Select Committee on Defence Third Report



NATO's Strategic Interests

16. The definition of NATO's broad strategic interests that will be enshrined in the new Strategic Concept, will have to be debated before and at the Summit. Four factors stand out as key issues in this debate. First, NATO will have to continue to be capable of honouring its mutual territorial defence commitments under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty,[26] now along a new set of borders after enlargement. This remains the Alliance's core function,[27] despite the fact that the Article 5 guarantee has never been triggered, and even though Article 5 threats are unlikely to come from the same source as they did in the past.

17. Second, NATO has a strategic interest in developing effective policies towards a very broad range of security challenges: from 'new' security issues, such as terrorism, information warfare or the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, including to sub-state groups; through contingencies such as the need to provide crisis management, humanitarian aid or provide forces to enforce or monitor peace deals, such as we may see in Kosovo;[28] to enabling cooperation on issues such as the need to deal with environmental degradation or the military implications of the 'millennium bug' as contributions to stability in countries outside the Alliance that are important to European security. We examined the issues of asymmetric threats, the Revolution in Military Affairs and Information Warfare in our Report on the Strategic Defence Review.[29] It is clear that NATO will have to develop strategies to address these developments. It is evident that there have been differing views over how far NATO should go in these directions. However, NATO will in the longer term have to grapple with the problem of how broad a range of security concerns it is prepared to take on, and what resources its members are prepared to devote to them. Although the Alliance must maintain its ability to provide collective defence for all its members, their territorial integrity seems unlikely to be directly threatened in the near to medium term future, and coping with the other diverse challenges to European stability and prosperity will be an immediate preoccupation.

18. Third, NATO must develop a firm strategic purpose along its borders: NATO has policies in relation to individual countries and in dealing with their requests for membership, but it is difficult to discern a strategic purpose in terms of policies towards the sub-regions of Europe, in particular, and most urgently, the Balkans. However, the Alliance cannot afford to allow the current focus on its eastern borders (where most of its new members are likely to come from) to distract it from its other borders.

19. The current crisis in Kosovo indicates the continuing instability of south eastern Europe and the increasingly evident dangers of destabilisation spreading into the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and even further afield, perhaps as far as the former Soviet Union territories. This raises the risk igniting old conflicts between other states in the region.[30] This crisis demonstrates even more vividly than the 1992-95 Bosnian war that instability in one part of Europe constitutes a threat to European peace in general.

20. NATO has already established a strategic purpose to the North and South of its membership area. Although recently emphasis has shifted towards the 'arc of crisis' encompassing the Balkans and middle East, and NATO's interaction with the South has slowed somewhat, a new approach has been outlined towards the Western Mediterranean to help maintain stability in North Africa and address the immediate security concerns of France, Spain and Italy;[31] in the Eastern Mediterranean NATO's purpose is to contain tensions which threaten its unity.[32] The recent rebuff of Turkey by the European Union makes the former's relationship with and engagement within NATO all the more important. Our predecessor Committee looked at many of these issues in the last Parliament[33] and emphasised the importance of NATO's dialogue with its southern neighbours, including military cooperation and liaison.[34] NATO will clearly have to continue its efforts to engage in the Mediterranean region, particularly in the light of increased instability in the Balkans.

21. In the North, the effects of the end of the Cold War have certainly been felt, though in the context where Norway and its Scandinavian partners still have to live close to an overwhelmingly bigger power—Russia. NATO's strategic purpose in relation to Northern Europe remains consistent, and its strategic interests are little changed from the days of the Cold War, though they can be pursued in a rather more relaxed way at present. Nevertheless, the delicacy of addressing issues surrounding the future security of the Baltic states should not be underestimated. NATO's relations with the other non-aligned states in this area—Finland and Sweden—must also be handled with great care. The trend of events in the Northern region may—in the light of NATO's 'open door' policy—demand resolution in more definite terms in the not too distant future.

22. Fourth, NATO must remain capable of managing security in Europe. NATO's role in building a solid security order across the continent is central, but not exclusive. As the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) described to the audience at the recent RUSI conference on NATO's 50th Anniversary,[35] the range of actors with which NATO is required to cooperate has vastly increased since the end of the Cold War. It must therefore provide the necessary cement to keep its members bound together in a deepening 'security community', while helping them individually to work with other security organisations, individual countries and groups of countries, for the benefit of European security as a whole. This is a far more challenging task than was the case during the Cold War as the rationale for NATO is extended beyond collective defence, in a continent of multi-layered and overlapping security arrangements. Failure to meet this challenge would be just as serious as a failure to address any of the other three broad security interests mentioned above.

23. The MoD outlined the government's overall approach to the drafting of the new Strategic Concept in a memorandum to the Committee, reiterating comments made following our Report on the Strategic Defence Review. The government, we were told, wishes to see a NATO which—

  • embodies and maintains the transatlantic relationship;
  • prevents renationalisation of defence;
  • contributes to managing other key relationships and engages Russia;
  • remains an effective and flexible military instrument for dealing with threats and challenges to our security;
  • through engagement with other countries in the region, spreads stability and democratic values; and
  • acts as Allies' primary forum for consultation on all issues of security concern.[36]



26  See Appendix 1 Back

27  Ev p 89 Back

28  QQ 356-399 Back

29  Eighth Report, Session 1997-98, ibid, paras 164-172 Back

30  QQ 374 Back

31  NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue: Brussels Summit Communiqué 8.12.98, para 10. The non-NATO states participating in the Mediterranean Dialogue are Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia Back

32  See also NATO's Role in the Mediterranean, Report by the Mediterranean Special Group of the NAA, 25.8.97, available on the Internet via www.naa.be, and Defence Committee's Third Report, Session 1995-96, NATO's Southern Flank, HC 300 Back

33  Third Report, Session 1995-96, op cit Back

34  ibid, para 41 Back

35  Speech at the Royal United Services Institute, 9 March 1999 Back

36  Ev p 89 Back


 
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Prepared 13 April 1999