NATO, new allies and reassurance By Ronald Asmus, Stefan Czmur, Chris Donnelly, Aivis Ronis, Tomas Valasek and Klaus Wittmann1
★ NATO today spends too little time studying and assessing security risks, thinking about ways to defuse potential crises, and developing the means to react in the event of a conflict close to home. Some of its members worry that the alliance will not be able to come to their defence in a crisis. ★ NATO allies in Central and Eastern Europe have felt the most uneasy but other countries such as Iceland and Norway have voiced similar concerns. The alliance should take ‘reassurance’ measures to address this spreading sense of insecurity and improve its ability to respond to crises around its borders, wherever they come from. ★ Reassurance needs to be consistent with NATO’s obligations to Russia and with the allies’ efforts to reach out to Moscow. If handled well, reassurance would give the new allies the confidence they need to support a ‘reset’ in NATO-Russia relations, and to deploy their forces outside Europe in places such as Afghanistan. ★ Reassurance should consist of political and some military steps to discourage potential aggressors in Europe. These would complement, not supplant, the fight against terrorist networks in Afghanistan and elsewhere, which rightly remains a priority for NATO.
1 The authors write in their
NATO is due to update its basic document, the ‘strategic concept’, at a summit scheduled for November in Lisbon. One of the key issues it needs to address is the lack of trust and confidence in the alliance among the countries that have joined NATO since the late 1990s. Many of them feel that NATO has been neglecting the possibility of ‘old fashioned’ conflicts like ethnic strife or a clash between states, possibly involving Russia. Public support for 2 See the German Marshall NATO has been falling in Central and Eastern Europe. 2 Several Fund of the United States, ‘Transatlantic trends 2009’. governments in the region compensate for the lack of confidence in NATO by pursuing bilateral security cooperation with the US. Some Central and East European leaders state in private that they fear that NATO would not be able to come to their defence in a crisis. private capacities. The views presented here do not represent any institution or government with which they are associated.
Centre for European Reform 14 Great College Street London SW1P 3RX UK
When NATO decided to accept Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary in the late 1990s, it chose to defend the new allies by sending forces from abroad in times of trouble rather than by building permanent bases on their territory. This strategy – aimed partly at defusing Moscow’s concerns about the military dimension of enlargement – differed from how NATO protected most of its allies in Western and Central Europe during the Cold war, and the then candidate states initially opposed it.3 To win them over the allies gave general guarantees on the 3 overall size of the reinforcement See Ronald Asmus, ‘Opening NATO’s Door’, that they would make available to Columbia University protect the new member-states. The Press, 2002. US pledged – with NATO’s highest military commander, SACEUR, at 4 The Supreme Allied the table4 – to dedicate two to three Commander Europe – SACEUR – is by tradition divisions (20,000-40,000 soldiers) a US officer; the current to the task, and to upgrade or build holder of the office is airfields, bridges, gas depots and Admiral James Stavridis.
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