The 2010 NATO Strategic Concept reflects a changing NATO: no longer is the alliance a reflection of Cold War aims. Not only are there more members to mirror the growing democratic sphere in Europe, but NATO's very aims now reflect a 21st century response to security threats. This combination of shared democratic values and mutual responses to threats flows from the foundational alliance of NATO.
But despite a strong foundation, the alliance faces irrelevance in the current international environment due to the lack of a primary, overarching, and uniting threat. Beyond the elimination of the Cold War threat, the EU and North America are witnessing a separation between the goals of the leaders and the commitment of citizens to the organization. Europeans point to divides in cultural values as a reason to limit their NATO involvement, and Americans feel burdened by heavily contributing to European security. While this divide cannot be bridged by a simple advertisement campaign to NATO citizens, a campaign could be used as its own grand strategy to draw attention to two salient goals of citizens on both sides of the Atlantic: we want to be able to influence each other, and in these times of financial turmoil, we want any joint action to cost less through the alliance than it would for any individual state to take on a burden on its own.
To commit citizens to NATO, I suggest a three tiered strategy through an advertising campaign reminiscent of the United States Army's "Be All You Can Be" to remind citizens of their shared values, advocate for diplomatic influence in security decision making, and highlight the economic value of NATO.
The first goal to reconfirm the commitment of NATO citizens to the organization would be through reminding us of our shared values. This will minimize the assumed value-divide. These values, taken from the Strategic Concept, are a mutual commitment to individual liberty, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. This part of the campaign reminds citizens of ideals which are universal between Alliance members. It also assures those citizens who have witnessed state deviations from these norms in recent years that these are still our highest values.
The second part of the campaign appeals to the desire of NATO citizens to impart their values on their counterparts. Here the strategy may have to diverge between the appeals to North Americans versus the appeals to Europeans. Europeans want to emphasize negotiations and international organization partnership commitments before resorting to military action. Through NATO, Europeans are able to assure that all other means are exhausted before force is used. North Americans want all available lines of communication to influence European policy making to assure action is taken when necessary to secure American interests, especially allies' security and economic interests.
The third aspect of the grand strategy to gain citizen support is to emphasize the cost effectiveness of NATO operations as compared to unilateral action for the United States or creating a solely EU response force. During this economic crisis for Alliance members, the ability to limit costs while maintaining security is a primary concern for all citizens.
The Strategic Concept states upfront that one of the primary goals of NATO is to provide an "effective, efficient, and flexible" NATO so that "taxpayers get the most security for the money they invest in defense."
Look to the Libya intervention to understand the economic appeal to the EU-North American alliance. The costs of the Libya intervention are minuscule compared to involvement in other American interventions: in the first four months of Libya, America contributed $896 million, while in a comparable time period in Afghanistan, American involvement cost closer to $36 billion.
Not only is the Libya operation relatively inexpensive compared to unilateral action, but the authority of action stemming from United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 gives the alliance a high level of international legitimacy and support. With high legitimacy for present actions and vast support both within and outside of the EU, future actions of NATO are more likely to be looked upon favorably by the international community. While NATO will act with only its own authority to defend its members, international support and legitimacy will allow a broader pursuit of its goals as outlined in the Strategic Concept.
With this three tiered campaign to create ownership and fidelity for NATO and its goals, a strong, legitimate, cost saving NATO will assure the security of its members for years to come.
Megan A. Reiss is a PhD student in Public Policy (in International Security) at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds an LL.M. in International Criminal Justice and Armed Conflict from the University of Nottingham and a B.A. from Stanford University.
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March 1, 2012
Stephanie Theresa Baulig, University of the German Federal Armed Forces, Silver Contributor (61)
You really caught me with your article, firstly because I intended to write about campaigns like these, to in the beginning and secondly this is a matter that is near to my heart for many reasons (so my answer has become quite long). Moreover I liked the way you structured your article. You describe today’s situation very well in your introduction.
However, I would like to comment on some of your points and ask some questions to make sure that I am getting your idea entirely clear.
I would like to start with your statement that the alliance lacks “of a […] uniting threat”. You are perfectly right that there is no tangible, no precise enemy any more as it was more than two decades ago. Today the enemy can be almost anyone, it may live far away or even among us, we might know it or not, that is why the situation is so abstract and hard to evaluate and challenged NATO in finding a common base. Today’s threats mainly consist of smaller groups of terrorists, sometimes even single perpetrators. However, they unite all member countries since their values are at stake.
Moreover you mention “European security” referring to Americans’ sentiments who regard their contribution to this security as a burden. Are you referring to Yugoslavia? In my opinion the Northern-American countries were lucky to live in a very stable environment compared to Europe where multiple hot spots in and/or close to European NATO member states threaten their (inner) security. However, being part of an alliance means being responsible for the other members’ security as well. If there ever was a threat to Northern-American countries, they would expect European support as well.
Going a bit further in your text, you doubt that a “simple advertisement campaign to NATO citizens” would not have enough impact to solve this problem between the two continents – still you suggestion in mainly based on an advertising campaign. Having contributed to a handful of campaigns during my officer’s training and on duty, I know the influence of media quite well and if it is wisely executed, I fully support measures like this.
But what media do you intend to use? Certainly not only one, since multimedia campaigns work most effectively.
How do you want to transport the message of our common values? To really be successful, this has to be done in a subtle, decent and wise way since too aggressive slogans with too obvious messages tend to annoy and intimidate the target audience.
Moreover, I am wondering how to create one single concept. In Europe, even within single countries, individual cultures of receptivity have to be taken into consideration. This would mean that nearly a hundred target audience tailored campaigns would have to be developed in order to satisfy these specific needs. This will end up – interpreting the worst case possible – in a monstrous coordination effort, countless arrangements to adjust all those nationally individual campaigns etc.
Would you suggest a specific length of a campaign? What specific messages would you want to be transferred?
Who should do all the campaign planning? Referring to Germany, I can say that PsyOp among the own population is strictly forbidden, so accomplishing a NATO campaign (military relevance) in Germany (own population) by persons (civilians and/or soldiers) assigned by NATO would not be allowed. However, I do not have further information about this kind of “Home PsyOp” in other NATO member states. Authorizing private advertising agencies would be another problem since control panels to survey their actions would be necessary and coordinating numerous civilians is quite a challenge – a pricy and binding one. A constant comparison and adjustment would be required to guarantee the quality, the reliability and the proper execution. Whilst leaving it all in NATO responsibility (e.g. PsyOp battalions have printers etc.) would be pricy in both, a financial and a personnel-binding way.
Furthermore, even simple campaigns demand a lot of preparation: Evaluations, statistic research, target audience analysis, just a mention a few steps. NATO has to get to know where to start, at what level, at what size and processes like this data ascertainment costs a lot of time and money again. You have mentioned the financial challenges very often and also argue that "taxpayers [should] get the most security for the money they invest in defense." How would you explain all these expenses to the people if all they get in the end is an amazing TV-spot, a colorful ad in a newspaper or a great internet video.
I did not want to totally criticize your article since I love the idea of using “propaganda” in a wise and controlled way to achieve an important goal. But setting up a huge, NATO-wide campaign demands so much more than good ideas, a lot of preparation, a lot of work to effectuate changes and even more to keep on being in dialogue by adjusting the messages permanently.
Thank you very much for your great article, I enjoyed reading it a lot and again: I would support a media approach, but is has to work together with other measures to come into effect!
Kind regards,
Stephanie