NATO and Nuclear Weapons

Riga Summit Update, November 28 - 29, 2006

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Can NATO transform for the 21st century?

From Acronym Consultant Martin Butcher in Riga, November 27, 2006

NATO heads of State and Government meet in Riga, Latvia, on November 28/29, with many outstanding questions on their agenda. While NATO and national government sources agree that the worst of the conflict from the build-up to the invasion of Iraq has dissipated (and for some in Europe the firing of Donald Rumsfeld, US Secretary of Defense helped), there is a sense that the organisation is somewhat adrift - carrying out missions from Kosovo to Afghanistan, but with no underlying purpose to tie it together.

The subjects that will be on the agenda at the specially made table in Riga - Alliance transformation, burdensharing, the Comprehensive Political Guidance, and even Energy Security - are far less significant than the subjects that will be overlooked - enlargement, the perennially troubled issues of NATO-EU and NATO Russia relations, and most notably the rewriting of the Alliance's mission statement, the 1999 Strategic Concept, with the role of nuclear weapons in Alliance defence policy at its heart.

All this throws up questions which will have to be answered if NATO is to be an influential and important alliance in the 21st Century - what is NATO's role and how should it accomplish that role. A shiny "transformation" exhibition at the Olympic Sports Complex Summit venue shows what the Riga Summit is meant to be about. But there are those in Riga who fear that the focus on the somewhat loose concept of 'NATO transformation' means less than meets the eye.

Riga 2006 was to have been the 'transformation summit', and settled those questions once and for all. Now, it is merely the latest in a line of summits, leading from Istanbul, through Riga, to another Summit in 2008, followed by a 60th birthday party Summit in 2009. Transforming the Alliance, it seems, is a long and politically contentious process.

So, what will the Riga Summit do?

To a certain extent, the transformation agenda will move forward. NATO leaders will declare the NATO Response Force operational. This 25,000 man unit will be available for quick notice, short-term military missions, pretty much anywhere in the world as eventuality requires. This is tempered by the knowledge that NATO cannot scrape together 2000 additional soldiers to join the fighting in Afghanistan at present, and that it lacks the strategic airlift to take the NRF anywhere easily.

Papering over the cracks in Afghanistan

There is a real sense that the mission led by NATO in Afghanistan has not received either the resources or political priority necessary for it to succeed, and no amount of new initiatives like the NRF can paper over the cracks.

2006 has seen the unprecedented spectacle of a Secretary-General of NATO being forced to beg publicly for troop contributions to strengthen the NATO presence in Afghanistan. Strains are also emerging in the Alliance as some nations, notably Germany and Italy, place constraints on the kinds of missions in which their forces can participate, leaving the bulk of anti-Taliban action to others. As the Canadian National Post reports today "Canada and the Netherlands are expected to issue a joint plea to reluctant allies at this week's NATO summit, asking them to pare down the restrictions they've placed until now on their combat forces in Afghanistan. The hope is that the pressure by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende will have an impact across Europe, where a number of countries have been reluctant to allow their troops to take part in offensives against Taliban militants."

There will also be a revival of the burdensharing debate, a hardy perennial for NATO, in a modern guise. During the latter part of the Cold War, NATO leaders committed themselves to annual 3% increases in defence budgets to boost defences in Western Europe. They never achieved these targets.

Similarly NATO leaders are currently committed to spending at least 2% of GDP on defence, something there is little likelihood that anyone other than the US, the UK and France will ever do. The Bush administration is now making a push in this direction, with Bush aides briefing the media on the importance of this topic as he left Washington DC. Judy Ansley, senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council told reporters that "… the president will address the issue of the need for more resources for NATO and for NATO countries to spend more for defense." Nicholas Burns, the U.S. undersecretary for political affairs and a former NATO ambassador, said Bush will make the case for increased spending on systems and capabilities "that are absolutely necessary for success on the modern battlefield and in modern peacekeeping."

Some NATO nations also wish to discuss changing budgeting arrangements for NATO missions such as ISAF in Afghanistan so that the entire Alliance pays a share of the costs, rather than just participants. Countries including Germany have turned a deaf ear to this idea to date. This is supported by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer who told a Brussels Conference on November 6 that "Another important element of burden-sharing is the reform of our funding arrangements. Just look at the NATO Response Force. According to our current rules, "costs lie where they fall", which means that nations pay their own way in Alliance operations. If the NRF is deployed, only those nations who are in the Force at the time of its deployment have to pay. In other words, if you're not in the NRF at that time, you don't pay. You're lucky. To me, this is almost a lottery, not a funding arrangement for an Alliance built on solidarity. For this reason, I have proposed to extend common funding for a trial period for short term NRF deployments, particularly to the strategic airlift element."

The bland leading the bland

Alliance leaders will formally approve the Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG). The CPG takes the place of a rewrite of the Strategic Concept, since it has become abundantly clear over the past few years that there is no consensus within the Alliance as to the nature of its core military purpose.

Defence Ministers have already approved the CPG in June, and it will now be confirmed by Heads of State and Government in Riga. Unfortunately, according to many in government circles who have seen it, it is a bland and vague document which will do little to help the Alliance move forward. It ties together some themes that reflect current reality, for example, the operation in Afghanistan, but doesn't reach the level of a comprehensive restatement of purpose by the Alliance. The vague and unsatisfactory nature of the document is perhaps brought home by this exachnage between Defense News and Secreatry General Scheffer last week:

Q: Brooks Tigner, Defense News. Just a quick question about CPG. You said this is not a strategic document, or a revision of strategic doctrine, fair enough. It analyzes threats and it looks at defence planning. Well, NATO already analyzed threats five years ago, WMD and terrorism. NATO does constant defence planning. So aside from any wording or references to the need for a more expeditionary spirit, I don't see the purpose of this document. Could you please tell us what its purpose is and what's new about it?

DE HOOP SCHEFFER: Oh, I can exactly tell you because there's a big difference on allies discussing things and 26 nations agreeing on what should be written down on seven or eight pieces of paper. It's a major difference in multilateral diplomacy, I can tell you.

It's something, number one, to discuss the future of defence planning here, or NATO's expeditionary character, it's number two and much more important to write it down on a piece of paper. I consider that a major difference. That's why I consider this Comprehensive Political Guidance an important document, because A, it's comprehensive, B, it's political, and C, it provides guidance.

The lack of political will necessary for a rewrite of the Strategic Concept should really be no surprise. The American emphasis in military doctrine on pre-emptive or preventive war, with the invasion of Iraq as a prime example of the latter, is a huge obstacle to the development of a new concept.

The US is looking for reliable allies that will join it in missions around the globe, and few in NATO are ready to give a blank cheque commitment to such a policy. For example, French Defence Minister Micele Alliot-Marie wrote recently in Le Figaro that "The development of a global partnership could...dilute the natural solidarity between Europeans and North Americans in a fuzzy entity." While the UK is most supportive of the US position, and France most antagonistic, there are many shades of opinion on what a Strategic Concept rewrite should contain.

What role for nuclear weapons?

Nuclear weapons, both those of the United States deployed in Europe, and those of the US and UK Trident forces allocated to NATO command, play a key role in shaping the problems the Alliance will eventually have to face. Most nations prefer to maintain the status quo, as long as that means not having to debate the role of nuclear weapons, and especially if they are able to avoid talking about them in public.

The recent changes in US nuclear use policy and doctrine, allowing for a much more aggressive use of nuclear weapons against nuclear, biological and chemical weapons targets - even in non-nuclear states - have many in the Alliance uneasy. The CMX 2002 exercise, in which an Iraq-like enemy prepared the use of chemical and biological weapons against Turkey proved this point. The US, with the support of Turkey, advocated plans for the pre-emotive use of a mix of conventional and nuclear weapons against the aggressor. The uproar amongst those participating in the exercise was such that then-Secretary General George Robertson was forced to step in and end the exercise early. This reluctance to consider the use of weapons deployed to the Alliance even in exercise is matched by a reluctance to talk about them in the North Atlantic Council, which according to those in the know, has slipped into almost complete irrelevance.

If NATO is to survive in coming years as a meaningful Alliance, and is to be able to absorb new members and restore a full sense of mission, not just tactically as in Afghanistan, but strategically, then these nuclear weapon related questions are the kind that NATO Heads of State and Government should be examining in Riga.

This is all the more true as the Alliance has recognised the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction as a threat to the Alliance, and is a supporting both an active program of missile defences and a number of limited non-proliferation and arms control measure, through the NATO WMD Centre. Staff there realise that the deployment of a new generation of nuclear weapons, through the Reliable Replacement Warhead program in the United States, and the recent comments by UK Cabinet Ministers that the UK needs to renew its independent deterrent after Trident, will make it extremely difficult to persuade most nations on the NATO periphery and in the wider world (take Iran as one notable example) that agreeing to forswear the nuclear weapons option is in their best interest.

Without an active program of wide ranging non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament measures (something for which there is still no support in Washington DC), the creation of a NATO-wide missile defence program begins to look suspiciously like the creation of a shield behind which to shelter will the nuclear sword of counterproliferation could be wielded against those perceived as hostile to the Alliance.

Strategic Choices

So, the true test for the Alliance at Riga and beyond, is whether its leaders can summon the political will to tackle hard questions - how to build friendly relations with Russia, how to work together alongside the EU, how to denuclearise the Alliance and build a Strategic Concept that gives true purpose to a NATO that looks to Afghanistan and Darfur for its future? At this point, only time will tell.

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© 2006 The Acronym Institute.