THE DAILY EXCEPTION » NATO

To keep NATO relevant, make it less ambitious

Manish Thakur — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 11:46:36 +0000

NATO has been the most successful military alliance in human history. It served as the bulwark, not just for the Western World against the USSR, but for freedom against totalitarianism globally. That it won without ever having fought an actual war is a real testament to its strategy and its commitment. However, its very success has rendered it without a role. No question, war hasn’t gone away, and that too war involving Western powers. But with the off exception of Bosnia, war in the European continent seems largely a matter of the past (at least right now it does). “Out of area”, the US & Europe do face challenges – from Afghanistan to Libya, and NATO has tried to become the main vehicle for Western military engagement. But this has not worked. Its become more a coalition of the willing – the very thing that NATO was not meant to be. In practice, it is now a coalition where America (with assistance from Britain) defending everyone else. Article 5 bound was supposed to bind members to their common defense.

The world has changed and NATO has tried, unsuccessfully, to change with it. I believe the only way to save NATO, is to fundamentally rethink its purpose. Without a successful revision, its members (particularly the United States) will ultimately walk away, if not now, then in 10 years. First of all, lets be clear. The Soviet threat is over. Russia is not its replacement. The need therefore for an Article 5, drawing a line in the sand against the expansion of the Eastern block, is moot. Obliging the U.S. to defend say Lithuania against a Russian attack is both foolhardy and foolish. First, we risk an attack on US cities for something that is not a US priority, and second, we would never actually do it. So why the charade? NATO actually weakens its own credibility when it promises something that everyone knows it will never actually deliver.

NATO needs to be a flexible group of allied countries, committed to each other’s security and with interoperability among its militaries to conduct joint exercises. Countries will align for the common good, but there is no do-or-die military obligation. Simply put, the current environment no longer calls for this. Ending Article 5 will go a long way to ending the free-loading off the US, something we can no longer afford. Wealthy Europe can pay for its own defense, or not have one. It may be that we do have an Article 5 style arrangement with some countries – a hub and spoke system that we have in Asia – but that can only be with important countries who are critical to us, and who are willing to share the burden eg Britain or maybe France.

To keep NATO alive, it needs to be relevant. To be relevant it needs to be real, ie have a strategy that meets today’s world and have the credibility that people know it will back its words with action. NATO must remain the vehicle that binds the two sides of the Western World (North America and Europe). But it must be restructured for a world where the Soviets are gone, and neither Russia nor Al Qaeda replace it. A flexible alliance, devoid of non-credible do-or-die commitments, where each country is obliged to pony up for its own defense, may be best way of achieving it. It doesnt have to lessen our commitment to certain key countries where we have greater interests, but those can be negotiated separately, and not part a blanket all-for-one which has effectively turned into a club where America provides defense for everyone.

Filed under: 2012 Candidates on Defense & Security, Asian NATO, Europe, NATO, United States, US Defense Budget Tagged: Article 5, NATO

Hard Headed Liberal Foreign Policy

Manish Thakur — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 09:52:26 +0000

I am not in the habit of calling myself a liberal. I prefer to describe myself a defense hawk. But i am impassioned in the defense of the idea that Democrats can be tough on national security and foreign policy. I wrote a few days back about President Obama’s tough “leading from behind”. His approach achieved our national priorities, yet it was also in line with the reality of our current resources. Furthermore, we did not need more international controversy. Rather we needed our allies to stand up. There was a great article in the Daily Beast which covered this more eloquently than me. I include it below, along with a link.

Obama as Hardheaded Liberal

Aug 26, 2011 8:02 PM EDT

The president was accused of neglecting alliances and ceding too much ground to allies in Libya, but this week’s successes in Tripoli prove he’s heir to Roosevelt and Truman.

Critics of President Obama are always banging on about his commitment to America’s alliance system. Yet the success of the NATO operation in Libya is the latest evidence of the effectiveness of his alliance approach.

It is true that during his campaign for president, Obama de-emphasized the role of alliances. He did not always draw bright lines between allies and other states. Instead he bracketed alliances with other, less intimate relationships, writing of his intention to rebuild “alliances, partnerships and institutions.” As the first president to come of age politically after the end of the Cold War, Obama did not seem to view alliances as special.

Republican provocateur John Bolton even claimed that Obama had “a post-alliance policy.”

However, President Obama has turned out to be much more alliance-friendly than candidate Obama. The “special relationship” with Britain has cooled somewhat, and he has reached out to new powers such as Indonesia. Yet despite the attacks of his critics, Obama’s approach to alliances sits squarely in the tradition established by his predecessors Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

Conservative commentators have mocked Obama’s belief in the efficacy of international rules. Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope that “nobody benefits more than we do from the observance of the international ‘rules of the road.’” Many of these rules were established by Roosevelt and Truman, who believed that a rule-based system amplified U.S. power rather than constraining it. And it was the propensity of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia to break international rules and agreements that hardened those two presidents’ determination to contain and defeat them.

.In the Middle East, Obama has been criticized for walking away from America’s long-term friend President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, a step that worried officials in countries from Saudi Arabia to Israel. In fact, Obama’s response to the Arab Spring, though initially uncertain and clumsy, came to be characterized by a blend of caution and hardheaded liberalism. He now places a lesser premium than most of his recent predecessors did on the stability provided by Middle East allies, and a greater premium on their people’s right to democracy. But some of those allies can no longer provide stability anyway.

In the Egypt case, Obama is said to be insufficiently committed to allies. In the Libyan case, the opposite charge is leveled: that he ceded too much ground to allies, by allowing Britain, France, and other NATO allies to take the lead. Yet it would have been risky for the United States to lead another major military operation in the Middle East when it is already fighting two bloody wars nearby. It is especially galling when former officials of the Bush administration, which mismanaged the Afghanistan War, initiated the wrong-headed Iraq War, and blew out the Federal budget, refuse to acknowledge their own responsibility for the constraints that have limited America’s role in the Libya operation.

Viewing Libya another way, Obama has revived an old American tradition—exemplified by FDR’s foreign policy in the early stages of World War II—of using European allies as proxies to wage war when the United States is unable to take the leading position.

Events this week indicate that Obama’s approach in Libya has managed to cripple the Gaddafi regime in a way that maximizes the Libyan people’s ownership of the victory and minimizes the risks and costs to the United States. The contrast with George W. Bush’s approach in Iraq is stunning.

Obama’s Libya approach has managed to cripple the regime in a way that maximizes Libyan ownership of the victory and minimizes risks and costs to the U.S. The contrast with Bush’s Iraq approach is stunning.

Obama’s critics also fail to acknowledge that he is much more popular with allied publics than was his predecessor. This has not translated into greater assistance for the U.S.-led effort in Afghanistan. On the other hand, it has restored drooping public support in allied countries for the idea of allying with Washington. For example, the number of Australians who believe the U.S. alliance is very important to their country’s security has shot up by 23 percent since the nadir of the Bush administration.

Of course, the biggest challenge to America’s position in the world comes not from the Middle East but from East Asia. And there, the president’s approach to China, and his commitment to America’s Asian allies, has strengthened significantly over his first term.

Initially Obama set out to accommodate Beijing’s interests and its claims. Yet the Chinese leadership failed to clasp his outstretched hand, disappointing the world at Copenhagen, failing to rein in its North Korean ally, and throwing its weight around in the region. Obama responded in kind, pushing back against the Chinese, taking two major trips to Asia, with significant stopovers in Tokyo and Seoul, and moving to deepen further America’s defense ties with Australia.

Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, the founders of America’s alliance system, were hardheaded liberals. They would certainly recognize Barack Obama as their heir.

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Michael Fullilove is the director of the global issues program at the Lowy Institute in Sydney, Australia and a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. A lawyer and historian by training, he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and served as an adviser to the Australian prime minister. Fullilove’s next book, on the Second World War, will be published by The Penguin Press. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mfullilove.

Steven Casey is a reader in international history at the London School of Economics.

http://thebea.st

Filed under: 2012 Candidates on Defense & Security, Asian NATO, Middle East & Africa, NATO, United States Tagged: FDR, Foreign policy, liberal, Truman

Sometimes leading from behind is the right thing to do

Manish Thakur — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 13:48:21 +0000

A number of U.S. politicians and defense specialists, John McCain included, have criticized the President for not taking an active public role in leading NATO action in Libya – for leading from behind. Such criticism, however, is based on cynical domestic politics, and not on well thought through international policies.

The United States is already fighting two open wars in the Islamic World, and waging a number of other battles from Pakistan to Yemen. As a result, we are seen as an intrusive, hostile force by Arab and Muslim people, no matter what our intentions. Loudly leading another front would only add to this rage, and undermine our interests. Furthermore, the American people themselves have no appetite for another land war in a Muslim country, especially a war that will be seen as one of choice. Rallying the American people for war – leading from the front – the way George W Bush did in Iraq would have been hugely unpopular.

In the Arab world, change is coming, whether we lead from the front, back, or not at all. The populations in the region’s autocracies and monarchies are getting younger, better informed and angrier. An explosion, driven by domestic unrest, was inevitable. The ouster of Ben Ali in Tunisia had nothing to do with us whatsoever. Similarly, Egypt’s revolution was led by the students in Tahrir Square, though the removal of U.S. support was the critical turning point in Mubarak’s decision in stepping down. The uprising in Libya also started as a purely domestic affair. It was only Gadhafi’s threat of massacring the people of Masrata that moved us to seek UN authorization for Western intervention.

It is clear now that NATO’s intentions went far beyond the humanitarian action authorized by the UN. London and Paris, it seems, decided that it was in their interests to see the end of the Gadhafi’s government, and so sought an old fashioned regime change. Whether this was a smart move or not, time will tell, but openly announcing this intention to remove another Arab government would have outraged the Arab World and denied the Libyan rebels the legitimacy they needed with their own people. From an American perspective, rallying the American people to take the lead in an attack on a country not threatening us, would have been counterproductive, particularly as this was clearly something being sought by Europe, and not us. As it was Congress was unhappy with the way the U.S. got involved. Ultimately, this was a British and French decision, and it was therefore there’s to lead. The continued relevance of NATO, in fact, demanded that the U.S. not be seen to be carrying the entire burden of Western defense. No doubt, US military support was indispensable, and it was provided – just without fanfare or primetime noise.

In the end analysis, we can only judge the effectiveness of a policy by reviewing its results. As NATO operations wind down, these are now plain to see. Massacres were avoided in Masrata. Regime change was effected in Tripoli. The Arab Street did not erupt in rage against the United States. The Europeans took the lead in their own defense, a U.S. foreign policy goal. NATO unity was maintained. And the U.S. public has largely stood behind NATO actions.

I therefore see no other conclusion that President Obama’s approach of leading from behind has been hugely successful.

Filed under: 2012 Candidates on Defense & Security, Europe, Middle East & Africa, NATO, United States Tagged: Arab Spring, Gadhafi, Libya, Tripoli

The bigger the defense cuts, the more urgent the need for a new security strategy

Manish Thakur — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 17:27:24 +0000

It is clear that the Pentagon will see some serious cuts as the country tries to deal with its fiscal situation. To an extent, this is as it should be – with wars winding down and the chances of us engaging in another land war slim, we can afford to rethink the military. The move towards a higher tech, mobile force allows to reassess the need for platforms more suited to the Cold War. And then there is the issue of waste – both within the Pentagon as well as within industry. Efficiency was never at a premium when budgets were flush.

Despite the cuts mentioned above, there is clearly a point whereby we seriously start cutting into the muscle of the military. There are those, on both the left and the right, who think that this is fine – that we are no longer at war. The reality is, however, quite different. The “War on Terror” may be over but the threat posed by terrorists is far from done. Add to this, other non-state actors ranging from drug cartels, to organized crime and professional cyberterrorists, and we still have serious asymmetric threats facing us. Far more profoundly, the rise of China poses a fundamental and direct threat to our interests. First, we face the very real possibility of being pushed out of Asia – the locus of trade, manufacturing and oil. We cannot remain a superpower and not be the preeminent power there. Secondly, for the first time since World War Two, we are being challenged in the Pacific Ocean itself, which directly abuts the Continental US. Given China’s rapid military build up, we cannot fail to notice the threats.

I suspect that when all is said and done, Congress will end up cutting real muscle out of the military. Simply put, it is easier to make cuts in a loyal service that will take it on the chin than to cut Medicare and Social Security. I believe this is short sighted, as it is only delaying the day when those two programs will have to be cut, as it is in fact those (and not defense) that will drive the budget out of all balance. But assuming that my hypothesis is correct, we need to start planning now on how a smaller military can fulfill its obligations to defend the country and to preserve our role as the world’s preeminent power. The clearest answer lies in developing a new global security strategy realigning our overseas posture and alliances with the threats at hand.

I have been arguing for some time that we transform our individual treaty alliances in Asia into a multilateral security architecture – an Asian NATO-lite – that can preserve the peace by balancing China. This does not need to be a provocative gesture. We are not recreating the NATO of the Cold War, although the threat is clearly there. As part of this, we must press our Asian allies into cost sharing. Simply put, they need to contribute to their own security. Many countries are already expanding their defense budgets in any event. This can be made far more effective by avoiding duplicative tasks. On the other side of the world, we need to reassess the current NATO. As it stands, it overcommits us to the defense of over a score countries – often in places where we have no strategic interests. Adding insult to injury, most of these countries can afford to defend themselves but have no incentive so long as NATO exists. If singular alliances in Asia can give way to one multilateral one, the exact opposite is possible in Europe.

Whatever you think of the above changes in US defense posture, one thing is clear. It needs updating both for the new security environment and also for the new budgetary environment. In fact, the bigger the cuts in our defense budget, the more urgent the need for a new global security strategy.

Filed under: 2012 Candidates on Defense & Security, Asia/Pacific, Asian NATO, China, Europe, NATO, United States, US Defense Budget