{"id":3179,"date":"2014-03-04T19:03:36","date_gmt":"2014-03-04T19:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/?p=3179"},"modified":"2017-11-14T21:28:20","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T19:28:20","slug":"natos-strategic-ace-vladimir-putin-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/natos-strategic-ace-vladimir-putin-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NATO\u2019s strategic ace: Vladimir Putin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was on the road to irrelevance. The most successful military alliance in history has lacked a real enemy since the Soviet Union disintegrated a quarter of a century ago. \u00a0After a dozen years of war in Afghanistan, \u00a0NATO\u2019s role is coming to an ignominious end.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of Afghan President Hamid Karzai\u2019s refusal to sign a Basic Security Agreement (BSA), NATO is now forced to plan for the withdraw of all of its military forces by the end of 2014. \u00a0Without substantial coalition forces and, as important, the money and aid Afghanistan receives because of that presence, the Karzai government will be unable to prevent the Taliban, local tribes, warlords and gangs from wresting power and control away from Kabul. \u00a0Violence, chaos and instability loom as the legacies of \u00a0NATO\u2019s engagement.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All but a few NATO states are slashing defense spending and all are looking inwards making domestic needs top political priorities. \u00a0The next NATO heads of state and government summit slated to meet in Wales this September is likely to turn out as a wake and not a welcomed and long overdue rejuvenation of the alliance. \u00a0As a precursor of summit bad news, the new, ultra-modern headquarters building in Brussels is already 250 million Euros over budget and two years behind schedule.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Obama administration\u2019s pivot to Asia, civil war in Syria, and grave uncertainty in Ukraine have conspired to put NATO and the summit on a distant back burner. \u00a0Indeed, Obama\u2019s focus in Europe is and should be on negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). \u00a0Unfortunately, Obama\u2019s own party in Congress is proving to be a major obstacle for passage despite Joe Biden\u2019s strong advocacy piece in last week\u2019s Financial Times for these trade agreements.<\/span><\/p>\n

But wait. \u00a0As Dick Cheney famously promised in the 2000 election, \u201chelp is on the way.\u201d \u00a0Riding to NATO\u2019s rescue is, incredibly, Russian President Vladimir Putin. \u00a0Putin\u2019s heavy handed tactics in Ukraine and the Crimea will backfire. \u00a0While the crisis is far from settled, even if Putin does not attempt to occupy the Crimea or intervene more forcefully in Ukraine, he has set off alarm bells in Europe and NATO.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A 1994 agreement between Russia, the U.S. and U.K. guaranteed Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty in return for disposing of the nuclear missiles stationed there during the Cold War. \u00a0Unlike Georgia where President Mikheil Saakashvili took the Russian bait and attacked first giving Moscow reason to retaliate, no such situation exists in Ukraine. It is true that the eastern half is ethnically Russian. \u00a0But unless Ukraine agrees to ceding any territory, there are no legal \u00a0grounds for partition. <\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, NATO\u2019s newer members in the Baltic and Central and Southern Europe have been increasingly uncomfortable with their neighbor to the East. \u00a0Moscow\u2019s use of energy and military maneuvers to intimidate and threaten has not gone down well. \u00a0The situation in Ukraine has only heightened these sensitivities.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The heart of the Washington Treaty of 1949 that created NATO is Article V: \u201cAn attack against one is an attack against all.\u201d \u00a0Unless the situation in Ukraine cools down quickly, the September summit will be granted new life. \u00a0And new life should focus around reaffirming Article V.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That Putin has promised to spend billions of additional rubles to rebuild Russian defenses will be further ammunition to making the Article V case. \u00a0But it is imperative that NATO gets this right. To do that, planning and thinking must start now.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First, the summit cannot be seen as provoking a mini or second cold war. \u00a0Second, NATO has about 3.3 million people in uniform and spends just under a trillion dollars on defense each year—formidable numbers that need to be highlighted. \u00a0Third, as outgoing NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has called for \u201csmart defense,\u201d in this case, response to Putin must be very smart indeed.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond discussion of Afghanistan that is high on the agenda, this must be the summit that reaffirms and reassures allies on Article V. \u00a0The best and least costly way of demonstrating this reaffirmation is through contingency planning and tabletop and command post exercises aimed at reinforcing the eastern most countries in time of crisis. \u00a0This does not require tens of thousands of forces. \u00a0But, for example, exercises that show how the U.S. and other NATO states might be able to redeploy forces inside NATO will be a powerful signal to Moscow.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

NATO would become a more visible insurance policy but with low premiums. \u00a0Reassurance is the coin of the realm. \u00a0At the same time, far more aggressive arms control and confidence building measures with Moscow must be pursued.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span> If we are smart, a big if, Vlad Putin can help save the alliance. But we must help him.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was on the road to irrelevance. The most successful military alliance in history has lacked a real enemy since the Soviet Union disintegrated a quarter of a century ago. \u00a0After a dozen years of war in Afghanistan, \u00a0NATO\u2019s role is coming to an ignominious end. Because of Afghan President Hamid Karzai\u2019s refusal to sign a Basic Security Agreement (BSA), NATO is now forced to plan for the withdraw of all of its military forces by the end of 2014. \u00a0Without substantial coalition forces and, as important, the money and aid Afghanistan receives because of that presence, the Karzai government will be unable to prevent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,79,84,76,86,102,66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","category-defense-homeland-security","category-global-governance","category-harlan-ullman-en","category-international-peace-security","category-issues","category-studies-and-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3180,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3179\/revisions\/3180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}