Don’t Abandon NATO, Just Adjust Our Contribution

Commentary

As a military alliance, NATO has been a hollow organization since this century’s early years. The disparity of contributions among NATO’s members is a long-standing problem. However, it is a useful organization for strategic dialogue and as a source of strongly worded press releases that promise powerful symbolic action. Abandoning NATO removes any possibility of the United States benefiting from NATO’s strengths. It would be far wiser to simply modify America’s participation to something that more closely matches what the Europeans do.

First among the changes should be a review of U.S. funding of the NATO infrastructure. Forty years ago, the United States provided 80 percent of those funds, a contribution based on the state of the European members’ economies in the early 1960s. Those days are gone. Europe’s economic power is nearly double what it was when that calculation was made. Whatever the United States contributes today should be cut in half immediately and reviewed every two years.

Secondly, U.S. leaders should review our rules of engagement (ROE) when working with NATO. For example, in Afghanistan, many NATO members’ ROE precluded their leaving the compounds and bases, not even to assist U.S. or other NATO forces in combat. They watched and sympathized. One NATO member contingent reportedly paid the Taliban to leave its forces alone. If true, it funded and freed the Taliban units to attack the Afghan government and NATO member forces elsewhere. The British, Canadian, French, and in the early going, the Danes and Norwegians, were the only allies that contributed to the fighting. The Germans finally joined at the end but generally only provided security where there was little to no threat. But otherwise, to quote an unnamed American soldier, ISAF stood for “I Saw Americans Fight,” rather than International Security Assistance Force. Outside Afghanistan, the Dutch and Poles contributed greatly in Iraq, and the latter have taken their commitment to NATO very seriously.

Moreover, ROE is a political decision, and it is unfair to penalize a nation’s soldiers for political decisions made at home. However, our military people shouldn’t suffer as a result. The solution is to inform NATO leaders that our troops will employ the same ROE as the most restrictive participating NATO member country. We will defend our bases, but if restricted-ROE units are attacked outside American compounds, we will observe and sympathize with concern. Any additional responses will be determined by our interpretation of that nation’s ROE.

Then there is the issue of stationing. As French President Emmanuel Macron learned from his attempted European Union peacekeeping force in Ukraine, real leadership required having French troops stand on the front line of danger, not arguing over which of the most-distant areas from danger they would choose to station their troops. Of course, their ROE prohibited them from deploying forward to support the French contingents on the front line. Macron realized that the French voting public would not support French troops standing against danger without hope of support from their “allies.”

Then there is the issue of stationing U.S. troops. In Germany, U.S. forces pay rent and local property taxes for the land on which our bases sit. There are similar arrangements in other NATO member countries hosting our forces. Yet, there is a growing movement in Germany for the U.S. forces to leave. Well, Washington should recognize these desires and move the troops elsewhere—either back to the United States or forward to a country that would welcome their presence, such as Poland. In either case, the long-term savings will more than compensate for the short-term costs. Members of Congress may have to adjust their winter shopping—sorry, “inspection”—visit schedules, but that is a small sacrifice to make for reduced U.S. defense costs.

Finally, there is the issue of collective NATO defense spending. Most Western European NATO members have structured their defense budgets so they can abandon the increased spending once U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office. More importantly, defense spending is a false metric because astute politicians both in the United States and in Europe pack their respective defense budgets with non-defense “pork” to garner votes at home. A better metric would be to require each ally to contribute capabilities to the alliance. That would require an honest evaluation of what is required to ensure Europe’s defense, but it will at least provide a solid metric to measure commitment and capabilities. Then, instead of the false chimera of a monetary allocation, NATO and U.S. leaders can calculate the alliance’s true capabilities.

All of these changes necessitate study of the alliance’s requirements and the expectations of its members. The unifying threat of the Soviet Union is gone, and while Russia has resurrected itself as a threat, only NATO’s Eastern European members take the threat seriously. The Western European members see their Eastern counterparts as buffer states and expect that the United States will deploy forces forward to do the fighting. They will do something symbolic, such as the French-led naval deployment to the Middle East, in which its task group will deploy to the Strait of Hormuz only when the war is over and the danger has passed. In effect, they are declaring their willingness to provide security when it is no longer needed. That makes it a symbolic deployment, and the United States should inform NATO members that they are not the only ones who can make “symbolic commitments and deployments.”

America can no longer afford to subsidize Europe’s defense. NATO can provide little more than symbolic support to any U.S. effort to halt aggression in the Middle East or Asia. It is time to accept that. NATO’s claim to a global role is more rhetorical than real. None of the members can deliver significant forces far from Europe, and their increasingly non-European populations have little interest in making such commitments. But NATO still has a role in European defense. Americans must recognize that, but Europe must realize America’s commitment to Europe can no longer exceed that of the Europeans themselves.

Carl O. Schuster is a retired U.S. Navy captain who served in a variety of American and allied warships, submarines, and headquarters during his 25-year career. He recently retired as a university lecturer and defense consultant. He currently resides in Honolulu.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.