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211. How to Renew Transatlantic Relations in the 21st Century

Author:
Marcin Zaborowski
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
The EU and the US, mainly through NATO, have been successful in securing peace and prosperity in Europe during the Cold War and in promoting peace beyond Europe after 1990. With the emergence of new powers and the rise of multipolarity, however, it is no longer apparent that transatlantic relations are indispensable and ways must be found to make sure that the relationship remains relevant. The EU and the US currently relate poorly to each other and as a result do not obtain the best possible outcome from their combined resources. Two elements are key to improving transatlantic relations: an inclusive policy towards Turkey (in the strategic interests of both the EU and the US) and more permanent and workable structures suited to the realities of the 21st century.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Turkey

212. Recent Publications

Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The International Spectator
Institution:
Istituto Affari Internazionali
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
United States and Europe

213. NATO After Libya

Author:
Anders Fogh Rasmussen
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
NATO's sea and air mission in Libya is the first major military engagement undertaken since the global financial crisis. With European NATO allies drastically reducing their defense spending, there were legitimate fears as to whether they could still afford to respond to such complex crises. Reports early on that the operation lacked sufficient strike capabilities reinforced these fears. But the unprecedented speed, scale, and sustained pace of execution of Operation Unified Protector tell a different story. As of early May, the pace of air sorties had remained high since the beginning of the operation, and strikes had accounted for just under half of those sorties. When requirements changed as Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces altered their tactics, NATO allies provided more of the high-precision strike capabilities that the commanders needed. Meanwhile, more than a dozen ships have been patrolling the Mediterranean Sea and enforcing the UN arms embargo. The mission in Libya has revealed three important truths about military intervention today. First, to those who claimed that Afghanistan was to be NATO's last out-of-area mission, it has shown that unpredictability is the very essence of security. Second, it has proved that in addition to frontline capabilities, such as fighter-bombers and warships, so-called enablers, such as surveillance and refueling aircraft, as well as drones, are critical parts of any modern operation. And third, it has revealed that NATO allies do not lack military capabilities. Any shortfalls have been primarily due to political, rather than military, constraints. In other words, Libya is a reminder of how important it is for NATO to be ready, capable, and willing to act. Although defense is and must remain the prerogative of sovereign nations, an alliance that brings Europe and North America together requires an equitable sharing of the burden in order to be efficient. Downward trends in European defense budgets raise some legitimate concerns. At the current pace of cuts, it is hard to see how Europe could maintain enough military capabilities to sustain similar operations in the future. And this touches on a fundamental challenge facing Europe and the alliance as a whole: how to avoid having the economic crisis degenerate into a security crisis. The way Europe responds to this challenge could determine its place in the global order and the future of security.
Topic:
NATO
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Libya, and North America

214. NATO's Retirement? Essays in Honour of Peter Volten

Author:
Margriet Drent (ed), Arjan van den Assem (ed), and Jaap de Wilde (ed)
Publication Date:
01-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for European Security Studies
Abstract:
This book reflects on retirements. Real ones and potential ones. Normally, age is the indicator. End of career is often implied. NATO's retirement can be expected in 2014. According to myth and a bit of historical evidence, in 1889 Bismarck introduced 65 as the proper age for retirement for the very reason that on average most people didn't reach it. Peter Volten will. Nowadays, social welfare states – and also less social ones – have fear for old people. 'Ageing' has been securitized. It forms a threat to the stability of Europe, if not the entire world. The UN's Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing dates back to 1982. But despite its continued attention and relevance, alarming reports keep appearing. “Why an ageing population is the greatest threat to society”, The Independent wrote in 2002 when the UN Second World Assembly on Ageing took place in Madrid: “Of all the threats to human society, including war, disease and natural disaster, one outranks all others. It is the ageing human population. No invading army, volcanic eruption or yet undreamt of plague can rival ageing in the breadth or depth of its impact on society” (Jeremy Laurance in The Independent, 10 April 2002). Still, up to now, ageing has not been listed in the strategic reports of NATO about the new, non-traditional threats. After the Cold War, NATO appeared quite creative in listing new risks and threats, and it still is. The New Strategic Concept adopted in November 2010 tries to provide an answer to “regional disputes or efforts of political intimidation ... along [NATO's] borders ... acts of terrorism, the proliferation of nuclear and other advanced weapons technologies, cyber attacks ... the sabotage of energy pipelines, the disruption of critical maritime supple routes”, and, yes, the Official Report of the Group of Experts on a New Strategic Concept for NATO also mentions “demographic changes that could aggravate such global problems as poverty, hunger, illegal immigration, and pandemic disease” – but ageing is not specified in this context (NATO, 2010).The growing sum of pensions, however, puts the working classes under pressure. It burdens the competitive edge of the European economies. Greying is an economic security issue, and Peter Volten is going to contribute to it.
Topic:
NATO, Demographics, Health, and Population
Political Geography:
Europe and United Nations

215. "In Considerable Doubt"? Canada and the Future of NATO

Author:
David G. Haglund
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
In so many ways, the attacks on New York and Washington of 11 September 2001 might have been expected to result in a diminution of NATO's importance to Canadian grand strategy. At the very least, the onset of what would be billed, alternatively, as the ‚Global War on Terror‛ (the GWOT) and the "Long War," heralded the beginning of a new strategic era, one in which Europe would become of even less strategic significance to Canada than during either the so-called "post-Cold War" era, which spanned the decade between the demise of the Soviet Union and 9/11, or the earlier, and long, Cold War era. And it followed that if the familiar cynosure of Canadian security and defence policy during that earlier era, namely Europe, was going to go on losing importance at an accelerated clip, then so too must the organization whose primary function had been, from its inception in 1949, the safeguarding of Western European security, and with it, of transatlantic security. That organization, of course, was and remains the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It is an organization that, for two decades now, has continued to defy expectations that it must soon fade into obscurity as a vehicle for advancing Canada's strategic interests.
Topic:
NATO and War
Political Geography:
New York, Europe, Washington, and Canada

216. U.S. Missile Defence Site in Europe as an Aliance Security Dilemma

Author:
Lukáš KANTOR
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Obrana a strategie (Defence & Strategy)
Institution:
University of Defence
Abstract:
The main aim of this article is to provide a more solid theoretical anchor for numerous past and present debates about the various versions of American missile defence in Europe. The author claims that the neo-realism's concept of alliance security dilemma is the most appropriate framework for Czech, Polish, Romanian, and EU-wide experts'reflections and political decisions regarding the possible accepting of elements of American or NATO missile defence. Under appreciated explanatory power of the concept of the alliance's security dilemma is illustrated in the text on the case of the original Bush's plan of the so-called third pillar in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Topic:
Security and NATO
Political Geography:
United States, America, Europe, Poland, Rome, and Czech Republic

217. Willing and (un)able. New Defence Policy Guidelines and Reorientation of the Bundeswehr

Author:
Ryszarda Formuszewicz and Marcin Terlikowski.
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
On 18 May, after two and a half months in office, defence Minister Thomas de Maizière presented updated cornerstones of the ongoing Bundeswehr reform, which has been rebranded as a “reorientation” (Neujustierung). On the same day, new Defence Policy Guidelines (DPG) were published, replacing the previous document of 2003. The core message directed to internal public opinion and to international partners both disappointed and displeased with Germany's troubled record in the security policy domain is laid out in the title of the DPG: “Safeguarding National Interests – Assuming International Responsibility – Shaping Security Together.” The DPG delivered a conceptual foundation for the armed forces' transformation process, which will now be based on defined security policy assumptions—a feature lacking in the original reform announced in 2010 under the pressure of a financial consolidation plan. The document is both an outcome of the deteriorating German stance on the international security stage and an opportunity to push Berlin on the road towards assuming a new, more visible role, as a security actor.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, and Asia

218. The Role of Parliaments in Arms Control, Disarmament, and the Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Author:
Marc Finaud
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
From 30 March to 1 April 2011, a high-level workshop was organized for parliamentarians from countries belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Partnership for Peace (PfP). The topic of this event was “The Role of Parliaments in Arms Control, Disarmament, and the Non-Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)”. It was a joint initiative of the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and the WMD Non-Proliferation Centre of NATO. Some thirty-five parliamentarians (including several former government ministers) from twenty-three countries attended the workshop along with the same number of staffers, government representatives, and independent experts.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and NATO
Political Geography:
Europe

219. Increasing Outreach, Public Understanding and Support for NATO across the Transatlantic Community

Author:
Kurt Volker
Publication Date:
07-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
Fixing NATO's public support problem requires the personal commitment of allied leaders (from Prime Ministers on down); tough decisions on resources, capabilities, and operations in order to restore NATO's credibility; and identifying how NATO's actions directly improve the lives of citizens in NATO countries. NATO must be seen as addressing the right issues, successfully, in a way that citizens of allied countries would feel proud to say "This is My NATO."
Topic:
NATO, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Reform
Political Geography:
Afghanistan and Europe

220. Future Options for NATO Nuclear Policy

Author:
Jeffrey A. Larsen
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Atlantic Council
Abstract:
NATO released a new Strategic Concept in November 2010 that maintained its traditional call for continued reliance on nuclear weapons as the ultimate guarantor of its security. But finalizing that document was not easy. Several compromises took place at the Lisbon Summit, including a decision by the Alliance to conduct a Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) by 2012. In addition, the allies chose not to repeat some key wording that had remained unchanged since it was introduced in the 1991 Strategic Concept that the Alliance would "maintain adequate sub-strategic nuclear forces based in Europe." This may provide a political opening for the Alliance to eliminate forward-deployed US nuclear weapons in Europe, should it decide to do so. This brief examines options for NATO nuclear deterrence and assurance policy if that occurs.
Topic:
Security, NATO, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Nuclear Weapons
Political Geography:
Europe and North America