By Marco Overhaus
November 23, 2006
Modest Expectations and the Enduring Gap within the Alliance
Next week, NATO leaders will hold their third summit since the caesura of September 11, 2001, in the Latvian capital Riga in an ongoing effort to transform the Atlantic Alliance. Riga has in common with previous summits that its agenda will be dictated mainly by crisis decisions rather than by a longer-term, deliberative planning process. While Washington (1999) was dominated by the Kosovo war, Prague (2002) by the terrorist attacks in the United States, Istanbul (2004) by the transatlantic pile of shards after the Iraq war, Riga will be overshadowed by the sharply deteriorated security situation in Afghanistan. As a consequence of this sequence of crisis-driven decisions, NATO has embarked on a considerable degree of activities and new operations without ever coming to terms with its overarching Raison d'Etre in the post 9/11-world. Thus while Afghanistan will certainly be on top of Riga's agenda, there is still no consensus within the Alliance whether it is to be seen as the prototype for NATO's future missions or rather as the exception. This lack of consensus is also reflected in the other items to be dealt with in Riga: Capabilities, Global Partnerships and the enlargement process. In essence, NATO is still haunted by the same split which has characterized its internal debates on transformation since the end of the Cold War. One group, which can be termed Expansionists and is led by the United States, favors a double enlargement of the Alliance's geographic outreach (including expansion of membership) and functions (including civil-military ones) while the Traditionalists, under French leadership, favor a restriction on NATO's core functions of collective defense (Article 5) or military out-of-area deployments for fending off direct threats to alliance members. Germany, as other countries, has wavered between these poles for much of the time. Bonn/Berlin has supported limited enlargement since the beginning of the1990s and recently spoken out in favor of a deeper strategic dialogue within NATO and with the United States on a broader range of issues while remaining skeptical of a "globalized" Alliance with expanded military functions. In the run-up to Riga, however, Berlin has been almost completely absorbed by domestic debates on Germany's foreign military deployments (the so-called "Skull scandal", international pressure to go to southern Afghanistan, Lebanon).
Against the background of an enduring split within NATO, expectations towards the Riga summit have already been tuned down in most quarters. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that "[t]his summit will do a big step forward in adapting NATO", but many comments from capitals and observers have sounded more cautious. German Deputy Defense Minister Christian Schmidt, for instance, said: "For me, Riga offers an opportunity for stock-taking and to think about future directions in which we should go". There seems to be a general feeling that the more profound issue concerning NATO's scope and structure should only be dealt with during one of the two already scheduled summits in 2008 and 2009. In particular, this refers to the drafting of a new Strategic Concept for NATO which some leaders, among them German Chancellor Angela Merkel, are demanding. In the absence of a new Strategic Concept, heads of state and government will endorse a short political document in Riga, the "Comprehensive Political Guidance" (CDG), which is supposed to give clearer political-strategic guidelines to the ongoing transformation process of the Alliance.
Afghanistan
The severe problems which the NATO-led International Stabilization Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan is currently facing in Kabul and in the country's southern and eastern provinces is putting considerable strain on internal reform debates and Alliance cohesion and affects, directly or indirectly, all other items on the Riga summit's agenda. Growing violence and instability in Afghanistan is both a result of NATO extending its mission to the south and to the east in July and October this year and of public dissatisfaction among Afghans with the slow or stagnant process of political and economic reconstruction. In any case, recent developments have forced the troop contributing nations to effectively abandon the consensus on which rested the Alliance's initial decision to take the lead of ISAF in 2003. According to this consensus, ISAF would restrict itself to supporting the political and economic reconstruction process and thus effectively playing the traditional role of peacekeeper as it has done in post-war Bosnia and Kosovo. War fighting and hunting down remaining Taliban forces would be the task of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) under US-leadership. Some NATO members, among them Germany, decided to focus on the stabilization task (though Berlin has also contributed 100 or so special forces to OEF) and the majority of Allies (except, perhaps, the US) was keen to keep ISAF and OEF mandates separated. As NATO expanded its operations to southern and eastern Afghanistan and as violence soared, the separation of NATO doing peacekeeping and stabilization and OEF doing the combat missions has become increasingly blurred and theoretical. This became plainly clear when ISAF-countries recently carried out "Operation Medusa" killing dozens of insurgents (and reportedly also some civilians too).
As the asymmetry in terms of perceived risks and costs between war fighting on the one hand and stabilization and reconstruction on the other hand has been effectively integrated into NATO's Afghanistan operation, solidarity among NATO countries and the danger of a "two-class Alliance" has become an important issue. Those Allies with no or only few troops in the troubled and insecure south and east, most prominently Germany, see themselves under increasing pressure from those carrying the main burden (United Kingdom, Canada, Netherlands and to a lesser degree Australia, Denmark, Estonia and Romania) to do more. The fact that most member states have put some geographical and/or functional limitations on their troops ("national caveats") has become a threat to Alliance solidarity and cohesion and, according to ISAF commander Lieutnant General David Richards, an important obstacle to military effectiveness in Afghanistan. The problem of solidarity is enhanced further by the current system of financing for joint NATO missions. According to the principle that "costs lie where they fall" each nation still has to pay for the expenses of its own contribution. In Riga, the summiteers will also discuss options for enhanced joint financing.
Apart from the military problems with national caveats, Richards has also criticized the lack of coordination between institutions and agencies in Afghanistan as "close to anarchy, both military and civil". There is no disagreement, though, that better integration of military, civilian, political and economic instruments is urgently needed to achieve better results in Afghanistan. The concept of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) has been a first attempt to implement such a holistic approach, but is still deemed insufficient. There is disagreement, however, on the distribution of tasks among organizations, agencies and other actors in Afghanistan and, in this context, about the scope of NATO's activities. This is where the dispute between Traditionalists and Expansionists once more comes into play and where the next big item on the Riga summit's agenda - military capabilities and transformation - is directly affected.
Capabilities
Heads of state and government will review implementation of ongoing efforts to transform and acquire those military capabilities deemed crucial for the new security environment. Most visibly, they will declare the NATO Response Force (NRF), with its emphasis on rapidly deployable, joint forces, fully operational. At the same time, Afghanistan has already exposed the limits of the NRF. That it has so far played no substantial role in that country surely has to do with the fact that it became operational only recently and that there is still no consensus among member states when and where to actually use it, even though it is supposed to cover a wide range of contingencies. Yet, it has also become clear that the NRF as well as the Prague Capability Commitments (PCC) more generally, have concentrated on traditional military assets while these approaches are not well suited to deal with the problems of insurgency and civil-military relations currently at issue in Afghanistan.
Against this background, policy-makers and analysts have advanced proposals to expand NATO's military capabilities in two directions. On the one side, it is argued that ISAF and NATO need capacities to fight insurgents more effectively under the heading of counterinsurgency. In this context, NATO leaders in Riga will discuss proposals to integrate member states' Special Operations Forces (SOF) within the alliance framework. On the other side, it has become clear that military instruments have to be integrated in a better way with civilian, political and economic instruments. Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy assistant Secretary of State in the Bush administration, put it this way:" Increasingly leaders call on NATO to assist in post-conflict situations. (…) These circumstances mean that the Alliance must plan to provide and support stabilization and reconstruction needs as part of its security operations." Proposals discussed in this context range from better coordination of Allies' national assets - police forces and training, reconstruction and engineering, medical support - to the creation of an integrated NATO Stabilization and Reconstruction Force (put forward recently by Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler of the National Defense University). Again, it is unlikely that NATO states in Riga will already reach consensus on concrete measures and decisions. There are still profound disagreements between the Traditionalists and Expansionists about the scope of NATO's role beyond traditional military tasks of peacekeeping and peace enforcement. France, for instance, has voiced reservations to see NATO in a more active role in post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization which it sees as a délusion from the Alliance's core tasks of collective defense and collective security. Though Riga is unlikely to deliver specific results (perhaps with the exception of SOF), there is still a chance that the summit will give impulses and directions to dealing with these issues until 2008 and 2009, when NATO leaders will convene for the next time.
Global Partnerships
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and the following engagement of many NATO allies and then of NATO as a whole in Afghanistan led to what can be termed the globalization of NATO in the sense that Alliance forces are supposed to be ready to intervene whenever and wherever decided by the North Atlantic Council. At that time, the differences between Traditionalists and Expansionists was more or less papered over by the shock of 9/11 and the faits accomplis it created in the Alliance. Today, as the entanglement in Afghanistan has become more risky and costly the split has come to the surface again. This is clearly reflected in the current debate about "Global Partnerships" of NATO with non-European countries which contribute to ongoing military missions. In Afghanistan, ISAF currently comprises some 31.000 troops roughly a thousand of which come from non-NATO countries. Against this background, the Expansionists argue that the Alliance needs to strengthen and formalize its relationships with those democratic countries beyond the Euro-Atlantic area which contribute to joint missions. Ahead of Riga, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have been named most frequently.
Secretary-General de Hoop Scheffer has given a broad directive for Riga: "What I expect Riga to do is devise a flexible format to deepen political and practical relations with what we call countries beyond the Euro-Atlantic area." Yet, there is so far no consensus within the Alliance on how these Global Partnerships could look like. Some commentators in the U.S. went as far as to propose an extension of formal membership to democratic states on a global scale (see the recent article of Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier in Foreign Affairs). For this extreme position, there is hardly any political support within NATO, however, and even the Bush administration stopped short of supporting the idea. On the contrary, the majority of Allies seems to tilt toward the Traditionalist position which regards deep and formalized Global Partnerships with skepticism. The prospect of NATO becoming a "global policeman", a "toolbox" for global US-interests and of political and military entanglements far away from the transatlantic area is still anathema for the Traditionalists. Against this background, Riga is likely to bring semi-formal partnerships with selected countries, such as Australia, New Zealand, Japan or South Korea. Proposals being discussed include the extension of the Partnership-for-Peace program or a format modeled along the lines of the NATO-Russia and NATO-Ukraine Councils.
Enlargement
NATO officials have repeatedly stressed that Riga will be no enlargement summit. After the Alliance took in seven new members in 2004, it is still committed to its "open-door" policy, but this commitment sounds less enthusiastic than before. In 1999, the accession of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic was mainly seen as an imperative of the Cold War's ending, even though it took six years of debate to come to this decision, mainly due to concerns about Russian opposition. September 11, 2001, effectively brought more countries into NATO within a much shorter period of time as a broad alliance of like-minded countries was seen as a crucial asset in the international fight against terrorism. Today, NATO suffers from a similar enlargement fatigue as does the European Union. Afghanistan has contributed to this as it once more revealed the difficulties of consensual decision-making with more members and exposed the value-added quality of military contributions of recent newcomers to scrutiny. Washington, leading the expansionist camp, is still eager to support eventual membership of more countries. The so-called Adriatic-3, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, have asked for membership for some years and have come quite close to this goal. All three are currently engaged in Membership Action Plans to prepare them for this final step. They expect to receive a clear "signal" at Riga and hope for official invitations to accede in 2008. Other countries from the Western Balkans are also seen as potential future members but still have a longer way to go. Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia still have to cope with the heritage of Yugoslavia's wars of disintegration (including Kosovo's status and cooperation with the International Criminal Court) but steps for strengthened cooperation, such as extending Partnership-for-Peace to these countries, is possible. Finally, Georgia and Ukraine (after the Orange Revolution) have expressed interest in eventual membership and have received support from Washington. In Ukraine, however, NATO membership is contested domestically, especially as the pro-Western Orange movement has recently lost steam. Moreover, the Traditionalists within the Alliance have started to raise their concerns more vocally, warn of délusion and openly question both NATO's ability to absorb new members and new candidates' ability to substantially contribute to the Alliance's new tasks and missions. This has become quite obvious in the case of Germany, which has traditionally been a staunch supporter of integrating Central-Eastern European countries into Western institutions. During a parliamentary debate in November on the upcoming Riga summit, the foreign policy spokesperson of the Christian-Democrats (CDU), Eckart von Klaeden, stated that newcomers need to be able to make a veritable contribution to the common mission: "Choosing future NATO partners and accession candidates one has to scrutinize if the concerned states offer an advantage to NATO." This pragmatism marks a difference to earlier German policies within the Alliance.
Beyond Riga
As this analytical survey indicates, the NATO summit in Riga will be dominated once again by crisis reaction rather than by long-term planning on a consensual basis. The immediate challenge will be how to deal with Afghanistan as it is currently the Alliance's most important mission. It directly and indirectly affects most of the other items on Riga's agenda. This is not to be deplored if it leads to a learning process and ultimately to a more effective approach in Afghanistan. The fact that NATO's transformation has been mainly crisis- or event-driven since the end of the Cold War and since September 11, 2001, is not all bad. It has also led to quite innovative solutions like the NATO Response Force and the Alliance today is in high demand. Yet, as Ron Asmus, Executive Director of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels and a former official in the Clinton administration, recently stated: Activism is not necessarily a sign of vitality. Riga will once more display the limits of NATO's ability to adapt itself to an ever changing environment as long Expansionists and Traditionalists do not find a common denominator. Examples of these limitations exist in abundance. While the Alliance has praised its new Response Force, there is still no agreement on when and how to actually use it. While the debate on capabilities has focused on the NRF and the PCC, the force has so far played no substantial role in those missions that currently preoccupy the Alliance in the Balkans and Afghanistan. Allies still disagree to what extend additional capabilities in the areas of counterinsurgency, stabilization and reconstructions are needed within the NATO framework.
Some NATO officials and observers argue that it would be counterproductive to seek a Grand Design for the ongoing transformation process as this would only expose and aggravate the divide between Expansionists and Traditionalists and would also deprive NATO of the necessary flexibility to react to new contingencies as they emerge. Yet, to avoid incrementalism, rank growth and painful debates with every new development it is desirable and even necessary for NATO member states to engage more profoundly in efforts to find common ground. Viable international institutions are characterized by the right mixture of formal structures, long-term planning and flexible elements which in combination allow for swifter decision-making in the face of new developments. In Riga, heads of state and government should not shy away from engaging in these discussions and launch a process that could ultimately lead to a substantial new Strategic Concept of NATO when it celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2009, a Concept which would represent more than just the smallest common denominator between Traditionalists and Expansionists.