McNair Paper Number 46 Chapter 3, January 1996

PERSPECTIVES:

WHICH NATO?

And those blind men who had felt the head of the elephant, said: "An elephant, Sir, is like a large round jar.

Those who had felt its ears, said: "it is like a winnowing basket."

Those who had felt its tusks, said: "it is like a plough-share."

Those who had felt its trunk, said: "it is like a plough."

Those who had felt its body, said: "it is like a granary."

Those who had felt its feet, said: "it is like a pillar."

Those who had felt its back, said: "it is like a mortar."

Those who had felt its tail, said: "it is like a pestle."

Those who had felt the tuft of its tail, said: "it is like a broom."

And they fought amongst themselves with their fists, declaring, "such is an elephant, such is not elephant, an elephant is not like that, it is like this."

The Udana or

the Solemn Utterances of the Buddha

Like the blind men in this Indian fable, participants in the debate on NATO enlargement, the governments of NATO nations, potential applicants, and neighboring countries "see" NATO from many different perspectives. All these perceptions have legitimate political and analytical foundations, but all also have limitations as the sole explanation of what NATO is and what it should become. To one degree or another, each of the following perspectives must be taken into account in any reformulation of NATO's mission and restructuring of the organization.

An Instrument for Dealing With Russia

For many, NATO remains important as an instrument for dealing with the power and influence of Russia. Today, of course, Russia poses no imminent military threat to the United States or its European allies, but some observers see NATO as an important insurance policy against a future revival of Russian expansionism. For Moscow's former Warsaw Pact allies, NATO's most important function is to help protect them from a reassertion of Russian influence and control.

It is completely understandable that former Warsaw Pact countries and countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union would want NATO to help reassure against Moscow's re-imposition of control. The NATO governments share this interest, but they also see the need to make all possible efforts to develop a cooperative relationship with Russia, in the hopes of contributing to an external environment that will be conducive to democratic reform in Russia.

To the extent that NATO allies emphasize the collective defense function of the alliance, they make it more difficult to pursue a cooperative relationship with Russia. If collective defense is emphasized, the Russians naturally ask "defense against what?" The shortcoming of this perspective, therefore, is that as long as there is a chance of Russia becoming a cooperative participant in European and international security relations, the allies cannot emphasize NATO's territorial defense function even if collective defense remains the bedrock of NATO membership.

An Extender of Security and Stability

Advocates of NATO enlargement argue that NATO's new function is to spread stability and security to the East, to fulfill NATO's Cold War mission, and to prevent a security vacuum from emerging in the area. For example, this is the premise of much of the analysis completed by the RAND team of analysts that has advocated rapid enlargement of NATO membership.(Note 1) This perspective is a logical continuation of NATO's function of ensuring a European security environment that supports the interests of its member states. It also recognizes the need to integrate new democracies within the Western security community to avoid their slipping back toward totalitarian regimes or into regional conflicts that could spread beyond their borders.

The limitation of this approach is that most Americans and even some western Europeans are not willing to make commitments to the security of the new democracies at a time when they do not appear physically threatened and when electorates want their governments to take care of problems on the home front. A majority of experts probably would argue that preserving stability and promoting democracy in Central Europe serves important U.S. and western European long-term interests. The American public may not be convinced, however, that in the absence of imminent and overwhelming threats, money or political capital should be expended on defending against what they see as improbable contingencies. Some may believe that, even if these countries were threatened, the United States should not expose itself to nuclear or nonnuclear military risks on their behalf.

From this perspective, NATO's future may rest uneasily on the argument that its principal new mission is to extend security and stability to Eastern and Central Europe.

NATO as Part of a Cooperative European Security System

In 1967, the NATO allies completed a study of the alliance's mission referred to as the "Harmel Report," named for Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel, who led the study group. The report affirmed NATO's critical role in defense and deterrence but suggested that the alliance also should be an instrument for promoting detente between East and West in Europe. This added role was critical to NATO's survival at a time of shifting East-West relationships. It demonstrated to allied electorates that NATO governments had no desire to perpetuate the costs and risks associated with the Cold War if tensions and threats could be reduced through political measures, including arms control negotiations, with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries.

When the Warsaw Pact collapsed, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and the Cold War ended, NATO had established clear credentials as a proponent of military cooperation as a path toward closer political relations. The NATO countries supported the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) as the broad framework for peaceful relations among European states. But they also gave NATO new instruments to promote close ties with the former adversaries--a forum for political consultation, the North Atlantic Cooperation Council, and a program of military cooperation, the Partnership for Peace.

The program of outreach to former adversaries is undoubtedly essential to the future of NATO. This approach reflects continuity with the purposes of the alliance emphasized in the Harmel Report. Furthermore, the alliance would have very little credibility or appeal if it limited itself to defense cooperation among the present members. But it is also true that such cooperative ventures could be managed through other forums. The OSCE itself could arguably serve as the framework for much that is currently done in the NACC and the Partnership for Peace (although it would have to be given far more military security responsibilities fully to replace what NATO is doing through NACC and PfP). NATO's role as a key element in an emerging cooperative European security system therefore may be a logical continuation of policy, but, probably is not, on its own, a sufficient foundation for the alliance's future.

An Instrument for Multilateral Military Cooperation

NATO's principal function during the Cold War was to organize a defense against a potential Warsaw Pact attack that would deter such an attack and, if deterrence failed, be sufficient to preserve or restore the territorial integrity of NATO member states. Today, the NATO countries face no imminent threats to their security that compare with those encountered during the Cold War. The irony is that one consequence of the diminished threat environment is that continued military cooperation may be just as important as during the Cold War, but for different reasons.

The almost-universal reaction of the U.S. and other NATO governments, parliaments and electorates to the end of the Cold War has been to reduce military spending and shrink military forces and capabilities. This process has already made it more important for most countries to envisage operating in multilateral coalitions in all but the least demanding of military operations. The United States is perhaps the only country in the world that can envision operating militarily beyond its national borders unilaterally, without significant involvement with or assistance from coalition partners. But the American people and the Congress, as well as the administration, have decided that the United States should not be the world's "policeman." This means that even the United States will require international support--political, economic, and military--to promote and defend U.S. interests in a minimally stable international system.

NATO is uniquely qualified to serve as a framework for the continuation of military cooperation to deal with new challenges to peace and stability. The day-to-day planning, training, and exercising in multilateral settings is critical to the ability of coalition forces to work together under fire. In addition, cooperation in NATO in combination with defense cooperation in the Western European Union is viewed as necessary to avoid defense renationalization in Europe. Defense renationalization (greater self-reliance and less multilateral cooperation) would, at a minimum, waste defense resources. In the extreme, renationalization could produce new regional arms competitions and growing tensions among European states.

Some analysts therefore believe that NATO's most important future function will be to sustain the habits of military cooperation that were developed during the Cold War. This approach is a key premise of NATO's New Strategic Concept, and currently no other organization has the mandate or the experience to perform the task of facilitating multilateral military cooperation.

The main question mark hanging over this perspective is that allied performance in Bosnia and the failure to implement the plan for Combined Joint Task Forces have called into question the political will of NATO countries to cooperate in dealing with the new security challenges in the absence of a Soviet-style threat.

A Burdensharing Tool

NATO can also be seen as a way to ensure that other countries carry a fair share of the burdens of maintaining international peace. During the Cold War, some Americans saw NATO as a creator of burdens for the United States rather than as an instrument for sharing them. Some may still hold this view, but the U.S. military presence in Europe, down to approximately 100,000 troops on shore, is now increasingly oriented toward force projection and peace operations rather than toward defense of European territory. The day-to-day routines of U.S. forces there, once driven by the Warsaw Pact threat, now are focused predominantly on "peace operations," a term defined by the U.S. Army to include "traditional peacekeeping as well as peace enforcement activities such as protection of humanitarian assistance, establishment of order and stability, enforcement of sanctions, guarantee and denial of movement, establishment of protected zones, and forcible separation of belligerents."

Today, therefore, NATO can be seen as a way for the United States to share with its closest military allies and partner states the burdens of maintaining international security. The United States no longer views the defense of European territory as the principal mission of its forces in Europe. It is therefore increasingly possible to see NATO as a way to share the burdens of international security maintenance with other countries. The main limitation on this perspective is that the allies are still in the early stages of deciding what burdens should be shared (just in Europe, in the European area, or more globally) and have not found working solutions for the question of how to share responsibilities as well as burdens.

A Way to Keep the United States in Europe

One of the most pervasive European perceptions of NATO's role is that of keeping the United States involved in Europe. West and East Europeans believe that European peace and stability are still at least partly reliant on continued U.S. involvement in European affairs, particularly security affairs. Europe's 20th-century experience leads many Europeans to the conclusion that they are better off when the United States is directly involved in European security than when it is absent. This attitude has almost as much to do about internal relationships as it does with external threats. Russia is still a security concern for many Europeans, but they also are concerned about the dynamics of relations among themselves. In addition, some Europeans believe that a United States that is oriented toward another region or is isolated will be a much less predictable factor in international relations than one that is constructively involved in cooperation with European countries.

Therefore, even though European countries no longer rely on the United States for their physical security, they believe that their interests are served by a continuing transatlantic partnership. The shortcoming of this perception is that many Americans might see no U.S. self-interest in "remaining in Europe," and would see this factor as a disincentive for keeping NATO alive rather than as an incentive.

A Framework for Germany

For Europeans, NATO and the transatlantic defense system remain an important part of the framework for Germany's place in and beyond Europe. Germany's constructive role and democratic accomplishments since World War II have built substantial trust and good will among its neighbors, east and west. Historical concerns linger long on the continent, however, and excessive German power, even if it is limited to political and economic power, is still seen as potentially destabilizing, even by the Germans themselves.

Germany's security link to the United States through NATO helps reassure Germany's neighbors that Germany will not in the future feel it necessary, for example, to acquire nuclear weapons. The European Union is seen as a critical part of this framework for Germany, but the EU alone would not be sufficient reassurance for many in Europe, given the long and difficult nature of the process of European integration. Even if such concerns are not often voiced publicly, NATO is seen by many Europeans as a critical part of the reassurance system in Europe that has been responsible for peace and prosperity since World War II.

NATO Seen Fully

In the fable of the blind men and the elephant, the Blessed One finally observes "Well is it known that some Samanas and Brahmanas, cling to such views, sink down into them, and attain not to Nirvana." An "ideal" NATO is probably beyond the reach of member governments today. And participants in the debate on NATO's future may well continue to "fight among themselves with their fists," as in the fable, declaring "such is an elephant, such is not an elephant." The future of the alliance most likely must be built on a foundation that accommodates all of these perceptions to one degree or another.