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NATO POST–60: INSTITUTIONAL 

CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

MAY 6, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

BARBARA BOXER, California 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

Republican Leader designee 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

DAVID MCKean, Staff Director

KENNETH A. MYERS, JR., Republican Staff Director

——————

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS

JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey 

ROBERT P. CASEY, JR., Pennsylvania 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware 

JIM DEMINT, South Carolina 

JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho 

BOB CORKER, Tennessee 

ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi 

(II)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

DeMint, Hon. Jim, U.S. Senator From South Carolina ........................................ 34 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 45 

Hamilton, Dan, Director of Center for Transatlantic Relations, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC ............................................................................................................. 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8 

Hunter, Hon. Robert, Senior Advisor, Rand Corporation, Washington, DC ....... 3 

Shaheen, Hon. Jeanne, U.S. Senator From New Hampshire .............................. 1 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 2 

Wilson, Damon, Director of the International Security Program, the Atlantic 

Council of the United States, Washington, DC ................................................. 20 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 22 

Wood, Colonel Joseph, Senior Research Fellow, German Marshall Fund, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 25 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 28 

(III)

(1) 

NATO POST–60: INSTITUTIONAL 

CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:05 p.m., in room 

SD–419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jeanne Shaheen 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Shaheen, Kaufman, Risch, DeMint. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JEANNE SHAHEEN, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Chairman SHAHEEN. I apologize for the delay. That voting just 

keeps getting in the way. Thank you to all of our panelists for joining us. We are expecting some of the other Senators to be here 

shortly, but I think in the interest of time—and I recognize that 

Ambassador Hunter has to leave shortly—so we will go ahead and 

begin. 

I’m Jeanne Shaheen. I’m the chair of this Subcommittee on European Affairs. And this subcommittee meets today to discuss the future of perhaps the most successful regional security alliance in 

history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I want to welcome 

everyone here, and expect ranking member of the subcommittee, 

Senator DeMint, to be here shortly. 

I’m going to submit my full statement for the record and just do 

an abbreviated opening here. But I think it’s important to point 

out, as I’m sure everyone here knows, that last month, NATO 

members converged on France and Germany to celebrate the alliance’s 60th anniversary. The meeting was very much a celebration 

of NATO’s past success, but I think it also provided an opportunity 

for us to take stock of NATO’s long-term future. And that’s what 

we’re here today to talk about. 

Our hearing will focus on the strategic institutional challenges 

facing NATO. Our discussion is particularly timely, as NATO members begin to rewrite its strategic concept document, which has not 

been updated since 1999. Though Afghanistan is NATO’s first outof-the-area military commitment, and it remains the most pressing 

issue for the alliance, we’re really here today to consider those institutional questions which will define NATO’s composition, its 

scope, its relationships, and ultimately, its success in the long 

term. 

2 

We have a very distinguished panel with us this afternoon. First 

is Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the director of the Center for Transatlantic 

Relations at the School for Advanced International Studies at 

Johns Hopkins University. Thank you, Dr. Hamilton, for joining us. 

Next is Ambassador Robert Hunter, who is a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO and currently a senior advisor at the RAND Corporation. Thank you, Ambassador Hunter. 

I also want to welcome Damon Wilson, who is the director of the 

International Security Program at The Atlantic Council, and was 

a deputy director to NATO under the NATO Secretary General. 

Thank you. 

And finally, we have Joseph Wood, a senior resident fellow at the 

German Marshall Fund and retired Air Force colonel. Thank you 

all very much for being here. 

And I would, if the other panelists do not object, ask if we could 

have Ambassador Hunter begin, since he is, I’m afraid, going to 

have to leave us to catch a flight. So please, Ambassador Hunter. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Shaheen follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SHAHEEN

The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs meets today to 

discuss the future of perhaps the most successful regional security alliance in history, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). I want to welcome you all 

here today and I’m honored to be joined by the ranking member of this Subcommittee, Senator Jim DeMint. 

As you all know, last month, NATO members converged on France and Germany 

to celebrate the alliance’s 60th anniversary. The meeting was in large part a celebration of NATO’s past successes. However, it was also a time to take stock of 

NATO’s long-term future, which we intend to discuss today. 

Our hearing will focus on the strategic institutional challenges facing NATO. Our 

discussion is particularly timely as NATO members begin to re-write its Strategic 

Concept document, which has not been updated since 1999. Though Afghanistan— 

NATO’s first ‘‘out of area’’ military commitment—remains the most pressing issue 

for the Alliance, we are here today to consider those institutional questions which 

will define NATO’s composition, scope, relationships, and ultimately, its success in 

the long-term. 

Over the last six decades, NATO’s mission to collectively defend its members has 

remained the same, yet the threats to the alliance have changed significantly. No 

longer is the Alliance’s primary concern the defense of the Fulda Gap in Germany. 

Today, threats to Alliance members are as likely to come from furtive non-state actors sneaking across borders or computer hackers slipping through cyberspace as 

they are from invading military forces. Like any successful institution, NATO must 

continue to adapt to meet these new realities and challenges. 

Since the end of the Cold War, institutional questions have focused primarily on 

composition and enlargement. NATO’s ‘‘open door’’ policy has been successful in supporting a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace. Success has been due in no small 

part to the support of the U.S. Congress and prominent leaders like Senator Lugar. 

It says much about enlargement’s success that many of the relatively new NATO 

members, including Poland, the Czech Republic and others, are now fighting to preserve the Alliance in Afghanistan and beyond. 

The Alliance must work to find consensus on defining the scope of its responsibilities and missions. Threats including nuclear proliferation, cyber warfare, energy security, piracy, even pandemic health problems will continue to test Alliance members; yet NATO has limited resources and capacities to deal with these non-traditional challenges. NATO members must clearly determine how and where it can be 

effective in meeting the wide range of 21st Century threats. 

NATO must also determine how it wants to interact with non-NATO members 

and institutions. NATO–Russia relations will be the most pressing among these institutional relationship questions, but NATO’s strategic interaction with the European Union, with China, and with organizations like the UN will also figure prominently in this debate. 

3 

In short, NATO has a number of critical strategic questions to ponder in the near 

term. It will not be easy to find consensus on these issues, which is why it is so 

important that the full Senate confirm the nominations of two officials who will play 

an important role in this effort—Dr. Ivo Daalder to be the U.S. Ambassador to 

NATO and Dr. Phil Gordon to be the Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. I hope the Senate will move quickly on these nominations. 

Today, we have a distinguished panel to explore these critical issues. Each of our 

panelists has broad expertise and decades of experience on NATO and Transatlantic 

relations. Their resumes speak for themselves, but I’d like to very briefly introduce 

them. 

First, we have Dr. Daniel Hamilton, the Director of the Center for Transatlantic 

Relations at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Hamilton has held a variety of senior positions in the State Department 

and was most recently the lead author of the Washington NATO Project’s report entitled Alliance Reborn. 

Next, we have Ambassador Robert Hunter, a Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation and a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Ambassador Hunter has served 

in a number of senior-level White House and Pentagon positions focused on NATO 

and European issues. 

I’d also like to welcome Damon Wilson, the Director of the International Security 

Program at the Atlantic Council. Mr. Wilson served in a number of high level capacities on the National Security Council and at NATO, where he was Deputy Director 

under the NATO Secretary-General. 

Finally, we have Joseph Wood, a Senior Resident Fellow at the German Marshall 

Fund. A retired Air Force colonel, Mr. Wood was Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs at the White House and has served throughout 

the Pentagon and in NATO. 

We have a great panel today on a timely and critical issue, and we look forward 

to hearing your testimony. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT HUNTER, SENIOR ADVISOR, 

RAND CORPORATION, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ambassador HUNTER. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence. And thank you very much for the opportunity and the honor 

to appear before you at such an important time, and also to be on 

a panel with three very distinguished individuals. 

One of the great virtues of NATO, which is reflected in what you 

do in leading your subcommittee and in what all these other folks 

do, is it’s always been bipartisan. We don’t divide on NATO. It’s always been so important. And, in fact, no administration, no Congress would ever succeed unless they had the backing of the two 

parties. 

This is not just your normal father’s NATO we’re talking about. 

We’re about to enter NATO Phase 3. We have reached the end of 

the post-cold-war transition, and which under U.S. leadership, 

NATO took those actions necessary to bring to an end the most 

troubled century in European history and perhaps world history, 

and to build a basis for a permanent European security based upon 

George H.W. Bush’s very important geopolitical insight of trying to 

create a Europe whole and free and at peace. 

Right now, however, everybody’s looking again at whether 

NATO’s worth it to revalidate the alliance and to determine whether there’ll be a 65th or a 70th anniversary, other than a shell organization. The fact is that we, and most of our allies—and I’m going 

to over-generalize—are looking at our basic security interests in 

different ways. We’re very much focused upon the Middle East and 

Southwest Asia following 9/11 with what’s happening in Afghanistan, with Pakistan today, the endgame in Iraq, our concerns with 

Iran, a whole host of matters. 

4 

Very few of our allies see it that way. In fact, most of the allies 

are with us—and all 28 allies are with us in Afghanistan—not because they share necessarily our perspective of what could happen 

to them if indeed there is not success against al-Qaeda, against the 

Taliban, but essentially to please us because of the importance they 

see in the relationship with us, and also so that NATO will continue and not fail. 

In fact, if they had their preference, they would see much more 

effort being focused closer to home, including the work that still remains in Europe, of which the future of Russia is perhaps the most 

important concern, reinforced by what happened last year with the 

Soviet Georgia war. 

The allies also want the United States to do a number of things: 

To have the capacity for leadership, not just in what they care 

about, but in general; to keep the moral high ground; to be the one 

country, because none of them are able to do it, that really can do 

an awful lot of the things that need to be done in the world. And 

as a result, they’ve been willing to do things beyond the European 

environment that they would not on their own have chosen to do. 

We, therefore, have to come up with a new bargain in NATO, a 

new bargain in transatlantic relations, if we’re going to see these 

institutions work for the future. 

In fact, when we talk about transatlantic, North Atlantic security, we’re not just talking about NATO. In fact, I think we really 

need to start at the other end, which is what are the jobs that have 

to be done, and what institutions are best able to do it? 

In some cases, that’ll be NATO. In other cases, it will be other 

institutions, of which I believe the European Union is most important, which is another reason your subcommittee is so important. 

You’re going to have to help sort all this out and come up with 

ideas that could really revalidate a whole series of issues in regard 

to security in the transatlantic relationship in the broader sense. 

Fortunately, this has already begun through the trip that President Obama paid to Europe last month that you alluded to, which 

does, among other things, underscore U.S. leadership and regaining moral high ground. It’s not just one summit, it was four. I 

think the most important was the G20 because the world is looking 

to the United States to regain its reputation for being able to lead 

in preserving and extending and revitalizing the global financial 

system, the global economic system. And that is absolutely critical 

for them to pay attention to other things we want and also to be 

willing to do things in security that we want. 

He also did some other things. He met with the President of Russia, Mr. Medvedev, and demonstrated that the United States and 

Russia are prepared to begin a new kind of relationship. That’s 

critically important to the allies. For some who were worried about 

Russian encroachment on their security, whether it’s the Baltic 

States or Ukraine or others who were worried about a new confrontation, Germany and Italy, in that category. The putting of the 

antimissile sites in the deep freeze for a time was a very good message by the President. Doesn’t mean we changed things. 

The renewal of efforts to try to deal with the Iranian question. 

The allies are, of course, very worried about the future of Iran. 

They were also worried that the United States might be headed toVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00008 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
5 

ward a confrontation maybe, a conflict. The revitalization of building on what the last administration did, if Arab is really peacemaking, for the allies, extremely important, in part, because of so 

many Muslims there are in Europe. In fact, their most important 

domestic concern is to integrate a lot of Muslims. 

The President then went on to the European Union, and unfortunately, I think a lot more could have been done there in Prague. 

And then he went to Turkey to try to repair that important relationship and to reach out to the Muslims. 

Now what do we do? I think there’s some things the United 

States needs to do in order to encourage the allies to do what we 

want elsewhere by our doing things with them in Europe to make 

the North Atlantic Council again the center of strategic discussion 

for NATO. 

Second, to keep a large number of American troops in Europe. 

Reducing the American troop presence unfortunately would send a 

very bad signal. And third, to do something about the transfer of 

high-technology weaponry and other things to Europe so we can’t 

have interoperability. 

Now, what do we need to do? I think within the strategic concept—my allies will cover other aspects—three things. No 1, don’t 

commit NATO to a bridge too far. Do things that really have to be 

done together and people will agree to do together, and if need be, 

the United States will have to look elsewhere for partners. 

Second, get the NATO–Russia Council back up and running to 

try to help complete the vision of George Bush on a Europe whole 

and free. And third, the comprehensive approach. The military, the 

nonmilitary, critical in Afghanistan. For example, governance, reconstruction development, along with what’s being done in the military, which the allies should do a tremendous amount about. A new 

NATO–European Union relationship. Break down those barriers. A 

new United States-European strategic partnership, to help shape 

things in health, education, and the like. 

These are the big security issues in which we and the Europeans 

can work together, and it’s my belief if we can get the comprehensive approach, the military and the nonmilitary approach right, 

then we will find the Europeans more willing to do what we need 

them to do in places like Afghanistan. 

Thank you very much. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you very much, Ambassador Hunter. 

Dr. Hamilton, would you like to continue? 

STATEMENT OF DAN HAMILTON, DIRECTOR OF CENTER FOR 

TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS, SCHOOL OF ADVANCED 

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES (SAIS), JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, DC 

Dr. HAMILTON. Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to appear before you and Senator DeMint and your colleagues to discuss 

the future of NATO and its strategic direction moving forward. Let 

me also congratulate you personally on assuming the duties at the 

helm of this subcommittee. 

You asked for an assessment of the challenges facing NATO as 

it considers a new strategic concept. My testimony, which I’d like 

to submit for the record, and I’ll just do an abbreviated verson 

6 

here, draws on Alliance Reborn, a study that my Center completed 

with three other U.S. think tanks, which we released recently. And 

while I was the lead author, I do want to acknowledge, of course, 

all the contributions that those colleagues made. It really is a collective effort. 

I believe that the Strasbourg/Kehl summit gave us an open, but 

fleeting, moment to reposition our alliance, to confront the kinds of 

challenges we are more likely to face in the future than the ones 

we’ve been facing over the last number of years. And the strategic 

concept can be a vehicle in which we can do that. 

However, we have some immediate tests, as Ambassador Hunter 

said, particularly in Afghanistan, the Pakistan issue. I think there 

is a need to have greater Western cohesion, if you will, about how 

to deal with Russia. These are two immediate tests. If we cannot 

generate some Western cohesion there, our efforts to develop a 

strategic concept, I think, will be difficult. And so as we move forward strategically, we have to, of course, deal with the issues that 

we face day by day. 

And as Ambassador Hunter said, if we think about the grand 

strategic challenges we face across the Atlantic, we should then 

think, do the institutions we have really do the job? My answer at 

the moment is no. I think we have to look across the institutions 

we have that we and our European allies work through and look 

at how to revamp them and revise them for the future, NATO 

being, of course, an essential element. 

During the cold war—the peaceful resolution of which was 

NATO’s greatest success—NATO never fought a day. Today, it’s engaged in six different missions all at the same time. It’s busier now 

than it ever has been, and yet, I think it’s been hard for alliance 

leaders to convey what NATO is about these days to publics and 

parliaments and to funders. That high operational tempo has exposed differences among allies, in terms of strategic culture, in 

terms of resources, commitments, capabilities, and even the kinds 

of challenges we have to face together. 

So it’s a problem right now. I think a new strategic concept can 

try to convey a simpler, but important, message about what this alliance is about for the future, rather than convey the impression 

that it’s a relic of the past. But to do that, we have to go back to 

some basics. I believe NATO’s purpose is threefold. It’s the same 

purpose it’s had for 60 years. And I think it’s fairly simple, actually, to explain. 

The first is collective defense of its members. That’s the core mission of NATO. It’s always been that. It remains important. The second is to be a preeminent security form across the Atlantic for discussion of security challenges together. It provides the transatlantic link that otherwise would not be there. 

And third, a third purpose of NATO, which I think is often overlooked, is that it provides reassurance to European members that 

they can devote their security energy to common security challenges rather than to each other. The tragedy of European history 

in the 20th century was that the Europeans were looking over their 

shoulder at each other, and often fighting each other, rather than 

trying to confront some common challenges. Through NATO this 

7 

pattern was reversed, and the participation of the United States 

and Canada is essential to that mission. 

I believe all of those three points remain essential today, yet 

each of them is under some question today. So if NATO is to be 

bigger and not just better, it has to think of its core mission set. 

The last 15 years, we have been driven by the slogan, ‘‘Out of area 

or out of business,’’ and NATO is now very much out of area in the 

Hindu-Kush and is very much in business. 

But the core mission of NATO, if you asked most people, ‘‘What 

is it for?’’ is it is there to protect us. This mission of protecting the 

North Atlantic space has been the core mission of NATO. And so 

while I’ve always supported NATO’s out-of-area transformation, I 

believe we must also show that we’re working in area, back in our 

basic space to protect our own people, and that we are out of area 

in business, but if we’re not in area, we’ll be in trouble—in terms 

of how we explain to publics and parliaments what this NATO is 

about. 

So NATO, it seems to me, should be guided by a simple set of 

home missions and away missions. I think each of those is straightforward, but they do require some revision in terms of NATO efforts. 

The home missions are very straightforward. The first element 

is deterrence and defense, the core mission of NATO that remains 

enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, collective defense of its members. That remains important. 

The second home mission, I believe, should address a new area 

of security that we have to think harder about. It’s not the traditional area of security. It has to do more with what one would call 

societal security—resilience, in the way the British use that term. 

What do cyber hackers, terrorists, energy cartels, maybe even pirates, have in common? Those are networks that prey on the networks of free societies. They are not trying to take our territory. 

They’re trying to disrupt society in many different ways. In fact, 

they use the instruments of free societies to disrupt them. 

These are important security challenges, and yet, we’re not 

equipped to cross the Atlantic to deal with those. In our study, we 

argue that NATO is not probably the lead actor in this area, because much of this has to do with law enforcement and other kinds 

of issues. But we have identified a number of specific areas in 

which NATO could play a supporting role in terms of biodefense, 

cyber defense, guarding the approaches to our space, and they’re 

very specific, and it’s an important role to play. 

The third area in home missions is a Europe that can be whole, 

free, and at peace. If we think about the Europe that we see in 

front of us today, core Europe, if you will, the Alliance Europe, it 

is secure. But wider Europe, the space between NATO and Russia, 

or between the EU and Russia, is unsettled territory: Lots of unsettled conflicts, weak states, fragile states, things that can really do 

some severe damage. We have to deal with that, and I think the 

alliance still has a role. 

The away missions I think are also three, and they are also 

straightforward. One is crisis prevention and response; that is, if 

we do face threats to our security at strategic distance, we must 

be able to project, and that is what the alliance should do. The secVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00011 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
8 

1Daniel Hamilton is the Richard von Weizsacker Professor and Director of the Center for 

Transatlantic Relations at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), 

Johns Hopkins University. He is the lead author of Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for 

the 21st Century, available at http://transatlantic.sais-jhu.edu/Publications/nato—report— 

final.pdf. Dr. Hamilton has served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European 

Affairs; U.S. Special Coordinator for Southeast European Stabilization; and Associate Director 

of the Policy Planning Staff. 

ond away mission as we see in Afghanistan and the Balkans, is 

that after conflict ends, security operations become quite important 

in reconstruction. The alliance has to have some capability in stabilization and reconstruction, working with civilian authorities. 

And third, we can stretch NATO further, and I believe we 

should, but if you stretch it too far, you will break it. And so NATO 

has to connect better with other partners to be multipliers for our 

joint capabilities. Examples include the EU, the U.N., the African 

Union, perhaps, other types of partners that it can work with. 

I think this balance of home missions and away missions is a 

fairly straightforward way to think about NATO that brings together its various elements. It gives NATO a new balance, in terms 

of what it’s doing, and it offers a clearly explainable way to talk 

to our publics and parliaments about what our alliance is about. 

And I’d be happy to answer more questions about that. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Hamilton follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DANIEL S. HAMILTON 1

Madame Chairwoman, it is a pleasure to appear before you and your colleagues 

to discuss the future of NATO and its strategic direction moving forward. Let me 

congratulate you personally on assuming your duties at the helm of the subcommittee. 

You asked for an assessment of the challenges facing NATO as it considers a new 

Strategic Concept. My testimony draws on Alliance Reborn: An Atlantic Compact for 

the 21st Century, a recent report on NATO’s future by my Center for Transatlantic 

Relations together with the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Center for 

Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University. I was the lead author for 

the report, but want to acknowledge the many valuable contributions made by my 

colleagues. 

I begin by suggesting that today and in the future the United States and its allies 

need NATO to perform a balanced set of ‘‘home’’ and ‘‘away’’ missions. I then outline 

a number of necessary internal reforms the Alliance should consider. 

NATO MISSIONS: HOME AND AWAY

During the Cold War, NATO never fought a day. Today, it is involved in six different operations—fighting and securing stability in Afghanistan; keeping the peace 

in Kosovo; assisting defense reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina; patrolling the Mediterranean Sea in a maritime anti-terrorist mission dispatched under the collective 

defense clause of the North Atlantic Treaty; countering piracy and armed robbery 

at sea off the Horn of Africa; and training Iraqi security forces. It launched an extensive humanitarian relief operation for Pakistan after the massive earthquake in 

2005, helped victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States, and provided security support to the 2004 and 2006 Olympics and 2006 World Cup. It has welcomed 

new members, and others are keen to apply. Budding partnerships have been cultivated with the UN, the EU and nations from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. 

NATO is busier than ever. But this operational reality has exposed differences 

among allies in terms of threat perceptions, strategic cultures, resources and capabilities. As a result, many see an Alliance lacking focus, driven more by outside 

events than by collective interests. This is troubling, because the need for transatlantic cooperation is rising, not falling. The U.S. and its allies must create a new 

Alliance consensus on the challenges to our security and NATO’s role in meeting 

them. Such a consensus is as important today as it was when NATO was born. The 

9 

security challenges we face have changed, but the need for a common response has 

not. 

Sixty years after its founding, NATO’s three-fold purpose remains: to provide for 

the collective defense of its members; to institutionalize the transatlantic link and 

serve as a preeminent forum in which allies can discuss issues of common security 

and strategy; and to offer an umbrella of reassurance under which European nations can focus their security concerns on common challenges rather than on each 

other. To meet this purpose today, each element needs urgent attention, and each 

needs more than NATO. 

If NATO is to be better, not just bigger, it must transform its scope and strategic 

rationale in ways that are understood and sustained by parliamentary and public 

opinion. It must change the nature of its capabilities, the way it generates and deploys its forces, the way it makes decisions, the way it spends money, and the way 

it works with others. 

Most importantly, NATO needs a new balance. For the past 15 years the Alliance 

has been driven by the slogan ‘‘out of area or out of business.’’ Threatened with irrelevance by its Cold War success, the alliance reached across the old East-West divide to include new members and new partners. It has sent soldiers and peacekeepers to trouble spots beyond its boundaries, from the Balkans to Afghanistan. 

It has become an expeditionary alliance. 

NATO’s out-of-area transformation remains important. But a single-minded focus 

on ‘‘out of area’’ risks diverting us from NATO’s enduring ‘‘in area’’ mission to protect North Atlantic nations from armed attack. Alliance leaders are right to say that 

Western security today begins at the Hindu Kush. But in an age of catastrophic terrorism, the front line tomorrow may run through Washington’s metro, Frankfurt’s 

airport, Rotterdam’s port or Istanbul’s grand bazaar. 

If NATO is visible in expeditionary missions but invisible when it comes to protecting our own societies, support for the alliance will wane. Its role will be 

marginalized and our security diminished. NATO operates out of area, and it is in 

business. But it must also operate in area, or it is in trouble. If NATO cannot protect, it cannot project. 

NATO today faces a related set of missions both home and away. At home, it is 

called to maintain deterrence and defense; support efforts to strengthen societal resilience against a host of threats to the transatlantic homeland; and contribute to 

a Europe that truly can be whole, free and at peace. Away, it is called to prevent 

and respond to crises; participate in stability operations; and connect better with 

partners to cover a broader range of capabilities. 

NATO Missions 

Home Away 

Deterrence and Defense Crisis Prevention and Response 

Transatlantic Resilience Stability Operations 

EuroWhole, Free and at Peace Working Effectively with Partners 

These missions, whether close to home or far away, share five common requirements. All require intensive debate to sustain public and parliamentary support and 

receptivity by other partners. All require improved capabilities that are deployable. 

All require better synergy between NATO and partners. All require better cooperation between civil and military authorities. All require allies to match their means 

to agreed missions. 

This outline of NATO home and away missions does not mean that NATO should 

always take the lead. Depending on the contingency at hand, NATO may be called 

to play the leading role, be a supporting actor, or simply join a broader ensemble. 

For deterrence and defense, for instance, NATO remains the preeminent transatlantic institution. In all other areas, however, it is likely to play a supporting role 

or work within a larger network of institutions. Knowing where and when NATO 

can add value is critical to prioritization of resources and effort. 

10 

NATO: Leading Role, Supporting Actor, or Ensemble Player? 

Mission Role 

Home Missions 

Deterrence and Defense ........................................................... Lead 

Transatlantic Resilience .......................................................... Support/Selective Lead 

Europe Whole, Free and at Peace ........................................... Support/Selective Lead 

Away Missions 

Crisis Prevention and Response .............................................. Lead/Selective Support 

Stability Operations ................................................................. Support/Selective Lead 

Working Effectively with Partners ............................................ Support/Ensemble Player 

Home Missions 

Deterrence and Defense. NATO’s collective defense commitment, as stated in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, is the core of the Alliance. NATO plays an essential role in deterring and defending against attacks on the transatlantic homeland, 

from whatever source. In recent years the focus has been on terrorism, but since 

the Russian invasion of Georgia there has been renewed concern among some members about the adequacy of NATO planning and defense capabilities to deal with 

more traditional threats by aggressor states. These concerns have prompted some 

allies to entertain the need for separate bilateral security guarantees. A NATO that 

continues to expand without having the capabilities to meet its core obligation to 

defend an enlarged treaty area runs the risk of becoming a hollow alliance. Moreover, lack of confidence in NATO’s ability to carry out its fundamental commitment 

risks undermining another key element of NATO’s purpose—to prevent the kind of 

renationalization of European defense and conflicting security guarantees that led 

Europe to disaster in the 20th century. Therefore, Alliance leaders should ensure 

that Article 5 is not just a paper commitment but is backed up by credible planning 

to determine the military requirements to carry it out, as well as the means and 

political solidarity to implement it. 

To strengthen Article 5 preparedness NATO could: 

• Restore the military capability of the NATO Response Force (NRF) for the mission of ‘‘first responder’’ if a demonstration of military force is required after Article 5 is invoked. A fully capable NRF would express the commitment of Allies 

to meet their Article 5 commitment. 

• Include in the Defense Planning Process a robust scenario that includes reinforcement of Allied territory. MC-161, NATO’s assessment of future threats, 

should also ensure that ‘‘the full range’’ of possible threats is included. 

• Exercise plans for territorial defense where appropriate along NATO’s periphery. Exercises should be fully transparent and sized appropriately. 

• Direct NATO military staffs to develop comprehensive plans for the timely 

handover of national forces to NATO control. 

• Invest in essential infrastructure in appropriate Allied nations (especially in the 

newer Allies) to receive NATO reinforcements. 

• Consider infrastructure upgrades in new members in order to base NATO common assets. 

Transatlantic Resilience. Alliance leaders should consider the meaning of their Article 5 commitment to ‘‘ensure the security of the North Atlantic area’’ in light of 

the challenges to societal security facing our nations today. There are limits to the 

role NATO can and should play in this area—many issues of law enforcement, domestic intelligence, civil security and disaster response are well beyond NATO’s 

area of competence, and are better handled in national or bilateral channels, or in 

some cases between the U.S., Canada and the European Union (EU). 

There are some areas, however, where NATO itself, or NATO and the EU together, could complement other efforts and do more to enhance transatlantic resilience. The Alliance has already been called upon to help member and non-member 

governments with security for mass public events and deal with the consequences 

of various natural disasters. It could well be called upon to play a role in dealing 

with a catastrophic terrorist event, particularly one involving agents of mass deVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
11 

struction. NATO efforts to enhance societal resilience in the transatlantic homeland 

would offer the Alliance both a 21st-century approach to Article 5 and new meaning 

and credibility in the eyes of NATO publics who are concerned about threats close 

to home. Alliance leaders have the opportunity to articulate a strategic direction for 

transatlantic homeland defense and societal resilience in the next NATO Strategic 

Concept. 

NATO and its members already possess noteworthy capabilities in these areas, 

but their ability to act as a fully organized, capable alliance is not well developed. 

NATO will need improved physical assets, strengthened strategic planning and operating capacities. It will need to coordinate closely with national governments, 

many of which view control of societal security resources as vital manifestations of 

their sovereignty, and have diverse constitutional approaches to domestic uses of 

their military and to civil-military cooperation in crisis situations. 

Moreover, NATO engagement in this area will require a fundamentally different 

relationship with the EU. Among the 21 NATO allies and 5 Partnership for Peace 

nations that also belong to the EU, there is strong support for housing within the 

EU a growing number of common European capabilities related to societal security 

and emergency response (such as customs, police cooperation, environmental security and information-sharing). The EU has undertaken a range of activities and initiatives aimed at improving its military and civilian capabilities and structures to 

respond to crises spanning both societal defense and societal security, including 

cross-border cooperation on consequence management after natural and manmade 

disasters. 

In short, NATO is likely to be a supporting player in more robust overall efforts 

at societal security in the North Atlantic space. Nonetheless, NATO efforts could 

build on promising yet modest developments already under way in several areas, 

to include: 

• Guarding the approaches and enhancing border security for the NATO region; 

• Enhancing early-warning and air/missile defenses; 

• Improving counterterrorism activities; 

• Strengthening transatlantic capabilities for managing the consequences of terrorist attacks (including agents of mass destruction) or large-scale natural disasters; 

• Cyberdefense; 

• Biodefense; 

• Political consultations on energy security; 

• Incorporating transatlantic resilience into the Strategic Concept; and 

• Creating a Civil Security Committee. 

Europe Whole, Free and at Peace. NATO’s third home mission should be to contribute to overall transatlantic efforts to consolidate democratic transformation on 

a European continent that at its broadest is not yet whole, free and at peace. NATO 

allies have an interest in consolidating the democratic transformation of Europe by 

working with others to extend as far as possible across the European continent the 

space of integrated security where war simply does not happen. Yet post-communist 

applicants for NATO membership are weaker than earlier aspirants and less well 

known to allied parliamentarians and publics. A number are beset with historical 

animosities and have yet to experience significant democratic reforms. When U.S. 

and European opinion leaders consider these countries as potential partners and allies, they will look closely at the nature and pace of domestic reforms and for evidence of a willingness and desire to resolve historic conflicts. In addition, Russia is 

opposed to further extension of NATO into the post-Soviet space. Finally, as discussed earlier, some allies question the current credibility of NATO’s guarantees to 

its own members. They worry that continued enlargement, without complementary 

efforts to bolster NATO defense, could simply hollow out the Alliance. 

Given these various challenges, a strategy for democratic transformation and collective security in the region is likely to be more effective if its goals are tied to 

conditions rather than institutions. Western actors should work with the states in 

the region to create conditions by which ever closer relations can be possible. Such 

an approach has the advantage of focusing effort on practical progress. NATO allies 

share an interest in promoting democratic governance, the rule of law, open market 

economies, conflict resolution and collective security, and secure cross-border transportation and energy links, regardless the institutional affiliation of countries in the 

region. The West must keep its door open to the countries of wider Europe. NATO 

governments must remain firm on the Bucharest Summit commitments to Georgia 

and Ukraine and to follow through on subsequent pledges of further assistance to 

12 

both countries through the NATO-Georgia and NATO-Ukraine commissions and bilateral programs in implementing needed political and defense reforms. 

In short, the West should be careful not to close the door to the countries of the 

region, but it should focus on creating conditions by which the question of integration, while controversial today, can be posed more positively in the future. A new 

focus on societal resilience, and transatlantic interest in ‘‘projecting resilience forward’’ to neighboring countries, would offer an additional means to engage and draw 

closer the nations of wider Europe in ways that strengthen overall transatlantic security. It could be an attractive mission for the Partnership for Peace. 

Away Missions 

Crisis Prevention and Response. NATO’s role has evolved from its singular Cold 

War focus on Article 5 defense of allied territory to a broader mission set that embraces non-Article 5 missions to assist the international community in crisis prevention and response. In some cases, consultations within NATO or diplomacy by 

NATO can help prevent a crisis from escalating. NATO also has a unique capability 

to respond quickly to a wide spectrum of man-made and natural crises. The NATO 

Response Force (NRF) can be used for missions requiring rapid reaction at strategic 

distance. 

If the Alliance is to continue to play an effective role in this area, NATO needs 

a deeper pool of forces that are capable, deployable and sustainable. Maintaining 

the operational effectiveness of the NRF is essential to NATO’s credibility and 

should not be beyond the means of allied governments. Yet allies are stretched thin, 

and there is no easy fix. Either defense budgets must be increased for personnel, 

training and equipment, or spending on existing force structure, unnecessary command structure and bureaucracy must be re-mixed to prioritize deployable forces 

and force multipliers such as Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) 

platforms and helicopters. 

Stability Operations. North American and European operations in the Balkans, 

Africa and Afghanistan have highlighted the need for lengthy, demanding stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) missions. As conflict ends, peace depends on establishing public security, essential services and basic governance. These tasks often 

fall to the military forces at hand before competent civilian resources can be deployed safely to take over. A lengthy period can then ensue where a combination 

of civilian and military forces is required to stabilize the region and lay a security 

foundation to enable the population to rebuild governance and a secure society. 

These goals require allied forces to perform demanding and often unfamiliar and unplanned tasks, such as fighting terrorists and criminal gangs, pacifying ethnic violence, restoring distribution of electrical power, water, food, and fuel, and rebuilding 

armies, police forces, and other institutions of governance and law enforcement. Sustaining such missions over time is politically and operationally difficult. Future requirements for such missions could be large. 

Although many of these capabilities exist within the EU, NATO and the Partnership for Peace, they are not organized into deployable assets. Consideration should 

be given to the creation of a NATO Stabilization and Reconstruction Force (SRF), 

an integrated, multinational security support component that would organize, train 

and equip to engage in post-conflict operations, compatible with EU efforts. 

Working Effectively with Partners. NATO has an interest in forging partnerships 

with others who face common security challenges. Moreover, in many non-European 

operations NATO is unlikely to operate or to succeed on its own; other partners are 

likely to want to add their strength to that of NATO, and NATO is likely to need 

partners for its own success. NATO efforts to train and build the capacities of others 

offer a low profile way to develop closer relations, help others cope with their own 

regional problems, and perhaps even turn them into partners and force contributors. 

Allied forces will also be better able to operate together, and with others, if they 

have trained together and have similar operational doctrines and procedures. 

NATO’s patterns of multilateral training and joint command structures provide a 

firmer basis for shared military actions beyond Europe than any other framework 

available to the U.S. or any individual ally. Thus, NATO will remain a critical vehicle for ensuring interoperability between U.S. and European forces. Indeed, this 

may prove to be one of its most important military functions. 

Moreover, in both crisis response and stability and reconstruction operations, the 

Alliance must be able to operate closely with civilian reconstruction and assistance 

agencies. A so-called ‘‘comprehensive approach’’ to such operations has been developed by NATO that focuses on both the civilian and military challenges that come 

with crisis operations. The importance of the Comprehensive Approach was acknowledged by NATO in its last three Summits. The core idea is that the mission 

13 

of restoring order and progress to damaged countries cannot be accomplished by 

military forces alone. As seen in the Balkans and Afghanistan, military action can 

secure space for civilian action in complex crises, but militaries can not restore societies. A combination of military forces and civilian assets are necessary, deployed 

in a coordinated way. Civilian functions, in turn, cannot normally be performed by 

a single institution. Instead, they must be performed by a multiplicity of actors, including foreign ministries, development agencies, the EU, partner countries outside 

NATO, international agencies such as the United Nations and OSCE, 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 requires more structured relations between NATO, the UN, the 

OSCE, the EU and other established international actors to allow them to be more 

proactive in preventing future crises in the first place, and to work together more 

effectively, including with NGOs, in restoring peace and stability in crisis areas. 

NATO needs to retool to undertake more stability operations elsewhere in the world, 

not just focus on ways to improve its performance in Afghanistan. NATO’s support 

for the African Union in Darfur, for instance, may be a model of global engagement 

for which the Alliance needs to prepare better. 

Not only does the strategic logic for partnerships remain compelling, NATO’s 

operational effectiveness is increasingly dependent on such partnerships. 16 nonNATO members are involved in NATO operations, 15 of them in Afghanistan. 

NATO’s array of partnership initiatives, however, has languished and needs greater 

coherence. The multitude of partner groups constitutes a disparate collage of good 

efforts without measures of effectiveness or mutually supporting plans and programs. Moreover, NATO has yet to establish a truly strategic partnership with the 

EU or a meaningful partnership with the UN or such institutions as the OSCE or 

the African Union. NATO should establish an Assistant Secretary General for Partnership to give direction to all engaged staffs. 

NATO-EU Partnership: France’s re-entry into NATO’s integrated military structure offers an important opportunity to build stronger NATO-EU ties. France today 

is the largest contributor to the NRF, and it participates in all major Alliance expeditionary operations, including Kosovo and Afghanistan. Washington should offer 

clear support for stronger European security and defense capabilities that can enable Europe to be a stronger partner for North America and also tackle security 

challenges on its own as appropriate. 

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 war-fighting. The EU does 

not aspire to such high-end military operations, 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. 

Various initiatives to build a sound EU-NATO relationship could develop: 

• Institutional capabilities to enable rapid coordinated NATO-EU response to crisis; 

• Joint planning; 

• A joint operations command in major operations where the EU and NATO are 

both engaged, such as in Afghanistan; 

• A joint force generation mechanism to request assets from both EU and NATO 

members for a combined operation; 

• A new NATO-EU partnership on WMD consequence management that delineates the role of each organization in a crisis; creates links between each and 

the WHO global health security network; and develops reliable channels for 

rapid communication among health and security officials; 

• Compatible capabilities.—NATO and the EU should consider joint training exercises to improve interoperability, work toward common standards for unit certification, and be fully transparent in planning for rotations. The EU should 

consider making its battle groups and joint assets available for some NATO 

forces and missions. 

• A strong relationship between NATO and the EU’s European Defense Agency 

(EDA) to rationalize European procurement and facilitate efforts by European 

governments to integrate military forces and structures across national borders. 

• Joint or complementary efforts to project ‘‘forward resilience’’ to partners. 

NATO-UN Relations. In September 2008, after almost 60 years of coexistence, the 

UN and NATO agreed for the first time to a formal relationship and a framework 

14 

for expanded consultation and cooperation. These organizations already cooperate to 

safeguard Kosovo’s fragile stability and struggle together in Afghanistan. NATO 

protects UN food aid shipments to Somalia against the threat of pirate attacks. The 

United Nations has the most diverse experience with peacekeeping operations, yet 

its record is uneven. Further reform of the UN Department of Political Affairs and 

Department of Peacekeeping Operations is needed to better enable them to lead crisis management and peace support operations. 

In 1992 NATO became the first regional organization authorized by the Security 

Council to use force. The UNSC has mandated almost all ongoing NATO operations. 

It is a rare NATO operation where the UN is not engaged in some fashion. There 

are many UN operations with no EU, NATO or U.S. involvement. There are no EU, 

NATO or U.S. operations without some UN involvement. Despite its post-Cold War 

transformation, NATO depends on the capacities and expertise of the UN and its 

special agencies in the political, rule of law, humanitarian and development areas 

in places such as Afghanistan. If progress lacks in these fields, the Alliance will not 

be able to achieve its goals. 

The NATO-UN relationship, however, has always been ad hoc. There is no routine 

and consistent joint planning or common crisis management. UN humanitarian bodies and agencies are concerned that closer cooperation with NATO could jeopardize 

their neutrality and impartiality in conflict areas and put their staff at risk, and 

NATO nations have been reluctant to provide their troops and assets to UN peacekeeping missions following the UN’s failure to stop violence in Bosnia in the early 

1990s. The NATO representation at the UN in New York is small and unable to 

undertake consistently the advance planning needed for NATO and the UN to work 

together efficiently. NATO needs to build up its presence at the UN with additional 

planners to develop the relationships and establish a routine planning capability; 

the UN should have representation at SHAPE; and the NATO-UN agreement 

should be operationalized. 

Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI). Allied interests 

in the stability and prosperity of the Mediterranean and the broader Middle East 

have increased greatly since these programs were first created. Alliance security depends on the stability that can be advanced through cooperation with these partners. NATO’s engagement in Afghanistan and the training of Iraqi security forces 

have made the alliance more relevant to security in the broader Middle East. 

NATO’s role could grow should the Alliance be called upon to provide forces to implement any future Palestinian-Israeli settlement—however unlikely such an accord 

appears to be at present. NATO, the Gulf States, and others in the region are also 

concerned about the implications of Iran’s nuclear activities and missile programs, 

and have common interests in energy security. At the Riga Summit, NATO governments launched a Training Cooperation Initiative to expand participation by Middle 

East partners and to explore joint establishment of a security cooperation center in 

the region. Unfortunately, not much has come from this initiative. It should be reenergized so that NATO can share its expertise in training military forces to help 

partners build forces that are interoperable with those of Allies. ICI countries and 

NATO need to define future priorities, which might include combined peacekeeping 

operations, cooperation on crisis management and missile defense. The Alliance also 

needs a better public diplomacy strategy for the region. 

Global Partnerships. In the process of taking on emerging global challenges, 

NATO must deepen partnerships globally. Since 2001, NATO has undertaken operational military cooperation with countries beyond Europe’s periphery to counter 

terrorism and promote stability. Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea 

have either worked with the Alliance in Afghanistan or supported stabilization efforts in Iraq. The development of these relationships reflects NATO’s need for a 

wider circle of partners to respond to complex global threats. At the Riga and Bucharest Summits, allies recognized the value of global partnerships with countries 

that share our values. There has been real progress in building political dialogue 

and developing individual Tailored Cooperation Packages. Given that some of these 

countries are now offering to intensify their cooperation and to provide troops or civilian resources to NATO operations, they need to be accommodated through closer 

political and military ties. 

NATO needs to: 

• Facilitate routine political consultations; 

• Better integrate partner armed forces into the planning and conduct of those 

NATO-led operations where partners elect to participate; 

• Improve partner interoperability with NATO forces; and 

15 

• Intensify its political dialogue with other major players, notably China, India 

and Pakistan. 

INTERNAL NATO REFORMS

In addition to capacities tailored to specific missions, reforms are required in 

areas that cut across the mission spectrum. NATO should change the way it makes 

decisions; change the way it spends money; generate appropriate military capabilities; and match missions to means. 

Change the Way NATO Makes Decisions 

Modify the Consensus Rule. NATO decision making at every level of the Alliance 

has been governed by the consensus rule; all decisions, large or small, are unanimous. While this is an important symbol of unity, especially when the NAC votes 

to deploy forces, the consensus rule also allows one nation to block the wishes of 

all others and also leads to lowest-common-denominator decisions. It is time for a 

thorough review, with an eye towards consensus decision-making only taking place 

in the NAC and in budget committees, or perhaps only on certain decisions, such 

as deploying forces or spending money. Qualified majority voting, or upholding a 

simple majority, have each been suggested as alternatives, especially in committees 

lower than the NAC. Another important reform worth considering is allowing nations to opt out of participating in an operation (even after joining consensus in the 

NAC to approve an operation). In such a case, the opt-out nation would not bear 

the cost of an operation, but also would not participate in decision-making on how 

that operation is executed. 

Merge NATO’s Civilian and Military Staffs. The International Staff and International Military Staff (IS/IMS) are the backbone of NATO HQ, fulfilling many important day-to-day functions to support decision-making in the NAC and the Military Committee. However, both staffs have hardened into bureaucratic stovepipes, 

often performing duplicative functions and working in an uncoordinated fashion that 

undercuts efficiency. While both staffs should be reviewed by an outside working 

group to determine how they might be reorganized, a reform that could be undertaken now is to increase the integration of the staffs at NATO HQ, which was begun 

on an experimental basis a few years ago. Such a mix of civilian and military staffs 

is key to implementing the ‘‘comprehensive approach.’’ 

Revamp the NATO Military Committee (MC). In the past, the Military Committee 

played an important role in providing military advice to the NAC and in providing 

guidance to the Strategic Commands. However, in recent years the MC has been 

used as an arena to fight political battles better fought elsewhere, undercutting the 

MC’s credibility. Today, many question whether the MC is the best source for unbiased military advice and whether it has been effective in motivating nations to improve military capabilities and force generation. The MC’s role, mission and processes should be closely reviewed. 

Review Defense Acquisition. The creation of the EU’s European Defense Agency 

(EDA) provides the potential for cooperation with NATO’s Conference of National 

Armament Directors (CNAD). Both institutions share the same capability shortfalls 

and lack of political will by their members to increase defense budgets or otherwise 

improve capabilities. While there is a NATO-EU Working Group on Capabilities, cooperation is largely sterile. The role of the CNAD should be reviewed carefully by 

an outside group made up of industry and acquisition officials to determine if NATO 

acquisition procedures should be revamped, and to look for ways that the EU and 

NATO could cooperate in meeting common capability shortfalls more efficiently. 

Streamline the Command Structure. The NATO command structure is in a perpetual state of reform, and has transformed from the complex organization of the 

Cold War to a configuration more suitable for expeditionary operations outside the 

NATO region. However, as NATO evolves, so must its command structure, and 

there is still some unfinished business. 

One criticism is that SHAPE, despite being a strategic command, still has too 

much operational control that should belong to the commander in the field. SHAPE 

should remain principally a strategic level command. 

Second, NATO headquarters are not standard, often complex and at times incomprehensible. Command relationships can hamper rather than facilitate command. 

Most of the NATO command structure is still undeployable, necessitating the creation of ad hoc headquarters to serve as KFOR and ISAF, while large staffs sit almost idle at fixed locations in Europe. 

16 

Finally, the role of Allied Command Transformation (ACT) as an ‘‘engine for 

transformation’’ is also under the microscope. ACT is criticized as having a weak 

impact on transformation, failing to have acquisition authority, and lacking credibility at NATO Headquarters. Some have always been concerned that the current 

arrangement—a dual-hatted supreme commander as head of both ACT and U.S. 

Joint Forces Command (JFCOM)—may not give that commander the time needed 

to devote to the difficult transformation task at NATO. 

With these perspectives in mind consideration should be given to a reorganized 

and reoriented three-level command structure. 

The strategic level is Allied Command Operations (ACO) commanded by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) who should remain an American; and 

Allied Command Transformation (ACT) with a European Supreme Commander and 

two Deputies, one in charge of defense planning and acquisition and the other a 

U.S. deputy dual-hatted as the Deputy USJFCOM in charge of transformation. 

ACT’s duties would also include developing doctrine and training for the comprehensive approach, transatlantic resilience and defense, including the Atlantic approaches, and with an element at USNORTHCOM to support that mission. 

The second level should be operational and comprised of three JFC headquarters 

in Brunssum, the Netherlands; Naples, Italy; and Lisbon, Portugal. Each JFC headquarters should have a geographic and functional focus. JFC Lisbon’s geographic 

focus should be on the Mediterranean Sea and Africa, and its functional priority 

should be NATO-EU collaboration. JFC Brunssum should focus on southwest Asia/ 

broader Middle East as a geographic priority and the reappearance of a conventional threat as a functional priority. JFC Naples should focus on southeastern Europe and transatlantic resilience. Each JFC should be able to deploy a robust Joint 

Task Force, and there should be at least two Combined Air Operations Centers 

(CAOC) with a deployable CAOC capability. JFCs must be capable of operational 

oversight of multiple missions. All JFCs must be capable of backing one another, 

and must plan and exercise for Article 5 missions. 

The third level of the NATO Command Structure should be comprised of three 

joint deployable HQs that deploy to the mission area to conduct operations (e.g. 

KFOR and ISAF). These HQs would replace most or all of the current 6 fixed component commands (2 air, 2 land and 2 maritime). If required, the three deployable 

HQs could be supplemented by the High Readiness HQs already in existence in 

some allied nations or other HQs at lower readiness. 

Change the Way NATO Spends Money 

The way NATO spends money for operations and infrastructure is opaque, complicated and does not go far enough to lessen the financial burden on nations deploying on missions. Changes are needed to improve financial efficiency, increase 

military capability and cover costs that otherwise give nations an excuse not to deploy on operations. Because additional common funding contributions will not come 

easily from nations, greater effort must be made to re-direct spending of common 

funds from political and military bureaucratic structure to improving deployability 

and capabilities. This is routinely done through such mechanisms as Peacetime Establishment reviews, but they have not produced the needed results. The financial 

crisis makes it imperative for NATO to develop a new approach to funding operations and common equipment: 

• Cost-share operations. Although wealthier allies feel they already pay too much 

into common funds and do not feel it is fair for them to increase their contributions to common funding, poorer allies often cannot cover costs to deploy on missions. If wealthier nations do not contribute more to common funds, fewer allies 

will participate in Alliance missions. 

• Increase and broaden the use of common funds to procure common equipment 

for operations. While the Alliance has increased the use of common funds to procure common equipment for operations, such use is often blocked by some nations who ‘‘do not want to pay for a capability twice.’’ Such a short-sighted view 

makes it easy for some nations to avoid shouldering the burden by pleading 

poverty. NATO military authorities should suggest additional equipment that 

NATO could purchase and make available to nations and so make it easier for 

them to deploy. 

• Coordinate equipment procurement with the EU. This has the potential for the 

greatest efficiency, but is the hardest to implement. Both NATO and the EU 

share common capability shortfalls that could be met more efficiently if those 

shortfalls are met in a common procurement. Much of such cooperation has 

been stalled by political issues, industrial base issues, as well as by the sheer 

complexity that comes with common procurement by nations. Most efforts, even 

17 

on a small scale, have failed miserably in the past. However, a new approach 

at cooperative procurement should be considered by a working group that includes representatives of transatlantic industry. 

Generate Appropriate Military Capabilities 

NATO must generate the appropriate capabilities to meet its missions. Without 

credible capabilities, strategic concepts, treaty guarantees and summit declarations 

mean little to allies or those who would confront them. NATO credibility rests on 

a demonstrable capability for timely military response to threats to any member’s 

territory. Credibility also requires the capabilities to carry out other missions that 

allies have agreed. Every NATO Strategic Concept has had at its core clear guidance on required military capabilities. A new Concept will have to address the increasing demand for usable capabilities alongside the reality that available resources will contract. NATO militaries need considerable further restructuring to 

achieve far more availability of resources. NATO itself needs greater efficiencies and 

better business practices. 

Capabilities for Article 5 and non-Article 5 missions 

A. Deployable Conventional Forces. Forces that cannot deploy are of almost no use 

for Alliance missions. About 70 percent of European land forces cannot deploy, due 

either to obsolete equipment, lack of mobility assets, reliance on fixed logistics, or 

a lack of plans or training for movement operations. Troop rotations mean that 30 

percent of forces that are deployable yield no more than 10 percent sustained mission support. With a force almost half a million smaller, the U.S. deploys well over 

twice as many troops as Europe. 

1. Major Combat Forces. Not only light forces must be deployable. Heavy armored forces that would anchor land defense of the Alliance must be deployable, 

strategically and operationally by aircraft, ship, rail or road. NATO boundaries 

are hundreds, often thousands of kilometers from where forces are located in 

the heart of Europe. Article 5 credibility is eroded by the absence of plans and 

assets for forces to get where they may be needed. 

2. Intervention Forces. The focus today is on Afghanistan, as it must be, and 

on Kosovo, where security remains tense. These interventions strain allied 

forces because the reservoir of deployable lighter forces for non-Article 5 missions is just as inadequate as for Article 5 missions. In Afghanistan national 

caveats by some allies increase the demands on the forces of those allies without caveats. Rotational schemes, essential to long operations by volunteer militaries, exponentially increase force requirements. Europe has 1.3 million nonconscript land forces, yet in 2007 was only able to muster on average deployment of less than 80,000 for all operations—NATO, EU and national. As in the 

case of heavy armor, many lighter forces needed in Kosovo and Afghanistan are 

simply undeployable and therefore unavailable. 

3. The NATO Response Force (NRF). The NRF is the most visible example 

of the shortage of ready, available forces, especially to meet Article 5 missions. 

Yet for many reasons allies are reluctant to meet force requirements. As a result, it has been scaled back both in terms of capabilities and mission. Although 

the NRF is intended to be NATO’s most prominent response capability, pressure 

has been needed from the start to fill the modest NRF requirements of 25,000 

combined land, air and naval forces, especially a brigade of land forces representing just 2,000-3,000. For example, in late 2008, just two months prior to 

its mission window, the 13th rotation of the NATO Response Force was reported 

to be at only 26% fill for land forces with no commitments for helicopters or 

logistics. Shortfalls are due to the demands of meeting troop requests for current operations, particularly ISAF in Afghanistan, and many forces are simply 

unusable. The NRF must be kept robust and able for an array of missions, including disaster assistance and humanitarian relief. 

4. Special Operations Forces and Stabilization Forces. Conflict regions like 

Afghanistan are inherently complex, with warfare and stability operations inextricably intertwined. Forces must understand their environment be able to work 

with a host of partners. Short tours frustrate continuity among multinational 

forces through turnover rates that destroy institutional memory and expertise. 

Tours of at least 6 months should be the norm. All allies maintain small contingents of Special Operations Forces (SOF) as well as the military police, engineering, civil affairs (CA)/civil-military (CIMIC), and medical units that are 

most needed to conduct stabilization or crisis response operations. However 

these types of forces are inadequate in number relative to the long nature of 

such operations. 

18 

B. Commonly Funded Force Enablers. Three critical sets of force enablers or multipliers should be approved by NATO for common funding under the NATO Security 

Investment Program (NSIP) or under the Military Budget, as appropriate. These 

enablers are too costly yet too critical to continue to depend primarily on national 

means. The dire result of that policy can be seen in ISAF shortfalls today. 

1. Strategic and Theater Lift. Including sealift and airlift as well as land 

movement to Alliance borders, is essential to respond to Article 5 indications 

and warnings as well as to crises well beyond NATO territory. While the Alliance has organized its sealift capabilities, some sealift capabilities should be 

NATO funded. Some airlift capabilities, including aerial refueling, should also 

be NATO funded. Strategic response requires mobility planning, training and 

exercises. Airfields and ports should be surveyed and upgraded to handle appropriate vessels/aircraft and numbers of movements. 

2. Network Enabled Command, Control and Communications (C3). Communications and information systems are incompatible across NATO forces at the 

operational and tactical levels, and far too much of both NATO and national 

network systems (especially U.S. systems) remain non-interoperable. 

3. Interoperable Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR). National 

capabilities span a wide, disparate range, and system incompatibility is far 

more common than synchronous systems. There must be greater willingness to 

share information across multinational elements. Procedural obstacles—especially in the U.S.—are more daunting than technological ones. Common-owned 

and -funded systems would help to solve these problems. 

If the Alliance is to be serious about common funding and procurement, the 

U.S. must modify its technology transfer procedures and the ‘‘Buy American’’ 

policy with respect to its closest allies. 

C. Missile Defense. Missile defense of both territory and deployed forces has 

emerged as a potentially important requirement for future deterrence against missile threats from Iran and possibly other countries. Should diplomacy succeed in 

stopping Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, interceptor deployment may not be 

necessary. Yet current U.S. and allied efforts should continue now for two reasons. 

First, such efforts are prudent given the lead time necessary for deployment. Second, should diplomacy fail and Tehran acquire nuclear weapons capability, a defensive response is likely to be a more palatable and effective option than an offensive 

military response. As NATO moves forward, it should seek to put missile defenses 

in place without rupture to NATO-Russia relations. At the Strasbourg/Kehl Summit, 

Alliance leaders committed to engage with Russia on missile defense issues. The Alliance also needs to follow through on its 2008 Bucharest Summit commitments to 

explore how the planned U.S. missile defense sites in Europe could be integrated 

into current NATO plans and to develop options for a comprehensive missile defense 

architecture to extend coverage to all Allied territory and populations not otherwise 

covered by the U.S. system. 

D. Nuclear Forces. None of these considerations contradict initiatives such as 

Global Zero. Yet when it comes to practical implementation, it is important to keep 

in mind that historically, the presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has been 

a preeminent symbol coupling European and North American security. For this reason, a unilateral U.S. decision to withdraw its nuclear weapons could be seen in Europe as a U.S. effort to decouple its security from that of its allies and thus question 

the very premise of the Atlantic Alliance. If such a step is to be considered, therefore, the initiative should come from Europe. If European allies are confident that 

European and North American security is sufficiently coupled without the presence 

of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, the U.S. is unlikely to object to their removal. 

Alliance discussion of NATO’s choices should be framed by the following: 

• Careful consideration of future requirements in terms of theater nuclear delivery capabilities, i.e., the appropriate number of dual capable aircraft (DCA) and 

the number of devices to be prudently associated with them. 

• Close and reflective negotiations among all allies, especially those who store 

these weapons. Allies should keep in mind that once withdrawn, it will be all 

but impossible politically to return them. Redeployment in time of tension 

would readily be seen as an act of war. 

• If reductions or even elimination is considered, NATO needs a strategy for negotiating an equivalent reduction by Russia, the other holder of such weapons. 

Match Missions to Means 

A vision without resources is a hallucination. And yet the gap between the missions NATO is called to take on and the means it has to perform them is growing 

day by day. 

19 

NATO has tried the full array of incentives and mechanisms to encourage its 

members to maintain sufficient levels of ready forces and defense investment. In 

each case, the initiative fell short—sometimes very short—of agreed goals. Moreover, we are in the midst of a deep economic crisis of indeterminate length. For 

these reasons, NATO cannot expect any growth in resource availability. The opposite is more likely—declining defense resources on both sides of the Atlantic over 

a sustained period. 

The only source of greater capability in the near term is to improve what is already on hand. That requires members to generate economies within current defense budgets. The Alliance needs to make a number of major changes: 

• Reconsider NATO’s ambition of two large and six small operations simultaneously, which it cannot fulfill for at least 10 years, and is not attuned to the 

mission set I have advanced here. 

• Increase the usability of NATO’s 12,500 person formal command structure, none 

of which is deployable.16 

• Look for capabilities where the pooling of assets by some members can be 

agreed, such as the C-17 airlift initiative among 12 members and partners. 

• Reorganize where practical into multinational units comprised of national component forces or even national niche forces. 

• Expand civilian capabilities available to NATO by energizing and implementing 

the Comprehensive Approach. 

• Renew emphasis on consolidating R&D investment and sharing technologies. 

• Look earnestly at collective procurement or contracting for transport helicopters; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) assets; and centralized logistics, along the lines of the consortium purchase of strategic airlift by 

a group of NATO members described above. 

• Redouble efforts to shift spending away from personnel and infrastructure costs 

in national defense budgets, and towards investment, training, and readiness. 

The goal is smaller, better equipped, more deployable forces. 

• Bolster Alliance capacities to support member states’ national efforts to safeguard against cyber attacks from whatever source. 

• Put teeth in NATOs ‘‘Peacetime Establishment’’ (PE) Review to save military 

budget funds by cutting static command structure or cost-sharing with other institutions NATO’s Cold War era research facilities. 

CONCLUSION

Taken together, these reforms promise to reinforce each element of NATO’s enduring purpose, while repositioning the Alliance within a broader, reinvigorated Atlantic partnership that is more capable of responding to the opportunities and challenges of the new world rising. 

To succeed in this new world, Europeans and Americans must define their partnership in terms of common security rather than just common defense, at home and 

away. This will require the Alliance to stretch. Depending on the contingency at 

hand, NATO may be called to play the leading role, be a supporting actor, or simply 

join a broader ensemble. Even so, NATO alone—no matter how resilient—simply 

cannot stretch far enough to tackle the full range of challenges facing the Euro-Atlantic community. It must also be able to connect and work better with others, 

whether they are nations or international governmental or non-governmental organizations. And if NATO is to both stretch and connect, it will need to generate better expeditionary capabilities and change the way it does business. 

At the April NATO Summit, Alliance leaders tasked work on a new Strategic Concept, to be presented at the 2010 Summit in Portugal. I respectfully suggest that 

this process take account of the many ideas advanced in Alliance Reborn and in this 

testimony. 

Such an effort is likely to be moot, however, if Europe and North America are 

unable to quell the threat emanating from the Afghan-Pakistani borderlands, or to 

develop a common approach to Russia. The trick is to combine the urgent with the 

important, to forge the consensus needed to tackle current challenges while keeping 

the longer term health of our Alliance in mind. 

Madame Chairwoman, thank you for allowing me to present my perspectives here 

today. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Mr. Wilson. 

20 

STATEMENT OF DAMON WILSON, DIRECTOR OF THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL 

OF THE UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you. Madam Chair, Senator DeMint, Senator 

Kaufman, I’m honored to join my distinguished colleagues today to 

speak before your committee about the future of our Atlantic Alliance. I’m particularly pleased to be here as someone raised in 

Charleston, SC, and who summered on the Connecticut River Valley between New Hampshire and Vermont on the family farm. 

On September 11, 2001, I was in the office of then-NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson, watching in horror as America was 

attacked. At first, we felt helpless, but we quickly went to work on 

how NATO could help. 

The next day, NATO invoked article 5 of the North Atlantic 

Treaty and endorsed a package of support to the United States. 

After a history of hair-trigger alert, it was terrorists, rather than 

Soviets, that triggered NATO’s collective defense guarantee. 

This experience and its aftermath taught me three lessons: One, 

the tremendous goodwill of America’s allies in times of crisis; second, the limited capability of NATO to respond to new threats; and 

third, the limited ability of the United States to integrate allied assistance into U.S. military planning. 

Each of these lessons is relevant today. First, that reservoir of 

goodwill needs to be nurtured and turned into political will within 

the alliance. Allied leaders must advocate the alliance and partnership with the United States to their publics in order to sustain support, especially for the fight in Afghanistan. 

Second, since 9/11, NATO has transformed its st capabilities to 

face 21 century threats, but the alliance lags behind the evolution 

of the threat. Third, NATO is the United States permanent coalition. Working with allies is cumbersome, but when American soldiers, sailors, and airmen enter the fight, it’s a political imperative 

that they do so with allies by their side. 

We, therefore, shouldn’t just lament the complexities of coalition 

operations, but rather, focus on improving them. And NATO often 

should be the organizing core around which broader coalitions are 

built, as the alliance offers an increasingly international standard 

of interoperability and command. Stitching coalitions together is 

unwieldy for the Pentagon, but it’s what NATO’s military headquarters at SHAPE is designed to do. 

Today, NATO faces questions both of common vision and political 

will as it struggles with how to develop the capabilities required to 

deter or win conflicts, how to integrate Europe’s East, and how to 

succeed in Afghanistan. 

Last month’s 60 anniversary summit called for a new strategic 

concept to answer these questions and to serve as a roadmap for 

NATO in the coming years. As this debate begins, I think the alliance should focus on three key missions: First, to ensure the collective defense of its members from all forms of attack; to complete 

the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace; and to serve as 

a leading vehicle through which North America and Europe act to 

promote security, prosperity, and democracy around the world, 

these last two roles in partnership with the European Union. 

21 

I agree with Dr. Hamilton that NATO is first and foremost a collective defense alliance, and this solemn commitment should remain the bedrock. NATO is right to begin quiet and prudent contingency planning for responding to an attack on a member state, 

whether by a conventional or unconventional means. This should 

be NATO’s routine private business. 

But this also means developing the capabilities to defend security 

at home and at strategic distances. Expeditionary capabilities and 

sustainment are just as important for a crisis in Europe’s East as 

they are for Afghanistan. The alliance must do better developing 

defenses against due threats, like cyber warfare, biowarfare, and 

missile strikes. Furthermore, creative work is required to ensure 

continued NATO and nuclear deterrent without depending on the 

current antiquated force structure. 

NATO should continue to be an engine for foreign and fragile European democracies by maintaining a credible open-door policy and 

by being an active partner in assisting those reforms. Enlargement 

has neither burdened NATO with costs nor complicated region consensus. Growth in membership does merit strengthening the authorities of the Secretary General and streamlining the committee 

structure, but the real challenge is keeping the open-door commitment credible. 

There is a common vision that as Bulkan nations implement reforms, they will earn a place within the Euro-Atlantic institutions. 

If there is no clear path to deliver on this vision, there needs to 

be one. 

Some believe it’s time to put Georgia and Ukraine on the back 

burner. This approach risks backsliding in Tbilisi and Kyiv and caters to Russia’s temptation to pursue a sphere of influence. 

Given the caution in Europe, American leadership is required to 

ensure the NATO-Ukraine and NATO-Georgia commissions do not 

languish. This engagement need not be delayed by a false debate 

about membership, which is many years away in the best of circumstances. Rather, our efforts should focus on using the commission’s bilateral efforts, the EU’s Eastern Partnership to bolster 

Democratic institutions, free markets, and defense reform. But 

without the vision of where tough reforms lead, political support for 

such reforms may thin. 

The key challenge to a Europe whole and free is Russia’s place 

in it. The NATO-Russia Council itself is not a flawed institution 

meriting a new European security architecture. Rather, Russia’s 

trajectory has undermined the promise of that partnership. But increasingly, the focus of the U.S. relationship with Europe is not Europe itself, but our global challenges. 

NATO accordingly should be a leading vehicle through which Europe and North America act globally, and this means ensuring we 

have an alliance prepared to lead new missions, whether supporting an African Union mission, humanitarian operation, or even 

an eventual peace deal in the Middle East. 

NATO’s track record with the Partnership for Peace is a good 

basis upon which to strengthen ties to other global partners, such 

as Australia, South Korea, and Japan. We should even at some 

point consider alliances with the alliance with those that share our 

values and interests and contribute to our security. 

22 

I’d like to make just a brief word on European defense and 

France’s return to the integrated military command. President 

Sarkozy’s election represented the victory of a vision of a strong 

France in partnership with the United States, rather than a 

France defined in opposition to the United States. But the challenge we face is to ensure that this French strategic perspective endures beyond the presidency of Sarkozy. 

We can reap these benefits by helping France succeed within 

NATO, and ensuring European defense reinforces NATO. This 

means investing France in NATO’s success so that Paris no longer 

limits NATO for ideological reasons. It means harnessing a serious 

French military in support of creating serious alliance capabilities, 

and restoring as the default for cooperation between NATO and the 

EU the Berlin Plus arrangements to avoid the potential for future 

duplication. 

President Obama’s first NATO summit demonstrated that our allies will often not meet our expectations. But NATO is the institution through which we and like-minded partners can organize our 

allies to do more. NATO has been repeatedly challenged by policymakers and pundits, and also tyrants and terrorists. And repeatedly, the alliance has overcome obstacles as it’s gathered the political will to reinvent itself. It faces another such test over the coming year, and the United States should be a full partner with our 

allies in helping it pass that test. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wilson follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAMON WILSON

Madame Chairwoman, ranking member, members of the committee, I am honored 

to be asked to speak about the future of our Atlantic Alliance before your committee 

today. I am also delighted to join some of my closest colleagues and friends on this 

panel. 

The Atlantic Council of the United States promotes constructive U.S. leadership 

and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic 

community in meeting the international challenges of the 21st century. But we cannot advance that mission without taking a critical view of NATO. It is only with 

such a critique that we ensure that we are working with our partners to strengthen 

our Alliance. 

Since the end of the Cold War, the role of NATO has been repeatedly challenged 

by policy-makers and pundits, but also tyrants and terrorists. And despite the criticism and challenges, or perhaps because of them, the Alliance has overcome obstacles and grown more vibrant as it has gathered the political will to reinvent itself. 

Today, again, the Alliance faces a question of common vision and political will as 

it struggles with how to integrate Europe’s east, how to succeed in Afghanistan, and 

how to develop the capabilities required to deter or win future conflicts. 

My views of the Alliance are shaped by my experiences with NATO, whether as 

a State Department official helping to organize the 50th anniversary Washington 

summit in the midst of preparing for the air campaign in Kosovo, or as a NATO 

international staff member in Kabul to mark the first change of command to a 

NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. 

On September 11, 2001, I was at NATO Headquarters in the office of then-Secretary General Lord Robertson watching in horror as America was attacked. My 

first sentiments were one of helplessness. But then we went to work thinking 

through how NATO could help. On September 12, NATO invoked Article 5 of the 

North Atlantic Treaty and endorsed a package of measures to support the United 

States. After a history of hair-trigger alert, it was terrorists rather than Soviets that 

triggered NATO’s collective defense guarantees. 

This experience and its aftermath taught me three lessons which inform my views 

on the Alliance: 

23 

• The tremendous goodwill of America’s allies in times of crisis; 

• The limited capability of the Alliance to respond to a new type of threat; and 

• The limited ability of the United States to integrate Allied assistance into U.S. 

military planning. 

Each of these lessons is relevant today. 

First, that reservoir of goodwill needs to be nurtured and turned into political 

will. Allied leaders must be prepared to advocate the Alliance and partnership with 

the United States to their publics, especially the fight in Afghanistan which is an 

Article 5 operation. 

Second, since 9/11, the Alliance has accelerated an agenda to transform its capabilities to ensure NATO is prepared for 21st century threats, but the Alliance as 

a whole lags behind the evolution of the threats. 

Third, the United Sates needs to remember that NATO remains its permanent 

coalition. Many critics argue that working with our allies militarily is too complicated and time-consuming with too little impact to merit the investment. I believe 

it is a political imperative that when American soldiers, sailors and airmen enter 

the fight, that they do so with allies. We should recognize that NATO is our permanent coalition, NATO allies will almost always form the core of any military coalition, and NATO can set the standards for interoperability with any international 

partner. Therefore, we should not waste time complaining about the complexities of 

coalition operations, but rather focus on how to improve them. After all, SHAPE exists to integrate many national contributions into a coherent military force. We need 

to use the Alliance structures we have invested in. 

Last month’s 60th anniversary summit launched the drafting of a new Strategic 

Concept which will serve as the roadmap for the Alliance in the coming years. As 

this debate begins, in my view, we should focus the future role of the NATO Alliance on three key missions: 

• To ensure the collective defense of its members from all forms of attack; 

• To complete the vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace; this means NATO 

should continue to be an engine of reform in fragile European democracies by 

maintaining a credible ‘‘open door’’ policy and by being an active partner in assisting those reforms; and 

• To serve as a leading vehicle through which North America and Europe work 

together to promote security, prosperity and democracy around the world. 

This first role is the unique core of the Alliance. The last two roles should be pursued by both NATO and the U.S.-EU partnership. 

NATO is first and foremost a collective defense alliance. This solemn commitment 

is the bedrock of the Alliance, and should remain so. 

Russia’s invasion of Georgia raised questions about whether the Article 5 commitment remains credible. While the most likely attack on an ally will originate from 

a computer, virus or ballistic missile, all NATO allies deserve to know that military 

planning backs up the Article 5 commitment. NATO is right to begin quiet, prudent 

and routine contingency planning for responding to an attack on a member state, 

whether by conventional or unconventional means. This should be NATO’s routine, 

private business. 

But this also means developing the right capabilities to defend the homeland. Expeditionary capabilities and sustainment are just as important for Portuguese, 

Dutch or Canadian reinforcements to an imaginary crisis in Europe’s east as they 

are for Allied contributions in Afghanistan. The Alliance must also do better developing doctrine and defenses against new threats, like cyberwarfare, biowarfare and 

missile strikes. NATO has made significant progress on cyber and biodefense in recent years, but the Alliance should be on the cutting edge rather than playing catch 

up. Similarly, NATO’s theater missile defense efforts have dragged on for years, and 

European and U.S. ambivalence has kept NATO from being a full partner in broader ballistic missile defense efforts important to Allied security over the long-run. 

NATO nuclear policy has traditionally underpinned the collective defense guarantee. The twin pressures of an aging, impractical arsenal stationed in Europe and 

the vision outlined in President Obama’s speech in Prague mean the future of 

NATO nuclear policy is in doubt. Creative work is required to ensure a continued 

Alliance deterrent without depending on the current force structure. 

NATO’s open door policy has meant that the Alliance has remained open to all 

European democracies which share the values of the Alliance, which are willing and 

able to assume the responsibilities and obligations of membership, and whose inclusion can contribute to common security and stability. Alliance leaders at StrasbourgKehl endorsed this policy, but despite this rhetorical support, the challenge is keepVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
24 

ing this commitment credible as the Alliance grapples with how to integrate a restless Balkans, as well as the controversial cases of Georgia and Ukraine. 

Some continue to challenge the enlargement process as a weakening of the Alliance. I would argue that many of the newest members have demonstrated greater 

political will to commit their scarce resources to Alliance operations and to take 

tough decisions in the North Atlantic Council. Furthermore, the fears of increased 

costs or difficulty with consensus did not materialize as more nations joined. Achieving consensus within the North Atlantic Council depends more on our diplomacy 

with Paris, Berlin, Ankara or Athens than it ever will Tirana, Bucharest, Zagreb 

or Prague. 

There is a common vision among allies that as the nations of the Balkans implement reforms, they will earn a place within Euro-Atlantic institutions. Yet there is 

no clear path to deliver on this vision. The European Union has a leading role to 

play, but may fail to play its part without prodding from American diplomacy. We 

need to help the Greeks and Macedonians settle their differences, foster serious reform efforts in Bosnia and Montenegro, and lay the groundwork for closer ties with 

and ultimately between Serbia and Kosovo. The success of Albania and Croatia 

within the Alliance is also important to reinforce the demonstration effect—that is, 

the prospect of membership serving as a magnet and a driver of change in their Balkan neighbors. Just as NATO and the EU helped heal the great divisions between 

neighbors elsewhere in Europe, they should do so decisively in the Balkans in the 

next decade. 

After the tensions at last year’s Bucharest Summit and the Russian-Georgian 

war, some believe it is time to put the issues of Georgia and Ukraine on the back 

burner. I believe that is a recipe for disaster, risking backsliding in Tbilisi and Kyiv 

and catering to Russia’s temptation to pursue a sphere of influence. Given the caution in Europe today, American leadership is required to ensure the NATO-Ukraine 

and NATO-Georgia Commissions do not languish. Fragile European democracies 

merit strong Western support as they struggle to determine their own futures. This 

engagement need not be delayed by a false debate about NATO membership, which 

is many, many years away in the best of circumstances; rather, our efforts should 

focus on using the Commissions, bilateral efforts and the EU’s Eastern Partnership 

to bolster the democratic institutions and free markets in these nations. But without 

the vision of where tough reforms will lead, the political support for such reforms 

may thin. 

The key challenge to a Europe whole, free and at peace is how Russia fits into 

the equation. I was at the founding summit of the NATO-Russia Council at Pratica 

di Mare Air Force Base outside Rome. Aspirations were high for what this partnership could accomplish. President Bush even referred to the Council as a pathway 

to an alliance with the Alliance. However, democratic backsliding in Russia undermined the confidence in that partnership, limiting the possibilities of the Council. 

As the NATO-Russia relationship mimics the U.S.-Russia relationship in hitting 

the reset button, we need to do so with our eyes wide open. This effort will not succeed if Russia decides not to cooperate. Russia is seeking to use the Council to enhance its stature and to gain leverage of the Alliance. Hence, Moscow shuts off alternative routes to support NATO operations in Afghanistan, while making available routes that cross Russia. Like the Administration, I want this to be a relationship of cooperation rather than competition, but we do not hold all the cards to 

make it so. 

Furthermore, I caution that we not allow ourselves or our allies to be lured away 

from the hard work of renewing our Atlantic Alliance by Russian proposals for a 

new European security architecture. There is no harm from discussing such ideas 

as long as we keep our governments focused on the task of strengthening NATO 

over the coming year and not downgrade the role of NATO in any broader architecture. 

Increasingly, the focus of the U.S. relationship with Europe is not European 

issues, but rather global challenges. Indeed, when the United States and Europe act 

together, we are more effective in dealing with any problem regardless of geography. 

NATO, accordingly, should be a leading vehicle through which Europe and North 

America act globally. This means ensuring we have an Alliance prepared to help 

lead new missions as merited, for example, supporting an African Union humanitarian operation or even an eventual peace deal in the Middle East. 

Almost any conceivable military mission today would involve our NATO allies, but 

also entail valuable contributions from other partners. NATO can and often should 

remain the organizing core around which such broader coalitions are built, as the 

Alliance offers an increasingly international standard of interoperability and command capable of incorporating partners. NATO’s track record with the Partnership 

for Peace, the Mediterranean Dialogue and Istanbul Cooperation Initiative is a good 

25 

basis upon which to continue to strengthen ties to other global partners, such as 

Australia, Japan, South Korea and the African Union. As we work to strengthen 

the Alliance’s global partnerships, we should entertain the possibility of alliances 

with the Alliance with our closest partners who share our values and interests. 

Before I conclude, I would like to comment on European defense efforts and 

France’s return to the integrated military command. 

President Sarkozy’s election in France represented the victory of a vision of a 

strong France in partnership with the United States, rather than the Gaullist tradition of a strong France defined in opposition to the United States. The challenge 

Paris and Washington face is to ensure that this French strategic perspective endures beyond the presidency of Sarkozy. The United States laid the groundwork 

over the past several years for France to normalize its relations with the Alliance 

as we worked to end the perception of ambivalence or even hostility in the United 

States toward European defense, by calling for a strong Europe as a strong partner 

of the United States. Our experience shows us that we do not need to fear a strong 

Europe, but rather the weakness of our partners. In parallel, the French began to 

demonstrate that Sarkozy was serious about committing the resources required to 

return France to NATO’s military command. Both sides were committed to avoid the 

pitfalls of the previous failed attempts. President Bush’s strong statement on European defense at the Bucharest summit and France’s emphasis on defense issues 

during its EU Presidency last year allowed Sarkozy to get his politics right, framing 

France’s return to the integrated command as a ‘‘normalization’’ of French ties to 

a new NATO. It worked. 

Now we need to reap the benefits of France’s return by helping France succeed 

within NATO and ensure European defense reinforces NATO. This means: 

• Reaching an understanding with France that it will no longer work to limit 

NATO for ideological reasons, such as preventing the Alliance from developing 

its own civil-military capacities for fear of treading on EU turf; 

• Harnessing a serious French military in support of creating serious Alliance capabilities; 

• Ensuring French leadership within the Alliance, including the position of Strategic Commander for Transformation, invests France in NATO’s success, particularly that of Allied Command Transformation; and 

• Restoring as the default for cooperation between NATO and the EU the ‘‘Berlin 

Plus’’ arrangements which allow for the Deputy SACEUR to serve as the EU’s 

commander. 

Currently, this mechanism is only used to support the EU operation in Bosnia. 

While the EU’s current military staff capacity is minimal, as the EU undertakes 

more complicated missions, it will require a stronger, more permanent planning and 

command and control capability. This capability should take place at SHAPE rather 

than any new permanent EU operational headquarters to avoid unnecessary costs 

and duplication. 

France’s return to the integrated military command may open possibilities for 

lessening traditional European resistance to develop common Alliance capabilities. 

Much of this resistance is the result of a commitment in certain European capitals 

to building a more integrated European-only defense industry. While the current 

economic climate is an obstacle, concrete projects premised on transatlantic defense 

industrial cooperation, in which industry on both sides of the Atlantic plays a significant role, offer the prospect for gaining Allied backing for new NATO capability 

initiatives. 

Thank you Madame Chairwoman, ranking member, and members of the committee. I look forward to answering your questions. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Colonel Wood. 

STATEMENT OF COL JOSEPH WOOD, SENIOR RESEARCH 

FELLOW, GERMAN MARSHALL FUND, WASHINGTON, DC 

Colonel WOOD. Madam Chairwoman, distinguished members of 

the subcommittee, it’s an honor to be here this afternoon to discuss 

NATO’s strategic future and institutional challenges as we move 

beyond the alliance’s 60th anniversary. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a set of issues that matters greatly to our security. I want to note initially that the views I will present are my 

26 

own and not those of the German Marshall Fund of the United 

States. 

You’ve heard three, I think, excellent presentations from distinguished colleagues. In particular, Damon Wilson just gave you a 

concrete list of things that the alliance needs to do for institutional 

reform. As the wrapup person, I think I’ll try to broaden this back 

out a little bit and look at some of the more general issues that 

NATO faces that are less vulnerable, if you will, to concrete measures, and a little more problematic going into the strategic concept 

review. 

‘‘Crisis in Transatlantic Relations’’ has always been good for a 

headline, and ‘‘Whither NATO?’’ has been a popular question for 

the alliance since its founding. Perhaps crisis and doubt have been 

the main features of continuity over NATO’s 60 years of existence. 

The beginning of the 21th century witnessed the 9/11 attacks, 

and in response, NATO’s first invocation of the article 5 mutual defense clause. Sidelined in Afghanistan at the outset of that war, the 

alliance is now trying to see a way forward in difficult, and some 

would say deteriorating, circumstances. 

In this climate of contemporary problems, it’s worth recalling a 

passage from the 1967 Harmel Report, written mainly by representatives of small of NATO’s smaller members, and undertaken 

in response to an existential crisis. 

That report concluded, ‘‘The Alliance is a dynamic and vigorous 

organization which is constantly adapting itself to changing conditions. It has also shown that its future tasks can be handled within 

the terms of the treaty by building on the methods and procedures 

which have proved their value over many years. Since the North 

Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the international situation has 

changed significantly, and the political tasks of the Alliance have 

assumed a new dimension. Although the disparity between the 

power of the United States and that of Europe remains, Europe has 

recovered and is on its way toward unity.’’ end quote, in 1967. 

Four decades later, that assessment could be applied to NATO 

today. NATO’s successes are truly historic. Institutionally, it established and maintained reasonably robust procedures and standards 

for military planning and operations despite barriers ranging from 

language differences to longstanding animosities among its members. 

It developed effective, if sometimes inefficient, means of political 

coordination on security matters. And measured by outcomes, 

NATO can count the successful defense and extension of freedom 

in Europe throughout and after the cold war, the management of 

the security aspects of the 1990s Balkans wars, and the enlargement of the alliance in ways that encouraged reform in new members. 

That said, NATO does face some real difficulties which differ 

qualitatively and perhaps decisively from its earlier anxieties. 

NATO in Afghanistan is laboring in intrinsically difficult territory 

under several extrinsic burdens. Its overall strategy and objectives 

have been unclear and difficult to explain to allied publics. Differences on aid programs, methods for dealing with poppy production, lack of coordination, and other unresolved questions about poVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
27 

litical and economic development have all hindered the nonmilitary 

aspects of NATO’s effort, so critical in a campaign like this one. 

But for those concerned about NATO’s continued viability, the 

greatest internal problem has been the refusal of some allies to 

take on the same risk as others. The restrictions on operations imposed by such allies as Germany and Italy have in effect created 

a two-tier alliance, something military planners worked hard to 

avoid throughout the cold war. This division is especially damaging 

because some of the allies with the smallest potential to contribute 

have done so without restrictions, while some with the greatest potential have opted out of the most difficult and dangerous operations. 

The result has been not just resentment, but real questions 

about the very meaning of the term ‘‘alliance’’. When some members accept greater risk than others, questions inevitably arise as 

to what it means that an armed attack against one or more of them 

in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against 

them all. 

Certainly article 5 leaves latitude for each ally to determine its 

own appropriate response, and the war in Afghanistan was not undertaken as an article 5 operation under NATO command. 

But to have NATO’s most significant military operation create 

ambiguity surrounding various allies’ willingness to undertake dangerous missions, even against regimes as brutal as the Taliban, has 

a corrosive effect that may be lasting. 

Some governments, for example, the Netherlands, at least until 

recently, Great Britain and Canada, as well as many of the Central 

European allies, have been able to sustain a commitment to the 

more dangerous work NATO has undertaken. Others, especially 

Germany and Italy, have not done so, though they have lost lives 

and expended treasure in their Afghan missions. The inability or 

unwillingness of those countries to commit to greater risk has transcended particular governments and operates even under avowedly 

pro-American leaders. That fact suggests that in those countries at 

least, there are broad objections to taking on the more dangerous 

tasks of a war. 

So Americans are entitled to wonder if the Taliban regime and 

al-Qaeda are not morally and practically worth opposing with military action, what enemy would qualify for united NATO action? 

Doubts on this score seem to suggest a basic divergence over what 

constitutes good and evil and whether any regime is worth risking 

life to oppose. 

Turning to NATO enlargement, in April 2008, the allies agreed 

that Ukraine and Georgia will at some point be members of NATO. 

But at the behest of General Chancellor Merkel, with support from 

French President Sarkozy, the alliance did not offer Membership 

Action Plan to either country. Because MAP has, for the most recent candidates, been the standard path to eventual membership, 

the effect of this decision was clear: To forestall any prospect of 

NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia in the near future. 

Berlin and Paris base their objections on the fact that neither 

Kyhiv nor Tbilisi was ready for NATO membership, but none of the 

countries admitted during the post-cold-war enlargement of NATO 

28 

were ready for the responsibilities of membership when they entered the MAP process. 

Indeed, MAP presumes that the candidate has work to do; in 

some cases, a great deal of work. Moreover, as the candidate nation 

takes on that work, it does not participate in the article 5 commitment to mutual defense. There was thus no possibility that a different decision a year ago would have obliged Germany or any 

other allied country to defend another country that was not ready 

to be a member militarily or politically. 

The real concern for Germany and France seems to have been 

Russian objections to even the possibility that Georgia and Ukraine 

might eventually become NATO members. In taking such an approach, Chancellor Merkel declined a direct request by President 

George W. Bush, a historic projection of American leadership on a 

key issue. 

Those who share this view seem more interested in taking a 

pragmatic approach to immediate interests than extending the institutional success of NATO and expanding the security of the beliefs that caused the allies to come together in 1949, extending 

those beliefs to nations farther east. 

This division about basic values and interests and the relationship between the two reflects serious differences within the alliance. The United States and most of the allies, especially the 

newer members in Central Europe, believe that the extension of 

NATO’s defensive alliance is not complete, and the continued enlargement is not in conflict with Russia’s legitimate security interest. 

Others have a different vision of the future geography of European security. This fundamental dichotomy will sharpen 

divergences and the willingness to take risks, raising questions 

about which responsibilities are shared and which are not within 

an alliance built on common values and a willingness to take on 

dangers and burdens for a larger cause. 

NATO’s many successes have come in a sustained atmosphere of 

crisis characterized by differences among members about means 

and methods. Accordingly, any forecast of the demise of NATO 

should be treated with more than a grain of historical salt. 

But the key to NATO’s future will be a recognition that the differences facing NATO on its 60th anniversary are real, and they 

are about ends, rather than simply about methods and means, and 

that surmounting those differences will be more difficult and require a greater sustained effort than in the past. Europe and North 

America should make that effort the center of NATO’s attention in 

the coming months. 

Again, Madam Chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Colonel Wood follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COLONEL JAMES WOOD

Madame Chairwoman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, it is an honor 

to be here this afternoon to discuss NATO’s strategic future and institutional challenges as we move beyond the Alliance’s 60th anniversary. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss a set of issues that matters greatly to our security. I want to note 

29 

initially that the views I will present are my own, not those of the German Marshall 

Fund of the U.S. 

‘‘Crisis in transatlantic relations’’ has always been good for a headline, and 

‘‘Whither NATO?’’ has been a popular question for the Alliance since its founding. 

Perhaps crisis and doubt have been the main features of continuity over NATO’s 

60 years of existence. In the 1950s, the military structure of the Alliance developed 

through the years of the Korean War, the divisive Suez crisis, and Sputnik; in the 

same decade, then-West Germany joined the Alliance. The 1960s saw continued tension over Berlin, changes in U.S. nuclear doctrine that carried major implications 

for the allies, and the withdrawal of France from NATO’s military structure. 

The 1970s brought Germany’s Ostpolitik, an American internal loss of confidence 

after Vietnam, and the first decisions on the deployment of short- and mediumrange nuclear missiles that rocked Europe. The 1980s saw President Reagan’s ‘‘evil 

empire’’ speech and his declaration of intent to eliminate nuclear weapons, both disconcerting for the allies who found them surprising and unnerving.. And 1989 

brought the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

What many considered NATO’s raison d’etre, and certainly the proximate cause 

of its existence, ended soon afterward with the fall of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union itself. Yet NATO survived and responded to crises in Bosnia and Kosovo, 

even as it continued to agonize over its continued relevance. 

The beginning of the 21st century witnessed the 9/11 attacks and, in response, 

NATO’s first invocation of the Article V mutual defense clause. Sidelined in Afghanistan at the outset of that war, the Alliance is now trying to see a way forward there 

in difficult and, some would say, deteriorating circumstances. 

In this climate, it is worth recalling a passage from the 1967 Harmel Report, written mainly by representatives of some of NATO’s smaller members and undertaken 

in response to an existential crisis. That report concluded: ‘‘The Alliance is a dynamic and vigorous organization which is constantly adapting itself to changing conditions. It has also shown that its future tasks can be handled within the terms of 

the treaty by building on the methods and procedures which have proved their value 

over many years. Since the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949, the international situation has changed significantly and the political tasks of the Alliance 

have assumed a new dimension. . Although the disparity between the power of the 

United States and that of Europe remains, Europe has recovered and is on its way 

towards unity.’’ 

Four decades later, that assessment could be applied to NATO today. NATO’s successes are truly historic. Institutionally, it established and maintained reasonably 

robust procedures and standards for military planning and operations, despite barriers ranging from language differences to long-standing animosities among its 

members. It developed effective, if sometimes inefficient, means of political coordination on security matters. 

Measured by outcomes, NATO can count the successful defense and extension of 

freedom in Europe throughout and after the Cold War; the management of the security aspects of the 1990s Balkans wars; and the enlargement of the Alliance in ways 

that preserved NATO’s functions while encouraging reform in new members. 

That said, NATO does face some real difficulties which differ qualitatively, and 

perhaps decisively, from its earlier anxieties. 

THE CHALLENGES OF AFGHANISTAN

NATO in Afghanistan is laboring in intrinsically difficult territory under several 

extrinsic burdens. Its overall strategy and objectives have been unclear and difficult 

to explain to allied publics. Differences on aid programs, methods for dealing with 

poppy production, lack of coordination, and other unresolved questions about political and economic development have all hindered the non-military aspects of 

NATO’s efforts, so critical in a campaign like this one. 

But for those concerned about NATO’s continued viability, the greatest internal 

problem has been the refusal of some allies to take on the same risks as others. 

The restrictions on operations imposed by such allies as Germany and Italy has, in 

effect, created a two-tier alliance, something military planners worked hard to avoid 

throughout the Cold War. This division is especially damaging because some of the 

allies with the smallest potential to contribute have done so without restrictions, 

while some with the greatest potential have opted out of the most difficult and dangerous operations. 

The result has been not just resentment, but real questions about the very meaning of the term ‘‘alliance.’’ When some members accept greater risk than others, 

questions inevitably arise as to what it means that an ‘‘an armed attack against one 

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

30 

them all.’’ Certainly, Article V leaves latitude for each ally to determine its own appropriate response, and the war in Afghanistan was not undertaken as an Article 

V operation under NATO command. But to have NATO’s most significant military 

operation create ambiguity surrounding various allies’ willingness to undertake dangerous missions, even against regimes as brutal as the Taliban, has a corrosive effect that may be lasting. 

If NATO’s difficulties in Afghanistan were simply a matter of the friction that attends coordination among 28 bureaucracies, the problems would be vexing but not 

catastrophic. Such problems of process and mechanics have always existed, and they 

have always slowed progress. Indeed, they are explainable as the ‘‘cost of doing business’’ through an organization that operates on the principle of consensus, reporting 

to capitals that are each accountable to pluralistic political systems. 

But they are still messy, and that messiness can carry serious consequences. The 

problems of coordination in NATO’s 1999 Kosovo campaign convinced some Bush 

administration officials that NATO could not be relied upon in actual conflict situations. Afghanistan, however, represents what may be a different level of divergence. 

Some governments—for example, the Netherlands, Great Britain and Canada (as 

well as many of the Central European allies)—have been able to sustain a commitment to the more dangerous work NATO has undertaken. Others, especially Germany and Italy, have not done so (though they have lost lives and expended treasure in their Afghan missions). The inability or unwillingness of those countries to 

commit to greater risk has transcended particular governments and operates even 

under avowedly pro-American leaders. That fact suggests that in those countries, at 

least, there are broad objections to taking on the more dangerous tasks of the war. 

So Americans are entitled to wonder: If the Taliban regime and al-Qaida are not 

morally and practically worth opposing with military action, what enemy would 

qualify for united NATO action? Doubts on this score seem to suggest a basic divergence over what constitutes good and evil, and whether any regime is worth risking 

life to oppose. 

NATO ENLARGEMENT

In April 2008, the Allies agreed that Ukraine and Georgia will at some point be 

members of NATO. But at the behest of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with 

support from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the alliance did not offer a Membership Action Plan to either country. Because MAP has, for the most recent candidates, been the standard path to eventual membership, the effect of this decision 

was clear: to forestall any prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine or Georgia 

in the near future. 

Berlin and Paris based their objections on the fact that neither Kyiv nor Tbilisi 

was ready for NATO membership. But none of the countries admitted during the 

post-Cold War enlargement of NATO were ready for the responsibilities of membership when they entered the MAP process. Indeed, MAP presumes that the candidate 

has work to do, in some cases a great deal of work. Moreover, as the candidate nation takes on that work, it does not participate in the Article V commitment to mutual defense. There was thus no possibility that a different decision a year ago 

would have obliged Germany or any other ally to defend a country that was not 

ready to be a member, militarily or politically. 

The real concern for Germany and France seems to have been Russian objections 

to even the possibility that Georgia and Ukraine might eventually become NATO 

members. In taking such an approach, Chancellor Merkel declined a direct request 

by President George W. Bush to extend MAP to Ukraine and Georgia, a historic rejection of American leadership on a key issue. Those who share this view seem more 

interested in taking a pragmatic approach to immediate, economic national interests 

than in extending the institutional success of NATO, and expanding the security of 

the beliefs that caused the allies to come together in 1949 to nations farther east. 

This division about basic values and interests, and the relationship between the 

two, reflects serious differences within the Alliance. The United States and most of 

the Allies, especially the newer members in central Europe, believe that the extension of NATO’s defensive alliance is not complete and that continued enlargement 

is not in conflict with Russia’s legitimate security interests. Germany and France 

(and Russia) have a different vision of the future geography of European security. 

This fundamental dichotomy will sharpen divergences in the willingness to take 

risks, raising questions about which responsibilities are shared, and which are not, 

within an alliance built on common values and a willingness to take on dangers and 

burdens for a larger cause. 

For perhaps the first time in NATO’s history, then, we may need to ask what happens to a military or security organization when fundamental purposes diverge. For 

31 

the cases of Afghanistan and enlargement raise questions not of means to ends, but 

of ends themselves. And beyond the issue of ends and purposes in Europe, broader 

global issues will pose a challenge for NATO in practical terms. 

Even in the post-Cold War era, when the attention of U.S. policymakers has often 

turned in other directions, Europe’s fundamental importance has remained sufficiently clear and strong to ensure the mutual and continued core relevance of each 

side of the Atlantic to the other. That situation may be changing. Many commentators have noted the extraordinary array of challenges the Obama administration 

faces as it approaches its first few months: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, North 

Korea, and the broader Middle East all present immediate dangers. In the longer 

term, China is both a key economic partner and a potential regional challenger. 

Latin America, including Mexico, requires tending, and Africa needs continued assistance. 

Given these challenges, there will be a real temptation for Washington to view 

European security with less urgency, just as many Europeans have feared would 

eventually happen. After all, if the largest nations in continental Europe are content 

to grant Russia the sphere of influence it seems to seek, American leaders may not 

want to expend valuable energy and time resisting that course, although the current 

administration has admirably rejected the idea of spheres of influence in Europe 

and insisted that all nations should choose their own alliances. While a lessening 

of American engagement would be disappointing and dangerous for the newer allies 

in central Europe, who have contributed much where the United States has asked, 

the burden will be on them and like-minded Western European nations to work to 

close policy gaps to manageable scales. 

The greater risk, however, is that basic questions on beliefs and purposes go unanswered and fester, leaving NATO less able to take united decisions. The United 

States could find itself working on critical issues directly with its more like-minded 

friends and leaving NATO to attend to less controversial, and less important, issues. 

Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, fears of NATO’s irrelevance could thus be realized. 

This year’s 60th anniversary will, like all such milestones, prompt a new version 

of the old debate about ‘‘Whither NATO?’’ Such questions are especially grave this 

year. The United States will find it much harder to cope with the global array of 

security issues it faces with a weakened trans-Atlantic security relationship, and 

Europe will find such a weakened relationship harmful to its project of economic 

and political integration. NATO members need to use this year and the new strategic concept to begin answering the hard questions that face the alliance. 

Yet a future of irrelevance and ineffectiveness for NATO is far from inevitable. 

For the first time in over 40 years, France rejoined the Alliance’s integrated military 

command structure, a step that could bring with it the resolution of difficult issues 

surrounding NATO’s cooperation with the European Union. In a more negative 

light, Moscow may continue to assert its interests in ways that force NATO to rally 

to the deterrence of aggression aimed at Central European allies. 

NATO’s many successes have come in a sustained atmosphere of crisis, characterized by differences among members about means and methods. Accordingly, any 

forecast of the demise of should be treated with more than a grain of historical salt. 

But the key to NATO’s future will be a recognition that the differences facing NATO 

on its 60th anniversary are real, and that surmounting those differences will be 

more difficult and require a greater sustained effort than in the past. Europe and 

North America should make that effort the center of NATO’s attention in coming 

months. 

Again, madame chairwoman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the 

subcommittee today. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you all very much. Colonel Wood— 

and I would ask all of the panelists, I guess—but you specifically 

talked about the problem of creating a two-tiered alliance, which 

we’re seeing in some respects with Afghanistan. What could, what 

should NATO be doing to address this differently so that we ensure 

a more equitable burden sharing among all of the members? 

Colonel WOOD. That’s a wonderful question. The administration 

that Damon and I were part of struggled with that with not a 

whole lot of success. President Obama, I think, undertook his trip 

to Europe with the hope that he might be able to convince some 

of the allies to do more than they’ve done. 

32 

The press reports were that there was some level of support for 

that among the European allies, and there was discussion of some 

5,000 new troops, although the reality of that is very, very hard to 

see. I think those troops are hard to count and hard to actually 

find. 

I don’t have a good solution for you because I think the problem 

is fundamentally political, and I think it has to do with the question of how some publics and some politicians, political leadership 

in Europe, gauges the reaction and the potential reaction of their 

publics, to whom they’re democratically accountable, to the possibility of increasing the risks that they take. 

And so I think that we will be able to at the edges improve 

NATO’s contribution. We’ll be able to improve the chain of command and improve the effectiveness of how NATO performs in Afghanistan. 

But unless there is a fundamental shift in the political commitment to the cause of fighting the Taliban, dealing with al-Qaeda, 

with the problems in Afghanistan, and separately, in Pakistan, it’s 

very difficult for me to see a profound or substantially different 

way forward, despite the best efforts of the President. 

The only solution I can offer you is the bromide of American 

leadership that’s tried and true, and I don’t think without American leadership, any improvement will be seen. But even with that 

leadership, I think it’s going to be very difficult. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Anyone else want to tackle that? 

Mr. WILSON. Madame Chair, if I may, I think this is a tough 

question. It hits at the heart of the challenge with the alliance, and 

I think there are two ways to approach it. 

One is the politics. What we’re lacking in Europe is a cadre of 

leaders, politicians, parliamentarians that are willing to regularly 

speak out in favor of both partnership with the United States, but 

the alliance itself. How often has a European head of state given 

a speech on Afghanistan? Not often. 

And I think that’s a challenge that we need in various political 

channels, whether through the executive branch or many of your 

colleagues, to challenge your European partners. If they are not out 

making the case to their publics, then how do they expect to generate the public support to sustain difficult, expensive operations? 

And part of this is getting the politics right. I think that’s why 

the choice of former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as Secretary General is a good choice to give someone with 

a strong, clear voice who has a track record of speaking out on 

these issues in his own election and campaigns. It’s the kind of 

leader, European leader, we need making that case in Europe. 

There are other smaller practical steps. Caveats used to be a 

very discreet military term that no one knew about. When I worked 

for Lord Robertson, part of what we did was to shine a spotlight 

on this, and through a little bit of shaming, trying to bring countries to terms with the constraints that they were putting on the 

use of their forces, and making it a political issue so that we could 

generate momentum to reverse that. 

That’s only had a certain degree of impact, but it’s the kind of 

practical stuff that can continue. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

33 

Dr. HAMILTON. Madam Chairman, if I may, I agree that the core 

of this is political, and that much of what my colleagues say is 

true. We should, however, recall that NATO has always been a 

multitiered alliance. We have a superpower engaged with a lot of 

allies who are certainly at different levels of capability. And we’ve 

always had to manage this imbalance within our capabilities. 

The United States, of course, has global concerns as well as global reach. Many of our allies have a regional perspective, and that’s 

part of NATO’s transformation that’s been so difficult. 

So while politics is at the core of it, I do believe that, as we think 

about a strategic concept and about the future of the alliance itself, 

there are other things to think about. 

One is that NATO is a consensus organization. And so often on 

these types of missions, everyone has to agree. But not everyone 

then participates. And yet, everyone can still block what is happening because of the nature of this consensus principle. 

So we would argue to maybe think harder about modifying that 

rule in operations. There should always be consensus at the level 

of the North Atlantic Council to agree or not on a mission. But once 

a mission is agreed at that level, shouldn’t the nations then participating in the mission be the ones actually then to be making decisions about the nature of their conduct? 

I think that allows those to move ahead who are committed, and 

maybe those who can’t participate, there are reasons for that. But 

don’t stop the mission from happening or make it worse. 

Another element is that as we went through this list of missions 

for NATO, whether home or away, all of them require deployable 

forces. Even defense in Europe today cannot be accomplished with 

static forces. 

If we think about the old dividing line, the Fulda Gap, the Iron 

Curtain running through Germany, we asked the Germans to create static tank forces, land forces, heavy forces. Right there, at the 

Fulda Gap we’re protecting their own country. 

Now we’ve asked the Germans to deploy forces very far away. 

Germany today, it’s interesting, has no borders, and only one with 

Switzerland. All the others have been swept away by the Schengen 

Agreement providing for open borders in Europe. 

So if Germany is to defend itself, it has to project at distance 

somewhere else, even within Europe. And yet, it’s had trouble making that adjustment from the kinds of forces it had for the cold war 

to the kinds it needs today. And I think you see that pattern 

among other allies. 

So the point has to be strongly made, that every allied force now 

has to be a deployable force. And yet many NATO forces are just 

static. The sit in place. They don’t do a lot, frankly. And we should 

be, I think, sending a very, very strong message about the need to 

change this. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Senator DeMint. Because you arrived a little late, I assume you 

might want to make an opening statement before you begin questions? 

34 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JIM DEMINT, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH CAROLINA 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I think just 

about everything in my opening statement has been addressed to 

some degree, and I’d like to jump mostly into some questions here 

to make the most of the time. 

Clearly, NATO is very important to the United States. I mean, 

it’s the only cohesive group on the side of freedom right now, and 

we’re all concerned about a potential setback or failure in Afghanistan, what that might do to the alliance. I was in Brussels a few 

weeks ago and met with a number of European ambassadors to 

talk about NATO, the EU, and the European Union security force 

idea that’s developing. 

And the—if I could just kind of take the logic forward a little bit, 

we talk about the two-tier, and it’s more like a multiple-tier, as Mr. 

Hamilton said. We’ve got a superpower. We’ve got some medium 

powers. We’ve got others who can do different things. 

But the difficult thing I think for us as we look at this as a longterm commitment of the United States is that those countries now 

that seem to want less and less—have a fighting role are those that 

seem to be most committed to developing the alternative European 

Union security force approach. 

And as I see the commitment to NATO, the exercises that would 

lead to interoperability, the things that have to happen for NATO 

to work, any less commitment than we have today in NATO from 

our European partners, particularly the larger ones, would seem to 

make it very difficult for it to operate, and shift more and more of 

the responsibility to the United States. 

I mean, the ones that—the countries that are doing the fighting, 

the United States, Canada, Netherlands, others, are—it seems that 

this alternative idea is being developed. I discussed that with some 

of the European ambassadors, and it was usually, ‘‘No, that’s not 

an alternative,’’ but there’s only so much resources to go around. 

And I think what it appears is whether it’s Italy, France, Germany, that the countries that are balking somewhat at a fighting 

role with NATO are more committed to developing this alternative, 

which creates a dilemma for us. And we need allies, but we need 

allies who are committed to some of the same principles. 

And so I’d just maybe like a lot of—maybe the three of you here 

just to address that thought, where the Europeans are really going, 

and you can’t really discuss that without putting Russia in the 

middle of it, which is now meddling and pulling some of the former 

republics toward itself, and creating somewhat of a chaos with energy, using energy as a weapon and things like that. 

So, Mr. Wood, I’ll start with you. I don’t know if I made enough 

sense to actually ask a question here, but maybe you can pick up 

on some of that. 

Colonel WOOD. No, Senator, I understand what you’re driving at 

at several different levels. This is, as you well know, not a new 

problem. We struggled with how to handle ESDP and ESDI in the 

1990s, whether or not it was a threat to the core functions of the 

alliance. 

It’s been less of a theological problem in recent years. It’s been 

somewhat overshadowed, I think, by the addition of the new memVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
35 

bers from, most recently, Croatia and Albania, and then before 

that, the round of Central European allies who joined who, although I don’t think as slavishly pro-American as some Europeans 

in Western Europe view them, are fundamentally pro-American. 

They have a fairly recent history of—memory of understanding 

what tyranny is like, and they are somewhat sympathetic to the 

idea of preventing tyranny, and they’re very sensitive to what Russia’s doing, as you pointed out. 

France has now rejoined the military system, the military integrated with the military command structure in NATO. They were 

never completely disintegrated. I went to French Defense College, 

and my French compatriots there had an excellent understanding— 

this was the late 1990s—of NATO’s military methods and operations. They had kept up with that. We exercised together from 

time to time. 

But the President Sarkozy took in some ways difficult political 

decision to reintegrate French military forces. The question for any 

French leader is whether or not he’s doing that because of some 

sudden embrace of a transatlantic view that really is radically different from previous French Presidents, and I think Sarkozy is 

very different in how he views the world than previous French 

Presidents. 

But whether he is doing this to, if you will, harness NATO and 

the rest of Europe to French foreign political ambitions, that’s not 

necessarily a bad thing. If we can gain more unity as a result of 

doing that, there’s a potentially great outcome from this, which is 

that it will give France a new interest in the success of NATO. 

I’ve personally always wanted the Quai d’Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry, to have a real interest in the success of NATO. 

That’s one of the best things that could happen for the United 

States in terms of real unity, to have them pulling with NATO instead of balking against NATO and resisting American influence. 

With that said, I believe that I detect at a variety of levels the 

same thing which you may be driving at. I don’t want to put words 

in your mouth. But the sense that in some parts of Western Europe 

in particular, there really is an ambivalence about a continuation 

of the same level of American leadership on security issues that 

there has been in the past. 

I don’t know whether that stems from the last 8 years and the 

particular unpopularity of President Bush in Europe, or whether 

it’s a longer term trend. I think we need to remember that when 

former French Foreign Minister Ve ́drine described the United 

States as a hyperpuissance, a hyperpower, he did that under President Clinton, and it was Secretary of State Albright who had to respond to charges about American unipolarity by noting that the 

United States was the indispensable country. 

So it’s something that’s been there for a long, long time, this kind 

of resistance. I don’t know exactly where it’s going, but I think 

there is a division in the alliance right now between those allies 

who want a greater European autonomy and who are more resistant at this point for a variety of reasons to American leadership 

than maybe they have in the past, given the exigencies. 

At the same time, there are a group of allies who are quite concerned about the reality of day-to-day security, whether it’s in the 

36 

Balts or whether it’s in Poland or the Czech Republic, countries 

that are closer to Russia. They watch Moscow’s actions, both militarily in the caucuses and economically in energy security and 

other areas, and wonder what’s ahead. They are the ones who hear 

the threats of attack when they agree to missile defense instillations with the United States, coming from the Russian Foreign 

Ministry. 

So they have real article 5 concerns that have in a sense reappeared in the last 2 or 3 years, and they very much I think still 

want American leadership and seek American leadership. 

Again, I’m giving you a mixed answer. When the Russia proposed—President Medyvev proposed last year this new security architecture for Europe to be discussed in the context of OSCE, President Sarkozy was quite strong in saying, ‘‘We’ll talk about security 

with Russia, but we’ll do so with our partners, the United States.’’ 

And that’s a very encouraging sign. That means that there is a 

certain commonality of end and purpose that’s still in place, even 

if the means are different. I think it’s natural and healthy for the 

Europeans to want those means, but we still have a ways to go in 

how we integrate them and what the foreign policy goals are to 

which we would attach those military means. 

So I’m sorry to give you an ambiguous answer. I just think it’s 

very, very unclear at this point. 

Senator DEMINT. It was an ambiguous question, but I think my 

concern is that if our NATO allies, particularly the older ones, 

know they have—that there’s a real threat, if there’s any kind of 

attack, that we’ll be there, that our resources, our soldiers, they’re 

there. 

So they can keep us on the shelf, do their own thing until they 

need us, and that—because they want to be more autonomous. And 

I know some of our allies do. That may or may not be a good thing, 

but it seems like we are committed—our resources are committed, 

while their commitment may not be as much to the NATO alliance, 

which includes us and Canada. 

So I’m just concerned that we may be on the hook, but it may 

not be as reciprocal in the future the way it’s going. 

Colonel WOOD. No, I think—at the end of the day, I think the 

problem you’re describing is that we are a superpower with global 

responsibilities, and we tend to, over time—— 

Senator DEMINT. Anyway—— 

Colonel WOOD. [continuing]. Implement our commitments. I will 

say this, though. Working against that is what I think is a longterm and a biting fear on the part of most Europeans of becoming 

irrelevant to America. That’s I think the greatest underlying and 

overlaying fear of most European leaders, is the United States will 

forget about them. 

If I put myself in the position of someone who is in this administration right now and think about just what the immediate dangers 

are, the things that could really get dangerous tonight—Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, the broader Middle East, North Korea— 

none of those are Europe. 

If you look at the sort of second-tier problems, where you have 

China, a potential regional competitor in Asia, as well as an economic partner; you have Russia, with what seems to me to be a 

37 

fairly clear ambition to establish a sphere of influence or reestablish a sphere of influence, but an unknown final ambition toward 

Central and Western Europe, that’s a little farther down the line, 

and it’s something that, if I were in the administration, I would at 

least be tempted to say, ‘‘Germany and France, you go deal with 

that.’’ 

In the long run, I think that’s very dangerous for us to take that 

approach, and I don’t want to imply this administration has taken 

that approach. But I think those in Europe who have for a long 

time feared being irrelevant or becoming irrelevant to the United 

States, maybe have more reason to fear that now and will want to 

cooperate with us more intensely and work the accommodations 

that you’ve described as necessary in the future. 

Senator DEMINT. I hope so. Madame Chairman, since I did skip 

my opening statement, may I allow these two just to make a quick 

comment? 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Absolutely. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you. 

Mr. Wilson. 

Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Senator. I would say when I was in government, our concern—our fear—was not that Europe was too 

strong, but that Europe was too weak. 

Senator DEMINT. Right. 

Mr. WILSON. And so particularly when I worked at the White 

House, part of what we orchestrated with the Elysses over the last 

18 months with the Bush administration, was a delicate dance in 

which the United States would more equivocally come out in support of a European defense to help the French get the politics right, 

so that it would pave the way for France’s return to NATO, because we wanted the French to have a sense of ownership within 

the alliance, and to feel that they can achieve what they want on 

the global stage working with us within the alliance, rather than 

without us and having to do it as a separate ESDP structure. 

Today, the EU military staff is maybe a hundred people, just 

over a hundred people. That’s not a problem. It’s not duplication. 

The EU today doesn’t have the capacity to manage a complex operation, and if it were to move in that direction, that’s where we get 

concerned about whether some in Brussels would push for the development of a more permanent structure that would frankly duplicate. 

And this is where I think with France’s return to the alliance, 

we need to work this diligently with our partners so that we restore as the default for cooperation the structures that we have in 

place that allow the European Union to use the structures within 

the alliance to act for EU operations when the United States 

doesn’t want to be involved. 

This way, you embed what the EU is doing with our activities 

at SHAPE, at NATO’s military headquarters, and you embed them 

in a way that doesn’t lead to duplication. After all, these are the 

exact same forces that we’re talking about. What we’ve been concerned about is that we not develop competing alternative structures for command and control and to integrate those forces. 

But again, I think part of this is why it’s important for France’s 

return. We want them to have some sense of ownership. The 

38 

United States gave France two four-star commands within the alliance at Norfolk and at Lisbon so that they will take some ownership of that and increasingly work European issues with the alliance rather than outside and in contrast to the alliance. 

Senator DEMINT. Mr. Hamilton. 

Dr. HAMILTON. I was going to start with the same point Damon 

just ended with. These are the same set of forces. This is not an 

alternative army. These are the same armies. They would just be 

deployed for different purposes. And I think that gets to the heart 

of much of this. 

I should also add a country that’s been the main drive for this 

in the last number of years has been Great Britain. And certainly 

the British are not engaged in the EU effort here to distance themselves from the United States. They’ve been engaged, in fact, to 

make sure that NATO and the EU are aligned well. 

I think the questions really come up regarding operations in 

which the United States might not participate, in which Europeans 

feel they have a security challenge, and they either don’t know if 

they can count on the United States or in which the United States, 

because of what Joe said, might have other things going and might 

not be able to participate. What then? 

These are the kinds of capabilities and issues that they’re trying 

to grapple with. And frankly, they’ve had some experience with 

this. I would argue in the first Bush administration and in the 

early Clinton administration, the United States was not there with 

its allies in the Balkans and Bosnia. We failed. It was a bipartisan 

failure, I would argue, to stand together with European troops on 

the ground who were facing a horrible situation. We did not engage. 

And I think the lesson many of those European allies took out 

of that was, ‘‘We have to build some hedge, unfortunately, if the 

United States isn’t there for us.’’ Now, we could argue, now we are 

there, and that was a passing episode. But I think people have 

these memories, and they influence policy. 

So I think the best answer to that European fear of abandonment by the United States, is to be there and to be engaged and 

to make that always a consistent message. But there might be operations, say, for instance, in Africa, in which the United States 

might not want to participate militarily, and which the Europeans 

might have some role to play with the African Union. At the moment, they can’t get to Africa from Europe because we have to fly 

them there. And so our capabilities are being used to do that for 

them. 

So if there’s any effort here that promotes European capabilities—which I think is our shared interest in the United States— 

that should be a good thing for the United States to promote the 

types of European capabilities so Europeans can take more control 

over their own security, if we are not able to choose not to be there 

in a crisis. 

These are the kinds of very specific areas in which I think the 

Europeans are trying to develop their capabilities, but the ambition 

is not to duplicate NATO, and they have shown no serious effort 

to try to develop forces that can project further that would be indeVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
39 

pendent of any U.S. link. In fact, as I said, they’re dependent on 

us providing that link for them. 

So I think the theology has disappeared, and now we’re working 

on what are the practical arrangements where Europeans could develop some value added to our overall effort on that one part of the 

spectrum, which might be very minor, in situation where the 

United States might not potentially engage. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you. Thank you for all the time, Madam 

Chair. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Senator Kaufman. 

Senator KAUFMAN. Madam Chairman, thank you for holding this 

hearing. I want to follow up on your question and Senator 

DeMint’s, and that is, NATO’s an incredible organization and an 

incredible concept. America should be involved. I’m all for all that. 

But I’m finding on my last trip to Afghanistan pretty much the 

same kind of thing I found when I went to Kosovo and to the Balkans, and that is, complexity does not describe trying to operate 

this multiheaded monster in an actual battlefield. 

I mean, you mentioned complexity. We talked about multitiered, 

the caveats. I mean, just to sit there with the folks from the ISAF 

that are trying to run this war, it’s just—it’s just incredibly difficult. The thing that concerns me is I don’t see any progress made 

since we were in the Balkans and we had to have everybody sign 

off. 

And I know how difficult this is, and I know you’ve already covered limitless ground, but can any of you give any concrete suggestions on politically—and I understand this is a political problem, 

but I think it could become—I mean, it could just hinder our ability 

to do this, and at some point, we’re just going to say the game’s 

not worth the candle, and I am totally opposed to that. 

So politically, what should the President and the Congress do to 

in some way begin to straighten this out so the next time we go 

into a situation, wherever it is, whether it’s in Africa or wherever, 

that we have some way to deal, and we can actually go to war with 

a unified complaint without the complexity, without the caveats, 

and without the rest of it, or at least minimize them? 

Dr. HAMILTON. That’s quite a question, Senator. As I said, I 

think there are two levels. One is the overall strategic direction for 

the alliance and how to change things within the institution, which 

I think is the core of the hearing here today. And then there’s the 

politics of it, as you said, if you don’t get the politics right, it 

doesn’t matter all the tinkering you do with the bureaucracy, obviously. 

I think we have a serious issue here, which comes to the core of 

this alliance and the core of our relationship. For 50 years, it was 

about stabilizing the European contact. When we said transatlantic 

alliance, we meant stabilizing Europe. That was where the dangers 

were. Today, I would argue wider Europe is still a task for us, but 

stabilizing Europe is not 90 percent of our transatlantic agenda. 

And so the real shift we have to make with our allies, and that’s 

the hard part, is that this relationship today is not about Europe 

the continent, as much it is about whether we together, Europeans 

and Americans, are going to address a whole range of third issues, 

40 

either functional issues, like climate change, or regional issues, like 

instability in Southwest Asia, together. 

This is the type of relationship we need now to build. That requires a serious and probably multiyear conversation with our allies about this type of partnership. It also means we have to 

change certain ways we would think about those allies. 

My colleague mentioned how listing all the challenges we face in 

this world and where Europe doesn’t seem to be on the list. Well, 

Europe’s not on the list of challenges, thank God, because of the 

success of this alliance and what we have done. But now we have 

to say can we have the Europe that’s the capable partner to be the 

value added as we engaged in all these other issues? 

That Europe’s not yet there, but it is potentially there. It is not 

a Europe that would be achieved only through NATO, because 

many of the issues, such as the financial crisis, climate change, migration—all of these things, are probably done best either bilaterally or with European Union. We need more bandwidth across 

Atlantic to deal with some of these issues and not ask a military— 

a political alliance to deal with some of them. 

But I do think that what distinguishes this relationship among 

any other we have is this basic premise: If we do agree across Atlantic on almost any issue of some global concern, we are almost 

always the core of the coalition that gets anything done. And if we 

disagree across the Atlantic, still today, we stop almost any global 

coalition from getting anything done. 

There’s a two-edged sword to this, but it does highlight why this 

relationship is still highly relevant to the global challenges we 

face—if we can get the kind of partnership that I think we would 

need to be effective. 

Ambassador HUNTER. If I may, Senator, I believe that it is an 

imperative for us to fight with our allies. It’s never going to be 

easy. It will always make things more complex. But I do think it’s 

an imperative. 

Part of this is we’ve been learning some difficult lessons because 

of the experience in Afghanistan since 9/11. SHAPE NATO structures have been designed to figure out how to stitch together disparate national contributions into a force. In the aftermath of 9/11, 

we were trying to do that in the Pentagon. It was too complicated. 

We didn’t want too many to play in that game. Later, politically, 

we understood the value of that. 

We need to use some of the default NATO force generation or 

planning structures to figure out how 25 Estonians make sense in 

an overall military force, and use some of those structures that 

exist within the alliance. 

We have been playing catchup since day one in Afghanistan, 

where we began with the international presence being led by individual NATO countries, very disruptive as we went through rotations, then to a NATO-led ISAF, which was divorced from most of 

the U.S. force, which was also disruptive. And now, we finally have 

a command structure that makes a little bit of sense, but only as 

of last year, where you have a U.S. commander double-hatted for 

both. 

So we frankly—we don’t—we only have just gotten sort of the 

structure in a more—in a way that makes more sense now in AfVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
41 

ghanistan. We need to lead with that, rather than take years to 

come out with that. Let me end with that, since our time—— 

Colonel WOOD. There are two baskets of areas where we have to 

work. The first is we have to keep in mind that our NATO allies 

are democracies. As a result, their leaders are accountable, and as 

a result, they can get tossed out of office when their publics get 

tired of them. 

With that in mind, we have to be very clear, as the alliance leader, on our own strategy, and I think in Afghanistan, over the last 

7 years, we have not done that. We’ve sometimes had a bumper 

sticker on a comprehensive strategy, but in my mind, we have not 

done a good job of explaining a clear strategy to our ends in Afghanistan that leaders in Europe could take to their publics, and 

explain clearly and get the kind of support that would make them 

confident as political leaders to join us and to follow us. 

The second is that we need a better public diplomacy program, 

whatever you want to call it, to explain that kind of a strategy, to 

explain our mutual interests, our shared interest, and to again, in 

a sense, mitigate the political risks that leaders in Europe are having to take when they support the United States in a war that’s 

very difficult for them to explain to their own publics. So that’s one 

basket of issues, sort of understand that they’re democracies, and 

try to lead in that regard. 

The second basket is to look to our own alliance structure and 

how we form coalitions and alliances. In the long run, what are the 

countries who are most likely to have similar interests with us that 

we can build coalitions with and work closely with in the future? 

That may not line up with NATO. It’ll line up partially with 

NATO. 

So we need to make clear in our own minds and in the minds 

of others that in the future, we may be working more closely with 

Japan than with others, more closely with South Korea, more closely with India, more closely with others around the world who have 

and see shared interests with us than some of the NATO allies 

might see in some particular circumstances, and then within 

NATO, work with those who will work with us. 

The effect of that is potentially to raise this possibility of irrelevance for a lot of the senior folks in Europe, for the larger countries 

in Europe, and then force them to make strategic decisions about 

where they need to be for their own interests. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Madam 

Chairman. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. I think you’ve all talked about 

the other threats that our NATO is facing and Europe and the 

United States are facing: cyber security, energy security, others. 

And several of you have pointed out we have to look at what is the 

legitimate scope of NATO’s mission as we’re thinking about the future. 

Could each of you speak to what you think the scope of missions 

should be and what you think limits on that should be, if there are 

any? You want to go first? 

Dr. HAMILTON. Madam Chair, in our report, to which I referred, 

we provide a matrix, if you will, of areas in which we think NATO 

should have the lead; areas in which we think it’s a supporting 

42 

actor; and then others in which it’s more sort of part of the band, 

as the international community has to deal with challenges. 

And I think that breakdown starts to get as to discern more the 

appropriate roles for NATO. During the cold war, NATO was the 

institution. That’s how we thought about it. Today, with this host 

of different and unorthodox challenges, it doesn’t always need to be 

the institution, and sometimes the right capabilities are outside of 

NATO. 

So distinguishing where NATO needs to take the lead and where 

it does not I think helps us. It certainly should take the lead in collective defense of its members. That remains its core mission. It 

certainly should take the lead in terms of crisis response of this alliance to threats at distance. Crisis response. Afghanistan is an example of that. The Balkans at the time were another example. 

We don’t have another mechanism with our European allies to 

do that. NATO is the instrument. The EU effort wouldn’t do that. 

So in those two areas, NATO is clearly the lead and should have 

then the capabilities and the funding priorities to make sure it 

matches that. 

There were other areas, though, where a supporting role is more 

appropriate, for instance what I mentioned earlier, what I would 

call transatlantic resilience issues, societal security issues, where 

some of the primary capabilities have to do with law enforcement 

issues or policing or intelligence. NATO really wouldn’t have the 

lead, but it can play a support role. 

Right now, in the Mediterranean, the only article 5 mission 

NATO is engaged in, Operation Active Endeavor, which guards the 

approaches and keeps nasty things out of Europe, is that type of 

mission. It’s actually a mission in which the Russians have participated. 

So here is an example of an article 5 mission, a core mission of 

NATO, collective defense, that is being carried out in cooperation 

with Russia. It’s a different kind of security challenge, but I think 

one that can be developed further. 

Regarding Europe Whole and Free, this issue is not just about 

NATO enlargement. It has to do with the enlargement of all of our 

institutions, to use them to increase the space of stability in Europe where war doesn’t happen. NATO plays an important role in 

that, but so does European Union. So do other institutions. So 

NATO should be part of a much broader Western approach to the 

region, if it could be done. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Well, when do you decide that those supporting roles in terms of its societal mission, as you called it, spill 

over into a collective defense mission, and how do you draw those 

lines in a way that address the challenges we’re facing in the future? 

Dr. HAMILTON. That’s where I believe now we should do some serious work as part of the strategic concept, to start to delineate 

some of those lines. For instance, the concept of military support 

to civilian authorities, which is a fairly standard way of thinking 

about it, starts to get you there. Cyber defense—there’s a lot of discussion these days about cyber defense, particularly against military networks. 

43 

But obviously, that spills over into the civilian realm as well, and 

how—what does one decide? Moreover, as we are democracies each 

of our nations has laws about the role of the military in purely domestic matters. This is new territory in which we really have some 

things to think through—especially given different traditions within Europe. 

But it seems to me we need to engage now in a new discussion 

about what I would call transatlantic resilience or Transatlantic 

Homeland Security, if you will, if you want to use U.S. 

terminologies. That starts to engage other agencies of government, 

not just the military. Because, as I said, some of the other agencies 

are actually more appropriate to this challenge. 

When we had Hurricane Katrina here, our European allies 

helped us. And yet, we were not equipped as a government to receive that aid very well. And it wasn’t done just through the military, it was done in a whole host of ways. 

So as we think to the kinds of, God forbid, catastrophic challenges we might face in the future, I think we need to think harder 

about how we confront those potentially, or prevent them, with allies. And that’s a whole realm which NATO is part of as a supporting player, but it certainly engages other agencies and other 

partners and civilian authorities, as well. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Do either of the rest of—either of you want 

to respond on that? 

Mr. WILSON. I do agree that collective defense and crisis response 

operations are the core where NATO has a lead on this, but it’s important to think about the next article 5 attack on a country. No 

one expected it to be terrorists in New York. And I think that’s 

where NATO’s responsibilities in how to maintain a collective security guarantee demand that it develops new capabilities. 

The next attack is likely to be a cyber attack, a bio attack, or 

from a ballistic missile. Therefore, NATO needs to be at the forefront of helping to develop some of those capabilities. 

Where it does get more complicated is how does the alliance 

adapt to how we’ve been adapting our own military in terms of the 

simple military cooperation that Dan talked about that is increasingly intellectual common sense to us. We don’t have our instruments and tools right, and don’t know how to work that out. Part 

of the reason is because there is no real strategic partnership between NATO and the European Union today. We say there’s one 

on paper, but it’s stuck. It’s a problem. And until we get the two 

institutions to be able to work together credibly, we’re going to 

have these creases where some problems will fall. 

There is a body that brings together NATO ambassadors and EU 

ambassadors. It doesn’t do much today. That’s a venue that needs 

to be something that becomes more credible if we’re going to have 

our institutions prepared to face some of these real challenges. 

So because of the nature of the potential attacks on the members, NATO must have an important role in some of these. It’s in 

recognition that it has to work in partnership with other organizations, and that’s where some of the weaknesses are right now in 

our plan. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Colonel. 

44 

Colonel WOOD. Just very briefly, Madam Chairman, I think the 

core is article 5, those situations that constitute some kind of an 

attack on a NATO member. Beyond that, I’m a very broad constructionist on where I’d like to see NATO involved. The only criterion I really have is that there be some military component to it, 

because it is a defense organization. Beyond that, if it is a mission 

for which we can generate political will for NATO involvement, I 

think NATO should be involved, and that’s for two reasons. One is 

that will help us in the long run avoid the renationalization of defense that NATO was originally set up to prevent. And second, it 

sustains the United States-European defense link against modern 

threats, whatever they are. 

That’s why I think the missile defense sites in Europe were particularly important because they maintained a link between European defense and the United States on what is a current and future threat, as opposed to territorial defense, which is a past 

threat, for the most part, we hope. We’ll see. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Senator DeMint. 

Senator DEMINT. I may have missed this when I stepped out, 

and I apologize. But Mr. Wilson, I think you mentioned in your testimony that a missile attack may be one of the likely threats that 

NATO would face in the future. 

And given Iran’s growing missile capability, state- sponsored support of terrorism, what’s happening in Pakistan, North Korea, how 

critical do you think a missile defense system is in Europe for 

NATO, and would you distinguish between a ground-based versus 

sea-based, which is being debated right now? So just some quick 

comments there. 

Mr. WILSON. Right. I do think a credible threat to a member of 

the NATO alliance is a ballistic missile strike at some point in the 

future. Because of that, I think it is prudent, important, and imperative that the alliance think through on how to deal with that 

threat. 

The alliance has a fairly long history of developing theater missile defenses. It has taken too long, but it’s been deeply invested 

in that development. The question is out there on European third 

sites related to ballistic missile defense, with part of the challenge 

is how to link what the U.S. effort is doing with the NATO effort 

and potential cooperation with Russia on some of this. 

What we’ve tried to do over time is use the alliance as an incubator where you could have development of common threat perceptions, sharing of intelligence and data, because that underpins the 

same perception of what’s happening. And part of what has happened is the debate on missile defense. The attention has moved 

away from Iran and onto a United States-Russia dynamic, and 

that’s the wrong place for it to be. 

I think using the alliance to contain strategic discussions on 

what the ballistic missile threat is, what capabilities being developed around the world are taking place, so that there’s a common 

assessment underpinning common action. 

I do think it’s an important element that the alliance incorporate 

in its future defense capabilities, and it’s very much on the table 

and in debate right now. Part of the challenge is can the Russians 

45 

be brought on board to be partners in something along this line in 

an architecture like this, which keeps it clearly focused on a threat 

emanating from the Middle East, rather than being caught up in 

the political charades of this being a United States-Russian problem. 

That’s something that has made our allies nervous. I think it’s 

addressable, but I do think it’s prudent and imperative that the alliance continue its work on this front. 

Senator DEMINT. Any alternative opinions? OKay. Well, Madam 

Chairman, that’s all I’ve got. It’s been very helpful. Thank you. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Yes, I think we can probably continue this 

discussion for a long time, but we promised not to do that, although 

I’m sure the ongoing discussion about NATO’s long-term strategic 

mission will continue. Thank you all very much for your willingness to engage with us this afternoon, and we look forward to continuing the debate. 

Senator DEMINT. Madam Chairman, may I ask to put my opening statement in the record? 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Absolutely. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Senator DeMint follows:] 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR JIM DEMINT

Madame Chairwoman, distinguished witnesses, I thank the committee for holding 

this hearing. 

While there are many trouble spots in the world, Europe has been a place of relative security and freedom. No one questions the crucial role NATO has played in 

creating this peace and prosperity. 

However, we must not let the current peace cause us to let down our defenses. 

As the world focuses its attention on North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, and other hot 

spots, nations and leaders may forget what has given us the peace and how old alliances are more important than ever as we confront new challenges. 

I’m afraid that the perceived lack of immediate danger may weaken the alliance. 

In an effort to create a ‘‘Europe only’’ security policy the alliance is being challenged 

by organizations and policies that duplicate the structures of NATO and undermine 

its access to the manpower and equipment necessary to complete missions. 

But more importantly, the lack of unity and strategic focus could erode the alliance’s willingness to defend the shared values that created NATO in the first place. 

This lack of consensus on strategic challenges that face Europe and NATO could undermine decades of commitment and work. 

At the summit last month, NATO members agreed with some of these concerns, 

and I am encouraged by the decision to write a new Strategic Concept. 

From terrorism to energy supply disruptions, from cyber attacks to piracy, there 

are numerous threats. If done properly, the rewrite can be a very useful tool, but 

it will require a considerable level of honesty about ALL of the threats that exist 

and the internal challenges at NATO. 

I am especially concerned by the role Russia is playing inside the Alliance. At 

times, it appears Russia has a stronger voice at NATO than some of the alliance’s 

members. While I believe dialogue with Russia is necessary, we must approach Russia with a healthy sense of realism and possibility. 

Russia has experienced incredible peace and security on its western border because of NATO, but they have not returned the favor to NATO’s Baltic allies or to 

the other European nations that rely on natural gas. And the Russian invasion of 

Georgia gave some members legitimate reason to question NATO’s Article 5 security 

guarantees. 

Still other partners feel NATO is becoming a two-tier alliance where only a few 

countries shoulder the economic and military burdens. The strategic rewrite must 

address these issues and ensure the alliance must remain open to nations that aspire to NATO’s standards, principles, and values. 

One other issue of concern for the alliance is the American nuclear umbrella. I 

fear that President Obama’s pursuit of nuclear disarmament—coupled with ambivaVerDate Nov 24 2008 15:36 Oct 14, 2010 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\DOCS\NATO.TXT MIKEB
46 

lence on missile defense—will undermine the European security guarantees provided by the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The U.S. Nuclear Triad has been the backbone 

of European security, which means there is no such thing as unilateral disarmament for the United States. 

Despite all of these challenges, I still believe the best days are ahead for NATO. 

It is the commitment to a shared set of values and principles—and willingness to 

defend them—that have made the alliance so successful for 60 years. I look forward 

to hearing your testimonies and suggestions for ways the United States can help 

strengthen NATO and support our friends and allies better. 

Thank you. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you all very much. 

Chairman SHAHEEN. Thank you. 

Senator DEMINT. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 4:21 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ