work on analysis together, early detection, and what they call information sharing. That includes intelligence sharing as well, and at the end of that sentence, they say intelligence sharing is possible. But intelligence sharing on an institution-to-institution basis is complicated because the intelligence comes from individual member states in most cases. That’s why you have the somewhat convoluted language, but it is clear that cooperation in this area will increase. Exactly how is a bit murky, but that’s an area where they’ll be focusing
TCB: How and why is the U.S. important to NATO and vice versa? Why should the U.S. continue to spend resources on this alliance?
JR: I think it’s important to start with why the U.S. alliance relationships – including in Europe – benefit U.S. security. First of all, the members of NATO and the EU are the most capable military partners that we have in the world. They are countries that have participated with us shoulder-to-shoulder not only in military operations but also in security policy more broadly, for example with economic sanctions against Iran and Russia. These are the countries that share – to the greatest degree in the world – our view of the security challenges, of the importance of our values, and preserving the international order that exists, and who have the capabilities to join us. These are countries that are putting their soldiers lives on the line and are putting resources behind fighting the security threats that threaten not only Europe but also the U.S. So these are the countries that we work best with. And they can only do that to their full potential if Europe itself is secure. For example, Poland is contributing fighter aircraft now to the fight against ISIS. The most immediate threat Poland is worried about is the threat to the east emanating from Russia, but because it is embedded in this security alliance, Poland has the flexibility to contribute to other military operations. And the same goes for all of the NATO members to one degree or another. They are able to work with the U.S. inside Europe and beyond, because NATO is there to take care of their own security. Europe being secure makes the U.S. more secure, because we can do more things in more places to deal with threats before they come to our own borders.
The EU, while it has a common security and defense policy and while the EU treaties include guarantees that are somewhat like NATO’s Article 5, still has not built up the kind of standing capacity NATO has to provide security. So NATO is the first resort for anything dealing with European security. I think all allies recognize that and there’s a desire to avoid competition between NATO and the EU, because NATO has U.S. participation and superior capabilities to address the security threats that confront Europe and the U.S.
Now there’s also the financial aspect. What’s important to point out is that having U.S. forces and bases in Europe – and indeed in Asia –benefits our security. Moreover, the host nations underwrite this either in-kind, by providing facilities and undertaking construction to sustain the presence or, in some cases, through direct monetary transfers. The notion that we provide security and our allies provide nothing is a fundamentally mistaken notion. One can talk about what the best balance is, but our allies contribute to the cost of U.S. forward presence.
The other thing to keep in mind is having U.S. forces forward makes us, in some cases, more operationally effective because we’re closer to the theater where threats arise.
TCB: Overall it sounds like burden-sharing is taking a turn in the right direction. Is this accurate?
JR: The positive news from this summit is that NATO allies – at U.S. urging, but through their own understanding too – have turned a corner when it comes to devoting resources to transatlantic security. In about 20 countries out of 28, they have reversed the declines in defense spending. NATO anticipates that defense spending by European allies and Canada will rise by about three percent this year. This is all part of a pledge that they made two years ago at the NATO Summit in Wales, that allies would within a ten-year period reach the two percent of GDP spending target.
On the flip side of that, what is equally important and less of a high-profile political issue, is actually carrying out these commitments in ways that are militarily meaningful. You have forward-deployed forces, but that is only one element in a deterrence strategy. You also have to have rapid-reaction forces that can get to where they need to be in a crisis. Just having four battalions in the east is not sufficient. What you need is to have both an arrangement in which you exercise and you practice and you have the infrastructure to get people rapidly to where they need to be. So the hard part is still to come, that is carrying out these political decisions in ways that demonstrate to Russia that there’s no point in trying to spark a military conflict with NATO. That is what’s ultimately important for our peace and security. If NATO does that effectively and if Russia understands – if we send the right signals to Russia about what we’re doing and why and how serious we are – then somewhere down the road perhaps we’ll have the conditions in place where a more cooperative relationship with Russia can resume. But we’re nowhere near that now, and what’s important now is to focus on these defense issues.