After 14 years of fighting against Al Qaida, the Taliban and now ISIL, while increasingly focusing on Asia Pacific, the United States is waking up to the reality that Europe, once considered an island of peace and stability, is in trouble.
Europe is buffeted by three powerful gales: the deteriorating security situation along NATO’s southern and northeastern flanks; the continued economic fallout from the euro crisis and the institutional failure to deal with the waves of migrantsarriving on Europe’s shores from the Middle East and Northern Africa.
At the same time, traditional assumptions about NATO’s ability to bridge internal differences are being put to the test, with Turkey’s policies toward the Kurds and Europe’s East-West divisions on how to handle Russia now cleaving the alliance. Far from being a stately “zone of peace,” as received wisdom in Washington once had it, Europe is spiraling into a crisis that is likely to deepen in the coming years.
Meanwhile, paltry defense budgets across most of Europe and planned further defense cuts by the United States — when coupled with Russia’s 10-year $700 billion defense modernization program — have altered the balance of power in Europe. At no point since the end of the Cold War has there been a comparable need for Washington to refocus on Europe, to articulate a strategy to strengthen NATO, and to build consensus on how to rebalance America’s military presence on the continent.
Europe is spiraling into a crisis that is likely to deepen in the coming years.
That means rethinking how the U.S. approaches NATO in the coming years, with an eye to redefining its mission. Europe’s relatively peaceful 1990s — notwithstanding the war in former Yugoslavia — allowed the United States to go “out-of-area,” dramatically reducing its military footprint on the continent. At the peak of the Cold War the United States had approximately 450,000 troops in Europe, but it will have only about 30,000 troops on the continent when it completes its cuts.
Reductions in Europe are only part of a larger restructuring, however: In July, the Army confirmed that it would cut 40,000 troops over the next two years at bases in the United States, shrinking the Army from 490,000 to 450,000. The Army had, by comparison, 570,000 active duty personnel in 2012. Today, with the rise of Russia’s great power ambition to create a sphere of privileged interest along its periphery and to return to global politics, collective defense and deterrence are driving internal NATO debates.
Likewise, the southern flank is confronted with an area of instability running from the eastern Atlantic through the Middle East to the Caucasus, where NATO faces escalating state fragmentation and war. There is a growing realization among NATO allies along the southern flank that the heating up of wars in the Middle East will only accelerate the arrival of refugees and migrants by sea and may eventually require a NATO military commitment to stem the tide.
NATO allies are divided by differing perceptions of the most pressing threats, as well as their proposed responses. The Nordic and Baltic members, together with Poland and Romania, see Russia as the principal threat and seek direct U.S. reinforcement with tripwires — i.e. bases — on their territory.
The heating up of wars in the Middle East will only accelerate the arrival of refugees … and may eventually require a NATO military commitment to stem the tide.
But even in Central Europe views on the nature of the threat vary, as shown by security policy in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, countries that have maintained better relations with Russia. France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey are looking to the south, with France equally concerned with the rise of Russia in the east.
Germany, in its position of “leadership from the middle,” is grappling with the task of reconfiguring its relations with Russia as it seeks to mediate the Ukrainian crisis, work the euro crisis and manage the migrants pouring into Europe.
A US air force plane arrives at a base near Siauliai Zuokniai, Lithuania| PETRAS MALUKAS/AFP/Getty Images
Amid the competing agendas and expectations of the European allies, the United States, as the biggest member and de facto bill payer, needs to lead the agenda, if for no other reason than because it provides 70 percent of NATO’s combined defense spending and over 70 percent of all the alliance’s military capabilities. If it doesn’t lead, then the prospects of reaching a consensus at the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw are dim indeed.
In the run-up to Warsaw, the U.S. is confronted with two seemingly straightforward yet difficult objectives: preserving NATO’s unity and finding a mutually acceptable formula to reinforce the northeastern and southern flanks given shrinking defense budgets and limited military capabilities. The two goals are interconnected, as the members along the northeastern flank, especially the Baltic States, Poland, and also Romania, want to bring in U.S. and NATO forces as tripwires to deter Russia.
But this goal isn’t shared in Western Europe — especially Germany — which has gone on the record saying it opposes permanent bases and sees them as unduly provocative to Russia. Since decisions on permanent new NATO installations along the northeastern flank of the alliance would require consensus, which is currently lacking, the debate could deepen divisions and further weaken allied solidarity.
As stress on NATO’s southern flank also increases, the alliance is at a risk of bifurcation, with a real danger that the Warsaw summit in 2016 may fail to produce a consensus on how to proceed. Here Russia’s strategy of freezing the conflict in Ukraine in the short term — while it retains the ability to escalate the conflict at will — is reinforcing the divisions on permanent bases along the northeastern flank, potentially further splitting the alliance.
The Obama administration should focus on building consensus in the alliance.
Since the United States is unlikely to return to Cold War era levels of military deployment in Europe, U.S. forces should be placed where they will have the greatest deterrent value, irrespective of their size. Given this, the Obama administration should focus on building consensus in the alliance, communicating what solutions it is considering as well as the resources it’s willing to allocate.
It also needs to make clear what the allies should contribute so as to address the calls for reinforcement, territorial defense and collective expeditionary action. Now is the time for the United States to lead the internal NATO conversation on what is feasible vis-à-vis the expectations of the different European countries.
In the process, NATO needs to reach consensus on several issues: an increase in defense spending in order to guarantee sufficient numbers of soldiers available for deployment; an increase in the size of military exercises, especially along the northeastern flank; a decrease in NATO’s response time; and, most of all, the need to revisit the format in which an “assurance presence” — built around persistent rotational exercises — could be transformed into NATO’s deterrent posture and include a permanent U.S. presence.
Here, the most contentious issue will be which format the U.S. and NATO chose in order to rebalance their forces in the region.
It’s clear why the northeastern flank needs to be reinforced, but the question of bases — whether rotational or permanent — in the Baltic States, Poland or Romania needs to be addressed with strategic foresight in Washington. It will require U.S. engagement and careful negotiation with the allies to ensure NATO doesn’t arrive at the Warsaw summit more divided on the issue than it is today.
Washington should also revisit NATO enlargement, especially with reference to the ongoing debates in Sweden and Finland about possible NATO membership. Last but not least, it’s worth remembering the vital role NATO has played in maintaining Europe’s security, and how essential it was in bringing about the Franco-German reconciliation after World War II, as well as the Polish-German reconciliation after the Cold War. The fundamental political utility of the alliance remains.
Today, as in decades past, NATO remains the indispensable security umbrella for Europe.
The realignment of U.S. strategy towards Europe has been slow and somewhat reluctant — security dilemmas confronting Europe were supposed to have been laid to rest with the implosion of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago. Change has been driven not only by the Russian takeover of Crimea and the subsequent undeclared Russian war with Ukraine, but also by the growing realization of a deepening crisis in Europe itself, of which eurozone gyrations and mass migration are but symptoms.
Today, as in decades past, NATO remains the indispensable security umbrella for Europe and a vital alliance for the United States, especially now that the threat of escalation and the risk of state-on-state conflict have returned to center stage. NATO needs to respond. Most of all, as in the past, the crisis in Europe requires that the United States increase its engagement on the continent in order to foster consensus on what NATO can achieve in terms of strategy, planning, spending targets, deployments — but most importantly also bring about the compromises we all can live with.
Andrew A. Michta is professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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