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The future of NATO post Afghanistan disaster.


17thfabn

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I thought about starting this topic myself, based upon my thoughts in the other thread that the post-Cold War dissatisfaction with the relationship between the US and the rest of NATO will only change if the former will stick-and-carrot the latter into taking over responsibilities consciously given up to them. Which can work only if both sides identify the minimum interests worth their engagement within the alliance and accept both their necessary contribution and dependence upon others. 

Take my example of the French demand for NATO's southern command in 2009 which the US denied to them, essentially because they never put substantial forces under an ally's command, which would have happened in this case with the Sixth Fleet, which is in the Mediterranean because of the American interest in controlling the sealanes to the Middle East, particularly the Suez Canal, which in turn is based upon the strategic interest in Israel and, of course, oil. As in many cases, contributing to European security is essentially a waste product here. 

In truth, the Mediterranean NATO partners would be fully capable of making those sealanes safe for everyone without the Sixth Fleet; certainly today with, inter alia, four small-to-middling aircraft carriers/F-35-capable amphibs between them. If faced with reduction of American power, I'm sure they could cough up some additional ressources if necessary, too. The essential naval contribution of the US rather is ABM capabilities, which among other things protect their European bases, which in turn secure their ability to support operations in the CENTCOM area; again, European security is a waste product.

In practice, America could pull most of its fleet out of the area, leave security there largely to the Europeans, and use the assets elsewhere, or even mothball them for some actual cost saving - you know, allies taking over a greater share of the burden. And all it would cost would be no longer actually being in control of regional security. Maybe with the reduced American posture in the Middle East, the emergence of Israeli-Sunni cooperation, the lessened dependence upon Gulf oil, that might in fact become a palatable option. 

I'm sure we can identify other such areas, too. 

 

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I think the biggest problems is that the uniting factor (aka the Soviet Union) is gone now. The common enemy has helped to paint over differences in the past, although we must remember that France left during the Cold War. But in the end interests diverged, which created political conflict which has led to mistrust on the operational level lately. The US feeling that the allies do not offer enough support, the Europeans feeling left out in the decision making. Imho Kabul is a turning point, it was the first time when we saw an open disagreement on the operational level. I personally think the divide will open, as the US shifts its focus to China, which is literally on the other side of the globe for the Europeans and few of them having a desire or a capability to fight a war in the Pacific. And with US politics becoming more partisan NATO will become even more of a topic in US politics and this will increase the desire for a European defence policy and structure outside of NATO. As they say "It takes many good deeds to build trust, it only takes on bad deed to destroy it."

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But, but, but, what about the 300 ship navy! Will nobody think of the shareholders!!!    :D

I agree, Europe by itself is more than capable of policing the Med, Baltic and North cape. Probably even the black sea.What's lacking is the political demand to do so. ABM probably doable, Type 45s, and presumably Horizons, have a latent capacity that has never been funded. 

I don't know what else Europe should work on, but a common air transport fleet and tanker fleet should make sense. You also don't really need independent space assets, we should be able to trust each other by working together on that.

The real political problem might be the political confusion of Europe and EU, not to mention the exclusion of valuable allies like Canada and Australia. Conceivably even Israel. We can't afford to be too Eurocentric here.

I think NATO will survive, but I'm not betting on the US remaining.

 

 

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UK and Europe are separate in essence, marked by Brexit and the path of "Global Britain". 

The CPTPP looked like it lost steam in ascending additional members. In the ratification phase 7 out of 11 countries were fairly quick in ratifying. Those were Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Vietnam, and New Zealand. Some notable countries are in that group but mass is still kind of small. There's been much intetest expressed by other countrkes but itstarted sounding more like just voice bytes. But this month after a long time, and 8th out of the original 11 has ratified, that being Peru. So there still exists a geniune move for joining which makes the UK statements abouts wanting to join seem more realistic now. Adding the UK adds quite a bit more mass to the trade pact in which it starts to become easier to assume that those countries are not going to diverge their politic interests terribly much. So that means an a some what new international body. US, EU, CPTPP countries, then there's China and Russia. 

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15 hours ago, 17thfabn said:

The Afghanistan thread is getting over run with talk of the future of NATO.

I for one see a need for a continued strong NATO.

PEACE through SRENGTH!

As do I. However if the NATO laggards can't be encouraged to develop capabilities...I guess the alternative is an alliance of the able and willing. 

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Continued from here... 

Conversely, do you have the posts ready where I want NATO to be gone because I feel like Jeffersonian Foreign policy is the way to go? 

What's the desired end state? For me it's strong military capability with strength, ability and depth of supplies to deal with problems but not go around pushing around smaller countries to get what we want because. 

Edited by rmgill
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First there needs to be a decision whether NATO remains just concerned with European security, or start preparing to work in places like Africa and the Pacific. Ive a feeling nobody has an appetite for another Afghanistan, but its hardly as if security concernsin the Gulf or on the Indian ocean dont have a impact on Europe. We saw that just with the impact of the Evergiven getting jammed in Suez. We could arm to the teeth to defend Russia, and find Europe crippled by a bellicose Iran.

And NATO really needs to be able to say no to America. Yes,an article 5 is not something im going to preach resisting. But I dont think there is anyone whom really wants to repeat the 20 year escapade in Afghanistan. Whilst Americans make much store out of NATO being a force enabler for them, we have to have the ability to withdraw that capablity if they have Presidents with a deeply unwise foreign policy they are trying to drag us into. Which I dont think anyone looking back on the past 20 years have noticed much consideration beyond the next 4 years, if that. We just rubber stamped it without debate.

Politically I believe it needs to work more like the UN did when it first started, before the bureaucrats screwed it up. The downside of that is its certainly going to exacerbate tensions with the US, perhaps even precipitating a withdrawal.

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NATO is a way for Europeans to remain locked into and subsidising US hegemony. Many Europeans like this, for reasons I have discussed elsewhere.

One thing they like is the theatrics of some wars to defend liberal fundamentalism, but they can get that without having sizable capabilities. E.g. they can send 100 special forces to Afghanistan, maybe fund a school somewhere, and this is enough to keep the PR operation going. The US obviously would like more than that.

The additional problem for the US now is that the PR exercises are not so compelling anymore, though even earlier Afghanistan and Iraq were contentious domestically.

And so we may well in the future see sizable European expenditures and capabilities, but I suspect they are going to increasingly be there for European geopolitical ends. The major plausible driver of this is German concerns for 'stabilising' it's periphery. But a European army under effective German control would be a defeat for the US, as it would be another step towards a multi-polar world and away from US hegemony.

 

Edited by KV7
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There wont be a European Army under German control. Its going to be French, they probably wont tolerate anything else. :D

Its probably a wholly irrelevant thought, but I can see similar arguments in Transport. In the UK we had a integrated transport system. Parts of it, such as in Newcastle, even Europeans came to take lessons from because it worked so well. You could get on a train, then at the station there was a bus to meet it. Then suddenly in the 1980's there was the political demand for competition, no matter how false it was. Complimentary parts of the system that worked together were privatized and had to compete against together. The result was, no part of the system integrated with anything else, and all the parts were the poorer for it. That and it cost far more money.

The demand to split NATO, logic doesnt have much to do with it. Its an ideology, that Europe can defend itself. Ive no problem with that ideology, I even think it basically a sound idea. We shouldn thave to depend on the US.  Unfortunately it takes little notice of how little Europe really agrees on any foreign policy. NATO is a useful tool to ensure Europe integrates together and works with the US in its foreign policy ends, assuming the US is sound in forming workable ideas. But changing that to compeition with the US for similar ends, I think we are going to be all the poorer for it.

Ultimately, I think that far more a US ideological drive than European. The Central Europeans, despite the French stirring things up, would like to leave things as they are.  The French would just love an excuse to reform 'le Grand Armee'. But I guess as we are forming carrier battle fleets, Ive no reason to criticize them for that.

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There are two chief reasons why Europeans will want to remain in an American-led NATO: The US provides the will to lead and act if necessary, and it avoids exactly those intra-European distrust against the French, Germans etc. being in the driver seat. Which is why SACEUR would remain an American post even if the US followed a bare-interest approach in its regional contribution, and you gave lower commands to Europeans for greater efforts. It's only fair, too, since NATO will inevitable keep profiting from waste products of global American security expenses; see the example of keeping sealanes safe for international trade around the world, global C⁴ISR, etc. 

Otherwise the US could likely reduce its European footprint to the low of the Obama era without ill effects to either side. American boots on the ground haven't really been necessary for European security for the last quarter century; NATO Europe has about 50 percent more total troop strength than Russia, of which only five percent are American. Keeping one or two light or medium maneuver brigades would be nice for the US as forward-deployed rapid reaction forces throughout the EU/AFRI/CENTCOM area and serve as a sufficient token of commitment. One or two fighter wings, too; basing some F-22s would actually provide something no other partner fields, for now.

The centerpiece remains the strategic staging capability through European bases, which actually comes quite cheap for the US, or at least represents enough sunken cost to beat any alternative. Securing that is an interest in itself, beyond the more general one in a safe and stable Europe within the global political and economic system. For that reason, a NATO focusing more on the region again (as it already has done since 2014) would be no negative if the US truly aims at reducing questionable international deployments and its overall security costs. 

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7 hours ago, KV7 said:

NATO is a way for Europeans to remain locked into and subsidising US hegemony. Many Europeans like this, for reasons I have discussed elsewhere.

Well, it could be a Russian Hegemony. Or a Russian Empire. OR a German Empire? It's always good when there's a couple of European Empires that come to blows right?

This is a reality of the situation. The US Hegemony isn't really interested in pushing everyone around in Europe as we've seen. 

 

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Europe is effectively under German politico-economic leadership, but where German led Europe is still part of the US hegemony. So far this works quite well for Germany, because US military power allows Germany to realise some of it's objectives that would otherwise be difficult, for example the incorporation of the Balkans into the German economic periphery.

But now that eastern expansion has been accomplished as much as is desirable, the need to be some junior partner may have been reduced somewhat, to the point where a European army is deemed sufficient for the remaining tasks. But this just means that NATO may be seen as unnecessary, but not yet a liability. Certainly, US conduct is so far not deeded intolerable to the point the inertia could be overcome quickly, and because of the politcal-theatric element to much of foreign policy, the identification of some strategic interest isn't enough to make predictions.
 

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The funny thing is that if you believe Germany used NATO to widen it´s economic sphere of influence, NATO does the same for the US - just on a larger scale. Apart from that I find the idea of Germany leading anything absurd. 

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1 minute ago, seahawk said:

The funny thing is that if you believe Germany used NATO to widen it´s economic sphere of influence, NATO does the same for the US - just on a larger scale. Apart from that I find the idea of Germany leading anything absurd. 

Germany used the transition to the Euro as European currency to put herself as dominant economy, doing a not-so-stealth devaluation of the Deutsche Mark.

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1 hour ago, sunday said:

Germany used the transition to the Euro as European currency to put herself as dominant economy, doing a not-so-stealth devaluation of the Deutsche Mark.

And lowering interest rates in countries that barely made it to the point bubbles developed.

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I think outsiders underestimate the seriousness of modern popular German sentiment against big power politics (or at least politicians' fear of both domestic and foreign backlash against such), the sincerity of political belief in European unification as a guarantee against a return of the continent's violent history, and how much that process was shaped by distrust towards a united Germany, including by Germans themselves.

It certainly profits immensely in strictly economic terms, too. But then ironically the Euro was pushed by France in particular as a condition for German reunification in order to control its resulting economic power, and then-chancellor Helmut Kohl's assent is in direct line from Konrad Adenauer's choice of Western integration through NATO before unification in the 50s.

That tradition is an article of faith especially in the CDU; so you can size up the magnitude of the shock from the Afghanistan debacle that made a prominent conservative foreign and defense politician like Roderich Kiesewetter say afterwards that Germany needs to define its interests in future deployments better, and not just follow the US lead. If it was to assume any military leadership function in Europe though it would be only by stark necessity, like complete American withdrawal from NATO, and probably only by carefully sharing it with others like France and the UK. 

 

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NATO isn't going to look much different 20 years from now, for the same reason the decades of negotiations on UNSC P5 reform have gone precisely nowhere. The nations in control of it may not like it, but they aren't about to give up an inch of their senior partner status in controlling it. The result: deadlock.

Germany does not seem anywhere close to having the confidence level needed to lead a New NATO alliance, either. That's probably a good thing.

Edited to add: Being able to play economic hardball is a stepping stone, not a sign of arrival. Japan and its lost decades can attest to that, unfortunately.

Edited by Nobu
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Deadlocks appear immutable until, suddenly, someone sees a crack in the armor that nobody else saw before or that appeared under an unusual constellation of conditions, and then there's alway someone willing to wedge in the crowbar and change things quickly and decisively much to the surprise of everybody else.

The problem is, nobody can predict when exactly it'll happen, why, how, and by whom.

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5 hours ago, seahawk said:

The funny thing is that if you believe Germany used NATO to widen it´s economic sphere of influence, NATO does the same for the US - just on a larger scale. Apart from that I find the idea of Germany leading anything absurd. 

Both can be true as cooperation can benefit both. 

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3 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Deadlocks appear immutable until, suddenly, someone sees a crack in the armor that nobody else saw before or that appeared under an unusual constellation of conditions, and then there's alway someone willing to wedge in the crowbar and change things quickly and decisively much to the surprise of everybody else.

The problem is, nobody can predict when exactly it'll happen, why, how, and by whom.

That's fair, but that is also how nations operate. Bureaucracies on the other hand... 

If NATO's career bureaucrats are anywhere near the level of their UN brethren, it's going to be a long time before that change happens. Maybe never.

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