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NATO must launch a major public diplomacy effort in order to reach out in a concerted effort to the Alliance’s members’ constituencies. More solidarity among NATO members is needed for the Alliance to muster the political will necessary to overcome the external and internal threats to its success in Afghanistan. The issue is crucial to the Alliance’s survival.

In a salient presentation at the Atlantic Council, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, revealed a promising strategy for victory in Afghanistan. He stressed that the Afghan people are key to its resolution and need to be regarded as a center of gravity in the conflict. While the Admiral is absolutely correct, he still misses a decisive point; namely, that the people who constitute the NATO Alliance represent a center of gravity as well.

According to the Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz, a center of gravity is "the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends" and "the point against which all our energies should be directed." While useful in offensive terms, Clausewitz failed to remind us to protect our own (defensive) center of gravity from the enemy's attack. Thus, although Admiral Stavridis correctly identified the offensive center of gravity in this conflict (depriving the al Qaeda/Taliban alliance of the support of the Afghan people), he ignored its defensive counterpart.

NATO urgently needs to protect its own center of gravity: the support of its people for the Alliance. If NATO loses the political will of the people in its member states, it will not be able to execute SACEUR's strategy and will never have the time to gain the lasting support of the Afghan people. The 2004 Madrid train bombings provide a striking example of how dangerous the lack of public support is to NATO’s mission. The bombings demonstrated that the enemy can influence public opinion and produce regime change, without ever needing to invade a NATO member country or occupying one of its national capitals.

Under the leadership of Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO has made an effort to build the political will within its member states through public diplomacy. The report by the Group of Experts highlighted the need for improvement in this area. "NATO populations should be reminded that the Alliance serves their interests through the security it provides." While such emphasis is a step forward, it is hardly sufficient. NATO needs to invest the same amount of energy and attention to reinforcing its defensive center of gravity (popular support for NATO in member countries) as it is dedicating to the offensive center of gravity (winning the support of the Afghan people). 

For NATO to succeed, it is simply not enough to focus on educating leaders in national capitals. All of NATO's members are democracies, and thus it is crucial to invest time and effort into conveying NATO's message to the public at large. Until the Alliance does a better job of informing the general electorate of NATO’s value, it will unwittingly allow for the rise of leaders and governments that will choose parochial interests over the benefits of the transatlantic partnership. 

Public diplomacy is not an option in an alliance of democracies, it is essential. Key alliance decisions are made, sanctioned, and funded by national legislatures that pay far more attention to public opinion than to strategy seminars. NATO needs to inform the public about the very real risks to each member's welfare and stress the Alliance's contributions to their protection and prosperity.  

An uninformed public may tolerate providing the resources for a vaguely benign international organization and military force in good economic times. But in times of economic crisis, voters will not support political leaders who are perceived to be wasting scarce national resources on opaque efforts beyond the nation’s borders. Voters are even more averse to sacrificing the lives of their children in conflicts that appear distant and non-threatening. 

Gen. David Petreus is beginning to win the conflict in Iraq because he understands that "the human terrain is the decisive terrain." If NATO starts to lose the battle for the political will of its people, it will slowly become a hollow alliance, comprised primarily of many bureaucrats and a few warriors. In time, it will follow the WEU into the dustbin of history. If we allow that to happen, we will unsuspectingly put ourselves in great peril.  

Jorge Benitez is the Director of NATOSource and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.

Related Material From Atlantic Community:

• Djörn Eversteijn: What Should NATO's New Strategic Concept Look Like?
• Olaf Theiler: NATO Tensions No Cause for Alarm
• Jackson Janes: Alliance Asymmetries

May 27, 2010

Bernhard Lucke, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Platinum Contributor (531)

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I like this comment! What's this?

I agree with the main message of this important comment of Jorge Benitez, but I disagree with his conclusion and his analysis of the causes. This article appears as if NATO's declining reputation was due to "miscommunication", or a lack of advertising and explanation of it policies.

People are not stupid. They may not understand all the details of complicated matters like the Afghanistan war, but they FEEL that something is going wrong. And sometimes complicated things can be summarized surprisingly easily.

It seems to me that we are now getting the first taste of what it means to lose the war in Afghanistan. This is not due to a lack of propaganda or confessions of support by the politicians or the media, but because of simple facts on the ground. 9 years of fighting, and we only managed to alienate the majority of Afghans, lose 80% of the country to the control of the resistance, damage our moral integrity by secret torture camps and indiscriminate mass killings, suffer increasing losses of our own soldiers, and waste an incredible amount of money. Wasn't this predictable form the beginning, looking at the Soviet example? I find it a strange part of human behaviour that despite the obvious and frightening parallels between the two wars, the disturbing comparison is just thrusted aside. The human ability to deny unconvenient thruths is remarkable and a dim perspective for the solution of other challenges such as climate change.

Simultaneously, we discuss how NATO should be transformed into a pact to project power, i.e. to aggressively attack other countries around the globe in order to secure our resource supply. These decisions appear associated with "cliques" of people who collect ashamingly high financial bonuses for wrecking the world economy, piling up monstrous deficits, and cutting public services and social aid. It appears that one can buy everything in this world, including NATO.

People may forgive cuts of their livelihood and freedoms if you win a war. But if you lose it, you have lost everything, including your integrity and identity. Who really believes our leaders? I don't, and I think many other too. A return to more integrity might be admitting that "we have really messed it up in Afghanistan", but no one is going to say it "in order not to encourage the enemy". So we will not change the strategy and will continue to play David vs Goliath until we are bancrupt and defeated in the field - when it is finally evident that Goliath can't win.

It's time for NATO to return to honesty and the old defensive mission. It's not "miscommunication", it's hard facts that changed and put this alliance on the road of decline.

May 27, 2010

Olaf Theiler, Political Scientist, German Armed Forces, Platinum Contributor (173)

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Yes, Jorge Benitez is absolutely right, NATO is in danger to loose the effort in Afghanistan on its “second front”, as Donald Rumsfeld called it, the home front of its own public support. There are two main reasons behind the more and more declining support in western public:
First it is a result of many mistakes done by the U.S. and the Alliance as a whole primarily in the years between 2001 and 2006. The U.S. shift of focus to Iraq allowed the Taliban to reorganize and to rebuild their strength as much as their grip on the Afghan population. At the same time, this lack of focus allowed Karsai and other officials to establish a system of clan obligations and corruption that undermined the efforts to rebuild public trust in a central government.
The second big mistake was that most NATO Nations entered into the conflict not because of Afghanistan, neither because of the risks of global terrorism arising from there nor because of the humanitarian need to help the population after 30 years of civil war to rebuild a stable and prosperous society like what was already existing in the early 70ties. No, most Partners had different reasons to join the U.S. in their efforts, basically political, tactical reasons, short term calculations about partnership and influence (or the risk to loose it) inside of NATO, the EU or the Western Hemisphere. Therefore, most of their efforts where half-hearted and more symbolic in nature. Against better judgment, the Western Nations never spent enough money, never send enough soldiers or civil experts for development or nation building. They did what they were asked or pressed for by their own partners, nothing more and most times even less.
Now, for the first time since 2001, NATO has the strategy to win the war and even almost all resourced needed to do the job. But now time is running short in terms of public support at home. This is the price of the failures of the past. But it is also the result of a lack of communication. Because most nations never where fully convinced of the task, they never communicated it to their own public. They tried to sell it as a peaceful effort of humanitarian assistance, of post-war reconstruction and development, or some nations called it a pure counter terrorism effort, which is as misleading as the humanitarian cause.
NATO as an international institution is not allowed and not able to do the job of national public diplomacy. If a nation decided to tell its people a story of building schools and hospitals, NATO can’t just go and tell a story of war fighting and counter-insurgency efforts. Especially not if the Nation has to agree to the public diplomacy campaign in a NATO committee before it is to be implemented.
Fortunately we are witnessing a change to the good. As soon as it became increasingly clear that there is much more to loose than just Afghanistan, Nations started to take the effort serious, started to raise more money for civil projects, more soldiers to fight the insurgency and more trainers to help the Afghans to achieve self sustaining security. What is still needed is to face the second front, not the Taliban, but the western public itself. And this fight can only be won by the governments of NATO nations, not by the Institution that remains primarily their instrument.

May 27, 2010

Claudiu Dan Degeratu, EURISC Foundation, Silver Contributor (64)

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I totally agree with Bernhard Lucke, the political will is far more complex equation, and the public diplomacy issue is just scratching the surface of the Alliance cohesion. How somebody would think that a few public diplomacy programs could do the job and replace an entire complex process of political decision ?
If we speak about public, I am very skeptical about the belief that the concept of "uninformed public" is the most productive premise if we want a more productive public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy could not replace the internal debate and decision-making within the Alliance, those processes are the only which are delivering substance and steps forward.
In the same time, I do not share the same skeptical assessment on Afghanistan, it is major test, especially for European. We have the opportunity to prove that our eurocentric, comprehensive, non-military approach could be the major factor in winning this unique sort of mission.

May 28, 2010

Fred Bowman

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Funny. Asking Madeleine Albright and her old buddies to come up with the solution is like asking the fox to investigate why the chickens disappear on the farm.

Europe cannot afford to let the Cold War warriors to decide its future because they hopelessly stuck in the past. We are not saving NATO for the sake of the NATO. But this is exactly what these gentlemen do – they put NATO first because this is all they know.

The Soviet Union looked ridiculous. Now, this article reminds me a Soviet Union apparatchik, who is asking his cronies to unite against the enemy. The apparatchik is gone, as we know. Do we want to follow him?

European countries have to have a completely fresh and a comprehensive look at their security. Our goal is not to save NATO, but to build a modern, forward looking and inclusive security structure for the entire Europe. If NATO end up as an important part of it, that’s fine, but we cannot affords to put the carriage before the horse.

May 28, 2010

Liviu Tatu

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Fighting counterinsurgency is for the moment the hardest mission an Atlantic security alliance could do.
NATO has more job to do within it, than outside and the primary task is to adapt rapidly to the environment otherwise will remain a five star hotel with hostel services.
Mr. Jorge Benitez underlines very good the main problem of the Alliance - solidarity, which must remain its working principle.
Article 5 is the heart of NATO and it is underlied on solidarity - principle of musketeers ~ one for all and all for one. In Afghanistan some European countries fight side by side against the talibans and others are going out, leaving NATO's most important mission.
The political behaviour of some NATO governments undermines Alliance ability to act, and if NATO could not do its job, it will become a new League of Nations!
Article 5 has to be adapted to the challanges NATO faces today, otherwise we will see another Vietnam War!
NATO needs in Afghanistan a new Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, a man who applied his unique experiences and extensive knowledge of the Arab world to a political vision for nation building in the Middle East and his many lessons could be applied today!

July 17, 2010

Darrell Calvin Brown, City College of San Francisco/SFSU, Gold Contributor (130)

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The Powers of the North , South, East and West all stand to learn a great deal more about Global Diplomacy as we go about forming a more cooperative and unified Global Economy.Self interests must be relaxed for Global Good to come forth with multilateral benefits for all the Earth. Mr. Benitez is on the right track. How we think about what he has said will reveal our true intentions. NATO's purpose is changing as the structure and function of the people,places and situations it has been taking action on behalf of is changing more than ever before.

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