Promoting a More Transparent and Accountable NATO
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Issue 54: September 2020 Promoting a more transparent and accountable NATO www.natowatch.org NATO Watch Observatory In this edition: No. 54 (June-August 2020) NATO Watch Essay: Is it inevitable that NATO must support Washington in the US-China Cold War? 3 Published by NATO Watch News, Commentary & Reports: Gairloch, Scotland - Arctic Security 7 IV212DS - Arms Control and Disarmament: Open Skies Treaty and New START 7 - Belarus Crisis 8 - Book Reviews 9 Editor: Dr. Ian Davis - China-NATO relations 9 - Climate Change 10 Welcome to NATO Watch’s quarterly - Collective Defence 10 Observatory: the only online publication - Counterterrorism 11 dedicated entirely to news and independent - COVID-19: NATO’s response 11 commentary on NATO policy-making and - Cyber Security, Information Warfare operational activities. The clips are drawn & Hybrid Threats 13 from a wide range of subscriptions, feeds - Defence Budgets, Procurement & and alerts covering a substantial part of the Burden Sharing 14 major English language newspapers and - Energy Security 15 other periodicals worldwide. - Enlargement & Partnerships 15 - Bosnia Herzegovina; Georgia; Japan; NATO Watch Mauritania; Policy; Serbia; UN-NATO conducts independent monitoring and relations, Ukraine analysis of NATO and aims to increase - History 17 transparency, stimulate parliamentary - Libya and intra-NATO conflict in the engagement and broaden public awareness Eastern Mediterranean 17 and participation in a progressive reform - Maritime Security 19 agenda within NATO. - Military Exercises 20 - NATO 2030 Reflection Group 20 - NATO Defence Ministers Meeting 21 - NATO Parliamentary Assembly 22 - NATO Secretary General on Desert Island Discs 23 - Nuclear Weapons 24 - Operations and Missions 26 - Afghanistan; Iraq; Kosovo - Russia-NATO Relations 30 - Special Forces 32 - Space Policy 32 Security News from NATO Member States 33 - Albania; Belgium; Canada; Czech Copyright © NATO Watch, 2020. Some rights reserved. Republic; Denmark; Estonia; France; This publication is made available under a Creative Germany and the US troop withdrawal; Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence, which allows copy Greece; Hungary; Iceland; Italy; Latvia; and distribution for non-profit use, provided the Lithuania; Montenegro; Netherlands; authors and NATO Watch are attributed properly and the text is not altered in any way. All citations must be Norway; Poland; Romania; Turkey; UK; credited to NATO Watch and/or the original sources. USA 2 NATO Watch Essay: maritime assertiveness in the South China Sea, recent border skirmishes Is it inevitable that NATO with India and at least two cases of ‘hostage diplomacy’ involving Swedish must support Washington in and Canadian citizens. China’s refusal the US-China Cold War? to release the two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, held for The United States and China are now more than 18 months on dubious involved in a complex and multifaceted spying charges, is particularly Cold War (Cold War II), albeit one that unfathomable. differs significantly from the Soviet-US Cold War (Cold War I). Is it inevitable Of course, all these developments are then that NATO will fall into line behind unwelcome, especially for the Chinese Washington as it did during Cold War I? people and East Asian security, but are And what are the options for European they grounds for regarding China as governments and their citizens caught the enemy of the world order? This in the middle and perhaps looking to a appears to the view of the US military. navigate a middle path between the two The 2018 US National Defense Strategy protagonists? warned that China is “pursuing a military modernization program that Justified concerns about China seeks IndoPacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the From the outset it should be United States to achieve global acknowledged that there are aspects of preeminence in the future”, while in a Chinese policy, especially since Xi more recent news release a senior US Jinping took power, which justify commander described China as concern. There is real political “actively working to subvert the repression of dissenting voices and the international rules-based infrastructure consequences are there to be seen in that has maintained peace since the China’s handling of the coronavirus end of World War II”. And it is a view outbreak and the stifling even today of that seems to have found an echo anyone asking questions about it. The chamber within NATO. new National Security Law in Hong Kong, a move the Economist described NATO’s emerging policy toward as “one of the biggest assaults on a China liberal society since the second world war”, is leading to further instability At the June meeting of NATO defence and arrests of pro-democracy ministers the NATO Secretary General protesters. On the mainland violations Jens Stoltenberg noted that allies of human rights and especially “expressed concern about the repression of the Uighurs in Xinjiang consequences of the rise of China” then and Tibetan communities, as well as went on to emphasise the threat posed curbs on independent journalism and by Beijing: “China has the second rigorous policing of social media, are largest defence budget in the world and also major concerns. is investing heavily in new long-range weapons systems and missile systems Beyond these largely ‘domestic’ that can reach all NATO countries. They political issues, there is also an are modernising their maritime increasingly chauvinistic tone in capabilities with a more global reach of China’s foreign policy, which concerns their naval forces… this is about China some of its neighbours and the wider coming closer to us. We see them in the international community. So far, this Arctic. We see them in Africa. We see has largely resulted in relatively limited them investing heavily in infrastructure uses of coercive statecraft – such as 3 in our own countries. And, of course, nuclear weapons as a means of warfare we see them also in cyberspace”. unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons—since 1964, This ‘talking up’ of the alleged Chinese while NATO has repeatedly rejected threat builds on a rich tradition of calls to adopt such a policy (as have all Soviet and Russian threat inflation other nuclear-armed states except within NATO, from the ‘missile gap’ India). China is also a party to the major during the late 1950s and early 1960s, international agreements regulating to the ‘hypersonic missile gap’ today. biological and chemical weapons, and China’s growth in its military spending has also joined or enacted control lists has closely matched the country’s consistent with export control regimes economic growth. It is estimated to concerning proliferation-sensitive have allocated $261 billion to the goods and technology. In addition, military in 2019, as compared with China recently joined the UN-sponsored $732 billion by the United States. While Arms Trade Treaty, which seeks to China’s military expenditure has regulate international trade in increased continuously since 1994 (for conventional military equipment. 25 consecutive years) and is 85 per cent higher than a decade ago, its Of course, China should be encouraged military burden in 2019 remained at to take part in broader discussions on 1.9 per cent of GDP (i.e. below the conventional and nuclear arms control, NATO guideline that member states but this is only likely to happen when spend at least 2 per cent of their GDP the United States is itself more on defence). committed to such a process. President Trump has pulled the United States out Arms control is not just a Chinese of the INF Treaty and the Iran nuclear problem deal, unsigned the Arms Trade Treaty, abandoned the landmine ban, So far there are two main areas where threatened to undertake the first NATO is seeking to apply pressure on nuclear weapon tests in America since China: in arms control and investment 1992 and set in motion withdrawal in critical infrastructure, and both from the Open Skies Treaty. represent predominantly US agendas. President Trump has been demanding Huawei is not the only surveillance that China join what has for decades concern been a bilateral US-Russian nuclear arms control dialogue, but the Chinese In the area of critical infrastructure, the government has refused. In part this is US concerns are centred on the because its nuclear stockpile, currently activities of Huawei. While these estimated at 320 warheads (roughly the concerns form part of a wider US-China same number as France), is less than a trade war, the central security concern twentieth the size of the US or Russian (and the one most often voiced by nuclear arsenals. Hence, it was no NATO officials) is that the Chinese surprise that China refused to join the Government could use this company’s recent US-Russian strategic stability devices as a back door into strategically talks in Vienna. vital networks or for spying. The United States has been pressing European The NATO Secretary General is now allies to keep Huawei out of regularly calling on China to “engage communication networks, and to this constructively” in arms control. end the UK recently announced a major However, it is highly misleading to policy reversal. Having initially said that suggest that China does not already do Huawei equipment could be used on a so. For example, China has had a no limited basis in its 5G network, it will first use policy—a pledge not to use 4 now be banned from the UK’s high- than all the other permanent members speed wireless infrastructure. of the Security Council combined. The People’s Liberation Army has not However, the revelations of Edward fought a war since 1979, not used Snowden, and more recently the lethal military force abroad since 1988, Cambridge Analytica case, have nor has China funded or supported demonstrated that worries about the proxies or armed insurgents anywhere negative consequences of information in the world since the early 1980s.