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Politics

Does NATO Have an Arms-Control Brain?

Jun 14, 2021 Adam Thomson

Rather than forever circling the wagons, NATO needs to develop its own ideas so that it can respond credibly to its adversaries’ proposals and restore its leadership role. As the alliance’s leaders gather this week, they must recognize that reviving the arms-control agenda is the key to members’ collective defense.

LONDON – Under Donald Trump, NATO was lucky just to stay alive. Indeed, in 2019, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the alliance was becoming “brain-dead.”

With NATO leaders holding their first in-person meeting with US President Joe Biden this week, America’s allies are breathing a collective sigh of relief. But NATO must still show that its brain, not just its brawn, is adequate to the problems it faces. To that end, arms control would be an intelligent pace to start.

NATO has a proud record on the issue. It advanced its first nuclear-disarmament proposal in 1957, at the United Nations Disarmament Conference in London. Even in the worst period of the Cold War, it sought to negotiate mutual and balanced force reductions with the Warsaw Pact. In 1987, it supported US President Ronald Reagan in negotiating the US-Soviet ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles, which in turn enabled member states to reduce the number of nuclear weapons committed to NATO’s defense. These arsenals are now down by more than 85% since the end of the Cold War.

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j. von Hettlingen Jun 16, 2021

Adam Thomson urges NATO to show that it is not “brain-dead,” as President Emmanuel Macron suggested in 2019. “To that end, arms control would be an intelligent pace to start.” NATO has a long-standing commitment to an active policy in arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, contributing to security and stability since 1957, when it advanced its first nuclear-disarmament proposal at the UN Disarmament Conference in London.
The alliance had long played a crucial role. “Even in the worst period of the Cold War, it sought to negotiate mutual and balanced force reductions with the Warsaw Pact. In 1987, it supported US President Ronald Reagan in negotiating the US-Soviet ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles, which in turn enabled member states to reduce the number of nuclear weapons committed to NATO’s defense. These arsenals are now down by more than 85% since the end of the Cold War.”
According to the author, “more recently NATO has appeared to be missing in action on arms control. Its secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, can only go as far as NATO’s 30 allies let him. He insists that ‘arms control is in NATO’s DNA.’ But the alliance has been treating the issue as though it were an afterthought rather than a guiding principle. Stoltenberg’s speech at a NATO conference on arms control in October 2019 points to what has gone wrong.”
In his keynote speech two years ago, the Secretary General acknowledged that times were “tought” for arms control. He warned that “the global arms control regime that has served us so well is eroding,” pointing to Russia’s disregard for its international commitments, and the emergence of new actors and new technologies. He assured that NATO “will and must play its part to ensure arms control remains an effective tool for our collective security – now and in the future.”
Yet Stoltenberg pointed out that: “if arms control is to remain effective it needs to adapt. I see four areas where we could act together to reflect these new realities. We need to preserve and implement the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We need to adapt nuclear arms control regimes to new realities. We need to modernise the Vienna Document. And we need to consider how to develop new rules and standards for emerging technologies, including advanced missile technology.”
The author explains why Stoltenberg failed. NATO members “have not been backing their words with action” regarding the NPT. Worse, the UK “has just lifted the ceiling on its nuclear weapons arsenal, which will make it much harder for NATO’s other nuclear powers (and those protected by them) to argue that they are upholding the spirit of the NPT.”
Stoltenberg urged NATO members to adapt nuclear-arms-control regimes "to new realities. But the only guidance he offered was reactive: the alliance should respond in a defensive, measured, and coordinated way to the new Russian missile threat.” As a result, NATO “has responded to repeated Russian arms-control proposals either with silence or by rejecting them out of hand. This position hardly bolsters the alliance’s image either at home or internationally.”
The author proposes the pursuit of “moral high ground by making arms-control overtures to the Kremlin, or at least explaining what’s wrong with the Russian proposals.” In 2020 NATO “introduced sweeping proposals” to modernise the Vienna Document - a “framework governing Russian, NATO, and other European non-nuclear military activities." But they had been “stonewalled” by Russia, and went unnoticed, because “NATO does not advocate loudly enough for arms control to command any credibility on the issue.”
Finally, the “new rules and standards for emerging technologies” Stoltenberg called for went nowhere. His “proposals” two years ago had proved to be wishful thinking, because he would have gone “further if NATO members would let him. Trying to build a consensus on arms control among 30 allies with different views is an unenviable task.”
With Trump’s defeat in the November election, NATO has “a chance to breathe again.” Earlier this week, opening the “NATO 2030 at Brussels Forum” event, Stoltenberg said the NATO Summit will “open a new chapter in our transatlantic relationship and demonstrate the importance of Europe and North America standing together.” He assured that allied leaders will agree on “an ambitious forward-looking NATO 2030 agenda, which is about exactly how to continue to adapt.” He believes that “as long as we are changing and adapting, NATO will remain as the most successful alliance in the history”.
Now the US and Russia have agreed to extend the New START Treaty for another five years, and the Biden administration has expressed a desire to pursue more arms-control measures. “In the past, arms-control negotiations have been one of the most reliable areas for finding common ground with Russia” - a win-win option that secures “stability, better deterrence, less risk, and low costs”.
European NATO allies “must share some of the intellectual burden” with the US and “put arms control at the heart of the new Strategic Concept that it plans to launch next year, so that the ongoing increases in European defense spending do not become fuel in a new arms race. It should create a Division of Arms Control to facilitate fresh thinking about the future of the process and the risks and opportunities associated with new technologies.”
Instead of “forever circling the wagons, NATO needs to develop its own ideas so that it can respond credibly to its adversaries’ proposals and restore its leadership role.” It is time to revive the arms-control agenda, which is a key to the alliance’s collective defence and prove Macron wrong. NATO members are divided over the threat they face. Eastern Europeans fear a Russian incursion, while Southern Europeans fear spillover effects of the unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.
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Peter McLoughlin Jun 15, 2021

The US and Russia have agreed to return to New START: but ominously there is no talk of reinstating the INF Treaty. It would be dangerous to assume the present crisis will end like the Cold War. History throws up unpleasant surprises.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
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