Brookings: Topics - NATO

Crime–War Battlefields

Vanda Felbab-Brown — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 11:00:00 -0400

In her new article, “Crime-War Battlefields,” published in the June-July issue of Survival, Vanda Felbab-Brown discusses the evolution of war since the end of the Cold War and the eventual rise of policy and analytical focus on the intersection of counterinsurgency, counterterrorism, and anti-organized crime efforts. She explains how over the past two decades, international peacekeeping, counterinsurgency, and other military forces have been neither properly trained nor eager to become involved in dealing with illicit economies and organized crime actors, but have nonetheless become increasingly unable to escape these aspects of their missions. Indeed, some of the missions recently taken on by international military forces have been pure anti-crime missions, such as the anti-piracy operations off Somalia. After surveying the nexus of crime and war from Latin America through Africa and Asia, the article ends with a set of policy recommendations for how modern militaries should deal with the nexus of conflict and crime.

INTRODUCTION

Military conflicts around the world increasingly conjoin political violence, organized crime and illicit economies. In many regions, domestic law enforcement responses to organized crime resemble warfare. Government suppression of urban crime and rural instability in Latin America and South Asia, for example, progressively merges police and military operations. In Mexico, Brazil and Central America, clashes between criminals and the authorities often have the intensity of intra-state urban conflict.

Modern militaries were not designed or trained to deal with illicit economies and organized crime. Nonetheless, the frequency and intensity of international military action at the nexus of violent conflict and crime has increased since the 1990s. Training police forces and devising responses to rising crime have been a key feature, and deficiency, of the counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan. NATO works alongside the Chinese and Saudi militaries in anti-piracy patrols off the coast of Somalia, in what would normally be regarded as law-enforcement operations.

Although criminals and militants often interact with illicit economies in the same way, it is rare for such groups to merge into a homogenous, monolithic entity. Rather, when a crime–terror or crime–insurgency nexus emerges, their interactions will be unstable. Accordingly, countering domestic crime that threatens national security, or resolving military conflicts that involve criminals and illicit economies, requires a complex, nuanced and carefully calibrated response.

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Authors

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Publication: Survival

Image Source: © STRINGER Mexico / Reuters

Toward a Successful Outcome in Afghanistan

General John Allen, Michèle Flournoy and Michael E. O'Hanlon — Fri, 31 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Summary:

The United States can still achieve its strategic objectives in Afghanistan if it maintains and adequately resources its current policy course – and if Afghan partners in particular do their part, including by successfully navigating the shoals of their presidential election and transition in 2014. The core reasons for this judgment are the impressive progress of the Afghan security forces and the significant strides made in areas such as agriculture, health and education, combined with the promising pool of human capital that is increasingly influential within the country and that may be poised to gain greater influence in the country’s future politics. However, the United States and other international security and development partners would risk snatching defeat from the jaws of something that could still resemble victory if, due to frustration with President Hamid Karzai or domestic budgetary pressures, they were to accelerate disengagement between now and 2014 and under-resource their commitment to Afghanistan after 2014.

Afghan partners need to understand their role in this process, too, for the international support on which they depend will surely be contingent on a reasonable level of electoral integrity and political progress. Pakistan has an important role to play as well, in its willingness to pressure the Taliban sanctuaries still allowed to exist on its soil – though Islamabad’s present activities, however regrettable in some ways, may not in themselves be enough to derail the mission.

It is highly desirable that Washington and Kabul clarify and solidify their commitment to a enduring partnership as soon as possible. This would reduce incentives for hedging behavior in Afghanistan and Pakistan and contribute to a constructive atmosphere for the campaigns leading up to the crucial April 2014 Afghan presidential election.

Read the full report »

Authors

General John Allen
Michèle Flournoy
Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: Center for a New American Security

Image Source: © Andrew Burton / Reuters

NATO and the Costs of Star Wars

Clara M. O'Donnell — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Over the last decade, the US has spent tens of billions of dollars constructing a shield to stop nuclear missiles from North Korea or Iran reaching its soil. So far, the shield does not work. Fortunately for the Americans, neither Pyongyang nor Tehran has nuclear missiles that could hit the US. Unfortunately, however, America's missile defence programme has upset China and Russia, two countries that do have nuclear arsenals that could reach its homeland. America's European partners in NATO should try to convince Washington to scale back its missile defence ambitions for the next few years. Not only would this allow the US government to spend its shrinking defence budget on more pressing military needs. It would also improve European security by reducing tensions between NATO and Russia.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US has been increasingly worried about nuclear attacks by 'rogue' states. In 1998, a study group chaired by Donald Rumsfeld predicted that North Korea and Iran could field intercontinental ballistic missiles within five years. Today, however, Iran has neither intercontinental missiles nor a nuclear bomb. In March of this year, a report from the Pentagon's intelligence agency (erroneously declassified) assessed "with moderate confidence" that Pyongyang could build a nuclear device that fits on a missile. But there is still no evidence that North Korean missiles are sophisticated enough to reach the US.

Although the American mainland is not currently under threat, every president since George H.W. Bush has sought to deploy nation-wide defences against a limited attack by ballistic missiles. Reviving some of President Ronald Reagan's 'star wars' ambitions, the US has had missile interceptors deployed in Alaska and California since 2004. Both the George W Bush and Obama administrations have also had various plans to deploy interceptors against intercontinental missiles at bases in Europe. (The Obama administration, working with NATO, has also been deploying interceptors in Europe to protect Europeans and US troops in the region against shorter-range missiles from Iran – a threat which does exist.) In March, Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel announced that because of technical problems and budgetary constraints, the US is suspending its efforts to build Europe-based strategic interceptors. He also said that in response to the bellicose attitude of North Korea's new leader, the US will add 14 missile interceptors in on its West Coast, and perhaps deploy a few more on the East Coast, too.

The Obama administration has been wise to cancel the European leg of its strategic missile defence plans. Several recent studies had highlighted significant shortcomings in the programme. For example, a 2012 report by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the interceptors planned for Europe would have been too slow to stop an incoming missile. But the US would be ill advised to increase the number of interceptors on the West – and possibly East – Coast. Studies have shown that the interceptors in Alaska and California do not work well either. According to Congress' Government Accountability Office, ten out of the 30 interceptors rely on technology which has never intercepted a missile during tests. The GAO estimates that it will take several years to repair this technology, costing the US taxpayer an additional $700 million. Hagel has promised to fix these glitches before the new interceptors are deployed. But the Pentagon does not yet have a solution to another big problem. None of its interceptors can distinguish between an incoming warhead and debris or decoys. (Ballistic missiles can easily carry decoys in addition to warheads.)

America's strategic missile defence efforts have made the US taxpayer fund a weapon that does not work to tackle a threat that does not exist. They have also antagonised China and Russia. Both countries worry that US technological breakthroughs could undermine their strategic deterrents. Moscow has been most displeased. The Kremlin has been asking for legal guarantees that the US would not direct its missile defences against Russia's strategic nuclear weapons. To reassure Russia, the Obama administration has encouraged Moscow to co-operate with NATO's defence programme against Iranian short and long-range missiles. (Moscow is less worried about NATO's defences against Iranian short-range missiles because the interceptors used would be too slow to stop a Russian strategic missile.) Washington has also been willing to provide Moscow political guarantees that its nuclear deterrent is not under threat.

But so far, the Obama administration has refused to give Russia legal guarantees. The US has made such commitments in the past. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty established limits on what Moscow and Washington could do in this area from the 1970s until 2002. President George W Bush then withdrew from the agreement in order to pursue America’s missile defence ambitions unhindered. The Obama administration fears that Republican senators – who are keen on missile defence – would not ratify a treaty that would constrain the US. As a result, missile defence has become one of the most contentious issues in a troubled US-Russia relationship. Moscow has refused to negotiate further cuts in its nuclear arsenal until the issue is resolved. Last year, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces threatened to attack the European NATO countries hosting US missile defences. And according to press reports, Russian bombers have been simulating strikes against American missile defence installations.

Now that Hagel has cancelled the European leg of US strategic missile defences, there is a chance that NATO and Russia could end their dispute. Senior American and Russian officials have resumed talks about Russia co-operating with NATO's missile defence efforts. US policy-makers have also been encouraging Moscow to negotiate new bilateral nuclear reductions – a top priority for President Barack Obama. According to some Russian officials, President Vladimir Putin may be open to an agreement when he meets President Obama at the G8 in June or at their bilateral summit in September. But the Russians still want legal guarantees on strategic missile defences.

Europeans welcome the possibility of improved NATO-Russia ties. Most of them have never been convinced of the need for, or feasibility of, strategic missile defences and many disliked Washington's decision to leave the ABM treaty. Germany and others have been keen for Russia to co-operate with NATO's missile defence programme as a way to alleviate tensions. To maximise the chances of a deal between Washington and Moscow, Europeans should now encourage their American allies to include legal guarantees on missile defence in a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Steven Pifer and Michael O'Hanlon from the Brookings Institution point out in their book 'The opportunity' that treaty limits could still allow the US to deploy all its planned defences against North Korea and Iran: the US and Russia could for example agree to each having a maximum of 125 interceptors capable of engaging intercontinental missiles. (The ABM treaty initially allowed for 200.) The treaty could also be limited to ten years, so that both sides could reconsider its ceilings in light of how the threats from North Korea and Iran evolve.

The White House, and Europeans, would struggle to convince some Republican senators to ratify such a treaty. But without it, Russia is unlikely to reduce its numerous tactical nuclear weapons – an arsenal that worries both Democrats and Republicans. Europeans should also discourage their US counterparts from deploying additional interceptors against strategic missiles until tests have shown them to be effective. The risk of wasting large sums of money at a time of savage defence cuts should help senators to reassess their views on missile defence.

As Greg Thielmann, a former senior US state department intelligence official, remarks, Europeans have "tamed ill-considered American instincts" in the past: in the 1980s, Europeans encouraged a reluctant Reagan administration to negotiate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. For the benefit of NATO-Russia relations and global arms control, the Europeans should encourage their ally to reassess its stance again.

Authors

Clara M. O'Donnell

Publication: Centre for European Reform

Image Source: © Yves Herman / Reuters

Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Policy and Arms Control: Issues for the United States, NATO and Russia

Steven Pifer — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In a recently-released National Resources Defense Council report, From Mutual Assured Destruction to Mutual Assured Stability: Exploring a New Comprehensive Framework for U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arms Reductions, Senior Fellow Steven Pifer contributed a chapter on dealing with nonstrategic nuclear weapons. The chapter describes U.S., NATO and Russian policies regarding such weapons, discusses the issues they raise for arms control, outlines various arms control approaches, and concludes with recommendations for U.S. and Russian action.

Introduction

Nonstrategic nuclear weapons—also referred to as tactical or sub-strategic nuclear weapons—have long been elements of the U.S. and Soviet/Russian arsenals. Thousands of these weapons on both sides were eliminated as a result of the “presidential nuclear initiatives” in 1991 and 1992, and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banned the sides’ groundbased ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers. Aside from the INF Treaty’s ban, however, nonstrategic nuclear weapons are not constrained by current U.S.-Russian arms control agreements.

The United States and Russia have different views of the roles of nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW—the term in this paper is used to apply to warheads, not delivery systems, and covers all nuclear warheads except for those for strategic delivery vehicles). The U.S. government and NATO regard U.S. NSNW deployed forward in Europe as having only marginal military utility; their value is seen primarily in political terms, symbolizing the link between the United States and NATO Europe. NATO is currently reviewing its nuclear posture as part of its deterrence and defense posture review.

The precise role of NSNW in Russian military strategy is less clear. The Russian General Staff appears to assign them more of a military role in terms of offsetting what the Russian military regards as conventional force imbalances in comparison with NATO and, though it is rarely mentioned, China. The rationale for the large number is unclear.

Washington has stated that it wishes to include NSNW, along with non-deployed strategic warheads, in the next round of nuclear arms reduction negotiations with Russia. Moscow has said that other issues—such as missile defense, long-range conventional strike and the fate of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty—must be addressed before it would consider further nuclear reductions. Russians officials have also stated that the withdrawal of U.S. NSNW to national territory should be a precondition for any negotiations covering NSNW.

Should the sides agree to put NSNW into an arms control context, there are a range of options that they could pursue. These include confidence-building measures, unilateral steps and negotiated outcomes. They might choose some combination of these options as well.

Read the full report »

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: Natural Resources Defense Council

Image Source: © Murad Sezer / Reuters

A Record Of Progress: How Afghanistan Improved Under Gen. John Allen

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

As Gen. John R. Allen steps down as commander of NATO forces in Kabul this weekend, several accomplishments merit mention. A man who was unfairly tainted by the Jill Kelley e-mail scandal deserves praise for a remarkable 19-month tenure that brought stability and steady progress to the mission in Afghanistan. Even more important, a fair reckoning of Allen’s tenure should give hope to those depressed about the war effort, as well as giving pause to those who would reduce our current forces too quickly out of frustration or fatalism. Consider:

Afghan security forces are reaching their intended size. The path to achieving the targets was established under previous commanders, Gens. Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus, as well as the three-star heads of the NATO training command in Kabul, William Caldwell and Daniel Bolger, but Allen has seen it through. That said, Afghan forces still lack some crucial enablers in air power and air transport, artillery and logistics that may require the United States to have a larger “bridging” force in 2015 and 2016 than some would now advocate. And it will be important not to prematurely cut that 350,000-strong Afghan force by 100,000 or more troops, as some in Washington have favored.
Afghan forces lead most operations. When Allen arrived in the summer of 2011, these forces led perhaps a third of all missions — generally the easier ones, in the safer places. Today, they lead 85 percent of all operations and have primary responsibility for security in about three-fourths of the country. Their casualty figures prove their willingness to sacrifice, with about 2,000 losing their lives annually. Those casualty numbers also indicate, unfortunately, that the enemy remains resilient. But the enemy is not winning.
In southern Afghanistan, NATO forces were downsized substantially on Allen’s watch, and total U.S. forces in Afghanistan declined from 100,000 to 68,000 over the past 15 months. Security conditions have not deteriorated. Of course, the larger test comes under Allen’s successor, Gen. Joseph Dunford, a fellow Marine who must oversee a much larger drawdown by the time the international mission is replaced in late 2014 by a much more modest effort. But the reduction in enemy attacks and civilian casualty rates — some 20 percent to 40 percent in Kandahar and Helmand provinces — achieved since around 2010 is holding even as the number of U.S. troops has declined by tens of thousands.
Insider attacks, while still a huge worry, appear to be lessening. This plague preoccupied Allen during much of his tenure, with dozens of U.S. and NATO forces (and comparable numbers of loyal Afghan forces) lost to Taliban recruits, mentally unstable individuals or simple criminals. Through improved vetting procedures, worked out with Afghan authorities, the rates of “green-on-blue” killings have fallen by perhaps half in recent months.
Although largely an accomplishment of Afghans themselves, encouraged by the international diplomatic corps, Allen helped Afghanistan stay on track to presidential elections in April 2014. His successor will, again, have the larger chore, but Allen deserves credit for keeping things on course when some were calling for President Hamid Karzai to seek a third term or expected him to anoint one of his brothers for the job. A legitimate, democratic leadership change is crucial for Afghanistan’s future.
Because of all this, and Afghanistan’s generally stable, if not peaceful, security environment, fears of an incipient civil war have not greatly intensified in the past two years. That could, of course, still change. But the military progress has helped open up space for political progress. Afghans who began conversations with worries of civil conflict a year or two ago often raise other issues now; that counts as a step forward in the land of the Hindu Kush. In recent days Afghan and Pakistani leaders have even talked about cooperating in peace talks with the Taliban — also a promising sign, as the two governments have often been at extreme odds over the past few years.
While Afghanistan is still plagued by corruption, NATO has gotten much better, under Allen’s leadership, at reducing its contribution to this problem. NATO outsourcing of security and logistics contracts to Afghan companies has improved, and dozens of contracts have been redirected after they were found to have involved corrupt or violent Afghan groups.
None of this, of course, allows a definitive prediction of success. But Afghanistan, the United States and our allies are in a much better place than many appreciate because of Allen’s leadership during America’s longest war; the remarkable warriors who served under him; and all the diplomats, development experts and other dedicated public servants who have continued the war effort while most of the rest of us have preferred to move on to other things.

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Washington Post

Image Source: © Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Nuclear Arms Control: Another New START

Steven Pifer — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

President Obama has the opportunity — provided that Russian President Vladimir Putin is prepared to engage — to enhance U.S. and global security significantly through further reductions in nuclear arms and a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement. Steven Pifer wrote this memorandum to President Obama as part of Big Bets and Black Swans: A Presidential Briefing Book.

What non-proliferation objectives should President Obama pursue?
Is there an opportunity for the U.S. and others to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)?
Can renewed nuclear non-profileration talks improve U.S.-Russia relations?

Download Memorandum (pdf) | Download the Presidential Briefing Book (pdf)

TO: President Obama

FROM: Steven Pfier

New START was one of the key foreign policy achievements of your first term. However, even once it is fully implemented, the United States and Russia will each maintain some 5,000 nuclear weapons, a level that makes little sense 20 years after the end of the Cold War. You have the opportunity — provided that Vladimir Putin is prepared to engage — to enhance U.S. and global security significantly through further reductions in nuclear arms and a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement.

Recommendation:

Your administration should build on the New START Treaty and your 2009 Prague vision, pursuing four objectives:

• Conclusion of a new treaty limiting the United States and Russia each to no more than 2,000-2,500 nuclear weapons, with a sublimit of no more than 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.

• Achievement of a NATO-Russia agreement for a cooperative missile defense of Europe.

• Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

• Preparing the ground to multilateralize the nuclear arms reductions process.

Background:

Arms control has made some progress over the past four years, though not as much as we would like. New START’s implementation is proceeding smoothly, with the treaty’s limits scheduled to take full effect in 2018. A cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement remains stalled over Moscow’s demand for a legal guarantee that U.S. missile defenses not be directed against Russian strategic forces. Even if you were prepared to They have shown little enthusiasm for arms control generally, as evidenced by the fact that the CTBT remains un-ratified.

Your second-term arms control agenda should have four components: negotiation of a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, missile defense cooperation, ratification of the CTBT, and multilateralization of the nuclear arms reduction process.

1. A New Treaty. New START covers only 30 percent of the U.S. nuclear arsenal (deployed strategic warheads). You should seek to engage Moscow in negotiation of a new treaty to cover all nuclear warheads — strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed — with the exception of those in the dismantlement queue (to be dealt with separately). An aggregate limit of 2,000-2,500 warheads would require a 50 percent reduction in the current U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. It would be a transformational arms control achievement.

The aggregate limit would create a mechanism under which the United States could trade a reduction in its numerical advantage in nondeployed (reserve) strategic warheads in return for Russia reducing its advantage in non-strategic (tactical) nuclear warheads. Within an aggregate limit of 2,000-2,500 total warheads, there should be a sublimit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads, covering the weapons of greatest concern. The sublimit would represent a 35 percent cut from the New START limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads.

Such reductions would obviate a need for Russia to build back up to the New START limits. That could lead Moscow to cancel its planned new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would pose a threat to U.S. ICBMs in their silos while resulting in a more destabilizing force on the Russian side (large numbers of warheads on a relatively small number of vulnerable launchers).

You should reach out to President Putin directly on this. You should aim to conclude a new treaty in 2015, so that it does not have to face a ratification debate in an election year. While negotiating, you should consider early implementation of the New START limits.

2. Missile Defense. If Moscow drops its demand for a legal guarantee that U.S. missile defenses are not targeted against Russian strategic forces, the way to a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense would be open. Your administration could build on ideas already discussed by U.S. military experts, such as transparency, joint exercises, and data fusion and planning/operations centers, both of which would be jointly manned.

You may be able to increase the prospects of a Russian agreement to a cooperative missile defense by offering greater transparency on U.S. programs and plans, including annual declarations and facilitating Russian observation of SM-3 interceptor tests. Your administration should offer the flexibility on U.S. plans, e.g., state that deployment in Europe of the SM-3 Bloc IIB (the interceptor of concern to Russia) could be deferred if Iran is not making progress toward an ICBM capability.

3. Test Ban. You should test the possibility of Senate approval of the CTBT. U.S. ratification would encourage others, particularly China, to ratify. A permanent end to nuclear testing would lock in a significant U.S. knowledge advantage.

Arguments in favor of ratification include the success of the stockpile stewardship program, which provides confidence in the reliability of the U.S. arsenal without testing. Improvements in monitoring mean that explosions in excess of 1 kiloton — and in many areas, including North Korea, in excess of .1 kiloton — would be detected (the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima was in the 10-20 kiloton range).

That said, the current testing moratorium, observed by all states expect North Korea, is preferable to a failed ratification vote in the U.S. Senate. You should press for a vote only if confident that you have a two-thirds majority in hand.

4. Multilateralization. At some point, other nuclear states will need to be brought into the nuclear reduction process. Your administration should work with Moscow to prepare the ground for this.

You will want to approach multilateralization gradually, perhaps by building on the discussions already underway among the UN Security Council Permanent Five. It would be desirable to get third countries to assume a “no increase” commitment in connection with the U.S.-Russian treaty described above. (Their agreement to this would be essential if we seek Russian reductions beyond that treaty.)

A new initiative will advance U.S. interests in a number of ways:

• A new agreement could further reduce the strategic threat to the United States and cut non-strategic warheads that threaten U.S. allies in Europe and Asia.

• Further nuclear reductions would mean having to build fewer systems in the future in order to maintain a modern deterrent. That would save defense resources, particularly when you face expensive decisions on a replacement for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine, a new bomber and a new ICBM.

• Further U.S. (and Russian) nuclear reductions can bolster the credibility of American diplomacy on nuclear proliferation. While a new treaty will not change minds in North Korea or Iran, it will strengthen your administration’s ability to secure third-country support to increase pressure and sanctions, at a time of growing tension with North Korea and looming crisis with Iran. • Further progress on arms control can give a positive impulse to the broader U.S.-Russia relationship, helping to move bilateral relations from their current scratchiness toward a sustainable follow-on to the “reset.”

Will President Putin be prepared to deal on further nuclear arms reductions and missile defense cooperation? U.S. advantages in strategic force levels, including in reserve warheads that could be added to the strategic ballistic missile force, give Moscow incentives for a new negotiation. The Russians also likely face budget pressures similar to those confronting the Pentagon. You should raise the new negotiation in your early exchanges with President Putin.

Limiting non-deployed strategic weapons and non-strategic weapons will pose new verification challenges. These are not insurmountable but will require work and creativity.

Attaining a two-thirds vote in favor of ratification for a New START follow-on treaty or CTBT will be difficult, as evidenced by the New START experience in the Senate. The administration — and you personally — will want to engage the Senate early on. While less preferable, if the Senate proves resistant on arms control, you might consider reductions to be made in parallel with reductions by Russia, conducted outside of a formal treaty context.

Third-country nuclear weapons states, particularly China, will resist being drawn into the reduction process as long as U.S. and Russian weapons numbers remain so much larger than theirs. You will have to put this high on your agenda with those countries.

Conclusion:

Achieving this agenda will not be easy. It will require your direct engagement. But it provides an opportunity to cement your legacy on an issue of key importance for U.S. national security and the future global order.

Numbers in charts are drawn from Hans M. Kristensen, “Trimming Nuclear Excess: Options for Further Reductions of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Forces,” Federation of American Scientists, December 2012 and Federation of American Scientists, “Status of World Nuclear Forces End-2012.”

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Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: © Kacper Pempel / Reuters

Karzai and Obama Meet in Washington: What Does the Future Hold?

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

As Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai begins the last leg of his presidency and President Barack Obama embarks on his second term, the two leaders will meet in Washington this week, for talks about the future of Afghanistan and the NATO mission there. With the U.S. troop drawdown and a presidential election both slated for next year, key decisions regarding Afghanistan can’t be rushed and both presidents should bear that in mind notes Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon.

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Karzai and Obama Meet in Washington: What Does the Future Hold?

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Don't Rush Out of Afghanistan

Michael E. O'Hanlon — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0500

With Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top advisers visiting Washington this week, huge questions about the future of the NATO mission there consume Afghan and American minds. How fast can we draw down our current total of 68,000 U.S. troops (and another 30,000 or so from other outside countries) before the mission formally concludes at the end of next year? And how many forces do we have to keep in Afghanistan afterward? These questions come on top of other decisions we have been making lately, about the long-term size of the Afghan army and police and about foreign aid levels the international community will provide to Afghanistan for many years.

We should slow this process down. It is important that Afghans — and other interested parties in places like Pakistan — see evidence of a long-term partnership between the outside world and our Afghan friends. That much is true. So some clarity about long-term plans is useful. But we cannot and should not try to answer all questions now.

Making specific, long-term plans is unrealistic for two main reasons. First, we cannot foresee battlefield conditions in Afghanistan in 2015 and beyond. Second, we cannot foresee who will win the Afghan presidential elections next year and what kind of partner the new president will become for the international community.

This rush to decide everything prematurely has already had some unfortunate consequences. In our efforts to be sure that future Afghan security forces get enough outside aid after 2014 to function effectively, we have already begun to assume that they must downsize by one-third — after we just spent half a decade building them up. Moreover, NATO will have pulled out most of its own remaining forces by that point, making it even harder for Afghans to also scale back drastically. It is in fact doubtful that such downsizing of the Afghan army and police should occur so soon.

Read the full article »

Authors

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publication: The Baltimore Sun

Image Source: © Ahmad Nadeem / Reuters

NATO-Russia Missile Defense: Compromise is Possible

Steven Pifer — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

NATO leaders and then-President Medvedev agreed in November 2010 to seek to develop a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense. Over the past two years, however, the sides have been unable to agree upon a formula for such an arrangement, and missile defense is becoming a contentious issue on the U.S.-Russia and NATO-Russia agendas. It is in the sides’ interest to find a mutually acceptable solution. This piece suggests the elements of such a compromise.

It is difficult to see how Washington, Moscow or NATO would benefit from missile defense remaining a problem issue. Among other things, that could pose an obstacle to further U.S.-Russian nuclear arms reductions below New START levels. It could interfere with other types of cooperation. Agreement on a NATO-Russia cooperative missile defense arrangement, on the other hand, could remove this problem. It would provide a better missile defense of Europe, including European Russia. It would make NATO and Russia allies in protecting Europe, which could prove a “game-changer” in altering lingering Cold War attitudes in both Russia and NATO member-states.

Experts from the Pentagon and Russian Defense Ministry reportedly held productive exchanges in early 2011 regarding what a cooperative missile defense arrangement would entail. They discussed transparency, joint exercises and two jointly manned missile defense centers: a data fusion center, and a planning and operations center.

Progress slowed in spring 2011, when Russia took the position that it required a “legal guarantee” that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic forces. The Russian concern has an understandable basis in principle: if U.S. missile defenses continue to grow in numbers and quality, at some future point they could undermine the balance in strategic offensive forces between Russia and the United States. But it is difficult to see that happening in the next decade or two. An optimistic projection of the maximum number of ground-based interceptors and Standard Missile (SM-3) Bloc IIB interceptors, which will have some capability against intercontinental ballistic missiles, would be at most 100 in 2023. That number would pose little real threat to the hundreds of warheads on Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, to say nothing of the decoys and other countermeasure carried by those missiles.

Even if the Obama administration were prepared to negotiate a legal guarantee, there is no possibility of securing the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed for consent to ratification of a treaty. Indeed, one quite possibly could design a treaty of ten years’ duration that would constrain missile defenses in a way that would reassure Moscow that there was no threat to Russian strategic missiles and allow Washington to do all that it wants and plans over the next decade to defend the United States against limited ballistic missile attack from countries such as Iran and North Korea. But, for a certain segment of the Senate, missile defense has become a theological issue, and that treaty would have zero chance of ratification. The Obama administration has instead offered a political commitment not to direct U.S. missile defenses against Russian strategic missiles.

Elements of a Future Compromise

If Moscow is prepared to move off of its requirement for a legal guarantee, and Washington and NATO are prepared to show some greater transparency and flexibility in their approach, one can see the elements of a compromise that would allow agreement on a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement.

Developing Ideas Already Discussed. The United States/NATO and Russia should develop the ideas already discussed for a cooperative missile defense. They apparently agree that each would retain independent control over its radars and other sensors and over a decision to launch its interceptor missiles. That makes sense. Given that a decision to launch an interceptor missile would need to be made in minutes, there would be no time for consultation between NATO and Russia regarding a launch decision.

The sides should define and agree on the kinds of transparency that each is willing to provide regarding its current and planned future missile defense capabilities. Transparency is important, as it will provide the other side information on which to make a judgment as to whether or not there is a threat to its strategic ballistic missiles. In this context, the United States should describe more fully how it would operationalize the offer made by Missile Defense Agency Director O’Reilly in 2011 to allow Russian experts to observe SM-3 tests and clarify that this offer would apply to tests of the SM-3 Bloc IIA and Bloc IIB, the SM-3 variants of greatest concern to the Russian military.

The sides should agree on arrangements for regular joint NATO-Russia missile defense exercises. This should not be difficult, as NATO and Russia have conducted joint missile defense exercises for a number of years.

The sides should agree on the details of a jointly manned data fusion center. That center would combine warning and tracking data provided by U.S., NATO and Russian radars and other sensors to create a “common operational picture” of the missile defense environment around Europe. The center would then transmit that enhanced picture to the NATO and Russian missile defense command centers, where the authority to launch missile interceptors would reside.

A jointly manned planning and operations center could take on a number of tasks. It could provide the venue in which to conduct transparency exchanges and discuss possible ballistic missile threats and attack scenarios against Europe. The sides might also at this center consult on plans for intercepting attacking ballistic missiles, including rules of engagement. It would be particularly useful to discuss procedures for coordinating intercepts in areas of overlapping coverage by NATO and Russia missile interceptors. At a minimum, NATO and Russia would want to ensure that, if they both launched interceptor missiles against an attacking ballistic missile warhead, the interceptors engaged the attacking warhead, not each other.

Legal or Political Commitment. Moscow should agree to drop its demand for a legal guarantee that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic missiles. As noted above, it would have no chance of ratification in the Senate. Instead, the United States should provide Russia a political commitment, in written form and signed at the highest level, that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic forces. For its part, NATO would make a parallel, written political commitment, building on the language in its May 2012 communiqué.

Adapting the U.S./NATO Approach. The United States and NATO could introduce three additions or modifications to their current approach to missile defense and missile defense cooperation.

First, the United States should commit to provide Russia an annual declaration regarding U.S. missile defense capabilities and future plans. The declaration would specify for each key element of U.S. missile defenses—including, at least, ground-based interceptors (GBIs), SM-3 interceptors (broken down by Bloc IA, Bloc IB, Bloc IIA and Bloc IIB), GBI launchers, SM-3 land launchers, associated radars and warships equipped to carry SM-3 interceptors—the current number and the planned maximum number for each year in the coming ten years. For example, the line in the notification for the SM-3 Block IB would read as follows:*

The United States would further commit to provide Russia advance notice of any change in its planned maximum numbers. For example, for changes in the planned maximum numbers of SM-3s, it could be 18-24 months’ advance notice, as it appears to take about two years from the time a decision to purchase an SM-3 is made for the contract to be concluded and for the interceptor to be built and delivered to the military. For changes in the planned maximum number of warships, the advance notice would be longer.

Russia is also developing its missile defense capabilities. It would be useful for Russia to provide the United States parallel declarations regarding its current capabilities and future missile defense plans.

Second, NATO should modify its current position, which appears to be that any cooperative defense with Russia would in no way change NATO missile defense deployment plans. The Alliance should instead indicate a readiness to consider Russian-proposed changes, provided that those changes do not degrade the ability of NATO missile defenses to defend NATO territory. For example, under this approach, NATO would be willing to consider a Russian proposal that SM-3 interceptors to be deployed in Poland be relocated from the planned site on the Baltic coast to a military base in southwest Poland if those interceptors could provide essentially the same protection for NATO members from the new site, in particular, for the Baltic states and Norway.

Third, the U.S. government should state unambiguously that, were it to become evident that Iran was not making progress toward having an intercontinental ballistic missile capability, the United States would defer deployment in Europe of the SM-3 Bloc IIB interceptor. That would be entirely consistent with the concept of the “European phased adaptive approach”—if the Iranian ICBM threat does not materialize, there would be no need to deploy a defense in Europe to counter it.

Why a Compromise?

The approach described above would build upon and operationalize NATO-Russia missile defense cooperation along lines that have already largely been discussed by U.S. and Russian military experts. Moscow would drop its requirement for a legal guarantee, accepting instead political commitments from Washington and NATO. The United States and NATO would introduce a greater degree of transparency and flexibility into their approach to missile defense.

This compromise would not provide the limits and predictability that a legally-binding treaty that capped interceptor numbers, velocities and locations would. As noted, it would be impossible to gain Senate approval for such a treaty, at least with the present Senate. But this compromise would respond to Russian concerns in two important ways.

First, the annual declarations would provide the Russian military a very full and regularly updated picture of U.S. missile defense capabilities and future plans. The Russian military could compare those capabilities and plans with its current and projected strategic ballistic missile forces. That would allow the General Staff and Ministry of Defense to determine whether there was, or in the future would be, a serious threat to Russian strategic missiles and to the U.S.-Russian strategic offensive balance (with a parallel Russian declaration, the U.S. military could make its own determination).

Second, although this arrangement would not legally constrain missile defenses, each side would always have the option, if it chose, to make a unilateral statement in response to the other’s declaration. That statement could include how it might react were the other side to increase its numbers beyond the planned maximum numbers contained in a declaration. For example, Russia might state that, were the United States to increase the number of SM-3 Bloc IIB interceptors beyond the planned maximum number indicated for a certain year, it could consider the strategic offensive balance endangered and might take corresponding measures. Such corresponding measures could include withdrawal from the New START Treaty or a from a successor treaty that further reduced nuclear arms. Moscow could, if it wished for political purposes, portray that as something of a de facto limit. At the least, a Russian statement would indicate to Washington that there could be consequences if U.S. missile defenses increased beyond the declared number.

Washington could—and most likely would—deny that there was a basis for Russian concern. However, as was the case with the April 2010 Russian unilateral statement regarding missile defenses and the New START Treaty, the United States could not prevent Russia from making the unilateral statement or from taking actions, including exercising its right to withdraw from a treaty limiting strategic offensive nuclear forces, if Russia chose to do so.

This approach, moreover, would not forever preclude the possibility that Russia might return to a requirement for a legal guarantee, including for limits on the numbers and velocities of interceptor missiles. Such a requirement might be understandable in a future world in which the gap between the number of deployed strategic ballistic missile warheads and the number of missile interceptors capable of engaging strategic ballistic missile warheads was not so large as it is today or is likely to be over the next 10-15 years. But that is a question for the future.

This approach offers a middle ground for U.S./NATO-Russian agreement on a cooperative missile defense arrangement. It is possible that Moscow did not want to engage on missile defense in 2012 in part because the U.S. approach to missile defense and missile defense cooperation might have changed radically if a Republican with very different ideas on missile defense became president in 2013. It is now clear that Barack Obama will remain in the White House for the next four years. It is now time to resolve differences over missile defense. The elements of a compromise for a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense arrangement are evident. The question is whether the sides have the political will to reach that compromise.

* Numbers from Ronald O’Rourke, “Navy Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Program: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, December 2011.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: Russian Center for Policy Studies' "Russia Confidential"

Image Source: © Jim Young / Reuters

The Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces: History and Lessons Learned

Steven Pifer, Avis T. Bohlen, William F. Burns and John Woodworth — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0500

The Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) represented a milestone for arms control. Signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev in December 1987, it was the first treaty between Washington and Moscow to go beyond just limiting the level of nuclear weapons to require significant reductions. The treaty mandated the elimination of the entire class of U.S. and Soviet land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers as well as the elimination of their associated launchers. By the end of the reductions period in June 1991, the United States and Soviet Union had destroyed a total of 2,692 ballistic and cruise missiles, under some of the most far-reaching and intrusive verification measures ever incorporated in an arms control agreement.

The new Brookings Arms Control Series paper, The Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces: History and Lessons Learned, was written by four co-authors, Avis Bohlen, William Burns, Steven Pifer and John Woodworth, who were directly involved in the INF negotiations. The paper recounts the background to the talks and the history of the negotiating process. It explains the key factors that, after the Soviet walk-out in 1983, made it possible for the sides to return to the bargaining table in 1985 and reach a landmark agreement two years later. The paper describes developments regarding the treaty over the past 20 years. It concludes with a discussion of lessons learned that might be applied in future nuclear arms control negotiations, particularly at a time when the United States and NATO are considering possible arms control measures regarding non-strategic nuclear weapons.

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Authors

Steven Pifer
Avis T. Bohlen
William F. Burns
John Woodworth

Image Source: STR New / Reuters

The Implications of Military Spending Cuts for NATO's Largest Members

Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Introduction:

There have long been debates about the sustainability of the transatlantic alliance and accusations amongst allies of unequal contributions to burden-sharing. But since countries on both sides of the Atlantic have begun introducing new – and often major – military spending cuts in response to the economic crisis, concerns about the future of transatlantic defense cooperation have become more pronounced.

A growing number of senior officials are now publicly questioning the future of NATO. In June 2011, in the midst of NATO’s operation in Libya, Robert Gates, then US Defense Secretary, stated that Europe faced the prospect of “collective military irrelevance” and that unless the continent stemmed the deterioration of its armed forces, NATO faced a “dim, if not dismal future”. Ivo Daalder, the US Permanent Representative to NATO, and James Stavridis, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, have argued that “if defense spending continues to decline, NATO may not be able to replicate its success in Libya in another decade”. The alliance’s Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has warned that “if European defense spending cuts continue, Europe’s ability to be a stabilizing force even in its neighborhood will rapidly disappear”. While Norwegian Defense Minister Espen Barth Eide has claimed that “exercises have shown that NATO’s ability to conduct conventional military operations has markedly declined. […] Not only is NATO’s ability to defend its member states questionable, it might actually deteriorate further as financial pressures in Europe and the US force cuts in military spending”.

In order to explore the validity of these claims, this report outlines trends in military spending across the EU since the onset of the economic crisis. It then analyzes the fallout of the downturn for the armed forces of NATO’s largest defense spenders – France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.

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Authors

Andrew Dorman
Bastian Giegerich
Camille Grand
Adam Grissom
Christian Mölling
Clara M. O'Donnell

Image Source: Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Stuck in the Mud: The Logistics of Getting Out of Afghanistan

Vanda Felbab-Brown — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

It took seven months of tough bargaining with Islamabad for the United States to get Pakistan to reopen its border with Afghanistan to NATO supply trucks. Until the border closed last year, about 5,000 trucks a month had plowed their way from the Pakistani port city of Karachi, through dusty Baluchistan, around the Taliban-infested switchbacks of the Khyber Pass, and on to Bagram, Kandahar, and other NATO logistical hubs in Afghanistan. That came to a halt in November, after a U.S. air raid mistakenly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and Islamabad retaliated by suspending NATO traffic. It would reopen the border, it said, only if the United States both apologized and agreed to pay much higher transport fees for the NATO trucks traversing its territory. Islamabad eventually dropped the fee demand, but it did induce U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to say sorry.

After the November shutdown of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, NATO reoriented its supply routes to northern Afghanistan through a series of roads in Central Asia, which make up what is known as the Northern Distribution Network (NDN). The seven-month total dependence on the northern transportation routes, which are circuitous and treacherous, cost the United States hundreds of millions of dollars and much heartache. Far from being a thing of the past, the troubles associated with the NDN are here to stay: even after the reopening of the border with Pakistan, use of the NDN will remain crucial as NATO starts to ship home equipment as part of the drawdown this summer.

By the end of 2014, NATO needs to remove about 100,000 shipping containers full of equipment and 50,000 wheeled vehicles from Afghanistan; it will leave behind any unused fuel. NATO officials point out that in order for all International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) military equipment to be removed from Afghanistan in time, a container would have to leave the country every seven minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, starting now -- a tough order. Many of those containers and vehicles will have to travel along the northern route. For its part, ISAF is still counting on removing at least a third of its cargo in Afghanistan through Central Asia.

The spine of the NDN is a jagged, potholed road that leaves Kabul for Kunduz, the capital city of Kunduz province, which borders Tajikistan, and then continues on to Central Asia. The privilege of using the route does not come cheap: the United States and ISAF recently renegotiated their transshipment agreements with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan to permit two-way transit of non-lethal supplies (i.e., not armored vehicles or guns) through their territories. In addition, all three now allow transport planes carrying NATO soldiers to enter their airspace. Negotiations still continue, however, on a host of unresolved issues, such as expanded access to airspace and airports, fees, alternate routes, and the removal of restrictions on what type of military cargo can be transported. Meanwhile, the United States is also locked in talks with Russia about similar issues, such as the establishment of an air hub for Europe-bound cargo planes. Like its Central Asian neighbors, Russia has agreed to allow non-lethal equipment to be transported through its territory into Afghanistan, but NATO would like to see the agreement expanded.

In return for permitting tens of thousands of vehicles carrying ISAF military equipment to transverse their territory, the Central Asian countries have demanded, and received, huge payoffs. ISAF has not released details of its most recent accords with them, from June 2012. But, previously, each truck traveling through their territory had cost around $1,250 -- about five times what Pakistan had charged. And Uzbekistan, for example, has sought a 50 percent surcharge on the use of its major rail link to Afghanistan.

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Authors

Vanda Felbab-Brown

Publication: Foreign Affairs

Image Source: Reuters

No More Bullying Pakistan

Vali Nasr — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

It took eight months, but the U.S. has finally apologized for killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in a firefight on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

With that, the U.S. military is again able to use routes through Pakistan to supply its forces in Afghanistan without paying exorbitant fees. Plus the threat that Pakistan will bar U.S. drone strikes is for now moot.

However, the main implication of the apology, a triumph of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over both the White House and the Pentagon, is that it ends the experiment of the U.S. trying to bully Pakistan into submission.

The clash in November between U.S. and Pakistani forces was a mess, with miscommunication on both sides but fatalities on only one. Pakistan, still seething over the U.S. breach of its sovereignty in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, closed U.S. military supply routes to Afghanistan when the U.S. initially refused to apologize. The U.S., in turn, froze $700 million in military assistance and shut down all engagement on economic and development issues. In a further deterioration of ties, the Pakistani Parliament voted to ban all U.S. drone attacks from or on Pakistani territory.

No Sympathy

The Pakistanis held firm in their insistence on an apology. Officials at the Pentagon thought the case didn’t merit one. Many had no sympathy for the Pakistanis, whom they regarded as double-dealers for stoking the insurgency in Afghanistan and providing haven to the notorious extremists of the Haqqani Network. The White House feared that an apology would invite Republican criticism. Throughout the crisis, Clinton and her senior staff argued that the U.S. should apologize. She supported re-engaging with Pakistan to protect a critical relationship while also holding Pakistan accountable for fighting the Taliban and other extremists, a point she has raised in each of her conversations with Pakistani leaders.

Clinton’s recommendations were contrary to the policy the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency put in place in early 2011. Relations had soured when the Pakistanis held CIA operative Raymond Davis after he shot two Pakistanis. Frustrated with Pakistan’s foot-dragging on counterterrorism, the two agencies successfully lobbied for a strategy to reduce high-level contacts with Pakistan, shame Pakistan in the news media, and threaten more military and intelligence operations on Pakistani soil like the bin Laden assassination. It was a policy of direct confrontation on all fronts, aimed at bending Pakistan’s will.

It failed. Pakistan stood its ground. Far from changing course, Pakistan reduced cooperation with the U.S. and began to apply its own pressure by threatening to end the drone program, one of the Obama administration’s proudest achievements.

Months of behind-the-scenes wrangling failed to resolve the apology issue. A high-level U.S. visit to Islamabad on the eve of the May 20-21 NATO Summit in Chicago proved a fiasco. Pakistan informed the Americans that after an apology, it would charge a much higher fee to let NATO supplies into Afghanistan. (That has not come to pass.) President Barack Obama refused to meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the summit unless the supply routes reopened, but that did not break the impasse.

Finally, Washington tallied the costs of confrontation with Pakistan. Supplying troops through other routes was costing an additional $100 million a month. Without Pakistani roads, the U.S. military wouldn’t be able to get its heavy equipment out of Afghanistan on time or on budget once it begins to withdraw from the country in earnest. If Pakistan remained off-limits, the U.S. would have to rethink its entire exit strategy from Afghanistan.

Open Airspace

What’s more, if Pakistan truly shut down the drone program, it would cripple the administration’s most successful terrorism- fighting tool. Pakistan might also close its airspace to U.S. planes flying between the Persian Gulf and Afghanistan. Americans were understandably angry that bin Laden was found hiding in a Pakistani city, but few knew that the plane that transported his body from an Afghan base to a U.S. Navy ship for a sea burial had to fly over Pakistani territory.

The conclusion: Open conflict with Pakistan was not an option. It was time to roll back the pressure.

The apology is just a first step in repairing ties deeply bruised by the past year’s confrontations. The U.S. should adopt a long-term strategy that would balance U.S. security requirements with Pakistan’s development needs. Managing relations with Pakistan requires a deft policy -- neither the blind coddling of the George W. Bush era nor the blunt pressure of the past year, but a careful balance between pressure and positive engagement. This was Clinton’s strategy from 2009 to 2011, when U.S. security demands were paired with a strategic dialogue that Pakistan coveted. That is still the best strategy for dealing with this prickly ally.

Authors

Vali Nasr

Publication: Bloomberg View

Are Europeans a Better Transatlantic Security Partner than Meets the Eye?

Clara M. O'Donnell and Patryk Pawlak — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 -0400

The latest wave of European military spending cuts is swelling the ranks of Americans who believe that Europeans are not contributing enough to global security. But this assessment is too harsh. It is true that Europeans spend less on defence than their American counterparts. They have also been less willing to use force in recent years. But the US itself is reassessing the merit of its military interventions over the last decade. And when one takes into account policies that are not strictly military, such as aid, sanctions and homeland security, Europeans are making some significant contributions to international stability.

A number of European countries are undoubtedly falling short of their NATO and EU promises to develop a global military reach. Many governments have been slow to transform their militaries from immobile forces designed to counter a Soviet invasion into rapidly deployable combat troops. Even prior to the economic crisis, most European NATO allies had stopped spending the alliance's agreed benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP on defence. And Nicolas Gros-Verheyde, the influential French blogger, estimates that the economic downturn will lead to a 30 per cent drop in total military spending by EU member-states between 2006 and 2014. As a result, even if America cuts its own defence budget by $1 trillion over the next decade – as Congress is currently considering – the US military will still receive more than twice as much as the armed forces of all EU countries combined.

Since the end of the Cold War, a number of European countries have also been reluctant to deploy troops, particularly for heavy combat operations. Many governments have refused to send their soldiers to the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan. More than half of the European countries in NATO did not participate in the deployment to Libya. And many EU military and civilian missions have been too small to make a significant impact. Washington critics are particularly dismissive of the 60 EU officials advising Iraqis on how to improve their criminal justice system and the approximately 500 EU police trainers in Afghanistan.

Europe's recent military track record derives from the fact that most Europeans have not felt threatened. Many also do not believe that war should be used to obtain 'justice'. In a recent GMF survey of the US and 12 EU countries, only 33 per cent of Europeans believed that war is sometimes necessary to obtain justice – in contrast to 75 per cent of Americans. In addition, Europeans have been particularly doubtful of the merit of Washington's use of force over the past decade, be it Afghanistan or Iraq.

In light of this mindset, Europeans have actually been quite active on the military front. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2011, Britain, France and Germany were still amongst the ten largest military spenders in the world (ranking third, fourth and eighth). The combined defence expenditure of European NATO members is still more than twice what China spends – even though Europeans do not reap the full benefits of it because they duplicate many of their military efforts.

For several years, European troops made up more than half of NATO's mission in Afghanistan. And on a per capita basis, Denmark and Estonia have suffered more casualties there than the US. Europeans undertook 90 per cent of the strike missions in Libya. In addition, many of the EU's missions, even if modest, are still helping to stabilise countries across the world. In the Gulf of Aden, an EU naval force protects vulnerable boats from pirates, including the World Food Programme vessels which deliver food to Somali people. In the months to come, the EU will deploy civilians to help the government in Niger reform its security sector (a country where, according to European governments, Islamist militants threaten international security). EU experts will also soon help improve the security at the international airport in Juba, the capital of newly independent South Sudan.

In any case, American policy-makers are themselves reconsidering the merits of how the US has used force over the last decade. The Obama administration has been extricating US armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan – even though in both countries, the US has not achieved the level of stability which it had initially aspired to. The government's new defence guidance stresses that the US does not intend to deploy similar missions in future. It also argues that America cannot meet its security challenges through military force alone and that it must strengthen all the 'tools' of American power, including diplomacy, development, intelligence and homeland security.

These are areas in which Europeans are significant players. Combined, the EU institutions and member-states are the largest aid donor in the world. According to the OECD, they spent €69 billion in 2011 – notwithstanding the fact that some European countries reduced their budgets because of the economic crisis. This is more than twice the amount the US gave. Between 2002 and 2013, the EU institutions and member-states will notably have provided €11 billion in aid to Afghanistan. And in response to the Arab Spring, the EU institutions alone have offered nearly €7 billion over three years.

Europeans also invest significant resources in homeland security, even if budgets risk declining somewhat over the next few years because of the economic turmoil. Based on the latest OECD figures, the 21 EU member-states which belong to the organisation spent nearly €240 billion on 'public order and safety' in 2010 – nearly 90 per cent of what the US spent. This covers police forces, intelligence services, the judiciary and ministries of internal affairs. The US is a beneficiary of this spending too – in addition to supporting Europe's internal stability, these bodies tackle the international terrorism and organised crime that afflict Europeans and their allies alike.

European countries are also increasing the EU's involvement in security matters – including through the EU's bilateral ties with third countries. One EU agency, Frontex, monitors the Union's southern and eastern border, while another, Europol, tackles organised crime. EU funds for homeland security, although still modest, are increasing despite the economic crisis. From 2014 to 2020, the EU is expected to spend nearly €10 billion in this field. The money will notably fund research into intelligent maritime surveillance systems and help partner countries across the world fight criminal networks and monitor their borders more effectively.

European governments also leverage the EU's large common market to pursue their foreign policy objectives. They offer preferential trade ties to support the economic development of numerous fragile countries across the world, and to encourage them to improve their governance. Pakistan is one of the states which qualify for some of the EU's most generous trade concessions. EU countries also impose heavy sanctions on countries which they believe are undermining international security. Among other things, the EU recently introduced an oil embargo against Iran – even though the measure is inflicting significant economic hardship on Greece and other EU states which were already struggling with the financial crisis. And through the offer of EU and NATO membership, Europeans (and the US) have managed to spread stability across the European continent.

The fact that Europeans wield such extensive foreign policy 'tools' does not mean they always use them wisely. Nor should it allow Europeans to neglect their armed forces. Governments must ensure that their peacekeeping efforts are not hampered by inadequate military equipment, and that they retain the capacity to respond to a serious military threat if one were to emerge. But America is less alone in upholding global security than some in Washington would suggest.

Authors

Clara M. O'Donnell
Patryk Pawlak

Publication: Centre for European Reform

Image Source: Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters

The State of Afghanistan

Tue, 03 Jul 2012 09:30:00 -0400

Event Information

July 3, 2012
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20036

On July 3, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion on the current situation in Afghanistan, featuring keynote remarks from Alex Thier.

As the U.S. and NATO troop surges in Afghanistan begin to wind down, and transition of control to the Afghan government and people moves forward, continued long-term support for the country remains crucial to the mission’s prospects. While much of the last year has witnessed decreased violence, many challenges clearly still remain. Many of them center on governance and development. A major donors’ conference will be held July 8 in Japan to discuss Afghanistan’s development and governance, and consider future international financial support.

On July 3, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion on the current situation in Afghanistan, featuring keynote remarks from Alex Thier, assistant to the administrator and director of the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Following his remarks, Thier was joined by former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann, author of The Other War (Potomac Books, 2009), and Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O'Hanlon, co-author of Bending History (Brookings, 2012) and the report “Towards a Political Strategy in Afghanistan,” for a discussion.

How to Repair the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship

Bruce Riedel — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 -0400

Pakistani-American relations are broken. President Obama refused to meet with President Asif Ali Zardari at the Chicago NATO summit last month. The new head of Pakistani intelligence—the ISI—canceled his trip to Langley to see the CIA. Pakistan wants an apology for the NATO attack last November that killed two dozen of its soldiers. It wants an end to the drone war. Washington wants Pakistan to finally take action against terrorists like Hafez Saeed, the leader of Lashkar e Taiba that murdered six Americans in Mumbai four years ago. It also wants answers to how Osama bin Laden was able to hide out in Pakistan for a decade when Washington gave Islamabad almost $25 billion to fight al Qaeda.

Polls show Pakistanis see America, not India or al Qaeda, as their mortal enemy. The Pakistanis are looking for who helped the CIA find bin Laden, not who helped hide him for 10 years. Congress increasingly sees Pakistan as a bad investment gone sour. The White House rightly won't give up the drones when Pakistan coddles terrorists like Saeed.

The broken relationship has been brewing for decades. American presidents from both parties embraced Pakistan's military dictators to carry out great secret projects from U2s to fighting al Qaeda. The generals took American arms and aid to build up a nuclear arsenal to fight India; now that arsenal is the fastest-growing in the world. Washington talks about democracy, but does little to help Pakistani progressives. It is a deadly embrace that is heading toward disaster.

The most divisive issue today is Afghanistan. Obama has signed a long-term strategic pact with Kabul to give the U.S. access to Afghan bases until at least 2024 to fight terror. We know we can't count on Pakistan to do that job. NATO and the U.N. back the Kabul government as the legitimate and elected authority in Afghanistan. Pakistan harbors and helps the Taliban. Interrogations of 4,000 captured insurgents in Afghanistan show that the ISI guides its strategy, finds it funds, and keeps in tight contact with its leaders, including Mullah Omar. Without Pakistani safe havens and ISI assistance, the Taliban would be a much less formidable enemy.

Ironically, Afghanistan also could be the way out of the deadly embrace. If the ISI would use its leverage to push the Taliban to resume a political process with the U.S. and, more important, start one with Kabul, then a way forward would open. The process is likely to be slow and difficult but it could make possible a ceasefire and a decentralized Afghanistan finally at peace with itself. The regional players could disengage from the great game in Central Asia. Pakistan would be a big beneficiary of peace and trade into the Central Asian “stans.”

American diplomacy can make this case to Islamabad, but only the Pakistanis can decide to take charge and act. If they don't, then the U.S. should encourage India to play a larger role in Afghanistan. India already has a major aid program and is considering building a railroad to link Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea via Iran. India could help build and pay for the Afghan army. If the Pakistani generals see that encouraging Taliban intransigence is creating their worst nightmare—an Afghan-Indian-American alliance—then they may finally wake up to the foolishness of their policies.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Daily Beast

Image Source: Athar Hussain / Reuters

Brookings: Topics - NATO

Crime–War Battlefields

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Toward a Successful Outcome in Afghanistan

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NATO and the Costs of Star Wars

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Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Policy and Arms Control: Issues for the United States, NATO and Russia

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A Record Of Progress: How Afghanistan Improved Under Gen. John Allen

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Nuclear Arms Control: Another New START

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Karzai and Obama Meet in Washington: What Does the Future Hold?

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Don't Rush Out of Afghanistan

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NATO-Russia Missile Defense: Compromise is Possible

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The Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces: History and Lessons Learned

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The Implications of Military Spending Cuts for NATO's Largest Members

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Stuck in the Mud: The Logistics of Getting Out of Afghanistan

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No More Bullying Pakistan

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Are Europeans a Better Transatlantic Security Partner than Meets the Eye?

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The State of Afghanistan

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How to Repair the U.S.-Pakistan Relationship

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