Executive Summary
Two years ago, NATO adopted a “back to the future” strategy of forward defense and deterrence following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To implement it, allies committed to take various measures to strengthen their deterrence and defense at the 2022 Madrid Summit. As NATO leaders gather in Washington for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit, this paper takes stock of allied efforts to strengthen collective defense. It finds they have made substantial progress on defense spending, forward defense, high-readiness forces, command and control, collective defense exercises, and integrating Finland and Sweden—achievements which should be recognized in Washington. However, while NATO might be ready for war, the question remains whether it is ready to fight—and thereby deter—a protracted war. To meet this goal, allies still need to spend more, boost industrial capacity, address critical capability gaps, and bolster national resilience.
Introduction
Si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. If the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) did not already have a motto—animus in consulendo liber, “in discussion a free mind”—this Latin adage would fit the alliance’s purpose quite well. The phrase conveys a piece of timeless deterrence logic: preparing for war might be the best way of averting it.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, NATO adopted a new “back to the future” strategic concept which returned Russia to its Cold War status of adversary and put deterrence and defense back at the heart of alliance strategy. NATO revealed the concept at the 2022 Madrid Summit alongside a wide range of commitments which NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg described as amounting to a “fundamental shift to our deterrence and defence.”
In less than a month, NATO leaders will gather in Washington for the alliance’s 75th anniversary summit. Ahead of that historic meeting, this paper takes stock of the progress NATO allies have made in implementing the commitments made two years ago in Madrid.
The paper comprises three sections. The first briefly recaps NATO’s efforts to strengthen defense and deterrence since 2014 and considers Russia’s current threat to NATO. The second assesses the progress made by NATO allies in implementing their Madrid commitments to strengthen deterrence and defense across the nine issue areas described in the Madrid Summit Declaration. The final section uses this assessment to gauge whether NATO is ready for war.
The Road to Washington
NATO’s journey toward stronger deterrence and defense began at the 2014 Wales Summit where allies responded to Russia’s annexation of Crimea by making long-term commitments to raise defense spending above 2 percent of GDP. Their near-term focus was on adapting NATO’s force posture. This started with the 2014 Readiness Action Plan, followed by establishing four Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) multinational battlegroups in the east in 2016. In 2018, the NATO Readiness Initiative improved the state of NATO’s high-readiness forces.
While the 2022 Strategic Concept garnered public attention, another NATO concept agreed upon in 2020 was already quietly revolutionizing deterrence and defense: the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) concept. The DDA focuses on “force employment to deter and defend today.” Following Russia’s 2022 invasion, NATO activated its defense plans, making 40,000 troops—plus air, naval, and other assets—available to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). Four new EFP missions followed, alongside a strengthened maritime posture, air policing, air defense, and multinational exercises.
NATO planning was further transformed at last year’s Vilnius summit with the unveiling of new defense plans, another product of the DDA. “The DDA family of plans,” as SACEUR, U.S. general Christopher G. Cavoli, describes them, include three regional plans (covering northern, central, and southern Europe) alongside domain-specific plans (for land, air, maritime, cyber, and space forces) as well as plans for logistics and sustainment. As one recent analysis suggests: “None of this would have been possible without the DDA.”
Ready for War?
Russia’s actions in Ukraine confirmed the fears of many that Vladimir Putin would seek to continue the Stalinist subjugation of Russia’s near abroad. The war suggests that the worst-case thinking about Russia’s “maximum intentions” that historically guided NATO’s planning is warranted for the foreseeable future. Putin’s apparent propensity for aggression, risk taking, and strategic miscalculation makes him a dangerous adversary—and a difficult one to deter.
Russia has seen staggering losses in Ukraine but has “almost completely reconstituted militarily” to pre-war levels thanks to national mobilization and a war economy supported by China, Iran, and North Korea. Beyond Ukraine, Russia is making nuclear threats against NATO and stepping up hybrid threats across Europe. Several European leaders have warned that Russia could attack NATO allies within three, four, five, or eight years. Not only is China helping Russia’s military reconstitute, but the prospect of coordinated aggression between Moscow and Beijing has many implications for NATO—the most serious being the implications for U.S. force posture in Europe.
To paraphrase Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, what kind of war should NATO prepare for?[1] Perhaps the most stressing scenario is a rapid territory seizure by Russian forces in the Baltic region. Variations of this scenario have been described, wargamed, and analyzed in recent years, almost becoming cliché, but it should not be dismissed.[2] In military planning jargon, it is the “most likely” and “most dangerous” course of action for Russia to take.
It is the likeliest scenario for any Russian conventional attack on NATO because the local force balance drastically favors Russia. This does not mean it is likely—a lot of things would have to go badly for Russia to consider this a good option—just that it might be the most likely NATO-Russia war scenario. Despite all the warnings from NATO leaders, the jury is still out on whether (and why) Russia would invade.
The consequences mean NATO planners must be prepared, as this kind of invasion risks nuclear escalation and is hard to reverse. Any NATO operation to regain lost ground would require establishing air superiority and control of the Baltic Sea before massing a significant local ground force. Even with NATO assurances, this situation is sufficiently threatening under Russian doctrine for Moscow to deploy non-strategic nuclear weapons for coercive or military purposes—forcing NATO to threaten nuclear use to compel withdrawal and reestablish deterrence.
This is why Baltic officials describe the best strategy as “repel, don’t expel.” It is also why NATO’s new strategic concept returned deterrence by denial and forward defense to the core of alliance strategy. As with the Cold War, deterrence by punishment—which relies primarily on the “sword” of U.S., UK, and French strategic nuclear forces—will continue to do most of the heavy lifting to deter the most serious threats to NATO allies. But just like in the Cold War, NATO allies will increasingly rely on forward-based “shield” forces to strengthen conventional deterrence and defense. This paper focuses on the commitments made by NATO allies in Madrid to do just this.[3] The next section analyzes these commitments in detail.
From Madrid to Washington: Assessing Commitments by NATO Allies to Strengthen Deterrence and Defense
Defense Spending
Source link : https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-ready-war
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Publish date : 2024-06-11 12:55:56
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