Research Paper Research Division - NATO Defense College, Rome - No. 90 – March 2013 NATO’s Maritime Strategy and the Libya Crisis as Seen from the Sea Brooke A. Smith-Windsor1 Contents In case you did not know, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has an Alliance Maritime Strategy (AMS). The document, approved on 05 January 2011, was the first of its kind in over a quarter of a century. In AMS and the Strategic Concept 2 spite of this post-Cold War milestone, however, the strategy was endor- Origins 2 sed by the member states with little fanfare. Since its declassification in Content 3 March of the same year, it has been quietly buried in the NATO official AMS and Operation Unified website, largely out of sight from the popular media and (by extension) Protector 4 from the European and North American populace whose security and Crisis management 5 prosperity it is ostensibly designed to safeguard.2 The average person on Cooperative security 9 the street (or, perhaps more aptly expressed in this context, on the sea- Maritime security 10 front) should therefore be forgiven if he or she has never heard of, let Conclusion 11 alone read, a dedicated maritime strategy for the Atlantic Alliance in the 21st century. But exist it does. List of Abbreviations 12 It is possible to speculate about the reasons for the AMS’ quiet passage and lack of publicity. Perhaps it was a care on the part of the 28 Allied governments not to clutter NATO’s strategic messaging to their popula- tions, given that the new capstone Strategic Concept (November 2010) was itself little more than a month old. Or, perhaps it was a concern not to stoke the coals of inter-service rivalry by presenting any semblance of privileged status for maritime forces3 in the absence of comparable, new- ly-minted strategies for land and air forces. On the other hand, perhaps it was simply Allied preoccupation—in January 2011 at least—with the Research Paper ongoing ground war in land-locked Afghanistan. ISSN 2076 - 0949 (Res. Div. NATO Def. Coll., Print) ISSN 2076 - 0957 Whatever the reasons, the approach nevertheless represents a missed op- (Res. Div. NATO Def. Coll., Online) portunity for purposeful and transparent policy discourse with the public, NATO Defense College Research Division Via Giorgio Pelosi, 1 1 Brooke A. Smith-Windsor, Ph.D., is a member of the NATO Defense College (NDC) Research Division and a 00143 Rome – Italy former special advisor to the working group that authored the Alliance Maritime Strategy (2011). Some elements web site: www.ndc.nato.int of this paper are based in part on a Study Project of NDC Senior Course 118, Committee 4, jointly mentored e-mail: [email protected] by the author and by Captain Jean Nicolas Gauthier (French Navy) in the midst of the Libyan crisis. The author would in particular like to acknowledge the valuable support provided by Captain Gauthier in compiling it. The Imprimerie DEd’A srl views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the NDC, NATO and their affiliated partners. V.le Scalo S. Lorenzo 55, 00185 Rome, Italy 2 www.dedaedizioni.com The AMS does not even appear in the Alphabetical Index of the NATO official website, www.nato.int. 3 Forces whose primary purposes are to conduct military operations at and from the sea. This is generally © NDC 2013 all rights reserved understood to include warships and submarines, auxiliaries, organic aircraft, fixed seabed installations, fixed shore installations (such as batteries) for the defence of seaways, shore-based maritime aircraft and other shore-based aircraft assigned to maritime tasks. 1 Research Paper No. 90 – March 2013 about a key component of official Alliance strategy in- central tenets of the AMS were relevant, even partly pro- tended to reinforce the much lauded yet scantly worded phetic, as regards the response demanded by the Libya grand strategy embodied in the “chapeau” Strategic Con- crisis. While OUP may be broadly described as success cept. It also represents an historic irony, especially in the for the AMS, shortcomings in political will, procedures context of mid-March 2011. At that time the Libya crisis and capabilities were evident during the maritime cam- was in full swing. The UN Security Council had already paign. With the benefit of hindsight, a number of con- passed Resolution 1970, imposing an arms embargo and ceivable remedies are therefore constructively presented targeted sanctions on the Gaddafi regime in the face of to chart the way forward in time for the next crisis to its wanton violence against Libya civilians. A day before confront Allied maritime forces. the AMS’ timid public release, UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1973 had also been passed, autho- rizing a no-fly zone, a strengthened arms embargo, and AMS and the Strategic Concept “all necessary measures” to protect civilians short of a foreign occupation. Six days later, NATO had assumed Origins responsibility for the arms embargo under Operation Unified Protector (OUP) and, by 31 March, it had taken At their Lisbon Summit in November 2010, Allied over control of the entire enforcement operation. At its Heads of State and Government endorsed NATO’s peak, OUP would account for the deployment of no new official strategy entitled Active Engagement, Modern less than 21 naval assets (supply ships, frigates, destroy- Defense.4 If the Strategic Concept may be understood ers, submarines, amphibious assault ships and aircraft as an example of grand strategy—the melding of carriers), enabling air strikes ashore, humanitarian assis- policy with overarching guidance for the coordination tance, safety of life at sea (search and rescue) and the of military means to achieve it5—it would be reason- surveillance of an area measuring approximately 61.000 able, indeed logical, to have expected the development nautical square miles. So the first real test for NATO’s of individual service (army, navy, air force) strategies so-called crisis management “core task”, as espoused in thereafter in response to the top-down direction pro- the 2010 Strategic Concept, would to a significant de- vided. In practice, however, defense strategy formula- gree be a maritime one—though the document never tion is rarely so straightforward and the genesis of the once mentions the words “ocean”, “sea”, “maritime” or AMS is no exception. “navy”. Yet, as regards the AMS that was intended to fill this void, and which OUP would by extension also put As early as 2007, one of NATO’s two top strategic com- to the test for the first time in its existence, the Allies mands, Allied Command Transformation (ACT), advo- paradoxically were largely silent. cated for a new maritime strategy to replace the 1984 vestige of the Cold War.6 Such calls continued through- This paper intends to help redress the deficit in policy out 2008. By the spring of 2009, months before the discourse about the AMS and its relationship to the formation of the so-called “Group of Experts” to con- Strategic Concept, as well as in assessments of how the sider the outlines of a new Strategic Concept,7 an AMS strategy fared in its inaugural real-world encounter with initiating letter and work plan had been set in motion modern misery and mayhem at the hands of a despot. It with ambitious timelines. These were to culminate in argues that, even if not corresponding in structure and an envisioned North Atlantic Council (NAC)-approved evolutionary origin, the Strategic Concept and AMS are maritime strategy no later than January 2010.8 How- nevertheless compatible. Additionally, it reveals that the ever, work on the basis of the aforementioned time- 4 NATO, Active Engagement, Modern Defense, Strategic Concept for the Defense and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 19 November 2010, available at: http://www.nato.int/strategic-concept/index.html (accessed October 2012). 5 See Hew Strachan, “The Lost Meaning of Strategy”, Survival, 47.3 (Autumn 2005), pp. 33-54. 6 NATO, Allied Command Transformation, Multiple Futures – The Maritime Dimension, Unclassified PowerPoint Presentation, Spring 2007, provided to the author. The final report of the Multiple Futures initiative likewise urged Allies to: “Develop a comprehensive maritime strategy to address the threats to Alliance security on the maritime commons presented by demographic shifts, energy scarcity, organised crime, technology-savvy adversaries, terrorism and the proliferation of WMD.” See: NATO, Allied Command Transformation, Multiple Futures Project – Navigating Towards 2030, April 2009, p. 62 7 The Group of Experts was formed in the autumn of 2009 and led by former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Its final report was tabled in May 2010. 8 See: NATO, Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, Alliance Maritime Strategy (AMS) development, 19 August 2009, 5000/S-6-8/TT-4449/Ser: NU. NAC 2 No. 90 – March 2013 Research Paper line continued unabated even after the initiation of points, ports, and other infrastructure such as pipelines, deliberations on a new Strategic Concept, the approval oil and natural gas platforms and trans-oceanic telecom- for which—it was by then well known—would not be munications cables […] [M]aintenance of the freedom of forthcoming until late 2010 at the earliest. Whether or navigation, sea-based trade routes, critical infrastructure, not it had been the intent to proactively and positively energy flows, protection of marine resources and environ- influence the outcome of the Strategic Concept in fa- mental safety are all in Allies’ security interests. At the vour of Alliance maritime forces by moving forward same time, the world’s oceans and seas are an increasingly on the AMS, in the end the grand strategy would come accessible environment for transnational criminal and ter- first.