The Cold War Atlantic alliance this year saw its first recruits from the former Soviet empire. We look at the challenges facing NATO as it adjusts to enlargement and its new global security role
Winston Churchill remarked at the end of the Second World War that it is much more complicated to keep a wartime alliance together to secure the peace. The USA and UK lost the USSR as an ally, but in signing the North Atlantic Treaty, 10 western European countries formed an alliance with Canada and the USA that could unite against the Soviet Union and its satellite states, yoked together into the Warsaw Pact bloc.
But when the Cold War ended with the fall of communism, many believed the organisation's raison d'être of providing a physical defence against a land invasion was removed. Indeed, Ron Asmus, executive director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Center military think-tank, told a New Defence Agenda conference on Reinventing NATO last month that although "in the 1990s NATO was perceived to be doomed as a US-western European grouping focused on static defence of territory", its last great gamble to engage with the countries on the opposite side of the Cold War has paid off and the alliance is "busier than ever". This gamble took the form of extending an olive branch to countries in the eastern half of Europe, at first informally.
Romanian deputy defence minister and secretary of state for defence policy Ion Mircea Plângu remembers the time after the revolutions that swept Eastern bloc countries in 1989 as a period of uncertainty. Many states looked to the West for protection against a potentially vengeful Russia, recalls Plângu, whose party was then in opposition. "By tradition, the number one risk was Moscow, even in Soviet times," he says. "I'm sure we were not alone in the Warsaw Pact in having scenarios to fight the USSR." Romania quickly signed a mutual non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, but many others looked to the USA to "improve their posture towards the big oriental neighbour", says Plângu.
After the 1991 attempted coup d'...tat in Moscow and the disintegration of the USSR, NATO formally extended its hand to the east through the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme. Started in 1994, PfP was available to any country within the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. It offered military co-operation, training and joint missions. The culmination of the programme was the admission into the alliance of three former enemy states: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which joined in March 1999 amid much fanfare.
Six years on and those countries are well on their way to transforming their armed forces through greater use of professional soldiers and the acquisition of Western-standard military hardware. But earlier this year the then 19-member club took a far bolder step in welcoming seven more states, including three former Soviet republics. On 29 March Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined NATO along with Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, in the alliance's fifth and largest round of enlargement. Their admission scored a huge symbolic goal in meeting Article 10 of the founding Washington Treaty, which states membership is open to any European state "in a position to further the principles of this treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area". But, increasingly, the alliance is as much about building a coalition able to respond to new threats as it is about purely looking at military capability, says John Colston, NATO assistant secretary general for defence policy and planning.
Bulgaria's head of mission to NATO, Emil Valev, backs up this view. He says in a NATO video: "The expansion of NATO southwards has greatly contributed to making the whole neighbourhood of south-east Europe more secure and more stable." The feeling among NATO experts gathered in Brussels for the heads of government meeting this month is that since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent invoking of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty to fight common threats, the alliance has projected its power to bring stability to troublespots around the world.
Role as peacekeeper
Particularly important in Europe was NATO's engagement in the former Yugoslavia. With new members bordering the simmering cauldrons of the Balkans and eastern Europe, as well as PfP members located in ethnic flashpoints in the Caucasus and central Asia, NATO's role as peacekeeper will become more important.
But if the new states have great strategic value, they are not so significant militarily. Of the seven, only Bulgaria and Romania have armed forces of any size and, along with Slovakia, are the only additions to bring a combat aircraft capability. The three have active fleets totalling 250 RSK MiG-21s and MiG-29s, and Sukhoi Su-22s and Su-25s. NATO says it provides fighters from other member states to patrol the airspace of the three Baltic countries and Slovenia because the air forces in those states lack capability. However, all seven entrants could offer NATO transport aircraft and utility helicopters. The arrival of the seven also benefits existing members, says Valev, who suggests his country will "help keep the instability in the western Balkans at bay and entail lower costs for NATO-led missions".
Beyond strategic geography, however, the new members will also bring military capability, modernised and brought into line through drawing up each country's membership action plan (MAP), detailing areas where existing NATO members feel reform is needed. After NATO's previous round of expansion, the Czech Republic signed a 10-year innovative lease-to-buy deal with Sweden's Defence Materiel Administration (FMV) for 14 Saab JAS39C/D Gripen fighters. Hungary has also opted for the Gripen, leasing 14 from the FMV, while Poland split from the pack and opted to purchase Lockheed Martin's F-16C/D multirole fighter.
The acquisition of new equipment is not the only area for military reform, however. Bulgaria, for example, is well advanced in modernising its armed forces, reducing army personnel by 50% and decommissioning 60% of its heavy combat equipment, says Valev. Now attention has turned to technology upgrades. "Since 1998 priority in modernisation is attached to command, control and communications systems and air surveillance," says Valev. Key projects include the creation of the Air Sovereignty Operational Centre, which will enable the alignment of the Bulgarian air defence system with the NATO integrated air defence system.
Romania, uniquely among the 2005 intake, already operated its armed forces along semi-Western lines, says Plângu. "During the Soviet era we were independent within the Warsaw Pact, a little like France within NATO," he says. Former aircraft engineer Plângu recalls that the Romanian air force trained to French or UK pilot standards and used manuals in French and English. "We were better placed than the other Warsaw Pact countries because we were exposed to foreign languages earlier and our procedures were based on those in the West."
Upgraded MiG-21s
Some early air force decisions also stood the country in good stead for eventual NATO membership, says Plângu. Along with other former communist states, Romania received ex-Soviet equipment from East Germany on unification. Bucharest received MiG-21s and in 1996 contracted local supplier Aerostar and Israel's Elbit Systems to upgrade the type's avionics to Lancer standard. "This cost-effective solution enabled our pilots to cross over to other platforms much more easily and today all of our pilots are exposed to digital cockpits," says Plângu. A 1996 order for five Lockheed C-130 transports has also worked in Romania's favour, with the fleet used in most NATO operations in recent years.
But modernised equipment and Western procedures do not guarantee a country's entry into NATO. Plângu says Romania was at an equal if not better state of development compared to the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1997 when their accession protocols were signed. He claims Romania was held back because of political pressure in Washington to make round one of enlargement in the east as seamless as possible.
"There was no real reason to reject Romania in 1998, but [the USA] had been working so hard [on the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland's accession] that they offered us a special extra stage to complete instead," Plângu says. But NATO says the USA has no veto on applications, adding: "All NATO countries have to agree, so you can't say the USA blocked Romania. All the criteria are performance-based."
The delay of Romania's signature of accession protocols until March 2003 was largely due to political reforms required, says NATO. Like other countries, Romania also had financial reform to carry out before formal accession talks. "We introduced defence planning with multi-year budgeting," says Plângu. "Before, under a socialist system, the equipment needs were defined by those in [the] defence acquisition department."
The alliance approved Romania's defence planning law in 1998, but it was too late to save a muchfêted deal with Bell Helicopter for 96 AH-1RO Cobra helicopters, dubbed "Draculas", which was tied to investment in Romanian manufacturer IAR Brasov. The deal was cancelled in 1999 because of a financial crisis in the country. This highlights a real risk for the new seven as they look towards future requirements. For example, although Romania's MiG-21s have several years of airframe life left and should be retired by 2010, Plângu refuses to be drawn on replacements other than to confirm there is a requirement. NATO recommends the defence budget to be above 2% of gross domestic product, but with small economies, this will not buy much hardware, so additional lease-to-buy deals are expected.
But the challenges facing the seven recent additions to NATO do not seem to have put off others – Albania, Croatia and the formerYugoslav republic of Macedonia are now on the MAP road to membership. They are all bound by the PfP planning and review process (PARP), which assesses partners' capabilities for multinational training, exercises and operations with alliance forces. One PARP requirement is for armed forces to be under democratic control.
NATO says it does not know when the MAP three will be admitted or even whether all three will be accepted at the same time, but 2007 looks a likely target. Following these, there are several aspiring future candidates in the remaining 20 PfP countries, with the remaining former Yugoslav republics looking likeliest. But there could be movement from closer to the organisation's Brussels headquarters.
NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer attended the first Nordic partnership forum with Finland and Sweden last month and either largely NATO-compliant armed force joining the alliance is no longer impossible, says Finnish defence minister Seppo Kääriänen. But he says more attention needs to be paid to non-NATO European countries involved in battlegroups in places such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, where Finland contributes forces to a European Union force.
Force for stability
There is also interest from outside existing PfP nations. Ukraine, for example, which is currently engaged in the wider 46-country Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council that also includes Russia, has signalled that after its recent change of government, it could consider both EU and NATO membership. Anton Buteiko, Ukrainian first deputy minister for foreign affairs, says he sees NATO as a force for stability. "We'd like both the EU and NATO efforts to stabilise the region as there are several frozen conflicts to be resolved."
De Hoop Scheffer says the key geographical question facing NATO is to build co-operation with regions of the world with common views, such as the Caucasus and central Asia. The secretary general also highlights political, military, institutional and intellectual changes required to keep the alliance relevant in its sixth decade. The challenge is to transform it into an organisation that can respond to the changing threats of terrorist attack, rather than geographical invasion (Flight International, 31 May–6 June).
As Romuald Ratajczak, adviser to the Polish NATO delegation, puts it: "During the Cold War, NATO was a hard fist; now it needs to be like a strong hand, able to subtly tweak and play various instruments, but able to clench back into a fist."
JUSTIN WASTNAGE/BRUSSELS & CRAIG HOYLE/LONDON
Source: Flight International
