Nato at 70: an Indispensable Alliance

NATO AT 70: AN INDISPENSABLE ALLIANCE HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION MARCH 13, 2019 Serial No. 116–13 Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs ( Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov, or http://www.govinfo.gov U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 35–612PDF WASHINGTON : 2019 COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York, Chairman BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas, Ranking GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York Member ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia STEVE CHABOT, Ohio THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida JOE WILSON, South Carolina KAREN BASS, California SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts TED S. YOHO, Florida DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois AMI BERA, California LEE ZELDIN, New York JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas JIM SENSENBRENNER, Wisconsin DINA TITUS, Nevada ANN WAGNER, Missouri ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York BRIAN MAST, Florida TED LIEU, California FRANCIS ROONEY, Florida SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania DEAN PHILLPS, Minnesota JOHN CURTIS, Utah ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota KEN BUCK, Colorado COLIN ALLRED, Texas RON WRIGHT, Texas ANDY LEVIN, Michigan GUY RESCHENTHALER, Pennsylvania ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania GREG PENCE, Indiana TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey STEVE WATKINS, Kansas DAVID TRONE, Maryland MIKE GUEST, Mississippi JIM COSTA, California JUAN VARGAS, California VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas JASON STEINBAUM, Staff Director BRENDAN SHIELDS, Republican Staff Director (II) C O N T E N T S Page WITNESSES Flournoy, Michele, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Westexec Advisors ..... 7 Chollet, Derek, Executive Vice President and Senior Advisor for Security and Defense Policy, The German Marshall Fund of the United States .......... 13 Lute, Douglas, Senior Fellow, Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Rela- tionship, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs .......................... 22 Brzezinski, Ian, Resident Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Security Initiative, Atlantic Council .................................................................................................... 27 APPENDIX Hearing Notice ......................................................................................................... 74 Hearing Minutes ...................................................................................................... 75 Hearing Attendance ................................................................................................. 76 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Statement submitted for the record from Representative Cicilline ..................... 77 Materials submitted for the record from Chairman Engel .................................. 79 Materials submitted for the record from Chairman Engel .................................. 90 RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD Question submitted from Representative Wagner ................................................ 106 (III) NATO AT 70: AN INDISPENSABLE ALLIANCE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS Washington, DC The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in Room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eliot Engel (chairman of the committee) presiding. Mr. ENGEL. The hearing will come to order. Let me first of all welcome our witnesses and members of the public and the press. Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit state- ments, questions, and extraneous materials for the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. Today’s hearing takes place just a few weeks from the 70th anni- versary of the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organi- zation known as NATO. There are many pressing issues facing NATO today, but for us to really assess where the alliance stands in the year 2019, we need to take a step back and look at the history of this great political and military relationship. The first half of the 20th century was marked by periods of wide- spread suffering, instability, and fear. And at the start of both World Wars, the United States stayed out of the fray, grateful that the Atlantic Ocean kept us far away from the terrors in Europe and the rest of the world. By putting our heads in the sand and trying to stay away from the conflicts, those wars grew into direct threats to our own economy, security, and very way of life. Not to mention the immense suffering that happened while we waited on the sidelines, including the unprecedented horror of the Holocaust. So after World War II, American leaders understood that it was in our strategic interest, and also our moral obligation, to band together with countries that shared our commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. We joined with European de- mocracies to form NATO, an organization built on the principle that we are stronger when we stand together. Now, 70 years later, NATO is widely recognized as the most suc- cessful political-military alliance in history. Its achievements in- clude facing down Soviet communism and winning the cold war, advancing freedom and democracy in Europe, stopping genocide and bringing peace to the Balkans, and fighting the international threat of terrorism. And in the United States, across the decades, our transatlantic partnership has consistently won overwhelming bipartisan support. But a few years ago things started to change. Since before he even came into office, President Trump has taken opportunities to denigrate our allies and undermine NATO in his personal dealings with European leaders, his policy proposals, and rhetoric. I wit- (1) 2 nessed that personally when I attended the Munich Security Con- ference last month and heard from leader after European leader that America’s word and security guarantee underpinning the transatlantic alliance is now being questioned, while President Trump often depicts the NATO partnership as some kind of one- way street where the United States bears inordinate cost with little benefit, and that is just not true. Our European partners have contributed immensely to our shared missions and they have come to America’s defense when we were most in need. After September 11th, 2001, our allies stood with us. The only time, I might say, in NATO’s history that Article 5, the principle that an attack on one is an attack on all, has been invoked. And in recent years, Europeans, Canadian, and American troops have fought bravely together side by side to defend the national security of all allies. One of President Trump’s most frequent criticisms is that allies habitually free-ride and that allies hosting American military forces do not pay the United States enough money. Earlier this week, we learned about his latest proposal to address this concern, the so-called cost plus 50 plan. In this system, allies would pay the full cost of stationing American troops on their territory plus an outlandish additional 50 percent. This whole scheme reveals just how little the President seems to understand about how our alliances advance our own strategic in- terests. When we base troops in a NATO country, we are not just providing that nation with free security. Our presence strengthens the alliance’s position in Europe and extends America’s strategic reach. And our alliances, especially NATO, directly benefit the United States by enhancing our military power, global influence, economic might, and diplomatic leverage. That is not to say I expect our allies to not provide any financial contribution at all. NATO countries have already agreed to pay 2 percent of their GDP on defense by the year 2024. And I agree with President Trump when he said that they should fulfill that obligation. We should hold them to that obligation. But the conversation should be more than only financial burden sharing. Instead, we need to see the big picture of how our allies contribute to our collective goals. But the President’s constant deni- gration of our allies presents a real threat to our foreign policy and national security objectives and, frankly, it is just baffling. Presi- dent Trump is much more critical of our European allies, societies that share our commitment to core values, than he is of brutal dic- tators such as North Korea’s Kim Jong-un or Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and that is why it is so important that we in Congress take a leadership role on this front. I am pleased that in this body, support for our European allies and partners continues to be bipartisan. You can see that in a reso- lution that the ranking member and I are introducing that would reaffirm the House’s support for America’s alliances and partner- ships around the world. Simply put, NATO is one of our most pre- cious geopolitical assets and should stay that way. It is important that we stand together to send this message because the NATO alliance is needed now as much as ever before. 3 We are seeing a rise in authoritarianism, continued threats from international terrorism and extremism, and aggressive attempts by Putin to invade Russia’s neighbors and attack democratic elections throughout the world. It is by working with our NATO allies, standing side by side that we can successfully face these challenges head on. So it is critical that we have a full understanding of the current state of the alliance. We need to explore the role that NATO plays in America’s foreign

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