Toward a New 

Transatlantic Compact 

Richard L. Kugler and Hans Binnendijk 

Center for Technology and National Security Policy 

National Defense University

August 2008 
 ii

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or 

position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. 

All information and sources for this paper were drawn from unclassified materials. 

Dr. Richard L. Kugler is a senior consultant and former Distinguished Research Professor at the 

Center for Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP), National Defense University. His 

specialty is U.S. defense strategy, global security affairs, and NATO. He advises senior echelons 

of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the interagency community. He is 

the author of multiple books, journal articles, and official studies on U.S. defense strategy and 

programs as well as NATO and global security affairs. Dr. Kugler has his doctorate from the 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Dr. Hans Binnendijk is the National Defense University Vice President for Research. He also

holds the Theodore Roosevelt Chair and is Director of CTNSP. He served as Director of the 

Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University from 1994–1999. He 

previously served on the National Security Council as Senior Director for Defense Policy (1999–

2001), at the State Department as Principal Deputy for Policy Planning (1993–1994), and on the 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff as Deputy Staff Director (1977–1985). 

Defense & Technology Papers are published by the National Defense University Center for Technology 

and National Security Policy, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, DC. CTNSP publications are available 

at <http://www.ndu.edu/ctnsp/publications.html>. 
 iii

CONTENTS 

Introduction and Overview.............................................................................................................. 1 

Part I: Writing a New NATO Strategic Concept............................................................................. 5 

Pros and Cons of Writing a New Strategic Concept.................................................................... 5 

NATO’s Historical Experiences with New Strategic Concepts................................................... 7 

Post-Cold War Strategic Concepts ............................................................................................ 10 

Utility of the Washington Strategic Concept. ........................................................................ 12 

Relevance Today.................................................................................................................... 13 

Conditions are Right for a New Concept. .............................................................................. 13 

Process and Timelines ............................................................................................................... 14 

Part II: Forging a New Transatlantic Compact.............................................................................. 15 

Essence of a New Transatlantic Compact.................................................................................. 15 

Three Baskets of Issues.............................................................................................................. 17 

Basket 1: Reaching Agreement on Common Strategic Missions. ............................................. 17 

Homeland Security................................................................................................................. 19 

Political Intimidation.............................................................................................................. 20 

NATO and EU Enlargement. ................................................................................................. 20 

Expeditionary Missions.......................................................................................................... 21 

Enhancing Deterrence. ........................................................................................................... 23 

Three Options for Transatlantic Strategic Missions............................................................... 23 

Basket 2: Fostering Effective Decision Processes, Reciprocal Multilateralism, and Close 

NATO-EU Relations.................................................................................................................. 25 

Reciprocal Multilateralism..................................................................................................... 25 

NATO-EU Cooperation. ........................................................................................................ 27 

NATO-EU Division of Labor. ............................................................................................... 29 

Basket 3: Building Capabilities for Expeditionary Missions and Comprehensive Approaches 30 

Expeditionary Missions.......................................................................................................... 30 

Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations. ........................................................................ 32 

Comprehensive Approach...................................................................................................... 33 

Conclusion..................................................................................................................................... 37 

Appendix: NATO’s Historical Experiences with New Strategic Concepts .................................. 39 

DC 6/1 Initial Strategy of Deterrence and Defense Specialization (1949–1951) ...................... 39 

MC 14/1 NATO Defense Buildup and Collective Defense (1951–1957) ................................. 40 

MC 14/2 Strategy of Massive Retaliation (1957–1967) ............................................................ 41 

MC 14/3 Strategy of Flexible Response (1967–1991) .............................................................. 42 

Strategic Concept of Rome Summit (1991–1999)..................................................................... 44 
 iv
Introduction and Overview 

Toward a Dual-Path Agenda 

A New Strategic Concept. NATO’s strategic concept is the Alliance’s capstone document for 

determining goals, requirements, and priorities—but the current strategic concept, produced in 

1999, is outdated. It should be replaced by a clear and compelling statement of how NATO is to 

evolve in future years in its security policies, defense strategy, and military forces. 

Historically, NATO strategic concepts have been difficult to write, but once completed they 

became vital focal points. NATO has successfully produced such a document on the average of 

once every decade. The time has come for another. 

There has been resistance to writing a new strategic concept, particularly in Europe. This 

reflects both the complexity of the issues to be addressed and the upcoming change in 

administration in the United States. The Bucharest Summit took a step in the direction of a new 

strategic concept by calling for a “Declaration of Alliance Security” to be drafted at the April 

2009 Summit. The Declaration would update NATO’s vision of its strategic roles and 

preparedness standards in the early 21st century. Most observers see this Declaration as a 

precursor to the new strategic concept. This paper takes the view that a new strategic concept is 

required as an engine to help propel NATO into actually making the changes and reforms in its 

policies and capabilities that will be necessary if it is to effectively meet new-era challenges. 

A Transatlantic Compact. Writing a new strategic concept, however, cannot be the only key 

step that the Atlantic Alliance takes to reform and revitalize itself while also solidifying its unity 

and public support. Because of its internal role in NATO’s planning process, the strategic concept 

focuses mainly on military and defense issues. Today, the challenges facing the transatlantic 

partners go beyond these issues. They include wide-ranging political and security challenges that 

must be addressed by a larger agreement that goes beyond the traditional province of NATO’s 

strategic concept. Indeed, the United States and its European allies will be hard-pressed to reach 

consensus on a new, sufficiently comprehensive NATO strategic concept unless they pursue a 

wider dialogue on these broader challenges. Equally important, the task facing the United States 

and its European allies is not only to energize and focus NATO, but also to energize and focus 

other key institutions, including the European Union (EU), and to determine how NATO is to 

work more closely in partnership with them. 

For these reasons, efforts to write a new NATO strategic concept need to be embedded in 

parallel efforts to forge a new transatlantic compact, a solid political agreement, and broadgauged understanding between the United States and its European allies regarding how they are 

to collaborate closely, especially politically, in future security affairs. Such a compact is needed 

to create the widespread consensus that makes a new NATO strategic concept not only possible, 

but also effective. In addition, it is needed to help the United States and Europe cooperate in 

larger ways that lie outside NATO and that employ the multiple additional instruments and 

activities at their disposal. 

Delivering Both. Reaching agreement on a new transatlantic compact, along with a new NATO 

strategic concept, will require efforts to address three baskets of issues: 

Basket 1: The need for agreement on new strategic missions facing the transatlantic 

community, to include homeland security, protection against the new challenges of 

political intimidation using energy cutoffs or cyber attacks, continued European 

unification and NATO enlargement, and performance of new expeditionary missions to 

deal with challenges to transatlantic peace that originate in distant areas. 
 2

Basket 2: The need for a set of processes and procedures for decisionmaking and policy 

implementation that take advantage of the full scope of transatlantic strengths, and 

include reaffirmation and strengthening of commitments to reciprocal 

multilateralism—close consultation, consensual decisionmaking, acceptance of 

responsibility, implementation of combined policies—as well as improved NATO-EU 

relations. 

Basket 3: The need for improved U.S. and European capabilities for military 

expeditionary missions and comprehensive approaches that employ military and 

civilian instruments outside Europe. 

If agreement on these complex issues can be reached, the payoffs could be substantial. These 

payoffs include common approaches toward a wide set of future strategic missions coupled with 

an improved capacity to carry out these missions through effective decisionmaking and policy 

implementation anchored in enhanced multilateral political collaboration and closer NATO-EU 

relations, as well as stronger capabilities for expeditionary missions, stabilization and 

reconstruction (S&R) operations, and comprehensive approaches. These improvements, in turn, 

could help bring greater unity and effectiveness to NATO and the U.S.-European security 

partnership as a whole, while also benefiting NATO-EU relations and other areas of 

collaboration. 

The combination of a new NATO strategic concept and a new transatlantic compact would not 

be a cure-all. But if they are well-prepared and purposefully acted on, they could help the United 

States, the European Union, and the Atlantic Alliance do a better job of performing key security 

and defense missions, protecting their interests in Europe and beyond, fostering peace and 

progress globally, and otherwise meeting their future strategic requirements. 

Is Success Possible? 

Can an effort to pursue this dual-path agenda succeed? Over the course of its long history, the 

Atlantic Alliance has handled many similar challenges and has guided dual-path agendas to 

successful outcomes. A good example is the dual-path process that was pursued in 1967 to write a 

new strategic concept (MC 14/3, the strategy of flexible response) and to issue the Harmel 

Report,1

 which addressed future political and strategic tasks of the Alliance, including 

simultaneous pursuit of enhanced defense preparedness and détente with the Soviet Union. The 

United States and its European allies collaborated closely in producing both key documents, and 

together they were instrumental in guiding the Alliance’s political and military evolution in 

following years. Comparable success is possible again, if both sides of the Atlantic are similarly 

committed to the enterprise. 

How can this dual-path agenda best be pursued today? A step-by-step process could begin with 

initial U.S.-European consultations on the basics of a new transatlantic compact, and then turn to 

an effort to write a new NATO strategic concept with a widely focused political and military 

framework, and then gradually expand the compact to other areas of U.S.-European collaboration 

in security affairs. 

Alternatively, a grand summit process involving the United States, European countries, NATO, 

and the EU could be launched at the onset with the goal of forging a fully articulated transatlantic 

compact and related agreements. Afterward, NATO could write a new strategic concept that 

reflects this compact. Of these two alternatives, the former is more pragmatic and evolutionary, 

 

1 For more on the Harmel Report, see Hans Binnendijk and Richard L. Kugler, Dual-Track Transformation 

for NATO, Defense Horizons 35 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2003), 11.
 3

and perhaps more flexible; the latter is more ambitious and front-loaded, and perhaps harder to 

carry out successfully. 

This paper’s dual-path agenda rejects the argument that NATO and the entire Atlantic Alliance 

are doomed to a future of indecision, drift, and strategic ineffectiveness. Instead, it judges that the 

United States and its European allies can pursue a renewed NATO and a revitalized Euro-Atlantic 

partnership at the same time. The key to success is to employ wisdom and vision as both paths are 

pursued, with the purposes and actions of each path influenced by those of the other. 

Organization 

This paper calls for a new NATO strategic concept and a new transatlantic compact, and 

envisions crafting them in tandem. Both are needed because they are intended to perform separate 

but interdependent functions. Whereas a new strategic concept would help energize NATO, a 

new transatlantic compact would help energize the overall U.S.-European partnership. Together, 

they would have a compounding effect, because each would reinforce and amplify the other. 

Part I examines the idea of writing a new NATO strategic concept. It begins with a historical 

appraisal aimed at drawing lessons from how NATO successfully wrote and implemented six 

strategic concepts during the Cold War and afterward. It then examines reasons why the current 

strategic concept of 1999 is outdated and needs replacement. It concludes with observations on 

the organizational and political mechanisms that can be employed for writing a new strategic 

concept. 

Part II examines the idea of preparing a transatlantic compact, and is entirely forward-looking. 

It begins by discussing the nature of such a compact, and then examines at some length the three 

baskets of issues that must be addressed by this compact. It concludes by discussing how the 

process of crafting such a transatlantic compact, along with a new NATO strategic concept, might 

unfold. 

Both parts examine issues, options, and controversies in ways intended to help identify and 

evaluate the challenges and opportunities facing NATO and the U.S.-European security 

partnership in the years ahead. They conclude that the idea of pursuing this ambitious dual-path 

agenda offers considerable promise, if the United States and Europe work closely and intently on 

making the final product successful and worthwhile. To be sure, this is a demanding agenda, but 

it is one that is required by the challenges and imperatives ahead. 
 4
 5

Part I: Writing a New NATO Strategic Concept 

Writing a new NATO strategic concept is a longstanding approach to updating the security 

policies of the Atlantic Alliance in ways that help set the stage for concrete actions and 

improvements. The decision on whether to do so again is an important one. NATO’s strategic 

concept serves as a capstone document for identifying key threats and dangers ahead as well as 

the Alliance’s core requirements, goals, principles, and tasks. It plays an instrumental role in 

shaping not only the Alliance’s overall security policy, but also its defense planning priorities. 

NATO cannot function effectively without a sound strategic concept. 

Critics of the idea of writing a new concept argue that the effort will be too divisive and that 

the Alliance should instead focus on improving its daily practices rather than debating its strategic 

theories. Our argument is that marginal changes are inadequate; a new strategic concept is needed 

to address a new strategic situation, one that has changed radically since the 1999 Washington 

summit and will continue to change for years to come. Moreover, NATO’s history of adopting 

new strategic concepts is encouraging and should give us the confidence to continue adapting the 

Alliance to changing circumstances. 

Since its inception in 1949, NATO has negotiated and written six strategic concepts, four of 

them under great stress during the Cold War, and two since the end of the Cold War. In each case, 

NATO encountered tough debates among its members but was able to use its analytical talents, 

institutional mechanisms, and consensus-building procedures to forge widespread agreement for 

new strategic concepts that provided sound visions for the years ahead. Once these new strategic 

concepts were adopted, they played critical roles in enhancing NATO’s performance in security 

policy and defense planning. To no small degree, NATO owes its success to its ability to 

formulate strategic concepts adapted to changing security conditions. 

Those positive experiences can be repeated, if NATO decides to write a new strategic concept 

aimed at putting forth a coherent vision of how the Alliance should act in the coming years in 

such critical areas as establishing core goals and requirements, reaffirming the transatlantic link, 

unifying Europe and enlarging NATO, countering new threats, creating new cooperative 

relationships and comprehensive approaches, dealing with the Middle East, guiding NATO’s 

growing operations in distant areas, and transforming NATO’s military forces. NATO’s 

upcoming summit of 2009 provides an opportunity to initiate the review process for preparing a 

new strategic concept, which could be adopted at a special summit shortly afterward, or at the 

next regularly scheduled summit in 2011. Regardless of the timing of its adoption, a new NATO 

strategic concept is needed soon, both to equip NATO with the strategic theories that will be 

needed in the challenging times ahead, and to help guide its growing missions and activities in 

multiple new areas. 

Pros and Cons of Writing a New Strategic Concept 

Writing and adopting a new strategic concept would be a laborious endeavor requiring the 

building of consensus among NATO’s many members, including new members. There are 

arguments for and against this step, all of which merit consideration. Proponents of this idea 

marshal several arguments for it: 

1. The existing strategic concept has been overtaken by events to the point where it 

allegedly can no longer guide the Alliance’s policies and activities in future years. 

2. Today, NATO suffers from inadequate strategic vision and is pursuing multiple 

activities that badly stretch the boundaries of the existing strategic concept, and 
 6

additional new activities lie ahead, all of which must be blended to form a coherent 

whole. 

3. Currently, NATO suffers from a serious lack of support in public opinion on both 

sides of the Atlantic, a gap that reflects lack of widespread support for common 

security policies. A new strategic concept could help shore up support for the Alliance. 

4. Achieving Alliance-wide cooperation on NATO’s future security policies and 

defense plans will require agreement on a new, updated strategic concept that reflects 

the tumultuous changes of recent years, as well as developments that lie ahead. 

5. An effort to write a new and better strategic concept can be carried out successfully, 

and the final product can be expected to fulfill its purpose of providing NATO the 

strategic guidance that is needed in an international era of change, complexity, and 

danger. 

6. A new strategic concept presumably will help enhance NATO’s performance, 

especially in carrying out new tasks and missions, by enabling the Alliance to create 

new capabilities and resolve. 

7. Although deep political divisions emerged over the invasion of Iraq in 2003—

pitting the United States and Britain against France and Germany—these disputes 

reportedly have healed among participating governments to the point where 

cooperation among these and other countries in writing a new strategic concept is 

becoming possible. 

Critics of the idea marshal several arguments against it: 

1. NATO is still too divided internally and uncertain of its strategic priorities to take 

this step. 

2. The act of trying to write a new strategic concept will generate so much political 

controversy and infighting that it cannot successfully produce a worthy product. 

3. The effort will cause so much political fragmentation among members that it will do 

more harm than good to NATO’s cohesion and its ability to act with unity and 

coherence. 

4. A new strategic concept is not needed because the existing concept still suffices, 

when augmented by recent summit communiqués and related documents, as a guide to 

NATO’s priorities and plans. 

5. In recent years NATO has demonstrated a capacity to pursue new capabilities and 

operations without the benefit of an updated strategic concept. 

6. Even if a strategic concept is adopted, it will not produce significant improvements 

through normal mechanisms, such as summit declarations and NATO’s internal 

planning processes. 

7. NATO can strengthen its performance by focusing on practical steps, rather than 

debating about its strategic theory in ways that potentially could stretch NATO’s 

internal consensus beyond its limits. 

8. This is not a good time to write a new strategic concept, because the Bush 

Administration is nearing the end of its tenure, and a new administration will not have 

defined its own strategic priorities for a year or more. 

The central issue is not the need for a new strategic concept, but whether NATO currently is up 

to the task of producing it. The arguments against taking this step have practical impediments on 

their side and raise valid points about the tradeoffs that must be addressed and the troubles and 

pitfalls that can be encountered when a new strategic concept is written. As critics suggest, 

success is not a foregone conclusion, tough negotiations and compromising could be required, 

and if the process is mishandled, the result could be frustrating and even do more harm than good. 
 7

Throughout its long history, NATO has written new strategic concepts six times, as new 

security and defense conditions mandated change. On each occasion, NATO encountered strong 

objections to change. Each effort produced political controversies about the issues and options at 

stake. Each time, NATO was able to employ its analytical talents, institutional mechanisms, and 

consensus-building procedures to produce widespread agreement on a fresh strategic concept that 

met the requirements of the times and produced favorable consequences that were instrumental to 

NATO’s evolution as an effective alliance during the Cold War and afterward. This history shows 

that, while writing new strategic concepts often has been difficult and contentious, it normally 

turned out to be a salutary exercise of renewal and innovation in which the benefits achieved 

surpassed the costs borne along the way. This history does not guarantee that NATO will succeed 

again, but it does suggest that NATO should not be frightened by the prospect, or doubt its 

capacity to produce a worthy product if its members work constructively together. 

NATO’s Historical Experiences with New Strategic Concepts 

NATO’s experiences with writing new strategic concepts provide a rich legacy from which 

insights can be drawn about the analytical, institutional, and political dynamics of the process. 

The first four strategic concepts were written during the Cold War (1949–1991), and the final two 

afterward. 

• DC 6/1 Initial Strategy of Deterrence and Defense Specialization (1949–1951) called 

on NATO members to cooperate to develop adequate forces for defending Europe and 

to create coordinated plans for employing these forces in the event deterrence failed but 

did not produce an integrated plan for achieving these goals. Instead, it crafted a loose 

collection of principles for coordinating efforts by member nations. In essence, it called 

for an alliance based on national specialization and a division of labor rather than a 

uniform distribution of military missions. 

• MC 14/1 NATO Defense Buildup and Collective Defense (1951–1957) abandoned 

the old precept of defense specialization in favor of collective defense, integrated 

military formations under NATO commanders, and a theater-wide perspective. It relied 

on American strategic nuclear bombardment and Alliance-wide mobilization to achieve 

ultimate victory in a war, but it also included plans for strengthening NATO’s in-being 

continental forces. 

• MC 14/2 Strategy of Massive Retaliation (1957–1967) responded to Soviet 

assertiveness and military buildup, particularly in nuclear weapons, by anchoring 

NATO defense plans on a large-scale theater nuclear operation backed by a massive 

nuclear blow against the Soviet Union in event of war with the aim of deterring any 

form of aggression. 

• MC 14/3 Strategy of Flexible Response (1967–1991) was prepared out of concern 

that over-reliance on deterrence by strategic nuclear forces might invite Soviet 

conventional attack on much weaker NATO conventional forces; it embraced 

strengthened forward defenses and an escalatory ladder to massive retaliation. 

• The strategic concept of Rome Summit (1991–1999) focused on the post-Cold War 

risks facing the alliance, the importance of “soft power” to deal with those risks, and 

the continuing importance of the alliance. 

• The strategic concept of Washington Summit (1999–present) made clear that NATO 

defense planning had shifted away from traditional preoccupation with border defense 

missions and toward multiple new missions, many conducted under Article 4. 

The current strategic concept is addressed below. The first five strategic concepts are discussed 

in detail in the appendix. For each strategic concept, the narrative briefly describes the security 
 8

conditions that gave rise to it, the principal participants and associated Alliance politics that 

helped shape it, its main contents, and the strategic consequences that flowed from it. 

What enduring lessons can be derived from NATO’s historical experiences with its strategic 

concepts? The first is that NATO strategic concepts face both outward and inward. They face 

outward by defining new threats, dangers, challenges, and opportunities, and by providing 

guidance on how NATO should act. They face inward by mobilizing widespread, Alliance-wide 

consensus among NATO’s members regarding mutual obligations, multinational priorities, 

national roles and missions, and fair burden-sharing. 

In addition to re-establishing the transatlantic link on new terms, a NATO strategic concept 

helps forge an all-important coherent relationship between NATO’s overall security policy, 

defense strategy, and military forces. It provides the rationale for new departures and methods for 

incorporating them. By establishing key principles, tasks, requirements, and responsibilities, it 

also helps determine how NATO members are to act together so that Alliance borders are 

protected and common goals, interests, and values are advanced. A strategic concept helps build 

the core theories from which multifaceted Alliance practices can be determined and coordinated. 

A second lesson is that NATO has had favorable experiences with its previous strategic 

concepts. These concepts had varying life spans and impacts, all of them were transient, and none 

of them were perfect, but each contributed materially to NATO’s effectiveness and its ability to 

achieve core security goals. Successive strategic concepts built on each other in ways that enabled 

NATO gradually to acquire growing focus, strength, and resolve, while shifting gears and 

directions as the emerging situations warranted. NATO began slowly early in the Cold War, but 

steadily gained momentum to eventually become the world’s most effective alliance. In no small 

measure, this positive outcome owes to the legacy of NATO’s strategic concepts. 

A third lesson is that no strategic concept is timeless. Each is written in response to existing 

and forecasted conditions in security and defense affairs, all serve for a period of time, and all 

become outmoded when conditions change. Normally NATO waited until the existing strategic 

concept was reaching the end of its natural life span in the eyes of most NATO members, and 

after concrete activities suggesting the basic contents of a new strategic concept were already 

being pursued. This was the case for MC 14/3; NATO already had been pursuing practical steps 

to bolster its conventional forces and broaden its options for a few years before MC 14/3 was 

written. A new strategic concept was written when improved strategic guidance was needed to 

carry out major decisions that had to be made in the near future―and when NATO members 

were willing to support it. 

A fourth lesson is that although the intra-Alliance politics of writing new strategic concepts can 

be difficult, they are not only manageable, but also potentially healthy. Each time that NATO set 

out to write new strategic concepts, it faced a plethora of disagreements and conflicts among its 

members, coupled with understandable worries that the act of debating alternative strategic 

theories would rupture the Alliance’s allegedly fragile cohesion. Yet, NATO chose to act anyway, 

and although plenty of debates regularly erupted, such fracturing never occurred. Indeed, NATO 

always emerged with a fresh consensus and a stronger sense of solidarity than before. The act of 

writing new strategic concepts set aside old, outmoded theories that themselves would likely have 

eroded NATO’s cohesion had they been allowed to remain in force. In their place came an effort 

to erect new strategic theories that met the demands of changing times. The subsequent debates 

often were stressful, but they became engines of renewal and innovation that allowed a new 

consensus to form around new policies, strategies, and plans. Had NATO not chosen to embark 

on these debates, it would have been mired in stasis, and it never would have created the 

succession of strategic theories that allowed it to grow and flourish. 
 9

A fifth lesson is that although past strategic concepts have helped create policies and strategies 

that enabled NATO to address threats to Alliance security, they also have been especially 

influential in helping the Alliance address its defense preparedness requirements and agenda. In 

this capacity, strategic concepts have provided the guidance needed by NATO military authorities 

to help shape Alliance-wide force improvement efforts. In essence, they provided a framework 

for shaping subsidiary Military Committee planning documents (e.g., MC 48, 299, 317, and 400), 

and the NATO force planning process, including ministerial guidance to members, country plans 

of members, and NATO reviews of country plans. The effect was to help blend the separate 

military forces of members into an integrated multinational posture that could better meet NATO 

military requirements as they evolved during the Cold War and beyond. Without such guidance 

from strategic concepts, NATO doubtless would have been less militarily prepared throughout its 

long history, and thus less secure against threats and dangers as they evolved. 

A sixth lesson is that NATO has had successful experiences with pursuing dual-path agendas to 

reaching agreement on how to handle difficult strategic challenges. This was clearly the case 

when, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, NATO chose to pursue both defense improvements and 

détente. Whereas MC14/3 guided NATO’s new military strategy and improvements, the Harmel 

Report and succeeding policies helped determine how détente and arms control negotiations with 

the Soviet Union were to be pursued in tandem. Another example is the experience of the 1980s, 

when NATO pursued the two paths of deploying Pershing II and GLCM missiles while also 

entering into LRINF negotiations with the Soviet Union in an effort to achieve complete removal 

of such missiles from the inventories of both sides. In both cases, NATO would not have been 

able to attain its goals by pursing only one path or the other, but did succeed by pursing both 

paths concurrently. 

A seventh, final lesson is that when controversies arise, the process of writing new strategic 

concepts must be handled wisely and effectively—as regularly was done in the past. NATO’s 

history shows that this process has three dimensions: institutional, analytical, and political. In 

today’s world, strategic concepts are political-military documents. Main institutional 

responsibility for writing and coordinating them lies with the NATO Secretary General and his 

subordinate staffs in Brussels, including the Military Committee, but historical experience shows 

the wisdom of drawing on national capitals for their ideas and inputs. Traditionally the United 

States has been a source of leadership in this arena, but such other members as Britain, Germany, 

and France have regularly contributed as well. On at least two occasions, NATO has created 

outside committees of “wise men” to help write new strategic concepts and associated studies, 

and if contemporary circumstances warrant this step, it could be employed again. 

Regardless of who performs the writing and coordinating, historical experience also shows the 

importance of ensuring that the new strategic concept rests on sound analytical foundations 

regarding how dangers and challenges are assessed, multiple goals are balanced and prioritized, 

and supporting policies, strategies, and plans are evaluated. NATO’s long-standing insistence on 

sound analysis is a key reason why strategic concepts have been effective documents that helped 

end debates about their contents. Likewise the political process—the act of forging unanimous 

consensus and NAC approval—is highly important, for unless the new strategic concept 

commands widespread support among NATO’s members, it will not be adopted by the NAC, and 

if it is adopted, it will not be implemented enthusiastically. Throughout its history, NATO has 

shown skill at handling this political process in ways that produced both high substantive content 

and internal consensus. The political dynamic of forging consensus often requires intense 

negotiating, bargaining, and compromising: a central task is to ensure that these mechanisms 

enhance the quality of the new strategic concept, not detract from it. These three interlocking 

dimensions make the process of adopting a new NATO strategic concept challenging, but as 
 10

history shows, NATO has mastered them before, and today it still possesses the tools to master 

them again. 

Post-Cold War Strategic Concepts 

The Rome Strategic Concept was the last Strategic Concept to refer to the Soviet Union. It was 

announced on November 8, 1991, almost exactly two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and 

exactly one month before five Soviet republics signed an agreement2

 that effectively ended the 

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Over the next three weeks, a series of formal steps 

progressively eliminated components of the Soviet apparatus. By the end of the year, the 

republics had taken over all functions of government, and Soviet rule was officially extinct; thus 

ended the threat that had brought NATO into being. 

The changed security environment wrought by the rise of Yeltsin and the decline of Gorbachev 

and the Soviet Communist Party—and by the reunification of Germany—was reflected in the 

language of the 1991 Strategic Concept. Even though the Soviet Union still existed, the term 

threat was applied historically. Looking ahead, NATO saw risks, but no state with the Soviet 

Union’s ability or intent to pose a threat to Europe. Those risks were “adverse consequences of 

instabilities that may arise from the serious economic, social and political difficulties, including 

ethnic rivalries and territorial disputes, which are faced by many countries in central and eastern 

Europe.” NATO might also face problems beyond Europe’s borders. “The stability and peace of 

the countries on the southern periphery of Europe are important for the security of the Alliance, 

as the 1991 Gulf war has shown,” and “the build-up of military power and the proliferation of 

weapons technologies” in that area was a matter of concern. The Alliance also needed to “take 

account of the global context” because “security interests can be affected by other risks of a wider 

nature, including proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, disruption of the flow of vital 

resources and actions of terrorism and sabotage.” The possibility that terrorists might acquire 

WMD was not addressed. 

The thrust of the Rome strategic concept was that the importance of “soft power” had increased 

and the role of military power had changed.3

 Allied forces were to be “adapted to provide 

capabilities that can contribute to protecting peace, managing crises that affect the security of 

Alliance members, and preventing war. Thus, “[t]he overall size of the Allies' forces, and in many 

cases their readiness, will be reduced.” With the decline in importance of armed forces—and the 

reduced importance of American strategic forces—Europe would assume a larger share of a 

lighter burden. To offset reduced expenditure, “collective defence arrangements will rely 

increasingly on multinational forces, complementing national commitments to NATO,” and 

interoperability of forces assumed a new importance. It had become possible to “draw all the 

consequences from the fact that security and stability have political, economic, social, and 

environmental elements as well as the indispensable defence dimension.” 

In 1991, NATO faced “a great deal of uncertainty about the future and risks to the security of 

the Alliance,” with optimism. The possibility that failed states and non-state actors could 

challenge the international system was not contemplated at the Rome Summit. 

 

2

 The Belavezha Accords, signed on December 8, 1991, by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus 

effectively dissolved the Soviet Union; on Christmas Day, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as president of the 

USSR and dissolved the office; the next day, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dissolved itself. 

3 The term soft power, coined by Joseph Nye the year before the Rome strategic concept was drafted, aptly 

describes the new emphasis of the concept but was not used in the document. See Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound 

to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990).
 11

In 1999, the NATO strategic concept approved by the 1991 Rome Summit was replaced by a 

new strategic concept that was adopted at the Washington Summit. The decision to write a new 

strategic concept, undertaken after some debate, reflected a broad agreement that so much had 

changed since 1991 that NATO needed to recast its strategic principles. The process of drafting 

and coordinating was primarily carried out by NATO Headquarters, led by the International Staff, 

the International Military Staff, and the Military Committee, with strong input from NATO 

military commanders. Member countries played active roles, marked by vigorous participation by 

the United States, France, and others. Intense debates swirled over such issues as the balance 

between Article 5 and non-Article 5 missions,4

 the goals of NATO enlargement, whether NATO 

was willing to perform security missions outside Europe, the European security identity, and the 

principles of legitimacy and UN mandates for NATO operations beyond its borders. These 

debates raged until the eve of the Washington Summit, but ultimately NAC agreed on a new 

strategic concept that ran fully twenty pages, ten devoted to security policy and ten to NATO 

defense strategy and military forces.5 

The Washington concept stated that NATO’s core strategic purposes are to safeguard the 

freedom and security of its members by political and military means, help promote a just and 

lasting peaceful order in Europe anchored in a stable security architecture, preserve the 

transatlantic link that binds the United States to Europe, and maintain Alliance cohesion and unity 

so that all members are protected equally. 

To serve these purposes, the concept called for NATO to perform five fundamental security 

tasks: security, consultation, deterrence, defense, crisis management, and partnership. Surveying 

the Euro-Atlantic area, the Washington concept declared that developments in recent years have 

been generally positive, and that NATO has made progress in working with other institutions, 

such as the EU/WEU, OSCE, and the UN, in helping promote peace and security while bringing 

greater stability to the Balkans. The concept also portrayed a future of risks and dangers, 

including regional crises at the periphery of the Alliance, ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial 

disputes, abuses of human rights, failed states, WMD proliferation, terrorism, and threats to 

energy security. It further noted that while NATO borders might be directly menaced by some of 

these dangers, external threats could affect Alliance security interests. Accordingly, the 

Washington concept put forth a broad approach to security in the 21st century that combined 

defense preparedness with appropriate attention to political, economic, social, and environmental 

factors. NATO, it said, must carry out a demanding set of activities: maintain its military 

prowess, be prepared for conflict prevention and crisis management in and around Europe that 

might be carried out under Article 4, pursue partnership, cooperation, and dialogue with Russia, 

Ukraine, and the Mediterranean region, begin the process of enlargement by admitting new 

members, and pursue arms control, disarmament, and non-proliferation. 

 

4

 Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty states that: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or 

more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently 

they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or 

collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party 

or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as 

it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North 

Atlantic area. 

“Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the 

Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures 

necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.” Full text of the North Atlantic Treaty is 

available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm>. 5

 See The Alliance’s Strategic Concept (Brussels, Belgium: NATO Headquarters, 1999), available at 

<http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-065e.htm>. 
 12

In the defense arena, the Washington concept declared that, while NATO must retain strong 

forces for Article 5 missions in defense of Alliance borders in the remote event of a major attack 

on them, it must also be prepared to carry out non-Article 5 missions, including partnershipbuilding, engagement, peacekeeping, and crisis response operations that might be as big as 

Article 5 missions. It further said that NATO forces should be prepared to support, on the basis of 

separable but not separate capabilities, operations by the EU/WEU. Accordingly the Washington 

concept called for a properly prepared conventional force posture that would be maintained at 

tiered readiness levels, with limited forces that could react quickly backed by larger forces that 

could be mobilized over a longer period of time. These conventional forces, it said, must be 

equipped with necessary capabilities in such areas as command and control structures, advanced 

weapons, training and exercises, combat formations, deployability, logistic support, and 

sustainment. In establishing these guidelines, the Washington concept made clear that NATO 

defense planning had shifted away from traditional preoccupation with border defense missions 

and toward multiple new missions, many conducted under Article 4. But, apart from noting 

NATO’s military presence in the Balkans—the Kosovo war was being waged when the 

Washington summit took place—the new strategic concept was vague on the geographic regions 

in which NATO’s future operations might take place and the force preparedness standards that 

should guide NATO military planning. Important details in the defense arena were left to a 

temporary High Level Steering Group (HLSG) charged with overseeing implementation of the 

Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) issued by the Washington summit.6

Utility of the Washington Strategic Concept. How has the Washington concept fared thus far? 

While it identified terrorism as a future threat, it did not contemplate terrorist attacks of the kind 

inflicted on the United States on September 11, 2001, or the dramatic events that followed from 

those attacks. In important ways, these events brought an end to the previous era and ushered in a 

new international security system. During the 1990s, NATO was mainly preoccupied with 

Alliance enlargement and related security affairs in the Euro-Atlantic area. The post-9/11 security 

environment expanded NATO concerns to global threats in the form of terrorists with 

intercontinental reach, potentially aggressive rogue states, and accelerating WMD proliferation. 

The Washington concept also elevated the importance of the Greater Middle East in global affairs 

and in NATO’s own priorities for homeland security and power projection. 

The Washington concept has played a positive role in several arenas since its adoption. Under 

its auspices, NATO finally won the Kosovo war of 1999. After Serbian troops left the province, 

NATO established the KFOR peacekeeping force there to help keep the peace, and KFOR troops 

remain there today. Overall, the Washington concept gets a fair share of credit for NATO’s 

enduring efforts to maintain peace in Bosnia and Kosovo and play a constructive role in the 

Balkans. Although the Washington concept did not provide detailed guidance on further NATO 

enlargement (beyond the original three countries admitted), it provided authoritative support for 

NATO’s subsequent decision to admit seven new members, thus expanding membership to 26 

countries. NATO enlargement, in turn, helped lay a security foundation for a mostly parallel 

enlargement by the EU. The combined effect of NATO and EU enlargement has been to make 

Europe a safer, more democratic continent. 

In the defense arena, the DCI failed to meet its original promises, but at the Prague Summit of 

2002, NATO took important steps to increase preparedness for new missions: it created the Allied 

Command Transformation (ACT), launched creation of the NATO Response Force (NRF), and 

endorsed the Prague Capability Commitment (PCC) to replace the DCI. In the aftermath came 

measures by several European members to accelerate improvements of their military forces for 

new missions. The Washington concept deserves some credit for these steps, even though they 

 

6

 The text of the April 25, 1999, Defense Capabilities Initiative is available at 

<http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99s069e.htm>. 
 13

responded to new security conditions and goals that were not fully anticipated by it. Finally, the 

Washington concept provided a backdrop for NATO’s decision to take command of ISAF in 

Afghanistan and to send 25,000 European troops there. But here again, NATO’s growing role in 

Afghanistan was a response to security conditions that were anticipated by the Washington 

concept only in general terms. The writers of the Washington concept could not have known that, 

within a few years, NATO would be intervening in Afghanistan, coping with threats of major 

terrorist attacks, and otherwise grappling with a world that had become far more dangerous than 

was commonly perceived in 1999. 

Relevance Today. In recent years, NATO has embarked on many new endeavors that stretch, if 

not violate, the outer boundaries of the strategic principles and policies envisioned by the 

Washington concept. For example, the Washington concept envisioned operations outside the 

Euro-Atlantic region as taking place under Article 4, not Article 5. Events since 2001, however, 

have shown that such external dangers as terrorism and WMD proliferation pose genuine Article 

5 threats that can mandate not just consultations, but a collective defense response. The 

Washington concept was largely blind not only to the looming prospect of global terrorism, but 

also to the menaces posed by radical Islamic fundamentalism and an increasingly unstable Middle 

East and surrounding regions. Today, NATO is grappling with these threats through complex 

strategic responses—a fusion of military, political, and economic power—that were not 

envisioned, much less specifically mandated, by the Washington concept. Indeed, NATO’s 

official communiqués at Prague, Istanbul, and Riga read as though they respond to challenges and 

imperatives almost wholly different from those animated by the Washington concept. 

If the Washington concept already seems outdated when judged in relation to activities that 

NATO has been pursuing in recent years, the same judgment holds doubly true when applied to 

the future. 

Concepts are overtaken by new events in such areas as fresh threats and security goals as well 

as new technologies and force priorities. While the future is murky, NATO seems destined to 

become a different alliance a decade from now than is the case today. New strategic policies and 

strategies will be needed: e.g., to help coordinate actions by NATO and the EU, to deal with 

terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, to help stabilize the greater Middle East, to cope with an 

increasingly troublesome Russia, to build missile defenses, and to continue transforming NATO’s 

military forces so they can better perform new expeditionary missions. Simply stated, the 

Washington concept no longer can serve to address these demands, much less provide 

authoritative strategic guidance on how NATO can best handle them. If the Washington concept 

is not replaced by a new and better concept, one aligned with the changed strategic environment, 

NATO will increasingly be left without a map or compass, or even a clear destination. Guidance 

will come in the form of periodic summit communiqués and related documents that lack the 

authoritativeness of strategic concepts. 

Conditions are Right for a New Concept. Thus, the central issue is not whether NATO needs a 

new strategic concept. It does. The issue is whether political conditions within the Alliance are 

favorable for writing a new concept that combines coherent vision with internal consensus. 

Critics of writing a new concept believe that key NATO members—the United States, Britain, 

Germany and France—are still too much at loggerheads to permit constructive dialogue among 

them, and are not yet sufficiently responsive to the needs of new members. While the concerns of 

these critics are understandable, political tempers within the Alliance have cooled considerably 

since the low point of 2003, when the invasion of Iraq was launched in the face of widespread 

opposition. Since then, the United States has learned difficult lessons about the limits of military 

intervention in the Middle East and has been working hard to repair transatlantic political 

relations. Moreover, Britain, Germany, and France are under new leaders who have expressed 
 14

commitment to building close ties with the United States. In Germany, Chancellor Angela 

Merkel’s policies point toward restored U.S.-German relationships in key areas. In France, 

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s foreign policy offers opportunities to achieve agreement on NATO 

policies. Nor are these positive signs confined to atmospherics. The common transatlantic ground 

that has been achieved in guiding NATO’s intervention in Afghanistan, and in pursuing 

cooperative diplomacy toward Iran, suggest that similar cooperation might be possible in writing 

a new strategic concept. 

Process and Timelines 

What process should be employed in writing a new NATO strategic concept? Past experience 

has shown that success can be achieved by tasking NATO Headquarters, under leadership of the 

NATO Secretary General, to handle the drafting and coordinating process. But NATO’s key 

members must play principal contributing roles too by submitting their own analyses and 

evaluations. The need for strong multinational contributions applies to the United States, and it 

also applies to such important members as Britain, Germany, France, and others. The presence of 

multiple actors inevitably complicates the process of achieving agreement on the final product, 

but this is the best vehicle for ensuring that when a new strategic concept is written, it will have 

high substantive content, express the views of multiple national capitals, gain widespread support 

at the NAC, and be enthusiastically implemented once adopted. If necessary, an unofficial team 

of outside “wise men” can be employed to prepare an initial draft that can then be used by NATO 

Headquarters and member nations to help launch the writing of a final product. Regardless of the 

exact process employed, writing a new strategic concept will stand the best chance of succeeding 

if the Alliance makes good use of its analytical talents, institutional mechanisms, and consensusbuilding procedures that have worked well so often in the past. 

What should be the contents of a new NATO strategic concept? While this question will be 

addressed in detail in Part II’s treatment of key baskets of issues, suffice here to say that at a 

minimum, a new strategic concept should bring the Alliance up to date with goals, policies, and 

practices that have been adopted since the Washington concept was adopted. Beyond this, a new 

strategic concept should be forward looking. It should endeavor to determine basic directions that 

NATO security policy and defense strategy should be taking for the next 5–10 years, which 

promise to be a period of major changes in global security affairs. Perhaps most important, a new 

NATO strategic concept must be sufficiently wide-ranging and comprehensive in ways that cover 

the ever-widening spectrum of challenges, missions, and priorities ahead. For understandable 

reasons, past NATO strategic concepts have mainly focused on military and defense issues. Such 

issues must be addressed again in sufficient detail, but a new strategic concept must also be 

equipped with a robust political framework. 

What timelines should NATO follow? While NATO should act promptly, it should also act in 

measured ways to ensure that a new strategic concept is well-conceived. In the past, typically 

several months have been required to carry out the entire exercise of analysis, writing, and 

consensus-building. The NATO Summit of 2009 offers an opportunity to launch the process of 

review and evaluation under direction of the NATO Secretary General. This process could have 

two parallel tracks: a formal track carried out at NATO Headquarters and in consultation with 

member governments, and an informal track of conferences and workshops that draw on the ideas 

and insights of outside experts. Once these two efforts have produced agreement on main themes 

and contents, the task of drafting the new strategic concept and coordinating it among member 

governments can begin. Perhaps the new strategic concept could be adopted at a special summit 

held in 2010, or at the next regularly scheduled summit in 2011. Regardless of the summit 

chosen, the key point is that NATO does need to make the writing of a new strategic concept a 

main item on its agenda in the period ahead. 
 15

Part II: Forging a New Transatlantic Compact 

Although launching an effort to write a new NATO strategic concept is imperative, it should 

not be the only vehicle for seeking to impart the Atlantic Alliance with greater unity, energy, and 

purpose in dealing with contemporary security affairs. NATO’s strategic concept traditionally has 

focused on military and defense issues. Today the Alliance faces wide-ranging political and 

security challenges that must be addressed by a larger framework that extends well beyond the 

traditional province of NATO’s strategic concept. Indeed, the United States and its European 

allies will be hard-pressed to reach consensus on a new, sufficiently comprehensive NATO 

strategic concept unless they pursue a wider dialogue on these broader challenges. Equally 

important, the task facing the United States and its European allies is to energize not only NATO, 

but also other key institutions, including the EU, and to determine how NATO is to work more 

closely in partnership with these bodies. 

Accordingly, efforts to write a new NATO strategic concept should be embedded in parallel 

efforts to craft a new “transatlantic compact,” one that addresses the fundamentals of U.S.-

European political cooperation. This compact would cover the totality of the U.S.-European 

partnership in security affairs, and thereby provide a coherent, overarching framework for 

determining how NATO, the EU, and other common institutions and activities are to work 

together. 

This section begins by discussing the nature of such a transatlantic compact and the reasons for 

embarking on an effort to craft it. Next, it examines three baskets of issues that will need to be 

addressed by this compact as well as by a new NATO strategic concept, including new strategic 

missions for the partnership, principles of decisionmaking and policy implementation that include 

reaffirmation and strengthening of common commitments to reciprocal multilateralism and closer 

NATO-EU relations, and improved Alliance capabilities for expeditionary missions and 

comprehensive approaches. Finally, it concludes by offering alternative suggestions for how this 

dual agenda can be pursued in today’s political climate, either through grand U.S.-European 

summitry from the outset, or by first writing a new NATO strategic concept and then seeking to 

gradually apply the new transatlantic compact to other arenas of U.S.-European collaboration. 

Essence of a New Transatlantic Compact 

A compact can be a diplomatic treaty, such as the Washington Treaty that created NATO in 

1949, or something far less formal, for example, a political agreement issued as a special 

communiqué by governments at a summit meeting. Regardless of its exact form, a compact is a 

firm agreement that reflects a harmony of opinion among the parties, creates mutual obligations, 

and joins the parties together to pursue common goals and agreed actions. In the case of the 

United States and its European allies, a new diplomatic treaty may not be required, but forging a 

solid political accord on how they can cooperate more effectively in strategic terms is. 

Reaching agreement on such a compact is both desirable and necessary to enable the United 

States and its European allies to collaborate more closely. In important ways, the United States 

and Europe share many common interests, values, and goals in dealing with contemporary 

international security affairs. They also share many similar diagnoses of the problems and 

challenges confronting them in Europe and elsewhere. These similar diagnoses have resulted in 

collaboration in such places as Kosovo and Afghanistan, in pursuing common diplomacy toward 

Iran and other trouble spots, and in seeking to harmonize their approaches toward NATO and the 

European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP). But despite these similar diagnoses, the United 

States and Europe often embrace different prescriptive solutions and pursue different policies and 

practices in handling global challenges. Magnifying these different approaches are dissimilar 
 16

attitudes toward a host of subsidiary issues, including threat perceptions in various regions, the 

use of military power and other instruments, distribution of responsibilities and authorities for 

strategic missions, fair burden-sharing, approaches for employing NATO and the EU, and stances 

toward building improved capabilities. All of these issues create thorny problems, but many of 

them may be resolvable, or at least differences can be narrowed appreciably, if the United States 

and European countries employ diplomatic outreach toward each other in a spirit of collaboration 

and compromise. 

A governing strategic reality, as true today as during the Cold War, is that close partnership 

between the United States and Europe can help magnify the power and effectiveness of both sides 

of the Atlantic, thereby enabling each participant to achieve its core purposes more effectively, 

and more cheaply, than otherwise would be the case. A renewed, energized, and mutually 

beneficial partnership requires a transatlantic compact to provide not only agreement on common 

missions and associated policies, but also an accord on processes and procedures for 

decisionmaking and policy implementation that take full advantage of transatlantic strengths. 

Such an accord needs to reaffirm and strengthen key principles of alliance participation in today’s 

world, including common commitments and associated “rules of the road” regarding how the 

United States and its European allies are to behave toward each other as they endeavor to 

cooperate. In particular, a viable transatlantic compact requires stronger American efforts to treat 

European allies as equal partners in mutual strategic endeavors, and it requires, in reciprocity, 

those allies and their European institutions to make stronger contributions to these endeavors in 

ways that match their responsibilities and claims to equal influence. Reaching a strengthened 

agreement on the principle of reciprocal multilateralism and on getting NATO and the EU to 

cooperate more closely would need to be a key focal point of a new transatlantic strategic 

compact. Equally important, such a compact would also require agreement on the need for both 

the United States and Europe to develop improved capabilities for military expeditionary 

missions and for comprehensive approaches that involve adroit blending of civil-military assets, 

especially during interventions involving stabilization and reconstruction missions. 

Can an effort to forge such a compact succeed? There are good reasons for being hopeful of a 

successful outcome if the effort is launched. One reason is that today’s difficult times require a 

serious stocktaking of the transatlantic partnership at its fundamentals, and that without it, the 

Atlantic Alliance may be doomed to a future of drift and limited effectiveness. A second reason is 

that in contrast to the sharp disputes and mutual frustrations of a few years ago, the governments 

of the United States and key European allies, having witnessed the paralyzing effects of discord 

and the benefits of increased cooperation in Afghanistan and other areas, may be willing to 

launch a serious, wide-ranging discussion of the transatlantic relationship with a positive agenda 

in mind. A third reason is that similar efforts have succeeded in the past—the Cold War provides 

multiple examples—and perhaps can succeed again if high-level leadership is shown. And fourth, 

new leadership provides opportunities for a new compact. Whether the time is right for such an 

attempt today may be questioned by some, but encouraging signs come from the ongoing U.S. 

shift toward greater multilateralism in its foreign policy, and from parallel efforts by several 

European countries, including France, to reinvigorate their cooperation with the United States. 

Notwithstanding these positive incentives, an effort to forge a new transatlantic compact that 

brings the United States and Europe closer together on behalf of a common security agenda 

would confront challenges of consensus-building on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States 

would have to build internal support to shift its strategic policies in important ways and so would 

European countries. In Europe, the challenge would be compounded by the need to mobilize 

support among multiple nations, not only such big powers as Britain, France, and Germany, but 

also enough smaller powers to create a critical mass of support across NATO, the EU, and the 

entire continent. Perhaps the consensus-building problem would be too formidable to create a 
 17

full-blown new compact in a single big bang of political awakening, but considerable progress 

could be made by treating this compact as an evolutionary creation: as something that focuses 

initially on achievable goals and gradually expands its horizons as successes are achieved and 

mutual confidence grows. After all, both NATO and the EU were built this way. The bottom line 

is that while no crystal ball can foretell the future in this arena, prospects for success will not be 

knowable unless an attempt is made. A source of confidence is that owing to events of past 

decades, many participating governments have plenty of diplomatic experience in knowing how 

to achieve both substantive policy content and political consensus in their dealings with each 

other. Crafting a new transatlantic compact will not be child’s play, but neither does it lie beyond 

the province of mature leadership.7

Three Baskets of Issues 

If an effort to forge a new transatlantic compact is launched, its success will be judged not by 

its rhetorical flourishes, but by whether it provides a concrete agenda for the United States and 

Europe to pursue, plus a contractual agreement between them regarding how their mutual 

contributions are to be combined to create cooperative, effective policies. In other words, a new 

transatlantic compact must be a defining and empowering agreement that is taken seriously and 

heeded on both sides of the Atlantic. To be fully successful, such a compact would need to 

address a wide spectrum of U.S.-European cooperation on the world stage, not just NATO, or the 

EU, or some small subset of common policies (e.g. counterterrorism). With these standards in 

mind, the new transatlantic compact would need to address three baskets of critical issues. 

1. In deciding on common purposes, what strategic missions, with associated goals and 

purposes, should the U.S.-European transatlantic partnership endeavor to perform in 

the coming years? 

2. In performing these missions, what processes and procedures for decisionmaking 

and policy implementation will best take advantage of transatlantic strengths, how 

should they guide the manner in which the U.S.-European partnership functions in 

political and institutional terms, and how should NATO and the EU work together? 

3. To be able to collaborate more effectively, what improved capabilities should the 

United States and its European allies seek to create for carrying out expeditionary 

missions and comprehensive approaches, and how should these capabilities be applied? 

The manner in which these three baskets of issues are addressed and answered will go a long 

way toward defining the nature of a new transatlantic compact and, in addition, providing 

substantive guidance for writing a new NATO strategic concept. For basket 1, the transatlantic 

partnership has a range of options at its disposal. The principal challenge is to choose wisely in 

this arena, and then to ensure that the decisions reached in baskets 2 and 3 make sense in light of 

the option selected in basket 1. 

Basket 1: Reaching Agreement on Common Strategic Missions. 

A compelling reason for pursing a new transatlantic compact is the dramatic extent to which 

new security challenges are arising and magnifying each other in today’s world. Only a decade 

ago, many observers judged that with the Cold War over and its bipolar structure a thing of the 

past, the world was headed toward perpetual peace and harmony. That comforting forecast has 

 

7

 For in-depth discussions of U.S.-European political relations and related issues, see Simon Serfaty, ed., A 

Recast Partnership? Institutional Dimensions of Transatlantic Relations (Washington, D.C.: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, 2008). Especially insightful chapters are those by Simon Serfaty, 

Franklin Kramer, Jolyon Howorth, and Julian Lindley French. 
 18

now faded from the scene, to be replaced by a more ambiguous and guarded appraisal that 

recognizes not only the continuing importance of positive trends, but also the growing impact of 

negative trends from multiple sources. Today’s most dangerous threats are posed by terrorism, 

WMD proliferation, and radical Islamic fundamentalism: the most alarming worry is that WMD 

systems might fall into the hands of terrorist groups willing to use them against Western targets, 

including the United States and Europe. Accompanying these threats are worries about an 

unstable Middle East, stalled democratization, failing states in Africa, uneven economic progress, 

global warming, increasing multipolarity, complex relations with Russia and China, South Asia’s 

turbulence, and Asia’s rising power, all of which create profound uncertainties about where the 

world is headed. Moreover, globalization, by drawing once-distant regions closer together, is 

depositing these troubles on the doorsteps of the western democracies in ways compelling close 

attention to them. The odds of containing these troubles and charting a path toward global 

stability and progress will be far greater if the United States and its European allies can 

collaborate on behalf of common purposes and associated missions. A new transatlantic compact 

could help lay a stronger foundation for such cooperation. 

One of the most important challenges facing a new transatlantic compact will be to re-establish, 

in new-era terms, the political and strategic link that unites the United States and its European 

allies in close collaboration in security policy and defense strategy. Although member 

governments still value the Alliance because of its cooperative connections, opinion polls show 

diminishing public support for the Alliance in Europe and, to a lesser degree, in the United 

States.8

 Withering public support can make it much harder for member governments to work 

together. Conversely, the presence of strong public support can enable the Alliance to act boldly 

and decisively in the face of strains, controversies, and difficult challenges. A new transatlantic 

compact can help restore public support by making clear the Alliance’s continuing vital 

importance and its capacity to advance both American and European interests in tandem. 

Even though surface appearances seemingly create a rationale for a highly ambitious 

cooperative agenda, the reality is that the transatlantic partnership cannot readily be transformed 

into an alliance for all causes and all seasons. Although the United States and Europe share many 

common interests and values, they are separate strategic entities with goals and involvements that 

differ from place to place and issue to issue. In particular, whereas the United States is a truly 

global power, Europe thus far has been principally focused on its own continent, and is now only 

beginning to play assertive security roles in areas beyond its borders. Harmonizing these disparate 

perspectives requires a focus on challenges where the United States and Europe already are 

pursuing common agendas, or can reach agreement through a diplomacy of outreach. Beyond 

this, both the United States and Europe have finite resources that will have to be targeted 

carefully—with specific goals, strategies, and priorities in mind—if they are to be used 

effectively, without overloading both participants. For these reasons, a new transatlantic compact 

will need to strike a balance between inclusiveness and selectivity in determining the number and 

types of strategic missions that are to be embraced in these five broad categories: 

• Providing for homeland security of the Euro-Atlantic space against new-era threats 

including terrorism and nuclear missiles possessed by such rogue states as Iran. 

• Protecting against political intimidation using threats of cutoffs of energy supplies 

and cyber attacks on information networks. 

 

8 See “World View of U.S. Role Goes From Bad to Worse,” BBC World Service Poll, January 23, 2007; 

“Except for Spain, Majorities or Pluralities in Five European Countries Believe Life Has Become Worse 

Since Joining the EU,” Financial Times/Harris Interactive Poll, March 19, 2007; “Transatlantic Trends, 

Key Findings 2006,” The German Marshall Fund and the Compagnia di San Paolo, June 2006.
 19

• Continuing NATO and EU enlargement aimed at unifying and democratizing 

Europe, while maintaining stable relations with Russia. 

• Performing expeditionary missions in the Greater Middle East and adjoining 

regions, and pursuing associated political and strategic goals there. 

• Enhancing deterrence and updating nuclear strategy. 

Homeland Security. In today’s world, the imperatives of homeland security require Alliance 

members to get back to the basics by working together to carry out Article 5 of the NATO Treaty 

against new-era threats. Throughout the Cold War, the Alliance was heavily preoccupied with 

Article 5, the clause of the treaty that provides for collective defense of NATO territory, because 

it faced a menacing threat of cross-border invasion posed by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw 

Pact allies. When the Cold War ended, Alliance-wide interest in the requirements of Article 5 

declined, not only because no new threats appeared on the immediate horizon, but also because 

NATO members possessed ample military forces to defend against any threats that might 

possibly arise. The 9/11 attacks and their aftermath, however, dramatically changed this calculus 

in ways that propelled Article 5 back to the forefront, but in entirely different terms. Since then, 

the Alliance has been compelled to refocus on Article 5 and homeland security plans against such 

fresh, new-era threats as terrorist attacks and use of WMD against members. Considerable 

progress has been made since 2001, but additional improvements need to be made.9

Homeland security today requires capabilities and activities in several categories: guarding the 

approaches and achieving border security for the NATO region, preventing and managing 

terrorist incidents, strengthening capacities for consequence management in event of terrorist use 

of WMD or large-scale natural disasters, and providing defense against air and missile attack. In 

this arena, NATO’s highest-profile activity to date has been carrying out Operation Active 

Endeavour, which employs naval forces and other assets to safeguard the Mediterranean Sea and 

other waters against terrorist activities, including smuggling of WMD systems into Alliance ports. 

NATO has played a supporting role in otherwise helping prevent and manage terrorist incidents, 

such as in sharing intelligence and developing new technologies. But main responsibility for this 

important task has been trusted to the EU and individual nations employing their own resources. 

If deficiencies of resources still exist today, they seemingly lie in capacities for consequence 

management in event of large-scale incidents that could overpower national resources. Creating 

better capabilities for consequence management is a task that mandates cooperation among 

NATO, the EU, and member states of both bodies. 

In recent years, the requirement to provide missile defenses against nuclear attacks by such 

rogue countries as Iran has become a subject of growing attention. Throughout the Cold War, 

missile defense was limited by the ABM Treaty. But during the 1990s, the United States, fearing 

emerging missile threats from rogue countries, developed plans to deploy a force of 100 missile 

interceptors, radars, and C4ISR assets to meet this threat. As these plans matured, interest 

gradually grew in expanding this capability to protect European allies from similar threats. After 

several years of debate and controversy, NATO’s leaders at the Bucharest Summit of 2008 voiced 

approval of a U.S. plan to deploy a small force of ten missile interceptors in Poland and 

associated radar systems in the Czech Republic. The core intent, they explained, was not to 

challenge Russia’s nuclear deterrent posture, but instead to defend against a future nuclear missile 

threat posed by Iran. In this spirit, they called for efforts to develop a comprehensive missile 

defense architecture that could eventually integrate U.S., NATO, and Russian missile defense 

systems. Now that this deployment decision has been endorsed by the NATO summit, the long-

 

9

 For further analysis, see CTNSP/INSS Special Report, Transatlantic Homeland Defense (Washington, 

DC: National Defense University Press, 2006). See also Esther Brimmer (ed.), Five Dimensions of 

Homeland and International Security (Washington D.C.: Center for Transatlantic Relations, Johns Hopkins 

University, 2008). 
 20

term challenge will be to field these missiles and radars and ensure their effective operation. 

Careful military management will be needed, but political management will be needed as well. 

Lessening Russian objections will be one concern; another will be meeting Poland’s demands for 

additional military support and modernization from NATO. The missile defense issue seems 

destined to continue being at the forefront of Alliance decisionmaking, in ways requiring close 

U.S.-European cooperation, for many years to come. 

Russian Intimidation. In addition to providing for homeland security against terrorists and 

nuclear missile attack, the United States and its European allies will need to collaborate in coping 

with an entirely new threat that has emerged only recently, and has the potential to become quite 

serious. This is the menace of political intimidation using threats to cut off energy supplies and to 

launch cyber attacks on information networks. Today Europe is highly dependent on oil and 

natural gas supplies flowing through pipelines from Russia. In recent years, Russia has cut off 

these energy supplies to such neighbors as Ukraine and Belarus. The ostensible purpose was to 

compel both countries to pay long-standing energy bills, but many observers judged that Russia 

was trying to intimidate both countries for larger political purposes. In spring, 2007, Estonia’s 

information networks were subjected to cyber attacks, evidently originating in Russia and 

employing botnets to carry out denial of service operations. That cyber attack was contained and 

the damage promptly repaired, but it illuminated the extent to which information networks across 

all of Europe (and the United States) are potentially vulnerable to extremely damaging attacks. 

The risk of such attacks is that they could not only disrupt these networks but also inflict serious 

damage on key services, such as financial institutions, the communications industry, police and 

fire departments, electrical power, and water purification. Russia publicly denies any intent to 

employ cyber attacks as well as cutoffs of energy supplies against Europe, but skeptics of its 

foreign policy judge that in the coming years, it might increasingly turn to such threats to 

intimidate Europe and the United States to acquiesce in its strategic goals. Nor is Russia the only 

actor that might resort to such tactics. Cyber attacks could be launched by many countries around 

the world, as well as by non-governmental actors, including terrorist groups. 

What is to be done to counteract these threats? Thus far, Europe has been slow to awaken to 

these dangers, but awareness is growing. At its Bucharest Summit of 2008, NATO announced 

that it was adopting a policy on cyber defense along with the institutions and authorities to carry 

out efforts at enhancing defensive capabilities in this arena. Likewise, NATO adopted a new 

study on its role in energy security, which proclaimed that NATO would be active in such fields 

as intelligence fusion and sharing, advancing regional and global cooperation, supporting 

protection of critical infrastructure, and supporting consequence management. These initiatives 

provide reasons for encouragement, yet some critics judge that in both arenas, NATO is mainly 

preoccupied with protecting its own cyber networks and energy infrastructure, rather than with 

the larger needs of Europe and the Alliance as a whole. These two arenas will require 

increasingly close cooperation between the United States and Europe that employs not only 

NATO, but also the EU and other institutions. 

As this paper was going to press, Russian forces invaded Georgia. This intervention raises the 

risk of Russian intimidation of neighbors to a new level. NATO’s new strategic concept must 

now review the nature of Article V of the Washington Treaty in this new context. 

NATO and EU Enlargement. A new transatlantic compact will also need to devote priority 

attention to judging how democratic enlargement is to continue unfolding along Europe’s 

periphery, and to how relations with Russia are to continue being made stable. Part of this agenda 

involves determining how many new members are to be admitted to NATO and the EU. At its 

Bucharest Summit in 2008, NATO announced that Croatia and Albania would be admitted soon, 

that Macedonia would be admitted when the dispute over its name is settled, and that Ukraine and 

Georgia would eventually be admitted, with the prospect that the Membership Action Plan 
 21

(MAP) might be extended to them later this year.10 Membership for Georgia in particular presents 

problems with regard to the Article 5 commitment and secession movements in Abkhazia and 

South Ossetia. Montenegro, Bosnia, and Serbia are also potentially in the queue. Providing for the 

security of these new members will be a key priority for NATO; the same applies to the EU as it 

enlarges further. An equally important task will be ensuring the security and prosperity of 

countries that are not likely to gain admission to these bodies soon, but may become closer 

partners. Relations with Russia enter the strategic equation here because its government seems 

steadily drifting toward a more nationalist foreign policy that views continuing western 

enlargement into its bordering regions as a threat to its geopolitical interests. Recent experiences 

show that while Russia no longer poses a direct military threat to Europe, it remains a nuclear 

power that may be willing to use diplomatic intimidation, threats of natural gas and oil cutoffs, 

and other instruments to pursue an increasingly assertive agenda in these regions. While some 

observers fear that the United States and Europe are on a collision course with Russia, risks of 

this undesirable outcome can be lessened by employing a diplomacy of continued engagement 

and dialogue with that country, coupled with a restored emphasis on dissuasion and deterrence in 

some areas. Finding a solution to the conundrum posed by further democratic enlargement in the 

face of growing Russian resistance promises to be a continuing, thorny geopolitical challenge that 

will need to be addressed by the United States and Europe, and will need to be a key focus of any 

new compact between them. 

Expeditionary Missions. A new transatlantic compact will also need to pay close attention to 

the Greater Middle East and the entire “southern arc of instability” that stretches from North 

Africa through the Persian Gulf into South Asia. Today this vast zone is a cauldron of political 

conflict, unstable security affairs, radical Islamic fundamentalism, ethnic and cultural hatreds, 

failed states, authoritarian governments, economic stress, and military tensions. A decade or two 

ago, the Atlantic Alliance could afford the luxury of viewing this zone as lying mostly outside its 

traditional geostrategic perimeter, but this is no longer the case. Globalization is drawing oncedistant regions closer together and giving new actors, including terrorists, global reach. Although 

the United States and Europe today are cooperating closely in Afghanistan, their collaborative 

involvements elsewhere in the Greater Middle East and adjoining regions are only beginning to 

take shape. Europe for its part has historic responsibilities in Africa where peace support 

operations require constant attention. Charting how to expand this collaboration, in ways that 

satisfy both the United States and Europe, will need to be an important feature of a new 

transatlantic compact. 

Across this vast zone, priority attention must be given to crafting a shared willingness by the 

United States and Europe to perform military expeditionary missions together in regions where 

threats and dangers are likely to arise. As used here, the term “expeditionary missions” is meant 

in its broadest sense: to include power projection missions that cover a wide spectrum of 

operations ranging from peacekeeping and stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) to major 

combat operations. Notwithstanding the bitter debate over the invasion of Iraq in 2003, recent 

years have witnessed the United States and Europe draw closer in their willingness to mount such 

expeditionary missions. The past decade has seen U.S. and European forces operate together in 

the Balkans in performing peacekeeping roles in Bosnia and Kosovo. Today’s most salient 

example is Afghanistan, where sizable U.S. and European forces are operating together under 

ISAF and NATO command in fighting the Taliban and bringing democracy and stability to that 

country. Even so, many observers judge that several European members of NATO, including 

Germany, have not deployed sufficient forces to Afghanistan, and are not participating 

 

10 See NATO Press Release, “Bucharest Summit Declaration, Issued by the Heads of States and 

Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Bucharest on 3 April 2008” 

(Brussels, Belgium: 2008), available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2008/p08-049e.html>. 
 22

extensively enough in combat missions. This deficiency of Western forces, coupled with Taliban 

insurgency warfare and problems inherit in Afghanistan, are making success uncertain. 

Achieving success in Afghanistan will remain a compelling requirement for NATO and the 

transatlantic partnership for the foreseeable future. But Afghanistan likely will not be the only 

endangered place in the Greater Middle East, as well as South Central Asia, South Asia, and 

Africa, where requirements for military expeditionary missions might arise for a wide spectrum 

of operations. If the United States and Europe are to cooperate in such missions, they will need to 

establish a shared mindset on when military power is an appropriate instrument, on how military 

power can best be successfully employed to achieve political goals, on standards for determining 

military requirements and operational practices, and on a host of related technical issues. NATO 

will remain the best forum for pursuing such collaboration, but it will be a usable forum only if 

the United States and Europe can agree on the fundamentals of military strategy for expeditionary 

missions. Creating such a military accord does not promise to be easy, given the differing 

perspectives on both sides of the Atlantic, but recent experiences have educated the United States 

on the sheer difficulty of employing military power to political effect in these regions, and have 

educated the Europeans on the need to employ military force and expeditionary missions on 

critical occasions. Perhaps these hard-learned lessons can help enable both sides to find 

increasingly solid common ground in this important arena. 

Nor can such an accord be limited to military strategy and operations. As the interventions in 

Afghanistan and Iraq show, the act of militarily intervening to remove hostile governments and 

squelch existing or imminent threats is often far easier to accomplish than the presence missions 

of stabilization and reconstruction that normally come in the wake. By any measure, stabilization 

missions can require as many or more resources than combat missions, and they demand not only 

adequate military forces, but also sizable civilian assets in multiple areas focused on 

comprehensive approaches to rebuilding governments, economies, and societies. Such demanding 

missions often take years to succeed. Nor is the need for such missions limited to crisis 

interventions that begin with military invasions. In the coming years, they may be needed simply 

to help shore up friendly governments and countries that are plunging into chaos and on the verge 

of becoming failed states. Africa already provides ample examples, and such big countries as 

Pakistan and others could require outside assistance as well. An accord on the need to perform 

these missions, on becoming prepared for them, and on how to carry them out would need to be 

an important part of a transatlantic compact, including better NATO-EU cooperation. 

Notwithstanding the importance of being willing to employ military force and civilian assets in 

the Greater Middle East and adjoining regions, a new transatlantic compact would also need to be 

characterized by a common political and diplomatic strategy there. Thorny issues arise. How can 

Iran and other troublesome powers best be handled, contained, and deterred? How can friendly 

powers be made secure in regions marked by interstate rivalries, ethnic and sectarian hatreds, 

terrorism, and WMD proliferation? How can Israel be kept secure while seeking a resolution of 

the Israeli-Palestinian rivalry? How can Pakistan be kept stable and democratic while avoiding an 

India-Pakistan war that might go nuclear? How can regional stability be ensured while avoiding 

the pitfalls of aligning too closely with autocratic regimes? How can democratization be 

promoted without paving the way for hostile, anti-western governments? How can radical Islamic 

fundamentalism be defused in an era when widespread frustrations are fanning its growth? How 

can economic progress be brought to these regions in ways that help bring peace and democracy 

in its wake? What are the main U.S. and European goals and strategies in these regions, how are 

they best pursued, and what forms of transatlantic collaboration are necessary and possible? 

None of these complex questions are easily answered, but all of them will require wellconceived, multifaceted strategies to address them effectively. The key point is that common 

answers must be sought because the United States and Europe are now irretrievably involved in 
 23

these regions to the point where detachment is no longer a viable option. In this troubled arena, 

relations between the United States and Europe have often been marked by conflicting 

perspectives, but signs of greater collaboration—e.g., diplomacy toward Iran and Lebanon—have 

been appearing lately. Whether this emerging transatlantic consensus can be broadened and 

accelerated is to be seen, but working hard to achieve it will need to be a key feature of a new 

strategic compact for the compelling reason that if the United States and Europe work at crosspurposes in these regions, or merely fail to cooperate, both of them may be destined to fail. 

Although a primary focus on Europe and the Greater Middle East seems necessary for a new 

transatlantic compact, the rest of the world cannot be ignored, especially for the long haul. Owing 

to the steady emergence of China as a great power with a geopolitical agenda, coupled with 

Russia’s increasingly assertive conduct, the global security system seems headed toward greater 

multipolarity and, potentially, friction with these countries. Also important, the entire Asian 

region is growing in economic and political power in ways that seem destined to have a major 

impact on the global security system. In South Asia, India is emerging as a major power with an 

agenda of its own. By tradition, the task of handling this profound transformation would be 

entrusted to the United States, which has long experience in dealing with China and Russia, 

presides over a bilateral system of security treaties in Asia that protect democratic allies there, 

and has been developing close relations with India and Pakistan. Even so, a core problem with 

continuing to follow this approach in any singular way is that the United States may be too 

embroiled in the Greater Middle East, and too overextended elsewhere, to perform this 

demanding task on its own. If Europe can be added to the strategic power equation, in ways 

supporting the United States and its allies, prospects for achieving a stable multipolar system—

one that counterbalances and integrates China while protecting Asia and other regions—will 

increase significantly. Adding Europe in this way would require it to adopt a global security 

perspective to a degree not currently being embraced. Fortunately the difficult task of forging a 

common U.S.-European approach in this demanding and uncertain arena does not have to be 

mastered immediately. But creating a foundation for it arguably could be a goal of a new 

transatlantic compact. 

Enhancing Deterrence. One lesson from the 9/11 terrorist attacks that has been extended to 

Iran is that it is more difficult to deter new-era threats than it was to deter threats during the Cold 

War. This is particularly true in the nuclear arena. But alternatives to deterrence also have 

drawbacks, as we have seen with the doctrine of preemption. At the same time, NATO’s nuclear 

strategy has become outmoded. Several recent developments highlight the need for a new NATO 

nuclear and deterrent strategy. First, at the Bucharest Summit NATO accepted the need for 

missile defenses, but public support is quite thin. Second, questions are being raised again on both 

sides of the alliance with regard to the need for retaining the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons in 

Europe. Third, if Iran develops a nuclear capability with a delivery system, how can Iranian use 

of that capability be successfully deterred? And fourth, what is needed to hedge against an 

emergent threat from Russia? This may require a more robust set of deterrent options in the wake 

of Russia’s recent attacks on Georgia. NATO needs to update and strengthen its deterrent 

mission. 

Three Options for Transatlantic Strategic Missions. In essence, the United States and Europe 

have three broad options at their disposal in deciding on which strategic missions should be 

embraced by a new transatlantic compact. The first, minimalist option would have this compact 

focus mainly on common security goals in the Euro-Atlantic area, coupled perhaps with steps to 

create a more flourishing transatlantic economy. This option would not be blind to regions 

outside Europe, including the Middle East, or wind back the clock on current outreach activities 

there, including the Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative. But neither 

would it seek to greatly expand these activities. In essence, this option would be limited to calling 
 24

on the United States and Europe to collaborate on an ad-hoc basis, i.e., temporarily and in specific 

cases when their interests and priorities happen to intersect. 

The second option would be a more ambitious compact. It would focus on the Euro-Atlantic 

area coupled with common, sustained collaboration for carrying out political strategies, 

expeditionary missions, and comprehensive approaches across key parts of the Greater Middle 

East and Africa, and by adding more partners to the enterprise. 

The third option is a maximalist approach. It would aim to create a truly global compact, one 

that, in addition to covering Europe and the Greater Middle East, strives to handle the emerging 

multipolar security system, contend with challenges posed by China, and preserve stability in 

Asia. This maximalist approach would provide a framework for integrating Asian democratic 

partners into the Euro-Atlantic compact, for providing leadership to the entire democratic 

community, and for participating in such global endeavors as controlling WMD proliferation, 

promoting climate control, and encouraging economic development. 

Selecting which of these options to pursue depends on the strategic goals and time horizons of 

the transatlantic partnership. It also depends on the willingness and capacity of the United States 

and Europe to forge the necessary political consensus to harmonize strategic policies and commit 

the required resources for carrying out mutual activities. Choosing wisely among these options, in 

both the near-term and long-term, will go a long way not only toward defining the nature of a 

new transatlantic compact, but also toward determining its effectiveness in the coming years. 

How can these three options best be appraised? In a nutshell, the minimum Eurocentric option 

arguably is too narrow, because it would pay insufficient attention to challenges arising in distant 

areas that will greatly affect the security of both the United States and Europe. For opposite 

reasons, a sudden leap into the maximum global option seems too demanding, because it would 

overload the transatlantic partnership and is not yet compellingly necessary in today’s climate. 

This leaves a main focus on option two as an attractive choice: a vigorous focus on the EuroAtlantic area, coupled with steadily expanding cooperation across the Greater Middle East and 

adjoining regions. This approach is attractive because it combines strategic necessity with the 

transatlantic partnership’s potential capacity to operate effectively. This option makes best sense 

in the near-to-mid term; as it matures, it could be accompanied by a gradual shift toward the 

global option as strategic needs evolve and the partnership’s capacities grow. 

Although these three strategic options help illuminate broad choices, they should not be viewed 

as mutually exclusive, or as establishing rigid start points and end points. All three point to 

compelling challenges that the transatlantic partnership will need to continually address. For this 

reason, a new compact needs to set clear priorities, but it also should be a flexible creation. It 

should allow the United States and Europe to work together in appropriate ways in all three 

arenas—Europe, the Greater Middle East, and globally—and to shift emphases as problems are 

solved and new challenges and opportunities arise. Above all, this compact should enable the 

transatlantic partnership to successfully address current priorities, while giving it ample room to 

adapt, mature, and grow. Such a glide path toward continuing maturation and growth is how the 

transatlantic Alliance started the Cold War—modestly, but growing steadily into a potent 

strategic entity that won the contest in Europe by promoting military security, political 

democracy, and economic progress. The same prescription applies to crafting a compact that 

helps determine how the transatlantic partnership is to be given new life, energy, and focus today. 
 25

Basket 2: Fostering Effective Decision Processes, Reciprocal 

Multilateralism, and Close NATO-EU Relations 

Even a flexible and evolving compact that pursues demanding goals within and beyond the 

Euro-Atlantic area will need a set of effective processes and procedures for decisionmaking and 

policy implementation that take advantage of the full scope of transatlantic strengths. Effective 

strategic performance in this key arena will never be easy for an alliance that encompasses two 

continents and is composed of the U.S. superpower, many European countries, and multiple 

institutions that include NATO and the EU. But there is a great deal of difference between 

performing poorly and performing competently. Achieving improved performance, compared to 

that of recent years, is an achievable goal. Doing so will require agreement on key principles and 

associated rules of the road regarding how the transatlantic partnership is to function in political 

terms, and how the United States and Europe are to behave toward each other in areas where they 

are endeavoring to collaborate. 

Reciprocal Multilateralism. In particular, better performance will require reaffirmation and 

strengthening of U.S. and European commitments to what might be called “reciprocal 

multilateralism” which entails close consultation, consensual decisionmaking, acceptance of 

responsibility, and implementation of combined policies. By itself, reciprocal multilateralism is 

no guarantee that all future Alliance decisions will be made wisely and implemented effectively. 

But it can provide a potent safeguard against crippling differences of opinion, mutual 

antagonisms, and the breakdown of collaborative mechanisms. Beyond this, it can help ensure 

that, when decisions are being made and policies implemented, the best ingredients of Alliancewide cooperation are available. 

Fortunately the United States and its European allies, acting mainly through NATO, have 

already learned how to practice this type of demanding multilateralism in dealing with continental 

security and defense affairs. The same cannot yet be said for their cooperation in dealing with 

areas outside Europe, including the Greater Middle East and adjoining regions. To be sure, 

progress has been made since the dark days of 2003, when the invasion of Iraq drove a deep 

wedge between the United States and multiple European countries led by Germany and France, 

and produced rancor on both sides of the Atlantic. Today, a spirit of greater empathy and 

cooperation is manifest in increasingly common U.S. and European policies toward Afghanistan, 

Iran, Lebanon, and other places, but considerable additional progress must be made if the United 

States and its European allies are to act as consistent, mutually supportive partners in these 

volatile and complex regions, which are producing today’s greatest threats. 

Although public controversy was especially inflamed by the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, with 

troops from only Britain and a few other European countries by America’s side, the problem of 

flawed U.S.-European gear-meshing in the Greater Middle East has deeper sources, originated 

years before, and has not yet been adequately resolved. During peacetime, the United States 

found itself largely alone in handling daily security affairs in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. 

When a crisis threatening war or otherwise requiring military action arose, the United States 

would turn to its European allies for help. Unable to call on NATO, which remained focused on 

Europe, U.S. leaders adopted the practice of assembling ad-hoc coalitions composed of enough 

willing participants to meet military requirements for the emergency at hand. This practice 

worked for the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991, a special situation that created a clear threat and 

triggered a large European response led by Britain and France. After this war, ad-hoc coalition 

building was revealed to have serious drawbacks. Typically, the United States would approach 

the Europeans with its strategic policies already established, and with expectations that they 

would provide resources to support these policies. European countries often resented not being 
 26

consulted when these policies were being forged as well as alleged U.S. “cherry picking” of 

allies. Because they had made no prior contractual agreements to participate, they would balk at 

providing military forces or otherwise contributing in major ways. The difficulties that arose 

during the Iraq invasion of 2003 thus were not isolated events, but instead reflected fundamental 

problems regarding principles governing how the transatlantic partnership should operate outside 

Europe. 

Continued reliance on ad-hoc coalition building may still be favored in some quarters because 

it excuses the United States and Europe from making prior commitments to common action in 

nebulous circumstances before crises erupt. Experience shows, however, that even under the best 

of circumstances, ad-hoc coalition building is a flawed instrument for crisis management because 

it typically results in improvised responses that can produce inadequate resources from both the 

United States and Europe, fail to deter potential aggressors, and fail to meet high priority 

requirements for the situations at hand. Even when adequate resources are potentially available, 

the act of assembling and transporting them can be time-consuming, thus delaying decisive 

responses in potentially damaging ways. Equally important, such improvised coalition-building at 

the time of crises prevents the prior, regular, U.S.-European consultations that are vital to 

managing daily peacetime affairs and to creating the consensual agreements that permit swift, 

sure responses during crises. Likewise, ad-hoc coalitions are normally transient creations that 

fade after the crisis has passed, and are not available for addressing fresh challenges in the 

aftermath. To handle the requirements of the future, something better than ad-hoc coalition 

building is needed, in ways that foster ongoing consultations about peacetime strategic priorities 

in the Greater Middle East, coupled with agreements on how the United States and Europe are to 

be responsible for providing military forces and other assets during crises and wartime operations, 

and afterward, as well. Reciprocal multilateralism provides an instrument for helping to achieve 

this goal. 

For the United States, fostering reciprocal multilateralism will require a concerted effort to 

treat Europe and its leading countries as co-equal partners in strategic affairs. This principle does 

not mean granting European countries veto power over U.S. foreign policy. The United States 

must retain the freedom to act independently when necessary. But it does mean a switch away 

from making American strategic judgments unilaterally, and then expecting European countries 

to act in support merely because they are expected to be loyal allies. At its core, reciprocal 

multilateralism requires genuine collaboration when such strategic judgments are being made, in 

an effort to find common ground if possible. Doing so requires the United States to respond in 

forthcoming ways in areas of special importance to Europe, such as global warming. More 

fundamentally, it requires the United States not only to listen carefully, but also to grant European 

countries meaningful influence over the heart-and-soul of its security policies and strategies in 

cases when these countries are being asked to make important contributions. 

Reciprocal multilateralism applies with equal power and a mandate for change to Europe. In 

particular, it requires European countries to accept the principle that, if they aspire to co-equal 

influence and authority over strategic choices in the Greater Middle East and elsewhere, then they 

must be willing to accept commensurate responsibility for bearing burdens, accepting risks, and 

sharing costs. This principle applies not only to launching military interventions and other forms 

of crisis response, but also to sharing the responsibilities, obligations, and commitments that arise 

on a daily basis in peacetime, over a period of many years. Reciprocal multilateralism does not 

mean that the Europeans must identically match all U.S. involvements in the Greater Middle East 

and adjoining regions. Nor does it mean that the exact blend of U.S. and European contributions 

must be the same from one issue to the next, for there will continue to be cases in which one 

participant leads and the other plays a supporting role or is not involved at all. Nor does it mean 

pursuing unanimity of strategic thought to the point of preventing both sides of the Atlantic from 
 27

acting assertively in cases where disagreements exist. Instead, it means firm but flexible 

recognition that responsibility and authority must be allocated in equal doses, that both the United 

States and Europe regularly must endeavor to achieve a meeting of minds, cooperate whenever 

possible, and refrain from blocking each other from taking responsible actions when they are not 

directly collaborating. 

The commitment to reciprocal multilateralism in new areas must be reaffirmed and 

strengthened in today’s climate. Following the principle concertedly was a key reason why the 

transatlantic partnership and NATO performed so well during the Cold War. Once common 

approaches were agreed on, both the United States and its European allies normally felt that their 

authorities and responsibilities were balanced, that no participant was overloaded with too many 

burdens or stripped of critical influence, and that their respective contributions were blended in 

ways which advanced common security goals on both sides of the Atlantic. Plenty of 

disagreements occurred along the way, but the practice of joint consultation, coupled with fairminded bargaining and negotiating, regularly ensured that initial conflict gave way to consensus 

and effective action. Moreover, reciprocal multilateralism was beneficial because it made sure 

that, when complex issues arose, they were addressed by multiple governments, not just one, in 

ways that produced better policies and strategies. 

Whether this principle can now be consistently applied to the Greater Middle East and 

adjoining regions is to be seen. Suffice it to say that it is key to the future ability of the United 

States and its European allies to attain their strategic goals and to deal effectively with new-era 

threats there. Reciprocal multilateralism, coupled with agreement on common strategic missions, 

especially offers a formula for breaking away from the pattern of relying on ad-hoc, improvised 

coalitions that perform ineffectively too often. In its place, reciprocal multilateralism offers an 

approach to creating permanent coalitions of U.S. and European countries for performing each 

strategic mission in sustained, effective ways. The exact nature of this coalition could vary from 

issue to issue, involving the United States and different European countries in shifting ways. But 

in each case, the coalition would be an enduring feature of the strategic terrain, capable of guiding 

security affairs toward common goals and desired outcomes. Equally important, each strategic 

mission would have its own permanent coalition, thus ensuring an across-the-board response 

from the transatlantic partnership. 

NATO-EU Cooperation. If a new transatlantic compact for common security missions, 

enhanced strategic performance, and reciprocal multilateralism is to succeed, it must be anchored 

in an agreement to establish close cooperation between NATO and the EU in the security and 

defense arena. These two large institutions are the principal instruments by which the United 

States and Europe endeavor to handle contemporary strategic affairs in Europe and potentially 

elsewhere. NATO is especially important to the United States, because it enables the American 

government to exert presence and leadership in Europe, and because it provides a potent source of 

allied military forces that are interoperable with U.S. forces for operations outside Europe. While 

the Europeans value NATO for the same reasons, their special attention today is devoted to 

nurturing the EU and charting its future growth. On paper, these two institutions seem natural 

partners because they perform compatible, mutually supporting strategic missions. Whereas 

NATO helps provide Europe’s security foundation, the EU helps determine how Europe’s 

superstructure of multinational political integration and enlargement is to be built on this 

foundation. In reality, however, historical circumstances conspired to produce the opposite of 

close partnership: enduring suspicion and rivalry between the two institutions that weakened both 

of them in security affairs and elsewhere. Progress toward lessening this rivalry and establishing 

greater cooperation has been made recently, but it needs to be accelerated. In their public rhetoric, 

NATO and the EU have already proclaimed a partnership. The challenge now is to supplement 

this rhetoric with concrete action. 
 28

The origins of the NATO-EU competitive relationship owe heavily to the longstanding rivalry 

between the United States and France for leadership in Europe. Whereas the United States relied 

on NATO, France increasingly used the EU to pursue its own goals. As a result, the United States 

sought to constrain the development of a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) that 

might come at the expense of NATO. This U.S. attitude was reflected in a series of policy 

pronouncement beginning with the so-called “Bartholomew telegram.”11 France for its part 

sought to prevent new NATO strategic departures that might come at the expense of its visions 

for ESDP. In this strained climate, which often viewed NATO and the EU in zero-sum terms, the 

professional bureaucracies of both institutions developed attitudes of suspicion and indifference 

toward each other. As a result, supporters of NATO and the ESDP tended to block and frustrate 

each other. For example, the EU was blocked by Britain from creating its own senior military 

headquarters and from fully funding the European Defense Agency; and NATO was discouraged 

from pursuing homeland security in Europe and stability operations in Africa. 

In recent years, the pendulum has begun slowly swinging toward greater cooperation, and 

encouraging progress has been made. In 2003, NATO and the EU finally signed the long-delayed 

Berlin Plus Accord, which permitted the EU to draw on NATO assets for military missions in 

cases where NATO had already exercised its right of first refusal. Although the Turkey-Cyprus 

problem prevented NATO-EU summits (this roadblock continues today), NATO and the EU 

began establishing formal institutional relationships at lower levels. An EU staff cell was 

established at NATO’s SHAPE headquarters. NATO and the EU established a pattern of regular 

annual meetings, including two meetings by their foreign ministers each year, four high-level 

military staff talks per year, and other meetings at lower levels. Also important, the EU launched 

efforts to create its own military forces, in the form of large reaction forces and multiple small 

battle groups that could be deployed outside Europe’s borders for a variety of missions. Fearing 

EU encroachment on its own missions and force improvement priorities, NATO initially reacted 

to these departures with skepticism. But as time passed, many of its members, including the 

United States, began seeing opportunities for burden-sharing and better European defense 

integration in an EU that possesses important military capacities for power projection of its own. 

Perhaps most important, NATO and the EU began performing security missions outside their 

borders that illuminated the potentialities of both bodies, promoted cooperation between them in 

some cases, and suggested a future division-of-labor between them. By 2007, NATO was 

performing fully seven external security missions in places ranging from the Mediterranean Sea 

to the Balkans and Afghanistan, while striving to establish cooperative military ties to key Middle 

East countries. Meanwhile, the EU was performing seven external missions of its own, including 

in the Balkans, Lebanon, and sub-Saharan Africa. With this many new-era missions—fourteen in 

total—each institution likely would have been overloaded in absence of contributions from the 

other. Moreover, their mutual experiences in the Balkans, especially Bosnia, showed the 

advantages of a practice in which NATO would intervene first to dampen major combat between 

local participants, and the EU would follow afterward to perform residual peacekeeping, 

stabilization, and reconstruction missions. 

In today’s climate, hope for additional progress comes from several quarters. The United States 

has recently developed a more forthcoming attitude toward the EU and its ESDP. Equally 

important, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has adopted a more forthcoming attitude toward the 

United States, and has offered to return France to NATO‘s integrated military command, from 

which it has been absent since 1966, in exchange for U.S. and NATO support for ESDP. Warmer 

 

11 The “Bartholomew telegram” was a cable sent to NATO posts by Under Secretary of State for 

International Security Affairs Reginald Bartholomew on February 20, 1991. It is reprinted in Willem van 

Eekelen, Debating European Security: 1948–1998 (The Hague: SDU Publishers, 1998), 340–44.
 29

U.S.-French relations help set the political stage for closer ties between NATO and the EU, which 

evidently will write a new strategic concept of its own in the coming months. Also, important, the 

EU’s signing of the Lisbon Treaty is creating an Office of High Representative of the Union for 

Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, thus lessening the EU’s traditional hydra-headed structure in 

this arena. For the first time, the EU, and all of Europe to a degree, will have a single official who 

can pursue cooperative ties with the United States and NATO. Although the EU’s future is 

uncertain, continued integration in the security and defense arena will broaden long-range 

prospects for the transatlantic partnership to take the form of a triangular relationship among the 

United States, NATO, and the EU. Such a triangular relationship could strengthen the capacity of 

all three participants to cooperate more closely in performing new strategic missions in a setting 

of reciprocal multilateralism. 

A second set of differences now block closer NATO-EU cooperation, differences between 

Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and over Turkey’s admission to the EU. Turkey tends to block 

NATO-EU cooperation within the Alliance while Greece blocks cooperation within the EU. 

Turkey feels that elements of the Berlin-Plus Agreement advantageous to them have been 

breached and they object when NATO and the EU meet on the grounds that Cypriot delegates do 

not have proper security clearances. Positive political developments on Cyprus may provide an 

opportunity to remove this blockage but a major initiative is needed. 

NATO-EU Division of Labor. If NATO and the EU are to collaborate closely, under leadership 

by the United States and key European powers, their interaction will need to be guided by clear 

strategic principles that are appealing to both bodies. Such principles would need to treat NATO 

and the EU as co-equal partners on the world stage, with neither body subordinate to the other in 

security and defense affairs. Such principles could be guided by an informal division of labor 

between NATO and the EU, one aimed not at hamstringing either institution, but instead at 

enabling both of them to take best advantage of their scarce resources. For the foreseeable future, 

NATO will remain the transatlantic partnership’s premier military alliance for high-end defense 

requirements, including force transformation, demanding expeditionary missions, and major warfighting. The EU will not be able to aspire to such defense standards for many years, but it could 

help promote armaments cooperation, common R&D and procurement, standardization and 

interoperability, training, multinational logistics, and other activities in ways that conserve scarce 

resources and thereby benefit European and NATO defense preparedness. The EU also will be 

able to acquire military forces and related capabilities for several important security and defense 

missions, including peacekeeping, training with foreign nations, stabilization and reconstruction 

(S&R), limited crisis interventions in such places as Africa, and providing civilian assets for 

comprehensive approaches. While such assets may be primarily intended for the EU’s use, future 

collaboration perhaps could result in them being assigned to NATO missions. An example is the 

EU’s ongoing effort to create fifteen battle groups of about 1,500 troops apiece, and to 

supplement them with an operational headquarters and associated air and naval forces. If the EU 

agrees, these battle groups and joint assets could be made available for some NATO forces and 

missions: e.g., the NATO Response Force (NRF). The same applies to any other modern forces 

that the EU might create, such as larger rapid reaction forces. 

A division-of-labor approach should not be rigid. Instead, it could be flexible and evolutionary, 

with decisions made by a variety of decisionmaking bodies on a case-by-case basis. Frank 

Kramer and Simon Serfaty have proposed the creation of a Euro-Atlantic Forum consisting of all 

32 EU-NATO members that would act as a “strategic coordinator” for transatlantic security 
 30

issues.12 Regardless of how the division-of-labor idea is appraised, the governing reality is that, if 

the United States and Europe are to achieve closer cooperation inside and outside Europe, they 

will both need a healthy NATO and a healthy EU. Equally important, neither NATO nor the EU 

can realistically aspire to perform the wide range of future strategic missions without significant 

help from the other. In recent years, both bodies have embarked on the task of performing 

strategic missions beyond Europe’s borders, but their current efforts may seem modest in 

comparison to the demanding endeavors that lie ahead. Because they can magnify each other’s 

powers while allowing both to focus on compelling priorities, close cooperation between NATO 

and the EU provides the best prescription for ensuring that both succeed, individually and 

collectively, in ways that promote the common goals of a strategic compact for the transatlantic 

partnership. 

Basket 3: Building Capabilities for Expeditionary Missions and 

Comprehensive Approaches 

A transatlantic compact will need to address improved capabilities in these two areas, because 

future requirements for them could be high, and current assets fall well short of meeting them. 

How large will these requirements be? U.S. and European military forces and civilian assets are 

carrying out two major contingencies in Afghanistan and Iraq, while also operating in the Balkans 

and responding to crisis situations in Africa. The era of multiple concurrent contingencies has 

arrived, and future contingencies could be as large as, or larger than, those of today, and equally 

numerous, too. U.S., NATO, and European officials are already aware of the need to be prepared 

for multiple contingencies. But the exact nature of these contingencies—their time, place, 

circumstances, and requirements—cannot be confidently foreseen. For this reason, considerable 

flexibility and adaptability will be needed. The transatlantic partnership will need adequate 

military and civilian resources to respond effectively. 

Expeditionary Missions. In the military arena, the United States already possesses sizable 

assets for power projection and expeditionary missions, but will need to solidify its commitment 

to continued NATO preparedness. A few years ago, the Department of Defense forged a plan to 

reduce the U.S. military presence in Europe from about 100,000 military personnel to about 

65,000. A centerpiece of this plan was to reduce the U.S. Army in Germany from four heavy 

brigades to only a single Stryker brigade, plus an air assault brigade in Italy. Recently, this 

drawdown plan has been suspended. If a new plan is adopted, it should leave enough Army 

brigades in Central Europe to train with their-European counterparts and be fully prepared for 

potential missions.13 Also, U.S. forces could take command of a NATO multinational corps 

headquarters, as well as continue to participate closely in the NRF. In addition to keeping its 

European Command properly resourced and involved in NATO, the United States can contribute 

by ensuring that its Central Command and new Africa Command work collaboratively with 

NATO and the EU. 

Even with continuing U.S. contributions, remedying the deficiency of military resources for 

expeditionary missions will depend heavily on whether Europe can increase its contributions 

beyond current levels. Larger European defense and security budgets are needed. Whereas 

currently the United States spends well over four percent of its GDP on defense, Europe spends 

well less than two percent of its GDP for the same purpose. What matters at least as much as 

 

12 See Franklin D. Kramer and Simon Serfaty, “Recasting the Euro-Atlantic Partnership,” in A Recast 

Partnership? Institutional Dimensions of Transatlantic Relations (Washington, DC: CSIS Press, 2008), 

191–213.

13 The current U.S. military presence in Europe is about 95,000 personnel, counting ground, air, and naval 

units. See The Military Balance, 2008 (London: The International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007). 
 31

levels of security expenditures is creation of better European assets that can be applied to power 

projection, while also attending to emerging new-era needs in homeland security and defense. 

European members of NATO currently maintain about two million military personnel on active 

duty. Wealthy NATO members, mainly from northern Europe, maintain nearly one million active 

military personnel, including 500,000 ground troops, 56 combat brigades, 1,400 combat aircraft, 

and 150 naval combatants.14 But most of these large forces remain configured for old-style, 

border defense missions inherited from the Cold War, and are not readily deployable for new-era 

expeditionary missions. 

Addressing this deficiency, NATO’s Comprehensive Political Guidance (CPG), issued at the 

Riga Summit of 2006, called for fully 40 percent of NATO’s ground forces to be prepared for 

operations in distant areas, for 8 percent of them to be deployable at any single time, and for the 

remaining 32 percent to provide sustainment assets plus capabilities for additional concurrent 

contingencies.15 Roughly speaking, the 8 percent figure translates into a requirement for 4 or 5 

divisions (12–15 brigades), or 120,000–150,000 troops when combat units and logistic support 

assets are counted. European countries today field enough active divisions and brigades to meet 

this 8 percent requirement, but they currently lack the mobility forces and logistic support assets 

to deploy them rapidly outside Europe, even when British and French forces—the best prepared 

for projection missions—are included, Moreover, European countries recently have been falling 

short of quotas for manning the much-heralded NRF, a swiftly deployable strike force that totals 

only 25,000 personnel for its ground, air, and naval components. In a wartime emergency, 

additional forces could be generated, but low readiness levels, shortages in strategic lift, and 

equipment shortfalls would set an upper limit on the total number. Whether more than 75,000 

ground troops plus commensurate air and naval assets could be quickly deployed outside Europe 

is an open question. 

What should be future European and NATO preparedness goals in this arena? On paper, the 

idea of having fully 40 percent of European ground forces available for deployment missions 

looks impressive, but it might overestimate requirements and create too many force goals for 

available budgets to handle. Conversely, the idea of having only 8 percent of forces ready for 

short-notice deployments might underestimate requirements. A ready posture of only 4 or 5 

divisions might prove inadequate if two or more contingencies erupt concurrently. Perhaps the 

Europeans and NATO might be better off by focusing on preparing 6–8 divisions for rapid 

deployment, backed by a total pool of 16–20 mobilizable divisions (roughly 30 percent of total 

forces). These and other ideas will need to be considered by NATO and European military 

authorities. Regardless of the exact numbers chosen, the key point is that if future requirements 

are to be met, European capabilities for swiftly projecting military power will need to increase 

significantly in the coming years. 

Hope for tangible progress comes from the prospect that high-leverage, low-cost changes in 

such areas as training, doctrine, and reorganization can yield significant improvements to 

deployability for expeditionary missions. British and French forces already are organized for such 

missions. Together, they field 18 ground brigades, 600 combat aircraft, and 90 naval combatants, 

a significant portion of which are deployable. In Afghanistan, such countries as the Netherlands 

and Canada have been making large contributions that meet any fair sense of “per capita quotas” 

assigned to them. Among other countries, Germany is making progress in the arena of force 

reorganization. Today, Germany fields 21 ground brigades, 300 combat aircraft, and 15 major 

 

14 Ibid. 

15 See “Comprehensive Political Guidance of the Riga Summit,” available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/ 

basictxt/b061129e.htm>. See also the communiqués of the summits held in Istanbul, available at 

<http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/2004/p04-096e.htm> and Riga, available at <http://www.nato.int/ 

docu/pr/2006/p06-150e.htm>. 
 32

naval combatants, but this sizable posture has traditionally been oriented to local defense. 

Recently, Germany issued a far-sighted plan calling for its ground forces to be reorganized into 

three bodies for expeditionary missions: 35,000 troops for rapid reaction, high-intensity combat 

missions, 70,000 troops for stabilization and other low-intensity missions, and 147,500 troops for 

logistic support.16 Some other countries are following this path, albeit in less ambitious ways. 

Individually, few of them will likely be able to commit large forces for expeditionary missions, 

but if most of them can contribute small forces—a division or a brigade and some fighter aircraft 

apiece—the combined effect can be to add sizable forces to Europe’s ledger for power projection. 

Generating adequate, deployable manpower and combat units is only part of the requirements 

equation. As the CPG observed, NATO forces for expeditionary missions must be well-equipped 

and properly transformed so that they can perform new-era combat missions and achieve 

interoperability with U.S. military forces. Fortunately, Europe’s wealthier countries already 

possess modern ground weapons, aircraft, and ships that meet requirements in this area. But 

significant additional transformation is needed in such areas as improved C4ISR assets, 

information networks, unmanned aerial surveillance, SOF forces, precision-strike systems, airground coordination, WMD defense assets, airlift and sealift, and logistic support. Across Europe, 

military investment budgets are typically too small to permit rapid acquisition programs in these 

areas. This is a key reason why defense budgets need to grow, so that investment funds can be 

increased in the face of high spending on manpower and daily operations. Even with current 

investment budgets, however, several countries are pursuing innovative procurement programs. 

In the coming years, such new systems as the F-35 fighter, the NATO Network Enabled 

Capability (NNEC), the Ground Surveillance Monitor, the medium-size A-400M transport 

aircraft, and, for Britain, two new, large aircraft carriers, will enter the inventory. Over a period of 

5–10 years, this positive trend will gradually elevate European military capabilities for new-era 

missions. 

NATO can contribute to this enterprise by encouraging sound force goals and investment 

priorities for European countries, and by taking steps to further refine its force structures and 

command relationships. Ongoing efforts to encourage better information networking, airlift and 

sealift, critical enabling assets, and multinational logistic support make sense. Priority attention 

should be given to those forces that actually will be used for expeditionary missions rather than 

border defense, e.g., the NRF, SOF units, and some High Readiness Forces (HRF), such as the 

Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) and other multinational corps headquarters and formations. 

In addition, NATO could contribute by breathing greater life into its Allied Command for 

Transformation (ACT), thereby providing its European members with strong guidance regarding 

their plans and programs in transformation, modernization, and armaments cooperation. The same 

sense of priority attention to expeditionary missions applies to the EU and its defense 

preparedness efforts, which will help make best use of scarce resources if they are harmonized 

with those of NATO. 

Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations. In today’s setting, expeditionary missions often 

go hand-in-hand with S&R operations. Growing recognition of the need for extended, demanding 

S&R missions arose in the aftermath of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Although the 

immediate goal of regime change was swiftly accomplished in both places, U.S. and coalition 

military forces were then assigned the larger goal of stabilizing both countries, eliminating enemy 

residual opposition there, and helping lay a security foundation that would enable both countries 

to undertake the long transition to democratic governments, civil societies, and functioning 

 

16 See White Paper on German Security Policy and the Future of the Bundeswehr, 2006 (Berlin: Federal 

Ministry of Defence, 2006), 69, available in English at <http://www.bmvg.de/portal/PA_1_0_P3/ 

PortalFiles/C1256EF40036B05B/W26UWAMT995INFOEN/W_2006_eng_DS.pdf?yw_repository=youat

web>.
 33

economies. These new ambitious goals, in turn, required U.S. and coalition forces to perform a 

large set of demanding, unfamiliar, and unplanned missions that fall under the rubric of S&R, 

e.g., counterterrorism, fighting criminal gangs, pacifying ethnic violence, restoring distribution of 

electrical power, water, food, and fuel, other aspects of infrastructure rehabilitation, and 

rebuilding armies, police forces, and other institutions of governance and law enforcement. In all 

of these areas, U.S. and coalition forces soon found their work cut out for them, and the demands 

facing them have not abated in the years since both invasions were launched. 

Future requirements for S&R missions could be large. Meeting requirements for these 

capabilities during the initial stages of an intervention can be demanding, and the act of sustaining 

large S&R forces is more demanding because it necessitates periodic rotation of forces, thus 

creating a need for a sizable total pool of available assets. Fortunately, European militaries 

possess plenty of manpower and associated capabilities to generate large S&R assets, including 

administrators, trainers, military police, CIMIC (Civil Military Cooperation), construction 

engineers, and medical personnel. But steps to better organize and prepare them are needed for 

both combat and non-combat contingencies. Today some European militaries (e.g. Britain and 

France) prefer to remain focused on traditional warfighting, and want to configure EU battle 

groups for high-tech, combat operations. In particular, France’s new White Paper seems to limit 

France’s willingness to engage in S&R operations.17 Germany and others, however, have 

expressed interest and a willingness to act in the S&R preparedness arena. They need sound 

guidance from NATO to set their priorities individually and collectively. At its Riga Summit, 

NATO acknowledged the need for improved S&R capabilities but took no steps to establish a 

command structure or coordination center, or to identify the size and characteristics of forces 

needed. Nor was anything definitive said at NATO’s Bucharest Summit of 2008. Better guidance 

for planning and programming will be needed from NATO and the EU in this arena. 

Comprehensive Approach. Although S&R missions remain a preoccupation of the U.S. 

military and its European partners, performing them has recently been subsumed under the larger 

category of “comprehensive approaches,” whose importance was acknowledged by NATO in the 

Riga Summit of 2006 and Bucharest Summit of 2008. The core idea is that the mission of 

restoring order and progress to damaged countries cannot be accomplished by military forces 

alone. Instead, it must be performed by a combination of military forces and civilian assets that 

are forged together on behalf of common purposes. Significant civilian assets are needed because 

they are best able to perform critical rehabilitation functions, including civil engineering, 

infrastructure construction, communicating across cultures, creating law enforcement systems, 

establishing modern governmental structures, setting economic and financial policies, regulating 

currencies, and promoting effective education systems. Such civilian functions, in turn, cannot 

normally be performed by a single institution. Instead, they must be performed by a multiplicity 

of actors, including governmental bureaucracies such as the U.S. State Department as well as 

NATO and especially the EU, assets from partner countries outside Europe such as Japan and 

Australia, international agencies such as the United Nations and OSCE, non-governmental 

organizations (NGOs) such as the Red Cross, and numerous civilian contractors. Fusing these 

civilian activities and blending them with ongoing S&R missions of military forces is the 

demanding purpose of comprehensive approaches. 

As recent experience shows, comprehensive approaches are anything but easy to carry out. 

This especially is the case in the immediate aftermath of major combat, when military forces may 

be present in large numbers, but civilian assets are slow to arrive on the scene. As these civilian 

 

17 See The French White Paper on defence and national security (Paris: The Presidency of the Republic, 

June 2008), available at <http://www.ambafrance-ca.org/IMG/pdf/Livre_blanc_Press_kit_ 

english_version.pdf>. 
 34

assets begin arriving, they often must operate in a setting of chaos and violence, in ways requiring 

that they be protected by military forces from insurgency and terrorist opposition to them. Once 

these civilian assets have deployed in sufficient numbers, and are able to operate in a peaceful 

setting, they can begin functioning with growing effectiveness. At this juncture, a new challenge 

arises, that of providing them top-down guidance and control so that their activities are properly 

coordinated in a setting of multiple agencies and actors with goals, agendas, priorities, and 

procedures of their own—not all of which are easily compatible or reconciled with each other. 

Even after each civilian activity is properly resourced, and proper teamwork is established, the act 

of carrying out the full spectrum of demanding missions can require months or years, and in 

badly damaged or underdeveloped countries, progress can be excruciatingly slow. Patience and 

persistence are required for comprehensive approaches to succeed. 

The difficult experiences encountered thus far in such places as the Balkans, Afghanistan, and 

Iraq show that comprehensive approaches, involving close cooperation among military and 

civilian instruments, should not be mounted on the fly through improvised, ad-hoc arrangements. 

In the military arena, ad-hoc mechanisms can sometimes be employed because the requisite 

military forces are already available, are sufficiently ready and equipped, and respond obediently 

to orders from atop. The same does not apply to most civilian agencies and instruments, and to 

their capacity to interface with military forces. Although governmental agencies respond to 

executive orders from their commanders, multinational institutions and NGO are a different 

matter. They must be recruited and persuaded to participate. Even when the full spectrum of 

required actors is mobilized, many of them may lack prompt access to the specific assets that are 

needed in each case. Valuable time can be lost as these actors assemble the proper combination of 

skilled personnel and equipment. Such problems can be quickly solved when only a small number 

of civilians must be deployed to a distant area, but an entirely different, less tractable situation 

emerges when hundreds or thousands of civilians, with many different skills, must be sent, and 

then must establish close cooperation with military forces. 

Such considerations highlight the paramount importance of advanced planning for the civilian 

side of comprehensive approaches, and for the civilian-military interface, if future interventions 

are to succeed. To be sure, no advanced planning can anticipate the unique demands of each 

situation. But such plans can make a critical difference between responding poorly and effectively 

because they help identify and mobilize the basic categories and amounts of resources, and help 

create the organizational practices, that might be needed in each case. Above all, they can place 

the United States and its partners in the general ballpark of having adequate resources and 

collaborative practices, while lessening the risk of being caught completely unprepared when 

surprising demands emerge. As Dwight Eisenhower once said, “plans are nothing, but planning is 

everything.” The key implication is that because demanding military-civilian missions in this 

arena are likely to be a permanent feature of tomorrow’s strategic terrain, the United States and 

its European allies need to intensify serious planning for them. 

The need for advanced planning carries with it the requirement to develop better civilian 

capabilities than exist today on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the United States and Europe 

could establish a standing civilian core for these missions. Merely compiling a list of potential 

volunteers would not suffice. Participating personnel must be given adequate education, training, 

and exercise opportunities to develop the special skills that are needed. This especially applies to 

such demanding areas as police training, justice, rule of law, and cross-cultural communications. 

National leadership in this arena is needed because the necessary personnel and skills will remain 

largely in the possession of participating countries. But NATO and the EU have important roles 

to play as well. They can employ their planning mechanisms to help guide and coordinate the 

application of national resources, programs, and budgets. They can establish centers of excellence 

for helping promote common training and doctrines. They can create operational plans for 
 35

determining how to act when the need arises. Also, they can create command structures capable 

of carrying out military-civilian missions, e.g., by allocating one of NATO’s multinational corps 

headquarters for this purpose. At its Bucharest Summit, NATO proclaimed that it had adopted an 

“Action Plan” for pursuing comprehensive approaches. The challenge now is to carry out this 

plan effectively, while working closely with the EU and other bodies. 

Becoming better prepared for expeditionary missions, S&R operations, and comprehensive 

approaches is only partly a function of creating the necessary resources and deploying them when 

needed. Being successful also is a function of knowing how to apply these resources in concrete 

situations so that the strategic goals of U.S.-European interventions can be accomplished as 

effectively and swiftly as possible. Recently, the frustrations of operating in Afghanistan and Iraq 

have given rise to a growing emphasis on learning how to apply effects-based practices that strive 

to ensure a coherent relationship between the means and ends of operations. The capacity of the 

United States and Europe to learn this art will go a long way toward determining whether their 

future interventions in distant areas continue to be frustrating, or instead turn out successfully. 

Traditional Defense. The invasion of Georgia will renew concerns along Russia’s borders 

about Moscow’s intentions. Already, Poland has indicated in the context of missile defense 

deployments that it does not fully trust the Article V guarantee. NATO may need to review its 

conventional military capabilities to deal with a resurgent Russia. 
 36
 37

Conclusion 

In summary, the idea of forging a new transatlantic compact that bonds the United States and 

Europe more closely in security affairs, one in which a new NATO strategic concept would be 

embedded, has important merits. But if such a compact is to succeed, it must have tangible, reallife components and consequences. On both sides of the Atlantic, it must create a sense of 

common strategic missions within and beyond Europe, forge agreement on principles of 

reciprocal multilateralism and close NATO-EU relations, and produce a commitment to creating 

improved capabilities for expeditionary missions, S&R operations, and comprehensive 

approaches. Such an ambitious agenda, with all of its requirements for gear-shifting and new 

directions by both the United States and its European allies, cannot be accomplished overnight. 

But if the effort is launched and sustained, progress can be made in ways that have steady 

cumulative effects over a period of years and thereby help address today’s threats while making 

key parts of the world more peaceful. This, at least, is the promise of such a compact and a dualpath approach. 

How can this idea best be implemented in political terms in a manner that appeals to both the 

United States and Europe? One idea is to have a new transatlantic compact become the 

centerpiece of a grand summit whose attendees would include the United States, participating 

European countries, NATO, and the EU. At such a summit, the initial version of the compact 

could be adopted and issued as a special communiqué. Afterward, working groups could further 

develop its contents, and NATO could write a new strategic concept. A year or two later, another 

grand summit could be held to formally adopt conclusions and recommendations and launch 

further studies by working groups. Through regular, successive summits, coupled with ongoing 

studies, the compact could steadily expand.18 

If the idea of grand U.S.-European summits fails to gain traction, the alternative is a less 

publicly visible approach that seeks progress via multiple avenues of action. In this option, the 

United States would first pursue close consultations with key European countries on the 

ingredients of such a compact. As consensus emerges, a new NATO strategic concept would be 

written. Afterward, this consensus would be gradually but steadily be expanded to NATO-EU 

relations and other venues of transatlantic collaboration. A single document embodying the full 

compact might not emerge anytime soon, but it could eventually be signed, and in practical terms, 

this multifaceted evolutionary approach could gradually help steer the transatlantic partnership in 

the right directions. 

Both of these options have attractions and liabilities. The first offers the best prospects for big 

immediate success, but it would require mobilizing a widespread consensus on both sides of the 

Atlantic, perhaps in ways that exceed the art of the possible in today’s situation. The second is 

less immediately ambitious, but it would face fewer political obstacles, and could gradually be 

expanded as consensus grows. Neither option offers an easy path, but either of them could 

succeed if it is pursued systematically. The key point is that if a new transatlantic compact is to be 

forged and brought to life (along with a new NATO strategic concept), one or the other of these 

options needs to be tried. In today’s troubled world, the imperatives for action, and the potential 

payoffs, are too great to be ignored. 

 

18 For further analysis of this option, see Kramer and Serfaty, “Recasting the Euro-Atlantic Partnership.” 
 38
 39

Appendix: NATO’s Historical Experiences with New Strategic 

Concepts 

DC 6/1 Initial Strategy of Deterrence and Defense Specialization (1949–

1951) 

 When the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in early 1949, the Cold War was already 

underway, but the newly minted Alliance had no organizational structure or defense strategy to 

guide its efforts. Moreover, its military forces were perilously weak. In Central Europe, these 

forces included only about 8 ground divisions and 600 combat aircraft that were woefully 

inadequate to defend against the much larger Soviet army deployed in Eastern Europe. Had war 

broken out then, NATO’s forces likely would have been defeated quickly. In this setting, 

NATO’s defense ministers issued the first strategic concept in December 1949; it was approved 

by the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in January 1950. DC 6/1 endorsed deterrence of war as the 

ultimate goal of NATO’s defense plans for the Cold War. It also called on NATO members to 

cooperate to develop adequate forces for defending Europe and to create coordinated plans for 

employing these forces in the event deterrence failed. 

DC 6/1 did not, however, produce an integrated plan for achieving these goals. Instead, it 

crafted a loose collection of principles for coordinating efforts by member nations. In essence, it 

called for an alliance based on national specialization and a division of labor rather than a 

uniform distribution of military missions. For example, the United States and Britain were 

assigned the missions of strategic bombardment and maritime defense. While both countries were 

also given the mission of providing supporting air and ground forces, the task of defending the 

European landmass was mainly given to the continental powers. At the time, France lacked a 

large army, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) had only recently achieved sovereignty and 

was not yet a member of NATO or permitted an army of its own, and other members were not 

well-armed. As NATO’s military leaders realized, the best that could be expected in a war was a 

weak initial NATO defense effort along the Rhine River, followed by a long-term mobilization of 

U.S. and British military power in a prolonged campaign to regain lost ground. Such a defense 

concept fell well short of fulfilling the collective defense clause (Article 5) of the NATO treaty, 

but at the time, it was the most that the political traffic would bear in the United States, Britain, 

and elsewhere. 

Because DC 6/1 was a compromise document that created a political-strategic vision without 

embracing long-term military requirements for coalition defense, it survived less than two years. 

But during its brief life-span, it helped bring important improvements to NATO’s defense 

preparedness. Under its auspices, the SACEUR position was established and SHAPE 

Headquarters was created. It also helped inspire cooperative defense measures in such areas as 

common military doctrine, combined exercises, construction of military installations, 

standardization of maintenance, repair, and service facilities, and collaboration in research and 

development. Meanwhile, member countries began enlarging their military forces and 

strengthening their readiness. Such efforts helped establish a foundation of multilateral 

cooperation that proved critical when NATO began launching a major rearmament effort in 

1952.19 

 

19 For more details on DC 6/1 and NATO’s other strategic concepts during the Cold War, see Richard L. 

Kugler, Commitment to Purpose: How Alliance Partnership Won the Cold War (Santa Monica, CA: 

RAND, 2003). See also Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis, Containment: Documents on American 

Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979).
 40

MC 14/1 NATO Defense Buildup and Collective Defense (1951–1957) 

The period 1950–1951 witnessed an intensification of the Cold War, including outbreak of the 

Korean War, Soviet acquisition of nuclear weapons, and increases in the readiness of the Soviet 

Army. The result was a major increase in the military threat to NATO. The United States 

launched a major military buildup, and NATO followed suit. The new strategic concept, MC 

14/1, was the first to be drafted by the NATO Military Committee, and the first to benefit from 

SHAPE’s professional analyses of NATO’s enduring military requirements. Strong political 

impetus came from the United States. Widespread consensus for MC 14/1 was achieved relatively 

quickly, but it required close coordination and consensus-building among NATO members. 

MC 14/1 abandoned the old precept of defense specialization in favor of collective defense, 

integrated military formations under NATO commanders, and a theater-wide perspective. 

Representing a combination of U.S. and European thinking, it relied on American strategic 

nuclear bombardment and Alliance-wide mobilization to achieve ultimate victory in a war, but it 

also included plans for strengthening NATO’s in-being continental forces. In Central Europe, it 

called for a NATO defense line on the Rhine River for a period of 5 years until Alliance force 

improvements permitted a more forward defense. It called for building 54 mobilizable divisions 

for defense of AFCENT (NATO Central Region), 21 divisions for defending AFSOUTH, and 14 

divisions for defending AFNORTH. It also called for commensurate increases in NATO’s air 

forces and naval power: it called for a total of 9,000 combat aircraft and 700 warships. When 

these forces proved unaffordable, NATO commissioned a study by a Temporary Council 

Committee led by three “wise men:” Averell Harriman (United States), Jean Monnet (France), 

and Edwin Plowden (U.K.). Their study produced the Lisbon Force Goals, which stretched out 

NATO’s time horizon for achieving MC 14/1’s ambitious goals and called for a balanced mixture 

of active and reserve forces. The Lisbon Goals were approved by the NAC in 1952. 

Over the next 6 years, MC 14/1 provided the strategic framework for pursuing a host of 

political and military improvements that greatly increased NATO’s security against the growing 

Soviet threat. The position of NATO Secretary General was established, the NAC was upgraded 

to include chiefs of state, and the SACLANT and CINCHAN military commands were 

established. NATO’s rearmament effort accelerated. U.S. defense spending rose dramatically, and 

U.S. military assistance flowed to Europe. Between 1950 and 1954, annual defense spending by 

European members tripled. In Central Europe, active military manpower increased from 350,000 

in 1949 to 600,000 in 1954. Animating this effort was a “transatlantic bargain” among the United 

States and its key European allies to provide an integrated defense posture in Central Europe that 

would protect the FRG. The United States committed to station five divisions there, Britain 

agreed to create a British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) of four or five divisions, Belgium and the 

Netherlands agreed to provide corps-sized forces, and France agreed to make significant 

commitments. In addition, an agreement was forged to rearm the FRG, which embarked on a 

long-term effort to create an army of twelve divisions and an air force of about 650 combat 

aircraft. 

This set of transatlantic agreements had not only military import, but political significance that 

underscored a deepening commitment to collective defense and coalition planning. Combining 

the commitments of multiple members not only elevated NATO’s overall strategic prospects, but 

also enabled each nation to pursue security goals that would have been impossible for any of 

them to achieve individually—a hallmark of NATO’s growing effectiveness as the Cold War 

unfolded. Because rearmament was a slow process, initial efforts were not enough to meet the 

Lisbon goals. By 1956, nonetheless, NATO was able to field 17 active divisions, 2,000 armored 

vehicles, and 1600 combat aircraft in Central Europe—with promises of additional US wartime 

 
 41

reinforcements plus the gradual fielding of more German and French forces. Also important, 

NATO embarked on programs to increase training, bolster ammunition stockpiles, construct new 

airfields, and establish signal networks, pipelines, and storage facilities. These efforts fell short of 

creating a fully viable conventional defense posture, but they significantly elevated NATO 

combat power.

MC 14/2 Strategy of Massive Retaliation (1957–1967) 

This period witnessed a further deepening of the Cold War and a growing military 

confrontation in Central Europe. The Soviet Union began deploying nuclear bombers and 

missiles, and strengthened Warsaw Pact conventional forces to pose an offensive threat of nearly 

100 divisions and 4,000 combat aircraft. Cold War political tensions heated up, with the Berlin 

crisis a key focal point of growing Soviet assertiveness. NATO members in the mid-to-late 1950s 

were searching for ways to lessen the costs of military preparedness. New nuclear technologies, 

weapons, and delivery systems seemed to answer their needs, and the NATO summit of 1957 

produced agreement on MC 14/2, which anchored NATO’s defense plans on a large-scale theater 

nuclear operation backed by a massive nuclear blow against the Soviet Union in event of war. 

The central idea of MC 14/2 was that the threat of rapid nuclear escalation and devastating 

retaliation could reliably deter virtually all forms of Soviet aggression, including invasion of 

Central Europe. This new concept of massive retaliation reflected the Eisenhower 

Administration’s strategic thinking and its political leadership of NATO. European members 

initially resisted this nuclear strategy, but eventually came to support it because it ensured U.S. 

nuclear guarantees while also lowering their own defense costs. Consequently MC 14/2 was 

adopted with widespread consensus across NATO, but only after searching analysis and debate 

over the strategic implications. 

MC 14/2 was accompanied by major programs to strengthen U.S. and NATO nuclear forces. 

The United States initially deployed a large force of long-range strategic bombers, and then began 

constructing ICBMs and SLBMs. Britain and France also decided to become nuclear powers with 

bombers and missiles of their own. Meanwhile, the United States embarked on a program to 

deploy theater and tactical nuclear forces in Europe in the form of missiles, tactical aircraft, and 

tube artillery. Eventually the United States deployed about 7,000 nuclear warheads in Europe and 

adopted a program of cooperation that enabled allied forces to gain access to tactical nuclear 

weapons for theater war-fighting. By the late 1950s, NATO was rapidly becoming well-endowed 

with a nuclear posture capable of deterrence and defense. The effect was to upgrade NATO’s 

overall security at a time of mounting dangers. 

By the early 1960s, growing attention was devoted to NATO conventional forces, whose 

improvement efforts had slowed during the late 1950s. This effort was especially led by the 

Kennedy Administration, but it also benefited from growing support by NATO’s military 

authorities. Initially, several European members, including Germany, were hesitant about any 

weakening of nuclear deterrence, but they eventually came to see value in practical, affordable 

steps to enhance NATO’s conventional posture. In Central Europe, the main focus was on 

fielding a force of 30 divisions and 2,000 tactical combat aircraft that could forge a cohesive 

defense line across the 750-kilometer AFCENT front. In the late 1950s, NATO had moved its 

defense front from the Rhine River to the vicinity of the Weser-Lech Rivers, about 70 kilometers 

west of the inter-German border. Emergence of the German Army, with twelve first-class 

divisions, coupled with U.S. force modernization to enable this concept and allow NATO to 

contemplate a fully forward defense. By the mid-1960s, NATO moved its defense line to the 

inter-German border, and formed its layer-cake array of eight adjacent national corps formations. 

At the time, NATO still did not have enough ground and air forces in Central Europe for a 

sustained defense, and the U.S. military involvement in Vietnam prevented it from being able to 
 42

send large reinforcements in a crisis. In particular, a NATO ground posture of only 30 divisions 

lacked operational reserves in the rear areas, thereby making nuclear escalation the only 

alternative in the event of enemy breakthroughs of NATO’s front line. 

MC 14/3 Strategy of Flexible Response (1967–1991) 

The mid-1960s saw the Soviet Union launch a sustained program to deploy many ICBMs and 

SLBMs, and to greatly bolster the Warsaw Pact’s offensive capabilities with new tanks, armored 

fighting vehicles, and other weapons—even as Moscow began issuing calls for détente in Europe. 

MC 14/3 was partially a response to this growing military threat, but more fundamentally, it 

addressed strategic flaws in MC 14/2’s reliance on massive nuclear retaliation as an all-purpose 

deterrent. Dissatisfaction with MC 14/2 began in the United States, where Secretary of Defense 

Robert McNamara and other officials feared that the Soviet Union could employ its own nuclear 

forces to deter a NATO nuclear response, and thereby might feel free to use its powerful 

conventional forces to commit aggression against NATO’s still-vulnerable conventional posture. 

In his famous address to NATO defense ministers at Athens, Greece, in 1962, McNamara called 

for NATO to broaden its defense strategy by bolstering its conventional forces so that they would 

have a stronger deterrent and defense capability of their own. McNamara’s speech caused a 

political uproar in Europe, because many officials feared that greater reliance on conventional 

forces might weaken nuclear deterrence and invite non-nuclear war in Europe. More 

fundamentally, they feared that the United States might be trying to back away from its nuclear 

guarantees to NATO and Europe. 

The resulting debate caused a deep transatlantic rift in NATO. Indeed, France withdrew from 

NATO’s integrated military command, and some German officials publicly threatened to 

withdraw their country from NATO and build a nuclear deterrent force of their own. By the mid1960s, however, NATO began employing its professional military staffs, its analytical talents, 

and its consensus-building mechanisms to find common ground. The result was agreement on 

MC 14/3, a strategy of flexible response that combined still-strong nuclear deterrence with 

enhanced conventional defenses in ways that satisfied both Americans and Europeans. MC 14/3 

was written by NATO’s Military Committee, but received major inputs from multiple members, 

including the United States, Britain, and the FRG. It required careful writing because it 

synthesized diverse military arguments, all of which had to be blended to advance the goals and 

interests of the various countries. This effort resulted in a document that employed military 

reasoning and political compromises to acutely balance perspectives on both sides of the Atlantic 

while equipping NATO with an improved defense strategy for the next phase of the Cold War. 

When MC 14/3 emerged, some critics accused it of being a compromise document that papered 

over still-existing disagreements and would not survive for long. Subsequent experience proved 

them wrong. 

MC 14/3 embraced forward defense of NATO’s borders, including the FRG. Within this 

framework, it called for three mutually supporting tiers of military operations: direct defense, 

deliberate escalation, and general nuclear response. Direct defense was mainly the province of 

conventional forces, deliberate escalation was the province of theater nuclear forces, and general 

nuclear response was the province of strategic nuclear forces, such as ICBMs, SLBMs, and longrange bombers. The core idea was not only to establish across-the-board deterrence with strong 

nuclear and conventional forces, but also to provide NATO a broad range of military options that 

could be selected flexibly in meeting the demands of crises. As a practical matter, MC 14/3 meant 

that NATO would meet enemy conventional aggression with a strong, initial conventional 

defense, and in event this defense buckled after a month or so, it would then cross the nuclear 

threshold deliberately and carefully, reserving massive retaliation as the final stage. MC 14/3 was 

thus a complex, multifaceted concept, but it proved successful because it made military and 
 43

political sense. The Americans were content because MC 14/3 upgraded the importance of 

conventional defense and flexible options. The Europeans were content because MC 14/3 

preserved the nuclear deterrence umbrella intact and made the enemy aware that in event Europe 

was attacked, NATO would employ nuclear weapons to defend itself if conventional defense 

failed. NATO’s military authorities were content because MC 14/3 provided them a coherent 

strategic theory that could be used to build strong nuclear and conventional defenses at the same 

time. 

MC 14/3 was approved by the NAC in 1967. It was accompanied by another important NATO 

document, the Harmel Report. Written by a team of five outside “wise men,” the Harmel Report 

was entitled “Future Tasks of the Alliance.” It endorsed closer transatlantic consultation in 

meeting the demands of contemporary security affairs. In particular, it urged a combined NATO 

security policy of defense and détente. At the time, several European members wanted to respond 

to the Soviet Union’s call for détente, which was first issued in 1966. The United States was 

worried that détente might create a false atmosphere of reconciliation in which NATO would lose 

its resolve to continue strengthening its military forces. The Harmel Report sought to balance 

these differing transatlantic viewpoints by calling for a careful approach to détente coupled with 

ongoing NATO defense improvements, continued stability, and eventual settlement of the 

German question (i.e., Germany‘s divided status). The Harmel Report had a positive effect 

because it helped enable NATO to pursue détente and defense preparedness at the same time. 

Prospects for détente slackened in 1968 when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, but 

interest rose again in the early 1970s. Under the Harmel Report’s auspices, NATO’s members 

pursued SALT nuclear negotiations, an ABM Treaty, MBFR negotiations on conventional force 

levels, and the Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). These diplomatic efforts 

produced mixed results by the mid-1970s, but owing to the Harmel Report’s consensus, they did 

not derail NATO’s commitment to pursue the military wherewithal for MC 14/3. 

Faced with an accelerating Soviet military buildup, NATO’s initial foray into defense 

preparedness under MC 14/3 was a 5-year plan adopted in 1967. In 1970, NATO adopted a 10-

year plan named AD-70, which focused on practical steps in such areas as training and exercises, 

war reserve stocks, and infrastructure. Progress initially was slow because of limited European 

defense budgets, but within a few years, the political atmosphere across NATO began to change. 

A critical development came when the United States withdrew from Vietnam and switched its 

defense strategy to focus on NATO and Europe. In response to U.S. leadership, Germany, Britain, 

and France began devoting growing attention to the preparedness of their ground and air forces, 

as did other NATO members. Equally important, new military technologies and weapon systems 

began emerging from the R&D pipeline that aided NATO’s strategy: e.g., modern tanks, selfpropelled artillery pieces, antitank missiles, infantry fighting vehicles, air defense missiles, 

combat aircraft, and sophisticated munitions made it increasingly possible for an outnumbered 

NATO defender to contend with a larger Warsaw Pact attacker. 

Under the Carter Administration in 1977, the United States led an effort to build Alliance-wide 

consensus to launch the Long Term Defense Plan (LTDP), a new 10-year plan with a 

comprehensive focus on readiness, interoperability, and stronger conventional forces. A 

centerpiece of the LTDP was a U.S. commitment to provide a rapid reinforcement capability of 

ten divisions and twenty fighter wings in order to help strengthen NATO’s defenses in the early 

stages of a crisis. In addition, Germany began adding reserve brigades to its army, and France 

organized an army of six divisions to aid NATO in event of a war. In 1981, the LTDP gave way 

to the Conventional Defense Initiative (CDI), another multi-year effort that was sponsored by the 

Reagan Administration. Although the Reagan years are mostly associated with NATO’s decision 

to deploy Pershing II and GLCM nuclear missiles, behind the scenes sustained progress was 
 44

made on improving NATO’s conventional forces with more combat units, new weapons, new 

doctrines, better air defenses, and improved air-ground coordination. 

By the late 1980s, NATO was capable of generating a D-Day force in Central Europe of about 

45 divisions and 3,600 combat aircraft, backed by additional U.S. reinforcements later. As a 

result, NATO now had sufficient ground forces not only to forge a frontal line, but also to 

generate operational reserves for containing enemy breakthroughs and for performing maneuver 

operations of its own. In addition, the combination of NATO ground and air forces provided the 

firepower needed to inflict very high losses on enemy forces and possibly to stop an attack 

without having to employ nuclear weapons. NATO’s defenses were still not perfect, but the 

Warsaw Pact was now susceptible to failure too. The effect was to greatly lessen NATO’s 

vulnerability to surprise attack and political intimidation, to reduce undue reliance on nuclear 

escalation, and to raise legitimate doubts about the Soviet Union’s ability to prevail over NATO 

in a conventional war. When Moscow called for an end to the Cold War in 1989–1990, this 

sudden development owed partly to the USSR’s own perilous economy and political system, but 

it also owed partly to NATO’s success at building strong nuclear and conventional defenses that 

frustrated the USSR’s expensive, fruitless quest for military superiority in Europe. In no small 

way, this favorable outcome owed to MC 14/3, which enabled NATO to surmount its debates 

over defense strategy to mount a concerted, sustained effort to build the modern military forces 

that were mandated by the final two decades of the Cold War. 

Strategic Concept of Rome Summit (1991–1999) 

Although MC 14/3 proved to be NATO’s longest-lasting strategic concept, its useful life came 

to an end when the Cold War abruptly concluded. During 1989–1991, the European security 

situation was fundamentally transformed by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the 

Warsaw Pact, the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Eastern Europe, and finally, 

dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. These profound changes not only swept away the Cold War 

military threat facing NATO, but also created a newly freed zone of East European states that 

mostly were striving to become democracies and draw closer to western institutions, including 

NATO. This hopeful development in Central Europe, however, was accompanied by worrisome 

trends elsewhere. In 1991, the United States led a large coalition, under UN auspices, to eject Iraq 

from Kuwait. Success of the Desert Storm campaign, however, left a still-unstable Persian Gulf in 

its wake. Shortly afterward, Yugoslavia in the Balkans began unraveling, and savage ethnic 

fighting broke out in Bosnia. For such reasons, the post-Cold War era of the 1990s promised to 

bring a combination of opportunities and dangers, both of which required wise U.S. and European 

policies in response. 

During 1990–1991, a debate broke out over how NATO should respond to the new European 

security situation and other challenges. Some participants no longer saw a need for NATO to 

remain as a close defense alliance with strong military forces. Indeed, a few recommended that 

NATO should be dissolved and that the United States and Europe no longer needed their 

transatlantic partnership. NATO’s members, however, saw things differently and wanted to 

preserve their alliance intact while also making changes mandated by the new security conditions. 

After a relatively brief period of internal debate and soul-searching, the result was agreement to 

issue a new NATO strategic concept at the Rome Summit of 1991.20 Made available to the public 

(rather than kept classified), this document provided a rich synthesis of political and military 

analyses that blended a new security policy with a new defense strategy. The Rome concept was 

drafted at NATO headquarters, but involved analytical inputs and close coordination from the 

United States, Britain, Germany, France, and other members. As a result, it embodied a new, 

 

20 Available at <http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b911108a.htm>. 
 45

widespread consensus across the Alliance that provided broad guidance on how the future was to 

be addressed. 

The Rome concept’s most important tenet was its firm statement that the transatlantic link 

would be maintained, that NATO would continue to perform its traditional defense mission, and 

that it would prepare for new responsibilities in the Euro-Atlantic area. It said that NATO’s 

overriding objective is to safeguard the security of its members and to establish a just and lasting 

peaceful order in Europe through both political and military means. It called for a broad-based 

Alliance security policy based on three mutually reinforcing elements: dialogue, cooperation, and 

collective defense. Its call for dialogue was focused widely, to include all European countries as 

well as Russia and its neighbors. It stressed that in working to create a new European security 

architecture and to quell new forms of instability, NATO should cooperate closely with other 

institutions, including the European Community (EC), the West European Union (WEU), and the 

CSCE as well as with other regional bodies from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and the 

Mediterranean. In addition, it asserted that NATO needed to take into account global security 

affairs and associated risks, including proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), 

disruption of the flow of vital resources, and acts of terrorism and sabotage that could affect the 

Alliance’s vital interests. It pointed out that Article 4 of the NATO treaty permits members to 

consult in deciding how to handle threats and dangers outside Alliance borders. Also important, 

the Rome concept called on NATO to be prepared for new-era crisis response roles and 

requirements, rather than just collective defense of NATO’s borders against traditional threats, In 

the defense arena, it called for downsizing of NATO’s military forces for the Cold War, but it 

also mandated preservation of enough forces to meet new-era dangers, as well as efforts to make 

NATO’s forces more mobile, multinational, and flexible for crisis management missions. 

Seen in retrospect, the Rome concept comes across as getting the strategic basics correct, but 

also as understandably vague about future security challenges. Even so, it endured for 8 years and 

helped establish a framework for new NATO security and defense activities during its tenure. 

Under its auspices, NATO began its historic move eastward by establishing the Partnership for 

Peace (PfP) and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), and took steps to begin admitting 

new members, which got underway in 1999, when Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic 

joined the Alliance. During the mid-1990s, NATO, surmounting its initial hesitation, finally 

intervened in the Bosnia conflict, and, when the Dayton Accord was signed in 1995, established a 

Stabilization Force (SFOR) to perform peacekeeping there. In early 1999, NATO went to war in 

the Balkans to eject Serbia from Kosovo, and afterward established a Kosovo Force (KFOR) for 

peacekeeping. These operations in the Balkans opened the door to NATO employment of military 

forces outside Member borders when common interests and values were threatened. 

In the military sphere, NATO reorganized its military command structure, reduced its 

European forces by about 35 percent below Cold War levels, and trimmed its defense budgets by 

proportional amounts. The United States reduced its Cold War posture in Europe of 330,000 

troops, but agreed to keep 100,000 troops there composed of land, air, and naval forces. 

Meanwhile, NATO began pursuing multinational, corps-sized formations, and endeavoring to 

create better forces for new-era missions, established the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) as 

well as Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs). It also agreed to support European efforts to create 

a “European Security and Defense Identity” (ESDI), including steps to endow the EU/WEU with 

its own military forces and to draw on NATO forces, if necessary. Such efforts helped keep 

Alliance borders well-protected and strengthened NATO’s capacity to perform new peacekeeping 

and crisis response operations elsewhere. But, despite repeated calls from NATO’s military 

leaders for further reform, the Alliance made little progress in preparing its European forces for 

swift power projection missions at long distances. Apart from Britain and France, European 

forces remained mostly configured for continental missions, and thus lacked the mobility, logistic 
 46

support, and other assets needed for expeditionary operations alongside U.S. forces. The 1990s 

ended with NATO agreeing on a Defense Capability Initiative (DCI), a 10-year plan to upgrade 

its capabilities in these areas, but subsequent progress on the DCI proved slow.