Overreach at Riga
By Michael Hanpeter

The muted results of the recently concluded NATO summit in Riga are not so much the expected outcome of the ambitious agenda outlined in the press release NATO Headquarters issued on the eve of the conference - for example: "to assess and take forward a large number of transformation processes" and "to review progress in Afghanistan in light of the expansion of ISAF to the south" - as they are an indication of a steadily diminishing consensus among alliance members regarding shared threat perception.  Disparate views on threat perception may be symptomatic of a more fundamental phenomenon - the gradual weakening of transatlantic solidarity based on shared values.

This essay addresses those two larger, underlying issues that transcend the specifics of the Riga agenda and will shape NATO's future over the longer term.  The first part addresses the centrality of threat perception among the bodies politic in the NATO member countries; the second portion addresses shared transatlantic values.

NATO's growing geographic areas of interest and expanding mission capabilities no longer match the collective sense of urgency posed by an array of current and continuing threats, among them terrorism, failing states, militant fundamentalism, and proliferation of WMD.  The threats emerging since 1990 have not yet congealed in public perceptions to replace the earlier, more readily identifiable threat posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, especially in the pre-Gorbachev era  This incongruity poses a serious danger not only to NATO's future military capabilities, but more importantly, to its cohesion. Force upgrades and other cost-intensive initiatives depend on the political will of leaders and parliaments in the twenty-six member countries to allocate adequate funding to meet security needs amid a spectrum of competing budget priorities.  Their ability to do so is based on public support for defense spending, which is directly related to the electorates' sense of threat. 

The political equation is further complicated by the disparity in threat perceptions between the United States and its European allies - dramatically apparent since 9/11 - a situation that creates a parallel incongruity between American expectations and European performance on defense spending. NATO's procedural requirement of unanimity, sufficiently hard to achieve even when a general consensus regarding threats exists, becomes quantitatively and qualitatively more difficult to attain in the absence of a deeply shared threat perception, resulting in ever lower common denominators when seeking unity.  This does not bode well for agreement on the broadening set of NATO missions and building the capabilities for those missions.

NATO's future solidarity, whatever its membership, will be largely predicated by the restoration of a stronger sense of shared threat, an effort which the United States is not in a position to influence either unilaterally or perhaps not even substantially.  One of the many casualties of the current war in Iraq has been the damage to the U.S. image abroad, a collateral result of which has been to compromise the effectiveness of American public diplomacy, including in Europe.  In that respect, the work in rebuilding sustainable, stronger cohesion among NATO members does not exist in geopolitical isolation, but is part of a larger global security political constellation. It, along with the restoration of a more strongly felt solidarity of common values, is more than a passing task confronting the entire alliance; it is the prerequisite for NATO's future.

The preamble to the North Atlantic Treaty states, inter al., that "They (the parties to the treaty) are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.  They seek to promote stability and well-being in the North Atlantic area." From its inception, one of the pillars on which the Alliance rested was that expressed set of common democratic values.  The other pillar, the shared fear of the Soviet Union and its allies, has crumbled.  In the fortuitous absence of that fear, the common values pillar has become relatively more significant as the primary cohesive force in holding the Alliance together.  The reference in the excerpt of the original Treaty text to "in the North Atlantic area" remains a critical element in the underlying willingness - or hesitation - of members to expand the area of interest, even considering radically changed geopolitical realities.  At the extreme is a fear that NATO could dilute itself out of existence. In this regard, expansion - some might say overexpansion - of NATO into regions with which there is little shared political cultural history requires serious consideration. 

At first glance, the values included in the Treaty language apply as much now as they did in 1949.  Indeed, new members must commit themselves to those values as a precondition for acceptance into the NATO club. The shared values issue emerges at the next layer of precision in definition, resulting in what might be called a dissonance of common values, or more gently, the common values paradox.  To illustrate the point by returning to the context of the Iraq war, many political leaders in the United States and a large number of the American public felt that Europe, especially "old Europe," had lost its moral moorings by not supporting the U.S.  Europeans, on the other hand, appealing to common democratic values, argued that the United States had betrayed its own tradition of civil liberties and adherence to international law.  Guantanamo, denial of habeas corpus, and extraordinary rendition became flashpoints for European criticism - and much American criticism as well.  In short, both sides appealed in good faith to common values.  The problem, one that is not necessarily insurmountable, is that common values reflect differing contexts of national histories and political cultures.  Still, this amounts to more than what Freud called "the narcissism of minor differences."  The example of the word "freedom" demonstrates this point. Americans historically have a more libertarian understanding of freedom than Europeans do.  The Bill of Rights is a list of protections from intrusions by government into individual lives; with the exception of the right to a jury trial in Article VII, all other nine articles in the Bill of Rights state what government cannot do to or for individual citizens.  Europeans, as a rule, look to government to provide freedom in the form of offering solutions to economic and social inequities. They expect government to be more interventionist than Americans do.

Having presented two basic challenges to NATO's future integrity, where do we go from here?  The facile reply is that the two issues aren't significant problems at all, in which case no solutions are necessary.  At the other extreme is the "sky is falling" reaction, in which case nothing will work.  I suggest that a dual set of efforts can ameliorate the situation as I have described it. As with all such undertakings, they are dependent on sufficient political interest and will to carry them out. The first is a more rigorously and thoroughly applied emphasis on the importance of democratic values and political culture in the educational systems of all NATO member countries.  Clearly, this will be a challenge for countries in which a values-free approach to education predominates. A second, simultaneous effort on the practical level is to continually reinforce transatlantic relations by conducting deeper and more frequent consultation, as opposed to informing fellow allies of decisions post hoc.  This will contribute to maintaining mutual trust and harmony, enabling a shared and genuine respect for other views.

Our democratic, pluralistic societies - for all their differences and similarities - can rise to the challenge to restore a more keenly felt appreciation of shared values and solidarity, both within our countries and among them.  For starters, we can all occasionally recall the depth of our shared traditions and longstanding ties, which predate NATO's establishment by centuries. This remains a useful exercise even, and perhaps especially, in a global era.

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Michael Hanpeter is a frequent contributor to AICGS.

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This essay appeared in the December 21, 2006, AICGS Advisor.

For information on transatlantic differences in threat perception, please read "German and American Perceptions of 'Rogue States,'" by former DAAD/AICGS Fellow Holger Stritzel.