CHAPTER II: A STRATEGY OF ENGAGEMENT
The key elements of U.S. defense strategy worldwide are:
- To shape the international security environment in ways that promote and protect U.S. national interests.
- To respond, if necessary, to the full spectrum of crises, from deterring aggression or coercion and conducting smaller-scale contingency operations, to fighting and winning major theater wars.
- To prepare now for an uncertain future through focused modernization efforts, pursuing the revolution in military affairs, and hedging against unlikely but significant future threats.
In the EuroAtlantic region, we pursue our shape, respond, and prepare strategy through three mutually reinforcing layers of engagement centered on NATO, multilateral engagement with countries participating in NATO's Partnership for Peace (PfP) and members of the EU, and bilateral engagement with individual Allies and Partners. Within each layer of engagement, U.S. military forces stationed in Europe play a key role in advancing our security objectives.
NATO
Although the United States maintains strong bilateral defense links with many countries around the world, in the Euro-Atlantic region we have committed ourselves to an alliance of sovereign states whose fundamental purpose is to protect the freedom and security of each and every member. NATO is a living, dynamic institution where U.S. military officers, diplomats, and civil servants work side-by-side with counterparts from 17 European states and Canada to consult on, organize, and carry out a vast range of activities and operations that advance agreed Alliance political and military objectives.
NATO helps to shape the security environment by building solidarity, cohesion, and transparency in defense planning within the Alliance, ensuring that no Ally is forced to rely solely upon its national efforts in dealing with basic security challenges. Since 1995, NATO has been conducting crisis response operations with its Partners in the Balkans every single-day, thus actively building security in the European region. NATO's maintenance of credible military forces enables it to deter aggression and coercion and, in a crisis, respond to a range of security threats. And through its political-military consultative bodies and defense planning bodies, NATO helps to prepare the Allies to meet future threats. Thus, a fundamental point of U.S. strategy is to maintain NATO as the preeminent organization for ensuring transatlantic security and the anchor of American engagement in Europe.
In the years to come, NATO will continue to play a leading role in guaranteeing European security and promoting and building stability throughout Europe. The Alliance is now pursuing numerous initiatives that will permit it to function more effectively as it moves into the 21st century.
At the Washington Summit in April 1999, NATO's 19 heads of state and government adopted a new Strategic Concept to adapt and prepare the Alliance for current and future challenges. The Strategic Concept envisages a larger, more capable and more flexible Alliance. It reaffirms NATO's core function of collective defense, even as it expresses NATO's willingness to respond to crises that arise from regional or ethnic conflicts.
In an effort to better prepare NATO internally to meet these challenges, the Strategic Concept provides guidance to NATO military authorities and tasks them to develop, through the Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI) (1), military capabilities to carry out new missions and improve interoperability among NATO forces. The Strategic Concept also recognizes the importance of the European Security and Defense Initiative (ESDI) as an essential element of Alliance adaptation that would foster a more effective European contribution to Alliance security.
The Strategic Concept addresses future external adaptation of the Alliance. It underscores, for example, the importance of NATO's Partnerships with other countries in the Euro-Atlantic region and recognizes the need for consultation and joint action. As part of a broader effort to enhance stability and sustain reform throughout Europe, the Strategic Concept reaffirms that NATO's door remains open to future enlargement. |
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NATO in brief
In April 1949, ten European nations, Canada, and the United States signed the North Atlantic Treaty in Washington, D.C. Since 1952, seven more European nations have joined the original twelve members of the Alliance. NATO's essential and enduring purpose, set out in the Washington Treaty, is to safeguard the freedom and security of all its members by political and military means.
Article 4 of the Treaty states that "(t)he Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened." For this reason, NATO serves as an essential transatlantic forum for Allied consultations on issues that affect the vital interests of the member nations.
Article 5 contains the commitment of all Allies to deter and defend against any threat of aggression against any Ally. It states: "The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all, and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."
Article 10 of the Treaty leaves the door open for the accession of new members, who may be invited by unanimous agreement to accede to the Treaty. New members must be in a position to further the principles of the Washington Treaty and contribute to the security of its member states.
Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, NATO has several key policy and decision-making institutions:
- The North Atlantic Council (NAC), made up of Permanent Representatives of the 19 members, is the principal decision-making authority of the Alliance. The NAC-which also meets at higher levels involving Heads of Government, Foreign Ministers and Defense Ministers-makes decisions based on consensus. The NAC selects a Secretary General who chairs its meetings and directs an international staff of civil servants and military experts.
- The Defense Planning Committee (DPC) is normally composed of Permanent Representatives, but meets at the level of Defense Ministers at least twice a year. It deals with most defense matters and subjects related to collective defense planning. With the exception of France, all member countries are represented in the DPC.
- Defense Ministers of member countries participating in the DPC meet in the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG), where they discuss specific policy issues associated with Alliance nuclear forces.
- To assist and advise the NAC, DPC, and NPG on military matters, each member country names a senior military officer to serve as their national Military Representative to NATO. These representatives also form the Military Committee (MC), which is headed by an elected chairman who serves as the MC's spokesman and representative and acts on its behalf in issuing guidance to the International Military Staff.
NATO's integrated military structure is divided into two Strategic Commands. The head-quarters of the Allied Command Europe-referred to as the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE)-is located near Mons, Belgium. SHAPE is responsible for the over-all planning, direction, and conduct of all Alliance military activities within its command area (from the northern tip of Norway to Southern Europe, including the Mediterranean, and from the Atlantic coastline to the eastern border of Turkey). The Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT) is headquartered in Norfolk, Virginia. SACLANT is responsible for safeguarding the Allies' sea lanes of communication, supporting land and amphibious operations, and protecting the deployment of the Alliance's sea-based nuclear deterrent in his command area (from the North Pole to the Tropic of Cancer and from the coastal waters of North America to those of Europe and Africa.) |
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Multilateral and Bilateral Engagement
Complementing our engagement through NATO and other fora, the United States advances its shape, respond, and prepare objectives through diverse multilateral and bilateral security relations with Allies and Partners.
In close cooperation with its Allies, the United States plays a key role in several multilateral efforts to shape transatlantic security, build regional stability, and reduce the risk of conflict. Through PfP and its political component, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), 26 states reaching from Ireland to Russia and Finland to Turkmenistan are developing increasingly transparent and cooperative relationships with NATO and with one another. Under NATO-sponsored PfP programs, several Partners are receiving multilateral support for needed defense reforms, which contribute to their development as viable democracies (2).
Cooperation with our Allies and Partners has contributed to our ability to respond to crises in Europe and beyond. Many of our Allies have made military contributions to combined operations with U.S. forces undertaken throughout the world. In Europe, our Allies and Partners have assumed a large share of the responsibilities and burdens in peace support operations in the Balkans.
In the multilateral realm, smaller groupings, such as the Baltic Security Assistance Group (BALTSEA) and Southeastern Europe Defense Ministerial (SEDM) process, permit Allies and Partners to work together on practical, regional defense cooperation. Such multilateral engagement activities also prepare Partners to participate, when they so choose, in NATO-led or other international crisis response operations.
In the bilateral realm, the United States cooperates with individual Allies and Partners over a broad spectrum of activities, including military exercises, training, security assistance, and efforts to prevent the proliferation of NBC weapons. To help build a basis for cooperation and guide the implementation of agreed programs, we conduct rigorous and regular bilateral working groups and staff talks with Allies and Partners. Our bilateral relations also include tailored security assistance and cooperation programs to provide certain Allies and Partners with requested training and equipment to help them meet their Alliance commitments or Partnership goals. With some Allies, the United States has basing or other access arrangements involving the presence of U.S. military forces on their territory. Such arrangements are vital to meeting our Alliance commitments.
Bilateral engagement with European Allies remains a necessary method to build consensus within NATO and address specific issues where NATO as a whole is not involved, or where other multilateral fora are found to be less effective. Certain Allies share broader interests with the United States in other regions-for example, in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. Strong bilateral ties are indispensable in instances where the United States might join with one or more Ally to undertake military operations in a "coalition of the willing" outside NATO.
The United States seeks over the long term to achieve the greatest possible synergies between our multilateral and bilateral engagement strategies. Still, we remain sensitive to the legitimate political and security concerns of individual Allies, accept the fact that we cannot have identical relationships with each of them, and understand that we will not always agree with every Ally on issues of concern to us. That is the inherent nature and one of the greatest strengths of our Alliance of sovereign, democratic countries. Through complementary multilateral and bilateral approaches, we will build transatlantic security links that are strong, resilient, and able to ease the inevitable frictions-or even absorb the occasional shocks-in U.S. relations with Europe.
1. The Defense Capabilities Initiative is discussed more fully in Chapter III.
2. The Partnership for Peace is more fully discussed in Chapter IV.
