Читать книгу Putin's Master Plan - Douglas E. Schoen - Страница 8

CHAPTER 3

How NATO Is Failing Itself, Europe, and America

America’s commitment to collective defense under Article 5 of NATO is a sacred obligation in our view—a sacred obligation not just for now, but for all time.

—VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN ¹

The Russians will keep probing until they meet resistance. If we don’t stand up to small provocations, eventually they will reach Article 5.

—SENIOR EUROPEAN DIPLOMAT ²

There is a high probability that [Mr. Putin] will intervene in the Baltics to test NATO’s Article 5.

—FORMER NATO SECRETARY GENERAL ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN ³

The core mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had always been to defend Europe from Russian aggression. When the Soviet Union collapsed, it appeared that this mission had been a success, and that Russia would no longer pose a military threat to Europe. Indeed, in the two decades since the end of the Cold War, NATO has invented new missions for itself, from attempting to mitigate the violent breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s to its more recent operations in Afghanistan and Libya. But a resurgent Russia, invading its neighbors and threatening the security of NATO members, means that NATO must return to its roots: deterring and defending against Russian aggression. Unfortunately, NATO, in part because its members are more preoccupied with Islamic terrorism, has failed to address the Russian threat and has put the safety of Europe and the United States in jeopardy as a result.

It is clear that Russia poses a direct threat to NATO countries. The cross-border raid in Estonia may be the only time, at least that we know of, that Russian ground troops entered NATO ground territory, but Russian violations of NATO airspace are far more frequent and just as alarming. In 2014 alone, NATO members scrambled jets 442 times in response to Russian activity. Russian fighters and bombers have flown into Norwegian and Polish airspace,⁴ been intercepted over the English Channel,⁵ and were caught forty miles off the coast of California on the Fourth of July.⁶ These threats are not idle: Russian bombers can carry nuclear weapons capable of killing hundreds of thousands with a single strike. When Putin directs these planes into Western skies, he sends a clear message: “I can get to you, and hurt you, whenever and wherever I want.” It is NATO’s job to prove otherwise. But so far, Russia has been given no reason to discontinue these sorties.

During a private meeting in August 2015, a senior European diplomat who oversees his country’s policy on Russia and Eastern Europe put it simply: “The Russians are back on stage, and they are here to stay.” When we pressed him on what has changed in Russia’s stance in the last few years, he contended, “After the end of the Cold War, there was an abnormal twenty year period when the Russians did not have the resources or capabilities to achieve their desired level of influence in Europe and the world.”⁷ That period has come to an end. Russia’s renewed capabilities are plainly evident every day that Russian arms flow to separatists in eastern Ukraine, Russian jets crisscross Western airspace, or Russian troops kidnap NATO military officers. What is not evident is NATO’s ability to respond effectively to these actions and guarantee the security of its member states.

Alarmingly, NATO has become so impotent that some member states are taking steps to build defense and security relationships outside of the alliance. In Northern Europe, NATO members Denmark, Iceland, and Norway are meeting and directly coordinating security policy with nonmembers Sweden and Finland.⁸ These new mutual-defense arrangements are directly driven by Russian aggression in the Arctic and Scandinavia.⁹ Latvia and Lithuania, two countries toward which Putin has shown considerable hostility, are set to begin joint weapons acquisitions in order to encourage “development of joint military capacities,” according to Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite and Latvian president Raimonds Vējonis.¹⁰ Poland and Estonia, two countries with much to fear from Russia, may also join the arrangement. Lithuanian defense minister Juozas Olekas has made it clear that “regional defense cooperation of the Baltic states is more critical than ever, [and] our security assurance is our solidarity.”¹¹

The Western powers show a clear lack of willpower when it comes to confronting Putin. But there is also the looming possibility that NATO may not be able to do enough to stop Russia’s naked military adventurism even if it tried. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his interference in other Eastern European states has put NATO’s capabilities to the test, and they have been found wanting. In recent years, NATO has been more concerned with counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan or cruise-missile strikes in Libya than the threat of conventional war with Russia. The American military, once the guardian of the free world and the bulwark against Soviet aggression, is now more prepared to take on ragtag terrorists than Russian tanks. Even if NATO politicians wake up to the military threat that Russia poses, it will take years to refocus its budgets, procurement, training, and strategic preparedness on Russia and to bring NATO militaries up to speed.

NATO’S ABDICATION

NATO has done little to deter Russia in Ukraine. President Obama infamously responded to Ukraine’s request for aid against Russia with Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs, the preprepared food rations issued to US troops.¹² Ukraine had asked for arms, ammunition, and intelligence support. Instead they got chicken fajitas, and Putin ate Crimea for dinner. The Western European countries have scarcely been more helpful, fretting over the implications that providing military support to Ukraine might have on commercial and energy relationships between Moscow and Paris, Berlin, or Amsterdam. Put simply, Western Europeans have found it easier to ignore the war Russia has started in Ukraine than to confront the chilling reality of Russian territorial expansion in Europe. As a direct result of this inaction, more Ukrainians die, and Russia is emboldened to continue its conquest of Eastern Europe.

Not every NATO member has turned a blind eye to Ukraine’s desperate need for military assistance. Lithuania has agreed to supply Ukraine with lethal military equipment.¹³ Similarly, Poland has approved plans for a joint Polish-Lithuanian-Ukrainian brigade of 4,500 troops, further enhancing the ability of these militaries to cooperate and sending a clear signal to the Kremlin.¹⁴ This is exactly the sort of confidence-building solidarity with Ukraine that the United States and major NATO powers should be showing. Instead, America, Canada, and the United Kingdom have sent “instructors” to help “train” Ukrainian troops.¹⁵ Without the proper equipment and weapons necessary to counter Russian capabilities, no amount of training will give the Ukrainian military a fighting chance. The Obama administration has claimed that nonlethal aid to Ukraine has helped, but as Democratic senator Robert Menendez puts it, “Providing nonlethal equipment like night vision goggles is all well and good, but giving the Ukrainians the ability to see Russians coming but not the weapons to stop them is not the answer.”¹⁶

Indeed, it is shameful that the United States, once heralded as the arsenal of democracy, has not provided Ukraine with the weapons it needs to defend itself. Defense Secretary Ash Carter has said that he is “very much inclined” to provide Ukraine with lethal aid, but Obama has yet to follow the advice of America’s top defense official.¹⁷ Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security advisor, went so far as to say that “we don’t think the answer to the crisis in Ukraine is simply to inject more weapons.”¹⁸ Perhaps Obama would do better to heed the advice of former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, who thinks that “we should absolutely consider lethal aid and it ought to be in the context of NATO allies because Putin’s ultimate objective is to fracture NATO.”¹⁹ A spokesman for former House speaker John Boehner was just as unequivocal, suggesting that “the Ukrainians are begging for help, and the Congress is begging the administration to provide the defensive lethal assistance we authorized in December. Our allies deserve better.”²⁰

We are witnessing a partial unraveling of the European security order, driven by America’s abdication of its obligation to protect Europe and a failed rebalancing of responsibilities within NATO, both taking place during a period of overt Russian military aggression and territorial expansion. Whether this partial unraveling becomes a full-blown breakdown depends on whether Western leaders wake up and address the Russian threat. So far, the response has been anemic.

Part of the problem is that America cannot turn the tide against Russia on its own. NATO’s European members, having failed to meet their defense spending obligations, seem helpless against a massive and constantly growing Russian military budget. Western Europe has been lulled into complacency by decades of peace, forgetting that the peace it has enjoyed was accomplished by trillions of dollars of American defense spending. More recently, its leaders have been blinded by political correctness. Diplomacy and political outreach are all well and good, but when it comes to protecting a country, there is no substitute for lots of troops, tanks, jets, missiles, guns, and other military equipment that might make an aggressor think twice. Western Europeans, insulated from an increasingly violent world by American defense guarantees, seem to have forgotten this truism. Putin has not. Russia’s defense budget is shattering records, and its nuclear forces are expanding so rapidly that experts are warning of a new arms race.²¹ America and Western Europe, by contrast, cut defense spending last year.²²

NATO recommends that each member state spend 2 percent of its annual gross domestic product on defense.²³ This is a fair, commonsense arrangement that asks each country to contribute to common defense according to its means, even though what this involves, in real terms, is that large economies like the United States, the UK, and Germany shoulder most of the spending burden. Historically, America has far exceeded this 2 percent target, and despite defense cuts and sequestration, the United States is on track to spend 3.6 percent of GDP on defense in 2015. And only four other NATO states even will spend enough to meet the 2 percent target: Greece, Poland, the UK, and Estonia.²⁴ Some countries, including Italy, Belgium, and Spain, are only spending half of what they should be.²⁵ Even worse, countries like France and Germany, already well below the 2 percent target, are cutting their defense budgets.²⁶ Because these are two of the largest economies in NATO, these cuts will have a real impact on the ability of NATO to fund its operations and respond to Russian aggression. But Berlin and Paris are, apparently, unconcerned with the military consequences of these budget cuts.