McNair Paper Number 46 Chapter 4, January 1996

Accommodate the addition of new members to the allianceKeep the door open to a constructive relationship with RussiaAccommodate European aspirations to develop a European pillar in NATOInvolve France on a regularized basisKeep the United States interested and involved.

Accommodate Addition of New Members

The next few years undoubtedly will see a continuing debate about NATO enlargement. Without prejudging the outcome of that debate in the United States and in other alliance countries, the best bet today is that at least a few countries will be invited to join NATO over the next 5 years. If this is so, an enlarged membership is one of the important parameters influencing the shaping of NATO's future mission, decisionmaking process, and organization.

If NATO were to continue the strategy and force deployment approach of the Cold War years, new members might be expected to increase defense spending, accept deployment of allied forces on their territory, and possibly host U.S. nuclear weapons. Allied countries might be expected to provide significant military assistance to help bring new members up to NATO standards.

NATO's strategic concept and other alliance programs, however, have placed a different emphasis on the approach to new members. Because the alliance perceives no threat to the peace in Europe on the scale posed formerly by the Soviet Union, the focus for alliance forces and for those of new members is on preparations for a variety of peace operations and contingencies much less demanding than territorial defense against a superpower opponent. It is therefore reasonable to presume that, unless the threat situation changes dramatically, new members will not require massive defense spending or assistance to play a useful role in NATO's new mission orientations or to be made more secure by becoming part of the alliance. No clear threat scenario exists against which applicant country military forces can be planned, so the issue is one for applicant and NATO governments to address: what levels of military interoperability are essential in what time frame, what levels of spending appear possible and in balance with the country's available resources, and what assistance are the United States and other NATO countries willing to provide. In any case, the prospective new members will not be in a position to defend themselves against a superpower-type threat, but, in that respect, they will be in the same situation as every NATO country except, perhaps, the United States.

The prospect of enlargement does not appear to require the allies to change direction from that set out in the strategic concept. It does suggest that the new allied perception of the post-Cold War threat environment is the one that will condition acceptance of new members.

The simple addition of one, two, three, or more countries to the alliance raises questions about the efficacy of NATO's decisionmaking process. NATO traditionally has operated by consensus procedure. The process of building consensus among the current 16 members of the alliance is time consuming and, at times, difficult. How would the addition of new members affect the ability of the alliance to reach timely decisions and act on behalf of the interests of the members?

Enlargement clearly will not make the NATO consensus procedure easier or more expeditious, but would there be a large qualitative difference between today's NATO and an enlarged NATO? Perhaps not, but in any case, it might be prudent for the allies to consider amending NATO's procedures to permit certain decisions to be taken by something other than a pure consensus approach. An enlarged membership increases the importance of NATO decisionmaking and military command arrangements being sufficiently flexible to allow coalitions of the willing and able to act when the entire alliance membership does not join in or support a particular mission.

Keep Door Open to Russia

The effect on relations with Russia of inviting former Soviet allies to join NATO is one of the most contentious issues in the debate on NATO's future. It can be argued that the actions of the United States and its allies will only minimally affect the political development of Russia. Whether or not Russia will continue its democratic evolution or retreat to authoritarianism of some sort is probably dependent primarily on internal Russian dynamics in which the United States and others have very little influence. The future of Russian democratization and economic liberalization more likely depends on whether or not Russian citizens are able to enjoy a higher quality of life in a reforming system than on Russia's relationship with NATO.

On the other hand, U.S. and European policies will frame an important part of Russia's external environment. To the extent that these policies can make that environment conducive to a constructive Russian evolution, the U.S. and European Governments face important policy issues. Furthermore, Russia, even as distracted and non-threatening as it appears today, clearly has the political and military potential to call into question current hopes for the emergence of a stable and cooperative European security system. Whether European security relations move toward a cooperative model or toward some new form of confrontation would have profound implications for future U.S. foreign policy and defense spending.

At this point, Russians across the political spectrum oppose NATO enlargement. At least some of this opposition is based on Russian images of NATO as a instrument used by the West to work against Russian interests--old Cold War thinking. If NATO's future were defined primarily as an insurance policy against Russian revanchism, there would be no hope of changing such Russian perceptions. On the other hand, over time, Russian perceptions might become more benign as they observe the continuing evolution of NATO's day-to-day activities toward a wide variety of peace support activities, some of which will involve Russian officials, officers, and military forces through the Partnership for Peace program and other NATO outreach activities.

For most observers, it is apparent that the interests of the United States and its allies will be served best by a restructuring of NATO that protects against the possibility of a future threat from Russia while trying to make it less likely that such a threat will emerge. This will require that NATO's mission statement and activities reflect the desire to facilitate a Russian transition from Cold War opponent to post-Cold War partner. One American has observed that "Only when the Western alliance is reoriented [to meet the new challenges of peace operations and preparations for possible regional conflict] can its membership be expanded without grave risk of pointlessly antagonizing Russia."(Note 2)

Accommodate "European Pillar" in NATO

The model of a united Europe effectively looking after its own defense needs is one that would please many Americans as well as Europeans. Even under the best of circumstances, however, most analysts doubt that Europe will in the near future be able to overcome differing foreign policy orientations and national sovereignty concerns to become an international actor in its own right. Further, European nations do not now appear willing to invest the resources required to prepare for a wide range of autonomous military interventions outside Europe without U.S. assistance.(Note 3)

As noted above, the Clinton administration has taken a very favorable attitude toward European defense cooperation. U.S. experts and most officials understand that the process of European defense cooperation must be viewed as part of the long historical development of European unification more generally. Most of these experts are not misled by the rhetoric intended to promote the development of a common European foreign and defense policy. Marten van Heuven, for example, observes that, in spite of the tendency of the discussion to focus on institutional developments in Europe, U.S. policymakers will have to focus on the evolution of national European policies for the foreseeable future. According to van Heuven, "Emphasis on the architecture of European organizations--the tools to shape the purposes of Europe--obscures the fact that, for the present, the building blocs of Europe [will be] states, not international organizations. . . . Thus, even as American policy must creatively address the issue of relations with and within European organizations, . . . much of the American core business with Europe--trade relations perhaps excepted--will continue to have to be conducted on a bilateral basis."(Note 4)

Some administration officials are frank enough in off-the-record discussions to say that the United States will continue to deal with European officials who have democratically based authority to speak and to act. For the time being, there is no supranational defense entity on the European level, and it is not up to the United States to create such an entity. Therefore, even while hoping for the emergence of more coherence on the European level, the United States will continue to see representatives of national governments as the most reliable interlocutors on defense and security issues.

Nevertheless, NATO reform will need to take into account both the European aspirations to reflect greater European unity in their defense and foreign policies and the U.S. desire that the Europeans share more equitably the burdens of defense. It may be difficult to balance these desires with the reality that European cooperation will develop only slowly. NATO reform cannot be premised on the existence of a single European authority for defense when one is not likely to emerge during the next period of history, but NATO reform will have to be flexible enough to accommodate greater European responsibility and burdens in the relationship with the United States.

Regularly Involve France

French President Charles de Gaulle removed French forces from NATO's integrated command structure in 1967, maintaining that subordination of French forces in peacetime to an American commander was an unacceptable qualification on French national sovereignty. Until the Cold War ended, the allies counted on French participation should NATO be attacked by the Warsaw Pact, but worried that French absence from peacetime cooperation would make it difficult, if not dangerous, for NATO and French forces to fight together should war come. The 1991 Gulf War ended up making this point clearly, which fortunately had not been tested during the Cold War.

A lesson that emerged from the coalition effort to remove Saddam Hussein's forces from Kuwait was that the forces of NATO allies were able to integrate their efforts against Iraqi forces because of the experience they had in preparing for a Warsaw Pact attack. U.S. and British forces, for example, worked together very closely and successfully. The French forces that were involved, however, had a difficult time fitting into allied operations. Because of incompatibilities in military equipment, communications, and procedures, French forces had to operate parallel to but largely separate from NATO forces.

Because France has both the capabilities and the political will to contribute to military efforts to maintain international peace, it has become increasingly important to bring those capabilities into a closer relationship with the forces of other NATO countries. French resistance to subordinating its forces to U.S. command remains strong, however, and the allies have been forced to find ways to adjust decisionmaking procedures to accommodate French participation. As one expert observed, "Since French reluctance to commit its forces to NATO's integrated command structure has remained firm, alternative mechanisms for overcoming that reluctance have had to be found, if only because France's military assets are too important to be left outside the NATO-WEU coalition framework."(Note 5)

Over the last 2 years, the allies have attempted to accommodate French political concerns by adjusting the way the alliance does business. These adjustments have facilitated closer military cooperation with France, but they do not constitute a reliable permanent solution. The most difficult unresolved issue is that of political control of non-Article 5 operations conducted under NATO auspices or under WEU auspices with NATO and U.S. support. The problem is that the French Government still regards NATO's integrated command structure as a U.S.-dominated organization, because an American senior officer always serves as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).

The French particularly object to U.S. command and control of operations in which the United States is not the principal military participant. Because of this French concern and the equally strong U.S. desire to keep the SACEUR in charge of military operations run out of one of his subordinate commands, the allies have not been able to agree on the final political guidance required to implement the CJTF initiative.

Resolution of this issue is absolutely critical to the future ability of the allies to respond effectively to non-Article 5 demands. The allies have already made some significant concessions to encourage closer French cooperation. For example, the role of NATO's Defense Planning Committee (DPC), in which France does not participate, has been de-emphasized by blending what would previously have been discussions held in the DPC into the North Atlantic Council framework, where France does participate fully. (The French prefer that all important decisions be taken in the context of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's only decisionmaking body that derives its authority directly from the North Atlantic Treaty.)

Further evolution of the NATO system of political consultation, planning, and decisionmaking for military operations may be required, however, to cut a deal with the French that would regularize their participation in a systematic and effective approach to non-Article 5 military operations.

Keep the United States Interested and Involved

Without an interested and involved United States, NATO loses all meaning. Some analysts have been led by recent events to conclude that this has already happened. In July 1995, columnist William Pfaff wrote that NATO's present "impotence" results because the alliance is "an agent of American policy, at a time when both executive and congressional branches of American government are convinced that the American public will electorally punish any decision placing U.S. forces at risk."(Note 6) If Pfaff is right, then it is critically important to NATO's future that Americans see their interests as served by continuing military cooperation with the European allies. Why should the United States be willing to make any sacrifices to perpetuate such cooperation?

What are U.S. interests in maintaining the alliance? The United States finds itself at the end of the Cold War facing no imminent threats to its vital national security interests, and in the absence of a Soviet/Communist threat, the United States faces a spectrum of options between two extremes. One would be to become the global policeman, unilaterally enforcing sufficient world order to protect long-term U.S. political, economic, and security interests. Neither U.S. public nor elite opinion supports such a role. Another extreme would be to withdraw, taking an isolationist posture. Even though current American behavior suggests in many respects either an isolationist, unilateralist, or escapist approach to the world, most experts and officials apparently reject this, at least in principle. Clearly, a range of multilateral options is found between these two extremes. The world apparently needs policing if regional conflicts are not to spread. In the longer term, the United States hopes to encourage the development of indigenous security arrangements in each region of the world to help maintain stability.

In the near term, if the United States does not want to be the world's policeman but believes that its values and interests require maintaining a degree of order in the international system, it presumably will have to rely on cooperation with other countries to police the international system. Multilateral military operations can be ineffective or even dangerous if not planned and practiced in advance. In theory, that leaves open a wide variety of organizational options, but when one looks for nations with compatible political objectives and military forces capable of, and experienced in, operating successfully with U.S. forces, most of them are members of NATO.

Perhaps the United Nations might one day provide a framework for military cooperation, but the consensus in the United States today is that we will not be able to count on the United Nations for effective operational control or even coordination of military operations for some time into the future. Many members of Congress, perhaps a majority, would oppose putting U.S. forces into combat under a U.N. command unless it is actually a U.S. or NATO command.

In sum, it appears that the United States and its NATO allies (and the new democracies who aspire to membership in NATO) have a continuing rationale for maintaining the Atlantic alliance and adapting it to the security environment of the post-Cold War world. In spite of the bad experiences in Bosnia, and the reality that there will be U.S.-European differences over security policy issues in the future, it appears that the United States and its allies have few promising options beyond NATO in the foreseeable future if they wish to preserve a degree of global stability and assume that the use of force may be required.