21 June 2011
The speech on the future of NATO given by outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is one that deserves to be studied carefully by policy makers here in Canada. Not only does the speech contain gems of truth, but it is remarkable for its consistency with Candidate Barack Obama’s policy pronouncements. The question remains whether Europe actually gets the message, or if they get it whether they are prepared to gamble that Obama is bluffing.
The real gem of truth is the proposition that the purpose of defense spending is to generate real combat power.
Since the Vietnam War, and especially since the fall of the Soviet Union, defense spending in Canada and Europe has been looked upon with suspicion. With the end of the threat of the invasion of Europe by the Soviet hordes, what was the purpose of having powerful militaries, people asked? Since neither Canada nor Europe were going to invade another country, and since they no longer feared invasion themselves, a military capable of projecting combat power in an overseas expedition seemed an unnecessary drain on budgets constrained by popular social spending. The requirements of the situation in the former Yugoslavia seemed to be the limit of the need for military power. As Gates observed, even since 9/11, money spent in Europe ostensibly on defense was not always directed towards the procurement and development of real military power. “Soft power” came to be a fashionable excuse.
The examples of Gulf War I in 1991, Iraq, and Afghanistan failed to impress European policymakers of the need for the continued development and improvement of their combat power since these wars to them were examples of Europe being dragged along by the interests of the United States. The contribution of forces of the major European powers in Iraq and Afghanistan were meant for more for political symbolism and political cover than to do what militaries are meant to do: break things and kill bad guys. And for symbolism, real military power is unnecessary.
The Europeans no doubt reasoned that if the United States was prepared to do nearly everything, and had nothing more to offer to the Europeans by way of wealth or security, why bother putting in more effort than necessary to support the Americans when mere presence was enough?
There were European exceptions: the U.K.,of course; and the smaller European countries recently liberated from the Soviet Union who would like to establish their bona fides with the United States as good allies. Canada, for reasons peculiar to it, decided to take on a combat role in Kandahar and in so doing discovered that combat and combat power gives a country serious credibility in foreign affairs. Canada’s near-fraternal closeness to the United States made the taking of casualties by our army politically acceptable domestically: in a real way Canada was sharing both the danger and the burden in Afghanistan on behalf of America and we could look them in the face.
Gates noted in his speech that he was one of a succession of U.S defense secretaries to call upon Europeans to spend more on their own defense. But in his speech in Berlin on July 24th, 2008, then Senator Barack Obama said, “Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century.” [italics added.]
The people of Europe went wild over that statement since it seemed to them that Candidate Obama was admitting to American excesses in the past and was prepared to rein-in American foreign policy and bring it more into line with European ideas and policy.
Europeans may be forgiven if at that moment it did not strike them that Candidate Obama was gently telling them that he expected them to start pulling their own weight in military matters. Since America was near maximum commitment, NATO could only get stronger by greater European commitment to the alliance. Constant cooperation and shared sacrifice meant that European forces would have to take on work that Americans were then doing and Europeans were not sharing in. And a commitment to progress and the challenges of the 21st century were goals of American foreign policy, since progress and the challenges were American conceptions not European ones.
To cynical European eyes, Gates plea for more defense power by Europe is an attempt to get Europe to do more of America’s fighting so that the Americans can do less. That America’s financial house is in disorder impresses the Europeans not at all since the Euro zone is itself in a mess, with bailouts and risks of default by Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland. None of these calculations by Europeans are surprising to students of Clausewitz or Machiavelli.
The new factor in the poker game was Gates’ placing of America’s current commitment in Europe on the table. The threat was plain enough that if Europeans did not support the Americans more with real military power, the Americans might drawdown their forces in Europe. Such action would not only amount to an indirect military threat though the withdrawal of American protection, but also a real and direct economic one since American forces spend so much money in the European economy. The question is whether the Europeans think the Americans are bluffing. The European chancelleries may gamble that America still sees its first line of defense as lying in Europe, and that the cost to their economies of a partial drawdown would be less than the cost of higher military spending. They may also be faced with domestic political opposition to cooperating with the Americans in military matters.
Canada’s foreign policy prefers a strong NATO alliance and a strong NORAD. With our commitment to Afghanistan, now extending to 2014, and with our deployment of forces as well as the commander of the whole shootin’ match to the NATO operation over Libya, we have upheld our end of the commitment to a strong NATO and our direct alliance with the United States. As in Afghanistan, Canada has zero interest in Libya. Our commitment is to a strong NATO alliance and to good bilateral relations with the United States, and those interests are what lead Canada to Afghanistan and Libya. We are committed to purchase the next generation of high-tech aircraft from an American company to be able to uphold our end of NORAD for the next 30 years.
It is out of Canadian hands the fate of NATO and the level of American involvement in Europe. We can say we have done our part and our duty. We stood by America when and where it counted.
The NATO alliance will not collapse all at once, or soon. Withal, Canada’s foreign policy and her place and prestige in the world today, regardless of the international situation, is well served by a military capable of projecting serious military power overseas and by being able to sustain that power for a long time. For such a capability to be economic, we need to cooperate with partners in an alliance; but we cannot rely on a cooperative partnership too much, for then we and our military become downright dependent and a burden to others.
Gates’s observation that the purpose of military spending is to be able to project real combat power when the time comes is a serious one policymakers in Canada should take note of. That proposition should be a guiding principle in parliamentary debates on the defense budget. This is not to say that Canadian Forces should not be used in peacekeeping, but peacekeeping is only possible when a military is really capable. And realistically, looking back over peacekeeping since 1956, peacekeeping has not been a cost-effective means of solving international problems. The antagonists don’t cool off, and both sides tend develop an economic interest in keeping peacekeepers deployed. As a policy, UN peacekeeping has generally been a failure.
Gates’ and Obama’s threat against Europe only affects Canada insofar as NATO is concerned. For Canada, NATO is valuable as a defensive off-set to American power; but that alliance is failing. Because we share the same continent with America, America’s commitment to our defense is deeper than it is with Europe. However, to rely too much on American power for our own defense is to place our sovereignty at risk and denies Canada a place at the table of serious foreign policy talks.
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