NATO's Future in an Unprecedented World
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NATO TALK around the BRANDENBURGER TOR BERLIN NATO’S FUTURE 2017 NATO’s Future in an Unprecedented World Berlin, November 11-12, 2017 Content Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2 More than words? The Future of EU-NATO Cooperation ...................................................... 4 Panelists ............................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction and Moderation .............................................................................................. 5 Young Leaders .................................................................................................................. 6 Troubled Waters? Security in the Black Sea .........................................................................24 Panelists ...........................................................................................................................24 Introduction and Moderation .............................................................................................25 Young Leaders .................................................................................................................26 Towards the Renaissance of MAD and the Disintegration of the NPT? Nuclear Diplomacy in the Early 21st Century ..........................................................................................................42 Panelists ...........................................................................................................................42 Introduction and Moderation .............................................................................................43 Young Leaders .................................................................................................................44 Dinner: German Foreign Policy after the 2017 Elections ......................................................63 Townhall: The alliance we (hardly) know? NATO's role in German foreign and security policy .............................................................................................................................................64 Panelists ...........................................................................................................................64 Introduction and Moderation .............................................................................................65 Agenda .................................................................................................................................66 Introduction “NATO is founded on the bond between North America and Europe, and in good times and bad, that bond has been unbreakable.” Jens Stoltenberg 2017 The past year was everything but a bad one for NATO. A new and modern Headquarters was opened and Montenegro joining the alliance was a positive signal towards further integration of the Western Bal- kans and underlines NATO’s ongoing commitment to its traditional Open Door Policy. Only months after EU and NATO generating a new momentum in cooperative security prior to the Warsaw Summit, significant steps had been taken, especially in the field of countering hybrid warfare challenges. On the Eastern Flank, Operation Enhanced Forward Presence entered a crucial stage: New rotational deployments of four multinational combat battalions each to Po- land, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania underline allies’ reassurance efforts. And yet, intra-alliance developments and uncertainties about reliability and leadership have overshadowed political and operational successes repeatedly. Indeed, the transatlantic community has experienced a dramatic shift. Concerns range from the current state of the international order and the relations between those mandated by the UN Charter to safeguard it, to a wide set of non-state and transnational security challenges. In addi- tion, Brexit, the failed coup attempt and its aftermath in Turkey and the Trump presidency accel- erated trends suggesting that the transatlantic partnership and respective institutions can no long- er be taken for granted as bridges over such troubled waters. Our bonds are unbreakable but partners on both sides of the Atlantic need to step up to make sure they will also hold us togeth- er. Almost three decades after the Berlin Wall fell, nearly a third of those one billion people, whose security is an essential priority for NATO, have little or no actual memory of the Cold War or political repression in Europe. Growing up in times of peace or distant wars, NATO’s youth weren’t familiar with vocabulary such as deterrence or collective defense until very recently, and only from history and political science classes. Moreover, economic uncertainties and high rates of youth unemployment limit popular support for increased defense spending and costly military missions especially among those, whose security might be at stake if the alliance fails to deliver on its promise to protect and defend its member states. The Atlantic Treaty Association foresaw this issue in the early 90’s and as a response, founded its youth division, the Youth Atlantic Treaty Association or YATA in its respective 36 national asso- ciations. Since 1996, YATA has served as a leading international platform for young professionals in security and defense, working alongside our ATA seniors and fellow youth organizations to ensure that young professionals have a voice in the policy-making world and direct access to na- tional and international officials. With the generous support of the German Atlantic Association, the Federal Academy for Securi- ty Policy, and NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division, YATA Germany holds this seminar for the fourth time, encouraging and deepening a transnational as well as the cross-generational debate on current security issues. It provides a platform for fruitful and enriching debates during the day and a forum for an exchange of ideas and mutual understanding, while bringing together more than 40 young professionals, scholars, senior experts, and NATO as well as government officials from some 20 countries (NATO member and partner states). For this year’s seminar, we have selected three core issues on NATO’s current and mid-term agenda: moving forward with EU- NATO cooperation and reflecting on trends in European defense policy, addressing the changing 2 NATO’s Future 2017 NATO’s Future in an Unprecedented World security environment in the Black Sea Region covering both NATO’s Eastern and Southern Flanks, and proactively preventing the disintegration of non-proliferation regimes. All three of them share one essential feature: the necessity of NATO to broaden its scope, prioritizing threats, and developing measures to attain collective security in an era of uncertainty. When we invited the members of YATA Germany to design the seminar agenda, and their na- tional and international fellows to comment on the questions they posed, many have stressed economic, legal, social, and even philosophical features of security. You will find their perspec- tives and policy recommendation in the collection of essays in this booklet. We are thankful for their contributions as well as for our brilliant speakers and chairs that take the time to enrich our discussions with their expertise, insights, and curiosity. Since the very first steps of this project, we have experienced remarkable support by many NATO International Staff and member state officials, encouraging us to continuously push and lobby for those that will shape and secure the alliance of tomorrow and beyond. In the end, how- ever, only when we succeed in turning support into structural change we can make the alliance truly sustainable. Thank you all for participating so actively in this endeavor and your commit- ment to making young voices an audible and visible part of NATO’s future. Sincerely, Magdalena Kirchner Spokeswoman Youth Atlantic Treaty Association Germany Dr. Magdalena Kirchner, (@mag_kir) is an Istanbul-based political scientist and conflict re- searcher, specializing in transatlantic security and crisis management, Turkey and the Levant and Chairwoman of YATA Germany since 2014. She currently is a Mercator-IPC-Fellow at the Is- tanbul Policy Center and a research fellow at RAND Europe. Prior to that, she was a Transatlan- tic Fellow at the RAND Corporation in Arlington, VA and the German Institute for Internation- al and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. Previously, she was a senior project coordinator at the German Atlantic Association and held research positions at the German Council on Foreign Re- lations (DGAP) in Berlin and other think tanks in Israel, Jordan and Turkey. Magdalena studied Political Science (International Relations) and History at the Universities of Heidelberg and Aar- hus and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Heidelberg. NATO’s Future 2017 NATO’s Future in an Unprecedented World 3 More than words? The Future of EU-NATO Cooperation The opening of the new Headquarters and ongoing allied commitments to Enhance Forward Presence underline the readiness of its members to resort to NATO as the key structure for de- fense and security policy. Despite this, differences within the alliance continue to distract while a wide number of challenges require decisive and cohesive action. Given the current political un- certainties, an extensive co-operation between NATO and the European Union will continue to gain in importance. To what extent will common