Germany’s Article 3 commitment is the canary in NATO’s mine

Great share

I'm all for the European countries stepping up their defense capabilities. But articles like this, and the general discussions comparing NATO country's defense spending with the US defense spending can be misleading. First, while if you are Germany or France or any other continental European country, then obviously 100% of your defense spending applies to NATO. But the US is not like that. We have decided to have a National Security Strategy that requires the resources to fight all over the world, in some cases simultaneously. So we spend a great deal on defense capabilities that are positioned and earmarked for other theaters, and so our defense budget percentage is naturally higher. The costs of troops and equipment allocated to fight the Korean War are not necessarily going to be available to defend NATO, lest we risk leaving other theaters undefended. That is why during the Cold War, we had a two simultaneous Major Regional Conflict (MRC) strategy and we had a military sized to fight both in Asia and Europe at the same time. So directly comparing the US percentage and the European countries percentage isn't really comparing apples to apples.

As to this particular article, and its description of the size of the force reduction of the German armed forces between 1989 and now, the US reduction has been even more dramatic. USEUCOM has reduced the number of US forces in Europe by 85% from their 1989levels. Here is an interesting fact sheet from EUCOM. And overall, the US military has roughly 900,000 less troops than in 1989.

http://www.eucom.mil/doc/35220/u-s-forces-in-europe

The threat facing the west after the Cold War had reduced significantly, and collectively NATO countries readjusted their forces. And there is a third aspect to the force posture in NATO as well. I served in Germany and Italy in the early 1980s. The truth was that while the US Army sang the praises of the new Airland Battle Doctrine as a way that NATO would overcome the massive force imbalance between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, it was generally understood that the real key to deterrence was not our conventional posture, but rather our willingness to use tactical nuclear weapons when we started to lose the conventional fight. The "Defense in Place" strategy was commonly referred to as the "Die in Place" strategy.

The numerical advantage of the Warsaw Pact in things like tanks was huge. So the US told the troops that we would overcome their quantity by our quality (like the new M1 tank vs the T62). But as an instructor at the Armor School told our Armor Officer Advanced Course (I was there as a foreign exchange student from the Infantry). "Quantity has a quality all its own".

So the nuke threat was and still is the ultimate deterrent for a Russian attack on NATO. That is why throughout the Cold War, the USSR kept offering to sign a "no first use" of nukes agreement with us, but we refused. We retained the right to use nukes first, because both sides knew NATO couldn't win a conventional all out war with the Warsaw Pact.

The real component of deterrence is getting the other side to believe you will do whatever is necessary to stop the other side. The big question posed during the Cold War was " would the US risk New York City to save Germany? That is, would we really use our tactical nukes to turn the conventional fight, if it meant the USSR might escalate to strategic nukes. From our president on down, we never wavered in that commitment. We reinforced constantly that an attack on one NATO country was an attack on the US and we would do whatever was needed to win.

So deterrence is ultimately about political will more than military calculations (though they certainly play a role) Compare our resolve and messaging back then to the situation today, where our president has openly questioned why the US should defend all these NATO countries if they are attacked. He has been very weak in plainly stating that the US will honor its Article 5 commitments. He made these types of comments just before meeting with Putin. So Putin sees Trump waffling on Article 5, and sees him putting down his own Intel services and refusing to call out Russia for their cyber attacks (which obviously Putin knows they did). So given that environment, one can wonder if Russia would entertain some doubt that the US will actually go to war if Russia attacks a border NATO country like Latvia. And it is when the adversary begins to doubt your resolve that deterrence begins to fail.

I think we are facing a dangerous period ahead, but it is not ultimately because of force postures. No NATO country on the border of Russia could ever mass a conventional force to match what Russia can mass from their side of the border. What will stop an attack is a clear projection of our willingness to stop Russia despite the costs. And unfortunately we have been sending very weak signals to Russia in that regard.

Great article.