After the publication of 14 op-eds by atlantic-community.org members on the New Strategic Concept, the authors discussed their policy recommendations with three senior experts in the field of NATO affairs: Dr. Hans-Friedrich von Ploetz, a member of NATO's Group of Experts, Dr. Olaf Theiler, a national specialist in NATO's Operations Division in the International Staff of NATO HQ and Dr. Jorge Benitez, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. The goal of the Strategy Session was to find a community consensus around the key challenges that should be addressed in NATO's new Strategic Concept. More information.
A working draft of the next Atlantic Memo has been created, but there is still work to do. You can be part of the process and provide your input on the recommendations below. How can the Atlantic Memo be made stronger? How can the policy recommendation be made more specific and clearly address key obstacles? Please provide your insight in the comments section.
The final Atlantic Memo will be sent to Ambassador Jiřί Šedivý, NATO's Assistant Secretary General of Defence Policy and Planning, who has agreed to provide feedback.
WORKING DRAFT: ATLANTIC MEMO #25
NATO 2020: A New Strategic Policy for an Alliance in Transition
17 atlantic-community.org
members from the United States, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Poland,
Finland, Turkey, as well as Russia and Azerbaijan, discussed the future of NATO
in op-eds (special analysis week on NATO's Strategic Concept), as well
as in a one hour Skype Strategy Session, which ended with a vote on the most
important policy recommendations.
As a result of this
collaborative process, it was determined that defining and strengthening Alliance capabilities,
developing global partnerships, and launching broad public diplomacy initiatives
should be the top three priorities for NATO.
1. Align the scope of the Alliance
with its capabilities.
The Alliance
should focus its operations on the European region (Lawson)
and should not aspire to be a global policeman, while still being prepared to
take collective action to respond to serious threats that originate outside of Europe (von Ploetz).
Out-of-area missions require a flexible response force, utilizing
advanced technologies with a high level of interoperability. In light of
limited resources, member states' standing troop volumes should be reduced to
allow for the better training and equipping of the NATO Response Force (NRF),
and an instrument should be created to ensure equitable and sufficient funding
of NRF operations (Spiessberger).
While national caveats can hamper mission accomplishment (Deren),
they are a product of the democratic process in member states and should not be
overturned by enforcing joint rules or abandoning the principle of consensus in
Alliance
decision making (von Ploetz, Theiler).
Defense priorities can only be set after conducting a realistic analysis
of NATO force generation in order to close the gap between expectations and
capabilities that undermines Alliance
effectiveness (Deren,
Ratti).
While NATO can continue to provide limited logistical support in
humanitarian crisis, it should maintain its character as a military alliance;
development issues and nation-building are functions better suited for other
international and regional organizations (Benitez, Theiler).
2. Create Global Partnership
Council to institutionalize and deepen cooperations.
NATO must continue to expand its global partnership network, and this
process should be institutionalized by creating a Global Partnership Council
with military, operational, and political consultation mechanisms (Seidler),
even though such an institutionalization will be very difficult to achieve (Theiler). This
"Partnership 2.0" approach will serve to pool resources for mutual benefits, enforce
the idea of cooperative security and balance the doctrine of deterrence and
thereby improving NATO's global image (Christman).
NATO should specifically strengthen the following partnerships:
Russia: NATO must unequivocally state that a strong partnership with Moscow is vital for the Alliance and further develop cooperation
within the NATO-Russia Council (Nikolits).
However, Russian membership of NATO is not a viable option for the time being
(Benitez).
South
Caucasus: A "safety zone" framework should be
created, similar to the EU Neighborhood policy, to engage states in this region
without relying on an eventual path to full membership. Additionally, NATO
should mediate frozen conflicts (Sumerinli).
Middle
East: The Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) and the
Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) frameworks should be strengthened and combined with public diplomacy programs in the Greater
Middle East
(Scatamacchia).
European Union: Cooperation with the EU should be improved (Rusila)
and eventually the EU should become a NATO member, institutionalizing a
two-pillar Alliance, with equal European and American partners sharing burdens and
implementing joint security policies (Theiler).
3. Launch broad public
diplomacy initiatives to make the case for NATO's existence.
NATO's Public Diplomacy Division should be expanded to focus more on
appealing to the general public rather than to specialist circles. In these
efforts, the Alliance's
civilian structure should be stressed (Spiessberger).
Specific attention should be paid to the Greater Middle East for instance by providing
more information on the internet in Arabic and hosting annual
seminars with MD and ICI states (Scatamacchia). Presently, only two PDFs in Arabic can be found on NATO's website - much more
should be done to reach this key geostrategic demographic (Benitez).
Increasing transparency is key to fostering public support for the Alliance. To this end, a working draft of
the Strategic Concept (for example, after the mid-October NATO Council meeting)
should be published. Alternatively, the new
Strategic Concept should be ratified by the parliaments of all 28 member states
before it comes into effect (Davis).
This Atlantic Memo DRAFT is based on the op-eds and/or contributions
during the Skype Strategy session by:
Jorge Benitez, Director of NATO Source and a Senior Fellow at
the Atlantic Council - United States
Walter
L. Christman, Associate
Professor of Global Public Policy at the US
Naval Postgraduate School - United States.
Ian
Davis, Founding Director of NATO
Watch and Senior Advisor to ISIS Europe - United Kingdom.
Jerzy
S. Deren, Retired colonel conducting independent research on international security - Poland.
Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Assistant
Professor of Political Science at Elizabethtown
College - Turkey.
Olga
Kolesnichenko, Freelance journalist and coordinator for military
issues for YATA-Russia - Russia.
Greg
Randolph Lawson, Director of Communications for a political advocacy
organization - United States
Colette
Mazzucelli, Adjunct Associate Professor in the Center for Global
Affairs at New York University and in the Department of Political Science
at Hofstra University - United States.
Daniel
Nikolits, Graduate Student in International Relations at Humboldt University
in Berlin - United States.
Luca
Ratti, Assistant Professor of International Relations at Roma Tre University
and the American University
of Rome - Italy.
Ari
Rusila, Development project management expert - Finland.
Donatella
Scatamacchia, Graduate from the University
of Naples with an MA in international
relations and with a PhD offer by King's College London - Italy.
Felix
F. Seidler, Student of Political Science, Law and History at Wuerzburg University - Germany
Klaus
Spiessberger, Member of the German Council on Foreign Relations and
currently working for PHOENIXgroup - Germany.
Jasur
Mezahir Sumerinli, Head of the Doktrina
Center of Journalist Union
on Military Research - Azerbaidschan.
Olaf Theiler, National Expert in
the Operations Division at NATO HQ in Brussels - Germany.
Hans-Friedrich von
Ploetz, Group of Experts, - Germany.
Youth
Atlantic Treaty Association, Lake Constance Chapter - Germany: Marcel Raecker,
Yves Steinebach, Yann-Lukas Schaefer, Juri Schnoeller, Matthias Garbin, Aylin
Matle, Lukas Bresser, Florian Sies, Jonas Massing, Lina Drexler and
Nikolina-Romana Milunovic.
Dr. Theiler and Dr. von Ploetz participated in a private capacity and
were not speaking for NATO or the Group of Experts.
This is a DRAFT memo and work in progress. Therefore please do not quote it.
Click on the above names to read the author's op-eds. You can also listen to a recording of the one hour Skype Strategy Session in the audio stream below or download the mp3 (50 MB) by right-clicking here.
Please weigh in with your opinion, insight and advice so that we can make the recommendations even more specific and the memo as strong as possible!
- 8
September 8, 2010
Member deleted
My core message was described very well in one of the comments of my op-ed: Get rid of NATO. I was proposing a New Security Structure – which could replace NATO – and which should in my opinion cover the whole crisis cycle, from prevention to crisis management to post-crisis stabilization and capacity-building measures. From the EU perspective, the core of this structure should be a combination of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and EU Battlegroups (EUBG). One crucial question during the transitional period from NATO to the New Security Structure, is the coordination of US hard power with EU soft power in ongoing operations.
The memo DRAFT has avoided a core question: Is NATO needed in the post-Cold War security structure, or could today's challenges be better met by replacing the Alliance with existing, modernized organizations?
[Editor: This comment was written by Ari Rusila, who then decided to delete his membership. The editorial team has not deleted his account.]