ISPI : 5 Jul 2023 William Alberque NATO: Thinking Strategically in a New Nuclear Age

 5 Jul 2023

William Alberque

NATO: Thinking Strategically in a New Nuclear Age

Despite the rich array of issues to be discussed by the allies in Vilnius, a great deal of strategic thinking needs to be addressed ahead of the Washington Summit next year and beyond.

COMMENTARY TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONS

The NATO Summit in Vilnius is an important landmark in Alliance history. But headlines threaten to overwhelm the meeting, including Wagner’s mutiny in Russia and presidents Putin and Lukashenko’s announcement of the return of nuclear weapons to Belarus. Allies already are slated to discuss a number of pressing topics – especially long-term assistance to Ukraine, Sweden’s membership, and the arduous process of military adaptation that began at the Wales Summit in 2014. 

Despite the rich set of issues before the Allies to discuss in Vilnius, a great deal of strategic thinking needs to be addressed on the way to next year’s Washington Summit, and beyond. Even the NATO 2022 Strategic Concept itself avoided some of the difficult strategic issues that face the Alliance. 

NATO remains unprepared to face the most urgent challenges of this new nuclear age, including how to face a dangerous and reckless Russia, how to face a China that seeks to become the predominant military power before mid-century, and how to address the collapse of the bilateral, regional, and global treaties and agreements that have kept the world relatively safe after the end of World War II.

Saying what remains unsaid: integrating deterrence

First and foremost, NATO needs to address the gaps in its nuclear doctrine, capabilities, and posture. Second, it needs to address the acute threats posed by Russian missiles and armed unmanned aerial vehicles. Third, it needs to integrate its deterrent strategy to combine its military instruments of power – nuclear, conventional, missile defence, outer space, and cyber capabilities – into a coherent whole on the one hand, and its non-military instruments of power – diplomacy, information, and economics – on the other, and use them together to secure the Alliance. And fourth, it needs to re-integrate its deterrence thinking, as well as its arms control policy.

The US has introduced the term “integrated deterrence” to try to represent the magnitude of this task – to integrate all of the instruments of state into a cohesive deterrent strategy – but the term only illustrates a direction of travel, not a destination. No one would need to use the term “integrated deterrence” if the West had not de-integrated its deterrent thinking after the end of the Cold War. 

Indeed, NATO suffered more than most from this deliberate de-integration, first with the policy of de-integrating nuclear and conventional exercises, second to ensure that NATO’s missile defences would only be against rogue states, third to abandon the idea of territorial defence as the core Alliance mission, instead pursuing the war on terrorism as some consolation goal for NATO. Fourth, and most consequentially, NATO almost completely off-shored its non-military instruments of power, first and foremost to the European Union, but for non-EU members, to the individual capitals and other organisations for management and employment.

The Alliance has failed to re-integrate nuclear and conventional deterrence. Despite the “artful” formulation that dominated NATO policy since 2012 (the “appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional and missile defence capabilities for deterrence and defence”), in practice, this meant the complete neglect of NATO’s deterrence capabilities – especially in the intellectual and conceptual realm. Rot set in, and only recently have the Allies begun to do the hard work of rebuilding the “nuclear IQ” needed to face a complex set of 21st century deterrence challenges. 

It also has failed to re-integrate its military and non-military instruments of power. While diplomacy and information tools are managed within NATO, and coordinated among governments and international organisations, the economic tools remain outside NATO’s control. Gone, for instance, are the days of NATO export control meetings – but perhaps there is some hope in re-creating a longer-term industrial policy, as NATO once did in response to the actual “Sputnik moment” in 1957. A full list of recommendations on how to better coordinate these tools is beyond the scope of this brief paper, so it will instead focus on integrating deterrence and arms control. 

Heavy lifting ahead

Reversing NATO’s conventional decline began at the Wales Summit, but remains a slow, painful process. Germany has been the first ally to declare that a permanent NATO force presence is required in the Eastern flank, after years of insisting that the NATO-Russia Founding Act prevented such basing options (it does not). But if Allies are to be able to fulfil the pledge made at the Madrid Summit to “defend every inch of Allied territory at all times,” more than one German permanently-stationed brigade will be needed in the East.

In addition, Allies must return to a time when they can speak openly and clearly about the value of NATO’s nuclear deterrent, and to specify how conventional forces work in tandem – including through re-integrated NATO exercises. It needs to include plans, capabilities, and exercises to demonstrate integrated air and missile defence capabilities to intercept advanced cruise and ballistic missiles, including some that may be nuclear armed. It needs to plan and exercise how cyber and outer space capabilities complement NATO’s deterrent capabilities. And it needs to exercise how it plans to restore deterrence if an adversary (say, Russia) introduces nuclear weapons into a conflict with the NATO Alliance.

Integrating arms control, too

NATO also needs to re-integrate its arms control thinking. Over the decades, the very concept itself has become synonymous with disarmament, often focused on nuclear disarmament, with pressure on the United States and NATO to make the first move. But this is a fundamental misunderstanding of arms control and its role in strategy. Arms control is a much wider concept than bilateral treaties to eliminate nuclear weapons. 

Arms control is a whole family of tools – unilateral, bilateral, regional, and global – politically-binding and legally-binding, to include risk reduction agreements, ceasefires, withdrawals, peace treaties, non-proliferation agreements, notification arrangements, regulations on the use of weapons, and international humanitarian law. And it is scalable from a soldier to the entire of the armed forces, from a bullet to the nuclear arsenal. But arms control only works when all participants have a shared interest to avoid unintentional conflict and ruinous arms races. It may not be possible to find such agreements with Russia or China in the short run. But new thinking and new approaches are needed.

Second, arms control – in this formulation – should not be pursued piecemeal. Over the past three decades, the United States has pursued one issue at a time. European security, conventional arms control, nuclear arms control, outer space rules and norms, cyber security, export controls, missile proliferation, nuclear proliferation, other WMD – all had to be handled either one-at-a-time or in completely separate channels. These domains need to be approached in an integrated fashion. And integrated arms control in this sense can then be integrated with integrated deterrence to comprise a strategic approach to deterrence, defence, and dialogue. 

Conclusion

Convincing Russia, China, and other adversaries that NATO has the capability and will to use the entirety of its integrated deterrence capabilities remains a strategic challenge for NATO. The first step must be to begin the difficult process of integrating deterrence, and integrating arms control. But the second, much more difficult step will be the integration of military and non-military instruments of power together. Only then will the Alliance be seen to be willing and able to defend every inch of NATO territory all the time.

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William Alberque

Director of the Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control Programme, IISS

Image credit: NATO