House of Commons Defence Committee The future of NATO and European defence Ninth Report of Session 2007–08 Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 4 March 2008 HC 111 [Incorporating HC 707-i & ii] Published on 20 March 2008 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited £0.00 The Defence Committee The Defence Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Ministry of Defence and its associated public bodies. Current membership Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP (Conservative, North East Hampshire) (Chairman) Mr David S Borrow MP (Labour, South Ribble) Mr David Crausby MP (Labour, Bolton North East) Linda Gilroy MP (Labour, Plymouth Sutton) Mr David Hamilton MP (Labour, Midlothian) Mr Mike Hancock MP (Liberal Democrat, Portsmouth South) Mr Dai Havard MP (Labour, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney) Mr Adam Holloway MP (Conservative, Gravesham) Mr Bernard Jenkin MP (Conservative, North Essex) Mr Brian Jenkins MP (Labour, Tamworth) Mr Kevan Jones MP (Labour, Durham North) Robert Key MP (Conservative, Salisbury) John Smith MP (Labour, Vale of Glamorgan) Richard Younger-Ross MP (Liberal Democrat, Teignbridge) The following Members were also Members of the Committee during the Parliament. Mr Colin Breed MP (Liberal Democrat, South East Cornwall) Derek Conway MP (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup) Mr Mark Lancaster MP (Conservative, North East Milton Keynes) Willie Rennie MP (Liberal Democrat, Dunfermline and West Fife) Mr Desmond Swayne MP (Conservative, New Forest West) Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via www.parliament.uk. Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at: www.parliament.uk/defcom. Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Mike Hennessy (Clerk), Eliot Wilson (Second Clerk), Ian Rogers (Audit Adviser), Dr Stephen Jones (Committee Specialist), Lis McCracken (Inquiry Manager), Richard Dawson (Committee Assistant), Christine McGrane (Secretary) and Stewart McIlvenna (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Defence Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. The telephone number for general enquiries is 020 7219 5745; the Committee’s email address is [email protected]. Media inquiries should be addressed to Alex Paterson on 020 7219 1589. Front cover of the official NATO emblem downloaded at www.nato.int NATO members and applicant countries Nordk 60 30 20 10 70 0 10 20 app ° ° 30° ° ° ° ° ° ° 40 Reykjavik ° ° ICELAND 80 a e Norwegian S ite Sea Wh NORWAY Faroe Is. ia n KAZAKHSTAN h SWEDEN t FINLAND o B Shetland f o Is. f 30 l ° u G ° Oslo Helsinki 70 and 50 Finl ° Stockholm Gulf of 50 ° Tallinn North ESTONIA RUSSIAN rak ager Sea Sk a FEDERATION e S Riga Moscow IRELAND UNITED c LATVIA DENMARK i Dublin KINGDOM Copenhagen lt a LITHUANIA B Vilnius RUSS. FED. Minsk London Amsterdam BELARUS NETHERLANDS Berlin POLAND English Channel Brussels Warsaw BELGIUM GERMANY ATLANTIC OCEAN Kyiv Luxembourg Prague UZBEKISTAN Paris LUXEMBOURG CZECH REP. 30 UKRAINE ° SLOVAKIA LIECHTEN- REP. OF C FRANCE Bratislava STEIN Vienna MOLDOVA a 60 ° SWITZERLAND Budapest Chisinau s 40 Bay of Bern Vaduz AUSTRIA Sea of p ° Azov i 40 ° Biscay HUNGARY a Ljubljana n TURKMENISTAN Crimea SLOVENIA ROMANIA Ashgabat Zagreb S CROATIA e SAN Belgrade Bucharest GEORGIA a MARINO BOSNIA AND Baku A HERZEGOVINA SERBIA Black Sea T'bilisi MONACO d AZERBAIJAN PORTUGAL ANDORRA r Sarajevo SPAIN ia t Yerevan ITALY ic KOSOVO BULGARIA Lisbon Madrid Corsica rus SMONTENEGRO Sofia po ARMENIA e os Rome a Skopje B Balearic Is. Tirana FYR Sardinia ALBANIA MAC. Ankara Me Tyrrhenian TURKEY Gi Aegean S br d Sea tr alt GREECE ait ar i of G Ionian ibraltar t Sea Sea e Sicily Athens r Members of NATO (Canada and the r Nicosia 30 MALTA United States are also NATO members) 30 ° ° aValletta Crete Membership Action Plan countries n CYPRUS ea n Sea Intensified Dialogue countries Individual Partnership Action Plan countries 0° 10° 20° 30° 40° Users should note that this map has been designed for briefing purposes only and it should not be used for determining the precise location of places or features. This map should not be considered an authority on the deliitation of international boundaries nor on spelling of place and feature names. Members of NATO and the European Union Nordk 60 30 20 10 70 0 10 20 app ° ° 30° ° ° ° ° ° ° 40 Reykjavik ° ° ICELAND 80 a e Norwegian S ite Sea Wh NORWAY Faroe Is. ia n KAZAKHSTAN h SWEDEN t FINLAND o B Shetland f o Is. f 30 l ° u G ° Oslo Helsinki 70 and 50 Finl ° Stockholm Gulf of 50 ° Tallinn North ESTONIA RUSSIAN rak ager Sea Sk a FEDERATION e S Riga Moscow IRELAND UNITED c LATVIA DENMARK i Dublin KINGDOM Copenhagen lt a LITHUANIA B Vilnius RUSS. FED. Minsk London Amsterdam BELARUS NETHERLANDS Berlin POLAND English Channel Brussels Warsaw BELGIUM GERMANY ATLANTIC OCEAN Kyiv Luxembourg Prague UZBEKISTAN Paris LUXEMBOURG CZECH REP. 30 UKRAINE ° SLOVAKIA LIECHTEN- REP. OF C FRANCE Bratislava STEIN Vienna MOLDOVA a 60 ° SWITZERLAND Budapest Chisinau s 40 Bay of Bern Vaduz AUSTRIA Sea of p ° Azov i 40 ° Biscay HUNGARY a Ljubljana n TURKMENISTAN Crimea SLOVENIA ROMANIA Ashgabat Zagreb S CROATIA e SAN Belgrade Bucharest GEORGIA a MARINO BOSNIA AND Baku A HERZEGOVINA SERBIA Black Sea T'bilisi MONACO d AZERBAIJAN PORTUGAL ANDORRA r Sarajevo SPAIN ia t Yerevan ITALY ic KOSOVO BULGARIA Lisbon Madrid Corsica rus SMONTENEGRO Sofia po ARMENIA e os Rome a Skopje B Balearic Is. Tirana Sardinia ALBANIA Ankara Me Tyrrhenian TURKEY Gi Aegean S br d Sea tr alt GREECE ait ar i of G Ionian ibraltar t Sea Sea e Sicily Athens r Members of NATO and members of r Nicosia 30 MALTA the EU 30 ° ° aValletta Crete n CYPRUS Members of NATO only (Canada and ea the United States are also NATO n Sea ISRAEL members Members of the EU only 0° 10° 20° 30° 40° Users should note that this map has been designed for briefing purposes only and it should not be used for determining the precise location of places or features. This map should not be considered an authority on the deliitation of international boundaries nor on spelling of place and feature names. The future of NATO and European defence 1 Contents Report Page Summary 3 1 Introduction 5 The NATO Summit at Bucharest 5 The results of the Riga Summit 6 The UK’s priorities at Bucharest 8 Our inquiry 9 2 NATO’s role and relevance in the 21st Century 11 The Bucharest Summit and the role of the Alliance 11 The evolution of NATO’s role and purpose 11 The end of the Cold War and its implications for NATO 12 St Malo and the origins of ESDP 14 The impact of September 11 and the war in Iraq 15 A global versus a regional role 16 Uncertainty about the current role and purpose of NATO 17 The need for a new Strategic Concept 19 NATO and the United States 24 NATO and the UK’s national interests 26 3 Afghanistan and the future of NATO 28 Afghanistan and the Bucharest Summit 28 The NATO mission in Afghanistan 30 ISAF troop numbers and structure 30 The purpose of the ISAF mission 31 Force generation in Afghanistan 33 National caveats 37 Afghanistan and the future of Alliance military transformation 41 4 NATO capabilities 43 NATO capabilities and the Bucharest Summit 43 The development of NATO capabilities 43 NATO’s principal capability shortfalls 46 Political will and Alliance capabilities 47 The NATO Response Force 49 The role of Allied Command Transformation 52 Defence spending and the future of NATO 53 5 NATO enlargement 59 Enlargement and the Bucharest Summit 59 Previous enlargements 60 The prospects for further enlargement 61 Albania, Croatia and Macedonia 63 Georgia 63 2 The future of NATO and European defence Ukraine 66 The future of the Alliance’s open door policy 67 NATO Partnerships 68 6 NATO and the European Security and Defence Policy 71 The development of the European Security and Defence Policy 71 The European Security Strategy 71 EU operations 72 Capability development 74 EU Battlegroups 75 The European Defence Agency 78 The relationship between NATO and the EU 81 The Lisbon Treaty and the future of NATO and European defence 86 The implications of permanent structured co-operation 86 The implications of the Lisbon Treaty for NATO 88 Conclusions and recommendations 91 Annex A: List of abbreviations 101 Annex B: Committee visits 104 Annex C: NATO members and partner countries 108 Annex D: Defence spending by NATO and EU member states 110 Annex E: Text of the North Atlantic Treaty, 4 April 1949 111 Formal minutes 114 Witnesses 121 List of written evidence 121 List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament 123 The future of NATO and European defence 3 Summary NATO’s achievements over the past sixty years in ensuring the stability and prosperity of Europe are remarkable. But the NATO Summit at Bucharest in April 2008 takes place at a time when the Alliance’s reputation and credibility are being questioned in relation to Afghanistan. NATO’s command of the multinational International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) mission has become a key test of the Alliance’s capacity to adjust to the demands of today’s security environment.