President Putin made three foundational assumptions in launching his war against Ukraine that should have been correct but were not. First, Putin assumed the invasion of Ukraine would be a quick and easy fight. Second, he assumed the world would denounce the invasion but tacitly allow it. Third, Putin assumed the war would deter NATO expansion.
How can civil-military relations be used as a lens for us to understand the outcomes of wars in which multinational organizations are involved? This piece uses civil-military relations as a guide (rather than a strict framework) and the specific case of NATO to show the benefit of applying this approach. It shows, using the example of NATO in Afghanistan, how civil-military dynamics within the organization itself structured the campaign and impacted the alliance’s strategy and operations.
Russian and U.S. use of proxy strategies complement one another to fuel a war of attrition. Russia’s human wave response to expensive and limited U.S. firepower is not unreasonable, despite perhaps being quite cynical and fatalistic. Russia’s human wave proxy strategy both protects conventional Russian army forces by redirecting combat to disposable proxies and frees the conventional army to reinforce territorial and political gains along the Sea of Azov. Simultaneously, the U.S. proxy strategy is a logical response to an undersized and outgunned Ukrainian military. The Ukrainians fighting at distance with U.S. artillery, missiles, and rockets while using urban terrain to offset Russian strength makes complete sense. But the interaction of these two proxy strategies, both logical in their own right, fuels a devastating war of attrition, depletes weapon stockpiles, and generates significant numbers of casualties.
The conflict in Ukraine offers unexpected insight into a military construct that had previously been mostly theoretical. Ukrainian ground forces, fighting beneath an information domain dominated almost exclusively by American intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities, while no U.S. forces fight in the conflict, is what military theorists and strategists in the 1990s described as a vertical coalition. They conceived it as the future of American warfare, during a brief period in which violent ground-based conflict among powerful states was believed, by some, to be vanishing from the world.
The global rise of authoritarianism is a pressing strategic problem for the United States and its like-minded allies. Chinese and Russian authoritarianism threaten the liberal order from without. Simultaneously, democratic backsliding in the U.S. and Europe undermines liberalism from within. The nature of these twin aspects of authoritarianism requires a joint response able to support and strengthen the liberal order against disintegration. This response must include a more expansive approach to countering the authoritarian warfare occurring below the traditional threshold of armed conflict.
The generation living in the aftermath of World War II understood the value of these structures intrinsically. The most effective and efficient way to protect the American homeland and the economy was through global engagement and forward defense. Today, the barriers between nations and empowered subnational actors continue to shrink in the midst of a peacetime international system that is increasingly dominated by competition and coercion between great powers.
Sayle explains how most of NATO’s contemporary challenges are reminiscent of the Cold War. Americans always wanted allies to contribute more, and allies always refused. Competing national interests, an aggressive Russia, and tension between personalities are not new stories. During the Cold War, NATO’s survival was indeed due to the Soviet threat in great measure, but it was also due to the statesmanship of its leaders, including successive U.S. presidents who managed to overcome their disagreements with other NATO allies. Above all, what brought the allies together—liberal democratic values—is itself a threat to NATO due to the election of NATO-skeptic leaders, which the alliance’s leaders had feared in the past.
The complex challenges of the 2020s were always set to be difficult for the European powers to contend with but the Brexit decision—the biggest strategic shift in policy within Europe since the end of the Cold War and one taken as an afterthought by a British electorate with other issues on its mind in the referendum—has increased the risks of strategic policy failure for all European powers.
The High North is creeping back into the global strategic picture with increasing difficulty in avoiding discussion involving defense issues. Key studies on the question of what defense institutions, especially NATO and NORAD, should—or should not—do in the region have proliferated over the years, particularly following Russia’s 2014 Crimean fait accompli. Akin to the next great game, a final frontier set to host a battle for Arctic riches and unclaimed territory, the High North is a strategic theater devoid of agreed rules.
Ultimately, a Europe that can enhance its own regional security and stability through military, economic, diplomatic, and judicial instruments, while more efficiently developing and procuring its military resources, aligns with U.S. interests. Such a security environment supports NATO’s focus on collective defense, as well as American ability to pursue its interests in other regions.
One critical ingredient may be required to establish a functioning collective security arrangement in the Middle East: the United States. The most important single factor to NATO’s success in the Cold War was the dedication and contributions by the U.S. in political capital, money, technology, military assets, and diplomacy. Canada, the United Kingdom, or any other member of the alliance could not replace the superpower status of America. Washington's goal of stabilizing the Middle East by creating a pro-American security alliance while significantly reducing its commitments presents a grim dilemma. It will likely prove impossible.
NATO is an instrument, one that has shown it can be adapted to different tasks and goals as the strategic setting changes. Those adaptations have not always been swift or graceful, yet the alliance’s endurance speaks to the fact that it eventually does meet its members’ needs. If NATO can reassert itself in the current environment as an engine of stability and not just a provider of military security it has a much stronger chance of persevering, even as its origins in the aftermath of World War II and the early years of the Cold War recede further into history.
The broadsides on America’s strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan are persistent given the indubitable lack of progress in both theatres for almost two decades. As both wars continue, not only are global powers like the United States still involved, but many small states remain engaged. Each keeps contributing to, and participating in, these ongoing conflicts. While the criticism of the American strategic effort is sweeping, and may be considered justified, this critique spills over as collateral to the small allied states who continue to contribute to both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
NATO has enabled and supported U.S. foreign policy since the early days of the Cold War and continues to do so today. Given the 2018 National Defense Strategy’s emphasis on the return of great power competition, NATO’s importance to the United States will grow as competition intensifies. The United States should consider reinforcing NATO and reassuring its NATO allies of continued American commitment.
The global women, peace, and security agenda exists to promote and fulfil the human rights of women and achieve gender equality, as part of efforts to build more peaceful and stable societies. The link between equality and improvements for women in the defence and security sector is clear and well researched. For many U.N. member states, national action plans provide the strategic framework to address gaps and deficiencies in the meaningful representation of women in national institutions and in peacekeeping. Given that conflict most often arises in countries with high levels of gender-based discrimination, a culture of valuing the contribution of women is an essential element of suitable peace and security efforts.
There are several bilateral and multilateral agreements among nations to support inter-intra agency coordination and cooperation. There are also global security institutions such as United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre and its sister agencies such as United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force. However, many of these agencies continue to operate independently. This is apparent in the case of the United Nations Security Council designated Counter Terrorism Directorate and the United Nations Counter Terrorism Executive Directorate that have few operational partners within the European Union and yet to begin meaningful interactions with NATO.
The question that must be faced is this: Can the EU manage its vast resources to maximise its information sharing with partner agencies and tighten its grip around radical Islamic factions returning to Europe? To answer this question and provide an appropriate response to various other underlying questions, we must better understand foreign fighter factions, their agenda, and their operational mechanism.
The importance of a gender perspective in peace and security operations and military affairs has long been established by feminist activists and researchers, and recognized in a number of UN Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) on women, peace, and security. UNSCR 1325, adopted in 2000, acknowledged for the first time the disproportionate impact of conflict on women and girls. It has become the internationally recognized legal framework for promoting gender equality and addressing issues affecting women’s peace and security at the local, regional, and international levels.
This work closes a gap in the historical research with a comprehensive and extremely detailed look at NATO consolidation during the 1950s. Beneath the surface of that project, the reader can find some fascinating and challenging presentations of a very different world which tempts one to wrestle with an of a number of could-have-beens.
