DIIS REPORT 2011:02 DIIS REPORT NATO’s NEW STRATEGIC CONCEPT: A COMPREHENSIVE ASSESSMENT Edited by Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning DIIS REPORT 2011:02 DIIS REPORT DIIS . DANISH INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES 1 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 © Copenhagen 2011, the authors and DIIS Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Strandgade 56, DK-1401 Copenhagen, Denmark Ph: +45 32 69 87 87 Fax: +45 32 69 87 00 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.diis.dk Cover photo: Wu Wei/Xinhua Press/Corbis Layout: Allan Lind Jørgensen Printed in Denmark by Vesterkopi AS ISBN: 978-87-7605-432-8 Price: DKK 50.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk Hardcopies can be ordered at www.diis.dk This publication is part of DIIS’s Defence and Security Studies project which is funded by a grant from the Danish Ministry of Defence. 2 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 Contents Preface Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning 5 Introduction. Taking Stock of NATO’s New Strategic Concept Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning 7 PART 1. NATO’s New Strategic Concept: Bird’s Eye Perspectives 23 1. What does a New Strategic Concept do for NATO? Jamie Shea 25 2. An Alliance for the 21st Century? Reviewing NATO’s New Strategic Concept Klaus Wittmann 31 PART 2. Dynamic Power, Elusive Threats and Alliance Turbulence 43 3. NATO’s Political Transformation and International Order Adrian Hyde-Price 45 4. Russia and NATO after the Lisbon Summit: a New Beginning – Once Again? Karsten Jakob Møller 55 5. NATO and International Terrorism: Can NATO Move Beyond Controversy? Berit Kaja Børgensen 63 PART 3. A Comprehensive and Cooperative Alliance? 73 6. NATO’s Institutional Environment: the New Strategic Concept Endorses the Comprehensive Approach Niels Henrik Hedegaard 75 7. NATO’s Comprehensive Approach after Lisbon: Principal Problem Acknowledged, Solution Elusive Peter Viggo Jakobsen 83 8. Cooperative Security: Waning Influence in the Eastern Neighbourhood Henrik Boesen Lindbo Larsen 91 9. Three Questions for the Strategic Concept Mark Webber 99 3 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 10. From Lisbon to Lisbon: Squaring the Circle of EU and NATO Future Roles Sven Biscop 106 PART 4. Military Operations and Challenges 113 11. Testing Times: NATO War-Making in Afghanistan and Beyond Theo Farrell 115 12. The Strategic Concept and NATO’s Command Structure: Shifting Gears? Paal Sigurd Hilde 126 13. Military Change – Discord or Harmony? Thierry Legendre 137 14. NATO’s New Strategic Concept: Implications for Military Transformation and Capabilities Christopher M. Schnaubelt 143 15. Nuclear Posture, Missile Defence and Arms Control – Towards Gradual but Fundamental Change Trine Flockhart 155 CONCLUSION. The Strategic Concept and Beyond 165 16. The Alliance after Lisbon: Towards NATO 3.0? Karl-Heinz Kamp 167 DOCUMENTATION 173 NATO’s Strategic Concept – Active Engagement, Modern Defence 175 Author Biographies 187 Defence and Security Studies at DIIS 195 4 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 Preface Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning The Atlantic Alliance has a New Strategic Concept that will guide it into the 21st century. It was adopted at the Lisbon Summit (19–20 November 2010) and it promises a renewed Alliance – a ‘NATO 3.0’ ready for new challenges, new partnership, and renewed relevance and impact. This naturally calls for thorough assessment, which is why we convened a conference shortly after the Lisbon Summit to take stock of the New Strategic Concept and NATO more broadly. The conference, Why NATO? Taking Stock of the Atlantic Alliance and its New Strategic Concept, was held at the University of Southern Denmark on 29 November 2010. To bring the assessments presented at the conference to a wider public we asked conference contributors and other NATO experts to provide chapters for this book which is, to our best knowledge, the first comprehensive assessment on this scale of the New Strategic Concept and its potential for Alliance reform. Our goal in editing and publishing this volume has been to assess what is new and what is old in the Strategic Concept and, quite simply, to stimulate greater debate on NATO. We owe debts of gratitude to many people. We would first of all like to thank the many contributors who agreed to expedite this work through the busy month of December to produce their written assessments. We realise how disruptive such pleas for fast-track action can be, and we greatly appreciate the exemplary efforts you have made. Next we would like to thank NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division (PDD) who provided indispensable funding for the November 2010 conference. In cooperation with PDD we utilised a variety of electronic platforms to convey the program and contributions of the conference. The international relations student organisation at the University of Southern Denmark – IntRpol – was an ideal partner in this respect because they know these platforms much better than we do and we are grateful for all their assistance. We would also like to thank the Danish Social Science Research Council (FSE) for funding our 2008–2010 research project on NATO’s future (Whither the West?) which has stimulated our thinking on these matters and has indirectly made this publication possible. We are similarly indebted to DIIS – the Danish Institute of International Studies – for cooperating with us in the context of the conference and for making this publication possible in another instance of fast-track cooperation for which we are very grateful. We would finally like to thank our respective families for their 5 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 support and willingness to, as it turned out, let yet another high priority profes- sional project wreck our private schedules. 6 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 Introduction. Taking Stock of NATO’s New Strategic Concept Jens Ringsmose and Sten Rynning On 19 November 2010 NATO formally agreed to adopt a New Strategic Concept. After a long, tightly scheduled and generally speaking fairly transparent process the NATO family endorsed an updated understanding of what the core purpose of the Atlantic Alliance is at the Lisbon Summit. NATO’s basic text – the Washington Treaty of 1949 – was, as it were, once again re-interpreted within a specific geopoliti- cal context to fit an ever-changing strategic landscape. Or, put differently, with the adoption of the New Strategic Concept NATO sought to bring its basic interests and strategic thinking into line with the security environment as it has evolved since 1999 when the Alliance adopted its last Strategic Concept. Launched to great fanfare and amidst many high expectations this key text entitled ‘Active Engagement, Modern Defence’ is projected to confer a new strategic direction on NATO and to inform the world about why the Atlantic Alliance is still vital and vigorous. As could be expected, the New Strategic Concept is marked by both continuity and change. Many of the basic themes characterising earlier Strategic Concepts are clearly present in the document: Article 5 – the Alliance’s so-called ‘musketeer clause’ – is once more highlighted as the bedrock of transatlantic security cooperation. Deter- rence, in the shape of both nuclear and conventional capabilities, is yet again portrayed as ‘a core element of [NATO’s] overall strategy’ and, in line with the 1999 Strategic Concept, the new text puts great emphasis on NATO’s role in the business of crisis management. The section laying out the Alliance’s Core Tasks and Principles states that “NATO will actively employ an appropriate mix of… political and military tools to help manage developing crisis”. Related to this is the Strategic Concept’s reaffirma- tion of NATO’s focus on partnership, cooperation and dialogue, what the Alliance of 2010 has dubbed ‘cooperative security’. Nevertheless, the 2010 Strategic Concept differs in significant ways from its pred- ecessors. Perhaps most importantly, the document conveys a collective intention to push NATO further in the direction of global engagement. NATO is becoming more global and also more political and concomitantly it is becoming less confined by regional and military considerations. Although the text does make it clear that the supreme task of the Alliance concerns the defence of NATO territory and Allied populations, which might seem a reincarnation of ‘regional NATO’, the Strategic 7 DIIS REPORT 2011:02 Concept contains far fewer geographical limitations to Allied activities than did both the 1999 and the 1991 Concepts; the predominant threats it singles out are unconventional and transnational or global. Political consultations with a wide range of actors and partners now figure prominently as a core activity. This is not an alliance focused on Europe or the Euro-Atlantic area; nor is it a global alliance because it remains Atlantic and invokes global threats and issues in relation to its own security; it is rather an Atlantic alliance focused on the globe. Finally, it is an alliance cognisant of public diplomacy and of the vital role played by strategic nar- ratives: hence the short and relatively lucid Strategic Concept and the diplomatic fanfare surrounding its publication. This introduction will do three things. It will first provide some background about what the Strategic Concept is to NATO and about what has led up to the 2010 Strategic Concept. It will then offer a quick guide to the New Strategic Concept. The Concept is reprinted in full at the back of this book and our quick guide will therefore confine itself to emphasising the ways in which ‘global’ and ‘political’ NATO have gained in prominence. Lastly, the introduction will connect these issues to the set of chapters that follow. What is NATO’s Strategic Concept? 1 The Strategic Concept is the Alliance’s operational and dynamic view of its found- ing treaty. The Washington Treaty of 1949 is a generic document that lays out the core values (democracy, individual liberty, the rule of law and free institutions) that the Alliance will ‘safeguard’ in a manner consistent with the United Nations Charter.