Europe Awakened: An Assessment After a Year of War

good afternoon everyone Welcome to our event on Europe awakened today we're going to discuss the seismic shifts that we've seen in transatlantic relationship in Europe and look ahead to the coming year including 75th anniversary of NATO and the many decisions that European and U.S allies have to take to do so we're joined by a lot of combined experience and knowledge on the transatlantic relationship both in and out of government and a lot of deep knowledge on the alliance binding our two continents Kathleen McGinnis is senior fellow in the International Security program here at csis and the director of the smart women smart power initiative who is returning to us from a first stint a few years ago you've done fascinating work on the intersection of gender and National Security you also focus on Global Security strategy the transatlantic relationship and defense issues you've worked at the Congressional research service before as a senior expert to Congress and of course in the office of Secretary of Defense working on NATO operations in Afghanistan next we have Jim Townsend who is an adjunct senior fellow at the center for New American Securities transatlantic security program uh Jim you served as Deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy quite relevant to do this conversation you also served in a variety of government roles focused on political reconstruction in Europe on bilateral defense relations NATO enlargement and reform on and on and you served as VP at Atlantic Council as well where we're presenting a lot of Think Tank backgrounds here today the most important role was he was my boss of course how could I forget as I remember you were I'm not sure about this and then finally we have Max Bergman who's the director of the Europe Russia and Eurasia program here at csis and of the steward Center in euro-atlantic and northern European studies Max you served in Department of State and the policy planning staff working on political military Affairs non-proliferation Arms Control International Security you can read all the very long bios online and you also worked at the center for American progress before at csis on Europe Russia and U.S security cooperation so I'm really excited to be here today in the illustrious presence of all of this knowledge the topic of today's conversation I think is very obvious to everyone there was such a shock almost a year ago to the euro-atlantic community to see Russia's full-fledged invasion of Ukraine after the first part in 2014 and really the return of War on the European continent a lot has been done or said you've all written a lot about this I would like to start for with a question for all of you what has struck you the most about the transatlantic relationship the transatlantic response to the war so far being on the NATO side or the EU side Kathleen why don't we start with you sure you know as I was reflecting on this panel and and thinking about some of the key things that that stood out to me as a result of all this actually it's actually before the war that that really strictly strictly as powerful the use of intelligence by the US Intel community and and the the Biden Administration to show what Russia was going to be doing and to use intelligence in that strategic way to help Forge consensus and make the alliance and and Europe and the global Community more broadly more resilient against um planned Russian disinformation operations I think that's an incredible moment for for the transatlantic relationship and um and and a powerful tool that we'll probably need to use in the future so I think there's a lot of really powerful lessons to be learned but remember though you know even though we had those those releases of intelligence and sort of spoiling uh Putin's game plan in um before it could play out there was still a lot of Doubt right there was still a lot of like no no Putin is not really he can't really do this he can't be serious this is absolute crazy pants stuff and I think that that's the other thing that is strategically significant about all of this there is a recognition that Putin's rationality is not something that we resonates with us right and we've perhaps been mirror Imaging in group thinking a little bit too much when we think about Putin and his actions and and looking forward what he might do next um some Scholars call that the ability to anticipate an adversary or understand their mindset something called strategic empathy and it seems to me that we've the the invasion of Ukraine by Putin that decision to go even though it was just did not we it could not make sense of it suggests that we we need to cultivate our ability to have strategic empathy within our institutions well you know it's it's a it's a great question and as I was um reflecting as well on on that question it's interesting how quickly we came together in the old mode of the U.S leadership the Allies falling in behind us once that shock happened you know um as Kathleen said beforehand as we were going around with the intelligence as we were talking to allies there wasn't an agreement at all there was a lot of Doubt for a lot of reasons that Kathleen said you know we had mirror imaged uh Putin for a long time and we just couldn't believe that we would see something that was more fit for the last century than than now but after it happened uh within a few days the U.S went back to that old Playbook of the U.S during the Cold War Days uh and and Joe Biden of course was around during those days and he very quickly knew the things that he needed to say to the Allies he knew what he needed to do we had lots of many these Summits if you remember in the month or so after the invasion took place and the Allies lined up and that's that to me was interesting coming as it did after the four years of trump uh and the problems and the buffening and not just during Trump but during the Obama days too there was a bit of a drift of the U.S away from the transatlantic relationship but when things got bad it all clicked back into place in a in a format and in a relationship that felt very familiar uh and so I think that was really something that didn't necessarily uh was what would happen based on what we saw in the last four years with Trump and the relationship being as Rocky you know to predict that that would be the response wasn't necessarily correct but it actually worked and I think that was a great relief to all of us great well I totally agree with Jim and Kathleen the one thing I should add with my bio that you forgot to mention is that I'm also co-host of a podcast with you called the europhile and everyone should subscribe uh it's a new podcast and talks about issues like this but um to me I think that the European response to the war has um has been really remarkable and I think this is where um we in the United States and I think Europeans themselves underestimated their own potential resolve and strength there was a lot of kind of back briefs and sessions that were happening with the Europeans about sanctions prior to the war when we were very confident here in the United States and the administration that Russia was going to invade there's a lot of planning about what sanctions should look like and you know the Europeans were sort of going along they were going along with this kind of hypothetical exercise and the Assumption in Washington was we were going to have to drag the Europeans uh with us that's kind of what happened in 2014 when uh when Russia seized Crimea it wasn't until the Downing of mh-17 which then happened later in the summer when you then saw strong sanctions packages and what happened is when the tank started rolling uh the shock I think in European uh capitals was was very real that this was an attack on Europe uh and treated as such and they started to come to the table with sanctions that we hadn't anticipated and thought about Central Bank sanctions that were uh um offered and proposed by Mario draghi who working with Janet Yellen turns out it's a good thing to have uh former Central Bankers that are you know also political figures that that especially when you're sanctioning a really large economy like Russia so we saw that strong response on sanctions and one of the things that's happened over the last year is that didn't they didn't atrophy actually that the EU right now was talking about a tenth round of sanctioned packages while in 2014 the EU set sanctions and sort of forgot about it it renewed them but they were never really tightened or strengthened and then when you look at sort of the other aspects of the security response I think Jim is Right everyone sort of got in line behind the United States and sort of adopted I mean we adopted this really strong leadership position we got allies in sync the Biden Administration deserves tremendous credit but we also saw the Europeans uh take steps they hadn't really taken before and that's the EU providing security assistance funding uh Germany and Sweden providing lethal weapons into a into a war zone in Sweden and Finland deciding you know what that we're going to try to join NATO and so we saw actually the Europeans suddenly taking security much more seriously yes getting in sort of in line with the United States but doing you know frankly a heck of a lot and more than I think people thought maybe one last point is that there's also concern about the migration question you know there's a huge rise in populism uh in Europe um and so there was concerns that when you had millions of ukrainians fleeing Ukraine what would be the political response and thus far the response has been no these are Europeans uh and we're going to have them into our societies and and and support them uh and we haven't seen any you know political backlash to that um and I don't think there's any you know any of that is uh appearing on the horizon I think the EU peace is important perhaps less so on the defense elements and we'll talk about that in a lot of detail on the NATO front but it sounds to me from what you're saying that it really has provided the transatlantic Community with complementary approaches to have the EU as a involved actor in this on the sanctions piece on the political piece to bring Ukraine in the future into this political Community which is what attracted it in the first place do you feel like that's accurate that you can play this complementary role and then how does it play that interface with NATO as well yeah I mean that that's firmly my view and I think the the idea that the EU is some sort of uh challenge to the United States or NATO I think is completely misguided in that you know where the EU acts as one which is on uh economic issues so when it comes to sanctions it's not individual country sanctioning uh uh Russia it's the EU as an entity with a market uh equivalent in size of the United States and China and that's been the case with our relations with the EU when it comes to Iran and in the beginning of this Administration we saw sanctions actually against China that was done uh over Hong Kong in the uyghurs so I I think the administration the fight Administration to its credit saw that and I think has tried to really Elevate the trade and Technology Council its economic relations with the EU it's engagement with the EU because it sees it as a really critical uh actor particularly when it comes to the uh economic technology issues because you know they're they're the ones regulating our tech industry right now uh and and can we can do sanctions with on the security side I think there's still uh a lot of room to grow there and just to underscore that um you know while the memberships of EU and NATO are overlapped significantly um getting both organizations to work in a complementary fashion is really hard right and so just to underscore that this is no mean fee this is this is this is something important that we're seeing these organizations moving in the same direction on these issues I agree with both of those and I think another example is how the the EU has managed to tackle a lot of the energy problems because that's money that's big money and it's it's a humanitarian impact on the the members of the EU and a cold winter I mean a few months ago there was a lot of handwringing about uh January February being a time of darkness and cold in Western Europe as they had to deal with the cutoff of gas and as well as industrial strength German industry and others no longer having gas to run the machines and this kind of thing and so there was going to be an economic downfall it was a there was a lot of Doom and Gloom part of that's been alleviated by by a milder winter which so far which is versus really good but I've been impressed with the EU leadership in terms of dealing with this and the individual countries both the national governments as well as the European Union coming up with ways to find alternative sources of energy having uh people turned down their their thermostats and and there are all kinds of ways that were that were thought of a lot of them very creative to try to get around the energy problems so you didn't see demonstrations on the street you didn't see the kind of political pressure we were afraid of that was going to take some of the EU members out of the sanctions regime and and have them become more pro-putin you didn't see that kind of thing and I think that says a lot for the EU as well keeping just the keeping the peace there in Europe as they went through the Stark period in public opinion as well on the support to the EU but also on support to Nato which I think is important I think that's a good way to shift towards the NATO peace Kathleen you've written about the importance of NATO being nato in this time can you talk us through why you think that why is NATO the best actor for this and what does it bring in this particular instance over the last year um it's often said you know if we didn't have NATO now we'd want to invent it probably couldn't but we would want it um and as as Jim said you know when this crisis occurred there were these institutions and relationships that had been well well worked and well-oiled over decades that allowed for the kind of fast communication and coordination needed to have a coherent and um effective response to this crisis institutions matter they really matter you have to have these platforms for multilateral coordination and communication and yes they're frustrating and yes it takes forever to get um consensus on an issue but once you have consensus you've got 30 of the world's most leading democracies saying yes we're moving in the same direction that's powerful um furthermore the alliance has from the the that's the political side on the military side it's created um avenues for building interoperability amongst Nations which is basically it's it's not an actually an easy thing to have a military a and Military B joined together on a battlefield and fight it's actually really freaking hard and there's all sorts of different cultural um technological and other things that can go horribly wrong and then just set the whole battle plan back NATO's been working at this for almost 75 years that's important and so not only did the alliance have the political capability to respond because of these these institutional and Alliance relationships again Eliza's are made of people right and and those human connections matter but also because it's had the military uh Frameworks institutions command and control so on and so forth to be able to execute on on any plan that was put forward so yet NATO I think has has powerfully demonstrated its importance in responding to these kinds of major geopolitical crises fine too that one of the Putin's many uh misunderstandings and uh and wrong decisions were based on NATO not being able or the nations of NATO the transatlantic Community not pulling together when he went into Ukraine he it seems to me and and we all think we know Putin's mind but it seems to me he made some assumptions may be fed by his own intelligence that we would not be able to mount a very united front on this and so NATO was a big part of us being able to do that he misread nato in crisis which as you know was a headline in every Journal article for the past 35 years NATO at a Crossroads yeah it's always falling apart it's always you know there's always something there's always something and so certainly he read too many of those articles and so you know so he thought it was gonna you know that there wasn't going to be the ability to do that but one of the things that NATO does too everything Kathleen said was absolutely right and what I would add is the cherry on top is that while NATO itself as an institution NATO was not at war with the Russians right now it's not an nato-russia War but with the U.S As We Gather the Nations at the in these coordinating meetings every month at Ramstein and as we work the transatlantic Community to to help Ukraine it's NATO procedures it's it's that it's that community of NATO that's enabled us to do that because we've you know within the alliance we meet all the time we've been building the alliance that Kathleen was talking about so while it's not NATO as an institution that is fighting Russia our ability to come together as a community and be effective in supporting Ukraine that has happened because NATO has helped shape us to be able to do that you know as I think about it I can't imagine how we would have pulled off something like this without NATO and without the European Union too and the closest example could be World War II where the US and the UK of course tried to put together a community of allies and eventually became the U.N but that was the best we could do was trying to put together at that time what has now become NATO what has become the U.N and the EU and that's where it started and so I just uh I look on NATO as being really the root at the ability of this community to work together that what we've seen for the past year and not just on Ukraine by the way like on Coalition operations globally you know if we didn't have the international military staff we didn't have those mechanisms for coordination and interoperability we wouldn't be able to do all sorts of things around the world absolutely and I think that's important I think the it's great that you're bringing up the fact that Ukraine is not the only thing that the existing relationships are what allowed us to provide this united front so rapidly and it's also a good way to remind us that there's still a lot of ambition being discussed and pushed inside NATO among the 30 allies I mean we just there was a Madrid Summit last year pushing forward new ideas there's going to be a summit in July in Vilnius there was a ministerial this week I'd love to talk about that a little bit in how Jim if you want to start how you assess this road since the nine months since Madrid the commitments that have made and whether the war has derailed these efforts or helped push them forward or some in between well you know it's it's a it's a great question uh it's a great question and I I I think what's what has happened since Lisbon I mean they've been great attempts to push ahead a lot of the initiatives that came out of Lisbon and they've been able to do a lot of it but a feature of War like we're seeing in Europe now is all these other things happen to get in the way what what the Madrid road the road after Madrid looked like it was going in One Direction but then it began to take a dog leg here and there because you had industrial problems happen you had the tank debate with the Germans you had all these other things happening uh that were not foreseen in Lisbon and slowed down a lot of you know the ambition uh that uh that the you know the summateers saw that they were going to be doing in Madrid it just ran into other things but they were able to surmount it so as we approach Vilnius I'm sure that'll there'll be a report card on Madrid so how far have we gotten uh and I think there's some things uh like force deployments that type of thing that were high priority that have been done but I think there's going to be a lot of other things added to that list in Vilnius and I'll I'll tell you I read the sections uh his press conference that he gave before the ministerial you know he does a press conference the day before and he have a section and it was fascinating to me all the little nuggets in there that a lot of people haven't picked up on uh that they're going to talk about today and and yesterday and they'll probably put into into action in Vilnius one of them was building this constellation of satellites uh both commercial as well as nationally owned satellites to help out nato in terms of communications and that type of thing and having worked at NATO for a number of years I I couldn't believe that they just announced that uh because it's a big deal and the secondly they're going to do more in terms of of uh protecting undersea cables and pipelines and that's that's not that that's new that's an old problem that's something that we've all been talking about I remember at CNAs one of my first uh things that Julie Smith and I did at CNAs was on pipelines and this type of thing but what's interesting is it has risen in such a high priority the section mentioned it in his in his press conference we know from Nordstrom too that sabotage that the Russians are quite Adept at that and so I'm glad that we're going to do it but I think uh I think I I certainly salute NATO from making the effort and highlighting this as a priority to set up a cell you know that's going to deal with how do we protect the the pipelines and the communications nodes so I think their their agenda gets bigger and bigger and that of course can crowd out Lisbon so we'll have we'll see what happens in Vilnius paper coming out on Europe one year on how do you view these changes including new members coming into the alliance well I think it's uh totally transformative and I think one of the things that when we think about the role NATO played I mean there's sort of an understated role in some ways where you know at the beginning phases of this war even before the War began as you know Russian forces were amassed around Ukraine if we just imagine that Russian forces were successful and had taken Ukraine and were along uh then along the border not just of us of the Baltic states but now of Poland um you know and if NATO hadn't been there and if we hadn't reinforced and sent more forces uh to the front line States could get nervous about what Russia would be planning next about what was and and you wouldn't necessarily see the same bold response and this is I think why an alliance is so critical is that it provides The Surety to uh European member states to uh to Canada to the United States to others that they're not going to be alone and they're not going to have to face you know a very strong military power on their own which is you know one of the things that we saw in the in the in and during beginning of World War II and so I think NATO sort of then provides that overall security architecture which then enables the kind of Frank debates and discussions that then happen oftentimes at the European Union um to me I think what we saw um when I look back on Madrid for instance um in sort of one year on from the security side I I see a lot of advances I see the Europeans really taking security seriously but then looking at their stockpiles of equipment uh the state of their armed forces and the cupboard is pretty bare they've done a lot to support Ukraine I think stoltenberg yesterday uh noted that you know ammunition is really critical and Europeans are running out of that so what we the situation we have now is uh NATO at Madrid was about increasing the Readiness of European forces yet in order to support Ukraine which is of critical importance you see the the amount of equipment that Europeans have to maintain their ready forces being eaten into and this is going to require I think considerable investment uh and European countries are pledging that my fear though is that they're not necessarily going to be doing it in this sort of coordinated Manner and that's that's I think perhaps where the role of the European Union is sort of an underdeveloped aspect when we think about the security relationship that's absolutely true if I could just jump in on that you know uh we ran out of ammunition when we did the Libya operation uh we had trouble at a chaos also in Italy you know a commanded controlled node for the Air Force not enough people we had trouble during the the Kosovo air campaign as well so NATO was known that we were always skating on thin ice when the team came to capabilities because just in terms of ammunition how much ammunition should Denmark buy during a time of peace I mean making the case that we need a big Storehouse that would have been almost impossible so we went into this conflict uh with not a whole lot in the covered and so so I think while there are advances in things that that certainly happened in Lisbon we have smoked out lot of problems within NATO as well and you know like Max said this is going to call for a lot of investment in terms and then this was also in the sections uh press statement there's going to be a lot of investment that needs to be made in supply lines and and production lines in both Europe and the United States and our industry that is really really hard I mean Kathleen was talking about how hard it is to have Nate on the EU work together try the defense Industries on both sides it's very difficult when there's money there and there's an uncertain future in terms of well are we going to need the same amount of ammunition five years from now and so that's going to be a really really big issue and I think Vilnius is going to have to have to tackle that and I do believe I think you're absolutely right Max that this is where the European Union hopefully could be a very helpful player in terms of how do you coordinate European Defense industry U.S defense industry so that they both can share in meeting the demands that we have for things like ammunition or tanks or other things that we don't waste time in terms of competing and beating at each other that we work together to try to quickly restock and get ready for whatever comes next and just a follow-on from that point and actually to riff off of one of our colleagues at csis Cynthia cook who runs our defense industrial initiatives group when you think about the next level down like I said we all recognize that we've got these MD bins is what um some are calling it in terms of Defense industrial capacity and what we actually have in terms of ammunition um what do you actually do to fill the bins again is really hard do you add shifts do you have to do new factories if you have to do new factories where's the site's going to be these are incredibly technical questions and um are going to require a lot of hard thinking and probably some hard choices on behalf of the defense industry and for the governments that are buying from them my sense though is that without a very strong signal from NATO Allied governments that these are investments that are going to be enduring we're going to have these stockpile problems hit us over and over again and we can't afford to have that so let's dig into that a little bit what in your view what does it take to get that sustained commitment is it more involvement in the private sector I mean from the ministerial that we saw what came out yesterday industrial capacity and stockpiles is very much at the Forefront of those concerns who needs to act at which point of this chain and the levels down like that's like the hundred thousand dollars or like a billion dollar question right oh yeah totes okay so I I got it guys um there are experts that are much better at coming up with better answers than I but I will take a quick stab um and that is the regulatory processes and the acquisition processes that we have within particular like particularly the US Department of Defense and the US government writ large um it's Byzantine it's bureaucratic it's cumbersome there's all sorts of weird squirrely um bits to the federal acquisition regulations that make it hard for a pledge to be seen through over time um and defense acquisition reform I mean I feel like like the the term makes people want to run screaming because we've talked about it for decades but it's true like if we can't get our own institutional and bureaucratic house in order to buy kit when we need it then um we're not going to make progress I would also note though the federal acquisition regulations at least has been interpreted over the past couple of decades has really prioritized efficiency over Effectiveness and basically is it um are you getting the best value to the taxpayer that's a really important question of course but when you prioritize efficiency rather than Effectiveness you're taking risk that you're not going to have the capabilities that you need and you're not going to have surpluses that you need so it seems to me that there's probably a paradigm shift that is if it hasn't begun occurring it probably needs to when we think about how we buy equipment and I think that probably applies to both sides of the Atlantic and you know just to roll the dice on something that is so complicated but uh add a couple points during the Cold War we had a a this isn't a new issue you know a lot of what Kathleen was describing came after the Cold War where that demand signal and all the money wasn't as uh forceful uh as it was then during the Cold War we had uh the National Security requirements were pretty high and that that uh kind of trumped any other kind of rules and regulations that might have constrained it one of the things that we had and I think we still have them but they were they're government-owned contractor operated facilities uh their arsenals and and they were the ones that were in charge of making certain kinds of ammunition and this type of thing because it was something that it wasn't um you know at the whim of the commercial Market it wasn't run by a company that says look the demand signal for 155 millimeter ammo has gone down so we're going to close this line down this was actually a product line owned by the government and the government says well we're going to keep it open we're going to keep it warm because we don't know when we might have to Surge and so so you had that ability to Surge when you needed it and so that kind of thing left when we said look let's have the commercial sector take all this over why is the government in the business of competing uh with the private sector making 155 ammo and so a lot of the things that we did back then that was not uh competitive really but it was government owned was meant to give us the ability to search and that went away and it might be that we're gonna have to go back to that kind of thing but also we've got European partners that make 155 millimeter ammo2 although sometimes there's a little difference between the two which I think they're going to have to work out but but I think we now have within the European Union a partner where we can also shift some of the burden to providing common use ammo and this type of thing that can also be shared by European industry so I think there's a lot to do but it goes back to what Kathleen was hinting at which is it takes a long time we don't have that time anymore think just to sort of echo what Kathleen said all the problems of Defense acquisition that you know we see here in the United States well you sort of multiply that by 27 EU members 30 NATO members and you know they all need to buy the same kit essentially and one of the challenges and this is I think really when we look at kind of the European security architecture where I think the bottom-up role that the EU could play where you know if if and this is you know if the Dutch and the Germans each need to buy you know a vehicle well they have will have different requirements for it and they'll have different procurement agencies and and well you know the Germans want the coffee cup holder on the left side and the Dutch on the right side and it doesn't matter just you know they can they we configure those if we can figure out the same requirements and then you can make joint bids so that then NATO countries are operating the same equipment it makes deployment a lot easier it makes things cheaper and this is where I frankly think it's sort of Beyond NATO to some degree it means NATO is a multilateral Alliance and what the strength of the EU is look the EU countries are you know are cooperating on their their budgets on a really technical economic issues that set rules and regulations throughout their market economies their market economies are joined together in a single Market where but that hasn't really occurred in the defense space in creating sort of a common European Defense market and this is where the United States I think needs to look a little bit at ourselves in the mirror when we look forward at this because right now if you're Poland or and you've given all your tanks away you want to buy new tanks well you're going to the United States or you're going to Korea because you can you know get them quickly but there isn't the the European Defense industrial base is very Hollow uh in part because uh there isn't really one it's there isn't a common market and when we prioritize many of our arms sales which make a lot of sense for Europeans to buy American but it would also make sense for Europe to develop you know really have it's a really vibrant defense Industries which would probably then support European jobs there would be more incentives for European spending but we haven't really looked at it through that lens and I think that's something that we need to I think consider sort of backing off our opposition to the creation of a common European Defense Market is something that I think U.S policymakers should really start to consider that's a lot of old habits to do away with I think on the political side it's I mean it's tough because what is the job of a diplomat in in Europe well first and foremost is oftentimes to push for U.S companies uh you want the United States to do business arms sales strengthen diplomatic relations I'm not saying they should stop what I'm saying is that some of our our our views on on European Defense that we play a role in in some of what some of the dysfunction that we see and I think we need to think more proactively about how we go about addressing that before we move on to what I think is really important last piece of our conversation and looking at the coming year I want to step back a little bit to look at this past year in terms of political will which seems necessary even for questions of armament but at the center of some of the conversations happening at NATO as well we've seen a lot of political will to bring in new members but also tensions within the alliance potentially preventing these members from really entering full fully have these tensions been overblown when we talk about prop primarily turkey Hungary or are they being taken seriously and do you see them clearing up in this on this road to Vilnius well I think one thing about NATO that everyone probably knows but just to state that that when you have that many uh European nations in North North Atlantic as well Canada U.S in that Alliance there's naturally fissures there always have been north northern Europe southern Europe uh Western Europe are the older allies who feel they run Europe and then when we had enlargements you brought in central European nations who have a different view as well and so um so there are natural fissures there anyway secondly is everybody brings their National agendas into the alliance you're not supposed to you're not supposed to bring National problems in there and I think everyone tries not to bring a national problem between it with another Ally ended on the table but uh everyone has their uh their agendas and they try to win the day to get what they want in terms of what NATO might be doing some nations are more aggressive and public about what they want done and they are more aggressive in terms of taking hostage various issues until they get their way and that happens particularly during election season and so I think we're getting a very good lesson on that the master at this of course is erdogan and he is up for re-election and uh and so we've seen him use his NATO card to try to not that he necessarily had anything against turkey and I mean against Finland and Sweden I know he did have some issues with Sweden but but it was more that he was running for election and and he was going to be looking tough to the Turkish people and so these things are going on so uh so that brings tensions uh spiky tensions I mean it's not all the time with turkey but but France other nations also have issues there and it makes it spiky and it makes it hard to get things done so um so you know that doesn't mean that NATO was in trouble it doesn't mean that NATO was at a Crossroads NATO was in a crisis that NATO should be totally redone it just is one of these things that you take into account in trying to get things done it's like the Congress quite frankly when I was there I was just shocked about how much it was like the Congress because if you want to get something done at NATO or on the hill you've got to gather your allies you gotta you know do do those those things to get the votes and you need to do the same thing there at NATO because because everyone comes in there with a different view that doesn't mean the Congress is broken although these days I might change my mind on that but nor does it mean that that NATO is broken but it's just the way things work in NATO and in the European Union too the basics of Coalition politics right you know it it takes a lot of work it takes a lot of and that's why having these institutions for decades matters right because there's ways to start to build consensus um to put what Jim said a slightly different way um where you sit is where you stand and the Central and Eastern European allies are sitting close to a very dangerous immediate threat um when you get further away from a NATO's Eastern flank um you start to see capitals having different security priorities like fragility in the Middle East North Africa region um terrorism migration so on and so forth and NATO has done and this was reflected in the Madrid Summit I think a pretty admirable job of bringing together those different security perspectives and and and coming up with a common Vision where everybody can advance towards a a vision of security that addresses those different security perspectives and and priorities but as we just discussed it's a human institution and it requires constant work it requires constant attendance like it's it's um it's not NATO is not something that you can just sort of leave out in the margins and like and just think it's all going to be great everybody's going to sort of swim in the same direction no it takes work and so maintaining the kind of political cohesion that we've seen after you know in the wake of Madrid or I guess in Madrid and beforehand um it's going to take a lot of effort and I do worry that we might put it on autopilot again and if we do that then I think a lot of the the political coherence and political will that we've we've been able to build might might evaporate if that could jump on if you I know Max just wants to jump in there as Andrea would say to me and Brussels sprouts Jim I know you want to jump in but I have a question um just to say that putting on autopilot putting NATO on autopilot is what the U.S has tended to do in the past certainly since the end of the Cold War uh there were times when I was the dazdi during the Obama days it was it was put on autopilot a lot as much as I would jump up and down and scream it was on autopilot and what Kathleen says is exactly right we cannot allow that to happen there's a lot of things that go off the rails when the U.S is not in there leading and that's really really critical your time to jump in yeah I know um well good plug for brussels sprouts yeah also a podcast so yeah that's right now's the time now I I I totally agree I think when we look ahead the the fear that I have and and Jimmy sort of mentioned this I think in your initial comments um that what happened with this war suddenly America was back and we were back fully I mean we've provided more than 25 billion dollars in security systems Ukraine U.S forces are in Europe and uh and from a European perspective that's great we're engaging fully uh but then you know there's a a Chinese balloon and and our attention shifts uh we're now entering the second year of this war where will we be in year three year four and we can you know we'll maintain a high level of security assistance we're going to make the trips for defense minister meetings for uh uh for for leaders meetings it will all be there but you can also start to see Europeans now increasingly nervous about their security in the years ahead uh spending now hitting two percent but realizing that even with that spending increase they still have huge deficiencies in which they really reliant on the US they also have security challenges uh maybe not for the eastern states but in in the Sahel and the Mediterranean and in the Middle East regions that you know we used to be obsessed with and then no longer you know that's no longer a real National Security prioritized and so one of the things that we had over the last few decades when you were Dusty is while there wasn't that much focus on Europe there was at least focus on Europe's neighborhood and that's going to go away and so I think my fear is that we're we may not have used this crisis to uh to transform some of the issues that are plaguing the alliance and that while there's a European understanding of Defense it is still now firmly rooted in Reliance on the United States which I think is I think in general is fine but you're gonna I think see tensions in in the years ahead potentially unless there's major steps taken Jump On In on that there's a debate in Washington about whether or not what how the war in Ukraine has transpired if that means that we can redirect our attention and assets back to into paycom which is China's our pacing threat and so the idea being that well the Russian military has not been effective Europe is beginning to step up we've been encouraging them to step up for decades so now it's time to to focus our attention on China the problem with that argument is that if God forbid a contingency with a crisis with China really turned into something like an act of conflict we don't get to win that conflict without our NATO allies right and we don't get to manage the Global Security environment manage the risk of a in Russia being a resurgent or opportunistic during that crisis we don't get to manage that risk effectively without our NATO Partners so I I in Washington I worry about this this false dichotomy about you know prioritization of Russia or China actually we need to think holistically we need to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time yeah this zero-sum game view is counterproductive as we're trying to figure out how to avoid the autopilot how to switch Swift switch back into old habits and maintain the alignment and support to Ukraine both political and Military while recognizing in the US there are other things on the minds of this Administration but in Europe as well where this winter has been pretty mild the next one might not be in energy reserves are going to look very different military capacity and then a lot of elections coming up as we discussed I think avoiding the zero-sum game mentality is going to be crucial Max do you want to jump in on this oh Jim well just I'll jump into something Max said uh and and I think this is really critical he was talking about this or was it Kathleen he's talking about the dependency on uh the United States that this has shown that that dependency and uh uh and that is something that is is not healthy uh it's something that has stunted in the past the the creation of this European Defense industry that we've talked about it's been kept low because there was a uh the a dependency on the U.S for off the shelf and this type of thing and and uh so how do we how do we break that dependency and try to make it more balanced so that we can surge other places if we need to and that takes us through strategic autonomy you know and I know that name just Rises hackles all over Washington and then it was just but I think it's something we have to look at and say you know strategic autonomy is just another way of saying allowing the allowing and helping and nurturing the Europeans to do Max I think is what you were saying to build this uh European defense capability European military capability to be able to stand on their own feet and to be able to take a handoff from us and not have this dependency to for Europe to do that there's got to be a collective action by those Nations to create this autonomy uh and uh and that's not directed the United States I mean I've I have worked this for decades truly decades it's not aimed at us it used to be but it's not aimed at us now frankly and we shouldn't be so afraid of it but we will always have this dependency unless we can somehow help the Europeans work together to build that capability to do what they need to do to take a handoff from us on that I totally agree I mean I think look there was there is an element of strategic autonomy this is well we want to be able to make decisions independent of the United States and not be so Reliant so so where we can sort of break Break Free but really what this is is that you know if you need to get EU citizens out of of a country's capital whether it's sub-Saharan Africa or Afghanistan you have to call the US military to do it and Europeans don't have the capacity to do basic things that an economy the size that they have should be able to do and this is really in our interest because you know if we're not paying attention to the Sahel in the Middle East and other places well we would want the Europeans to be able to have the capacity to act and also if there was a a contingency in the indo-pacific Europe being stronger will enable us to be stronger in the Pacific and also you know every war that we have fought in in the last few Europeans have been there maybe it's not been NATO as an institution always NATO was there in Afghanistan not in Iraq but in Iraq we had other Europeans and I think the same would be the case but it's really about us trying to figure out we are sort of stuck in this we want to be indispensable actually we kind of really enjoy our indispensable position but then another part of us really wants Europeans to be autonomous because we're sick of them being totally incapable and and we need to I think figure out and how to how to kind of push in that direction but I think you were going to ask about energy right or we can't yeah it sounds like you want to talk about it I just I just think this is a a critical point is that you know the expectation was like Europe was going to be brought to its economic Knees by um by the war and one of the things and this just gets to the broader uh importance of strength of democracies so we don't really dwell on our successes too much and what we saw was you know the Germans in the course of less than a year break their dependency on Russian gas that we thought would bring their economy totally down no it's caught it had an economic hit but Germany didn't fall into a recession you had a green environment in the economy Minister buying LNG from Qatar and the United States doing whatever it took to get through the crisis and I think that that's part of the European will and European resolve that you know smart well-run democracies faced with real crises and challenges tend to figure it out and I think that's how we'll I hopefully see it over over the course of this this next year or two yeah so before I ask you to take out your crystal balls I'll ask one last question on the NATO front since I think this is on the Forefront of everybody's mind these days looking ahead to the next year but even just the next six months speaking of democracy starting to strengthen themselves do you see the alliance trying to just Shore up the commitments that have already been made or try to push forward and add to the ambition that we're seeing the defense investment pledge and like two percent I have a slightly different take on this issue um which is to say defense spending is critically important um allies have struggled to meet their defense investment pledges and in Wales in 2014. we've been talking about two percent for decades but um so so there is a recognition that in terms of defense spending two percent probably is not sufficient and whether or not it can be agreed in Vilnius that we move to three percent or whatever the number might be um again is a reflection of you know given the stockpile issues that we're seeing given the the long-standing capability challenges that that probably need to be spending more however one of the things that I worry about is that when we focus on how much allies are spending on defense that we start thinking about the alliance in terms of you know dollars in euros it's a transactional it's cost sharing it's not burden sharing right an alliance the the reason the alliance is so powerful and so useful it gives us these human connections to be able to come up with common strategies on a variety of challenges um that they include defense and Military material but so much more broad like China and its activities in Europe energy security Advanced Technologies and how might they may be having a damaging impact on our security um terrorism migration so many issues that's that's the purpose of the the alliance the NATO is a political military institution and we consistently constantly focus on this narrow soda straw of an issue of defense spending we are at risk of of just poisoning the well having a toxic conversation yet again that's just about cost sharing rather than how we're going to address these challenges together yeah no that's that's very true uh that you know the the um first to go to your question about is it going to be just trying to bring home the stuff that we had agreed earlier are we going to be adding to it and the answer is both you know at Vilnius they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna see how far we were able to get and what needs to be done to Spur the you know further progress of the Lisbon ideas but also uh they're going to be adding a lot of things to it I think it's going to be amazing what they're going to add to it and and and I am more power to Nato to taking on this workload but the point that Kathleen's making on the two percent is going to be big at Vilnius too and it's important for everyone to realize there's a history to that two percent uh and that and then just the thumbnail is that two percent wasn't backed by any great analysis or stuff I'm not even sure who collected out of thin air but during the well you know during the Cold War it was like 3.5 I think and the thing is that two percent is a mark as a political mark on the wall and I was reminded of that when I was uh when I was the dusty I was trying to get rid of it uh because a lot of the reasons that Kathleen was talking about and that the word had gotten back to London and I got a call from a mp uh on his car phone uh saying uh I heard you're trying to get rid of the two percent and I I said well I mean I wouldn't say that but we have to rethink it should it be more should be less should we you know and he goes well listen that two percent is what helps me get defense spending in the UK higher it'll be cut if I don't have a Target to shoot at that two percent as a Target if you get rid of that I'm not going to be able to be very convincing because we don't have you know this this this this this Mark that we're trying to hit so please don't get rid of the two percent so I said okay but that takes us to what Kathleen's saying I mean okay fine that's said that's a mark on the wall but it has taken on a life of its own it doesn't have any analysis behind it and there are bigger things that we're going to have to figure out and the two percent markama Wall came during a time of a Europe hole freeing at peace in the 1990s you know that's not really where we are today so we really do have to figure out uh with a Vilnius I mean we can launch 3.5 we could say two percent as a floor not a ceiling and and you know they'll have to get consensus on something because when it comes to money there's a lot of you know this at NATO so but I think we need to put some hard thinking behind it too some analysis behind it what makes the most sense to get us to what is really important and that is getting allies to bring more to the table because just because a nation needs two percent and there's a particular Nation at NATO that goes over two percent and I don't know what they're spending that money on uh but uh just because you spend two percent that doesn't mean you're gonna spend it on the right things and that doesn't mean you're going to use it in the doing the NATO's business so there's a lot more that we're gonna have to do a villainous along what Kathleen said to to bring home more of that capability yeah I have to say I'm a little terrified of going to three percent and setting out a new goal because I sort of think we're we're then putting this sort of new decades-long diplomatic headache for uh something that is probably not going to be obtained uh and I'm not actually sure that if every country spent three percent in the in the next year that would address a lot of the problems that we have I mean it would it would be hugely beneficial obviously if there's more money being spent but to me and I think it's a good point on two percent it should be the floor and I think that's where we're we're getting but we know what European forces need uh and so in some ways instead of each country spinning just a marginal amount more if that money is pooled whether through NATO or the EU and this is where I think the EU could play this this this role in terms of its funding and financing and I thought the president when he went to a European council meeting last March and there was a French proposal on the table to borrow more funding for defense the U.S sort of missed an opportunity to not endorse that because look if there's a common pool of money and you're making big Acquisitions because what defense companies need they need big checks to say okay go forth and start producing all the tanks right we're going to need a thousand tanks you you know you want to plan here's the money but individual countries aren't really are going to struggle to to cooperate we have a report coming out that points to European Defense cooperation has actually gotten worse over the last decade so I think it's really about trying to figure out how we cooperate more uh and spend the money that we're spending more wisely uh and and I don't know if in in spending more cooperatively I don't know if that's done through uh defense spending I think one one just quick additional point is I also think that one of the big challenges is going to be to continuing to support Ukraine and provide finding equipment buying equipment just for Ukraine we're not right now giving hand-me-downs but we're running out of those and now we're just gonna have to go to the store go to the companies and actually buy the equipment and I think that is where you know we've seen the EU with the European peace facility that is one uh big source of Revenue but more there's need to be more funding for that and I think that's something NATO is Reckoning with right now and I think we'll need to do so at Vilnius I think csas is going to keep working working on through transforming European Defense project and a lot of work that you're doing collaboratively with the National Security program as well know I have to say that I wish we'd all been having this discussion 10 years ago because now when we need it to deal with Russia we don't have it and so we're scrambling to do things we should have done in the past and we warned them and warned them I know I know that we should be having this conversation never listen to me but it is so we're going to know ahead and increase defense spending but you know we can increase the sentencing or do other ways to get capability and that won't show up for 10 years and it's kind of late and and so that's what makes me sad at the end of the day is we just it goes to your point on political will we didn't have the political will uh until the wolf came to the door and I used to say this at Nate all the time when the wolf comes to your door it's too late so anyway [Laughter] well in the last couple minutes we have left I think is a great time to for you to predict what we should be thinking about in 10 years I'd like all of you to take out your crystal balls read the tea leaves insert whatever metaphor you prefer about the future just very briefly what is one in the coming year related to this conversation we're having on European security Ukraine um what is a dark horse event that keeps you up at night and one of the most potentially significant positive Evolution that you foresee in the transatlantic relationship or would like to see you can take this however our course for me is um nuclear use in this conflict um we have not experienced that that kind of um weapon use since you know World War II thank God but that's terrible and possibly powerful game changer and I think when we when we think about nuclear when we think about deterrence and deterrence by denial are deterrence by by punishments um and we think about a nuclear use in this contingency there are things that we are doing that that um or or could be doing that might complicate a response if Russia decides to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine somehow and so how does the alliance respond to that how you know the the procedures the the um the the the mechanisms for that kind of communication and consultation within NATO I think are reasonably certain you know better than I do um but that will be a massive test of resolve and resilience and um and and communication it's it's just it's so much and again that's that's the the dark horse that I worry about you know I have to say I I agree with Kathleen on that and as my scene ass colleagues will know we've had some brussels sprouts discussions on this that got quite dark and trying to figure that out uh uh and so I would my Dark Horse on this and I don't think this will come to pass uh but we have to be ready for it is that if Ukraine if if our support for Ukraine falters uh and Ukraine ends up uh being overrun by a Russian army that has gotten really big of un not well trained and not well armed Russian uh conscripts and uh mobilized but but it turns out that they just become uh overwhelming uh and Russia ends up uh defeating Ukraine uh and our support stops what will Russia do with that huge Army and it and that huge Army that he will have put together to take Ukraine would be facing a Europe still trying to rebuild its military capability we've been talking about how they can do it Etc but as I said you know what we're talking about here uh might come fruition five years from now 10 years from now not today uh and so in that case you will have a lot of the European allies not have a lot of their equipment having been destroyed in Ukraine or gone not a lot of deliveries to restock their arsenals uh feeling very weak and of course the United States would be standing with them but we would find ourselves in Europe in a perilous place just in terms of conventional not even the nuclear but just in terms of conventional facing a Russia with a bloodlust that has this huge military this huge conventional military and trying to figure out so what is he going to do with that uh and knowing in the United States states that Europe is is prostrate in front of them and that we're going to have to step in there and then and then I'm not even going to think about China so frankly that's what keeps me up that and it actually does I wake up and think that if we are not successful in Ukraine we could be facing a terrible problem in Central Europe with a Russia with a huge Army uh and um and and a leader who's not going to say okay I'm done now I'm going to demobilize these guys and we're going to go back to business as usual how what should our presence look like you know in now and in the future how do we hedge against the possibility of of that scenario exactly what Kathleen is saying what would if that began to look like the trend would we then begin to beef up the U.S force posture in there to begin the Hedge and what does that mean in terms of escalation what will Russia say when it sees uh more rotations coming in and maybe permanent instead of rotational uh so that's that's the Dark Horse for me as I said I don't think that's going to happen but I didn't think Russia was going to invade Ukraine either but it's also our job to think through these things right maybe a positive note well what I was going to add so I think what Europeans would say on the Dark Horse would be our election in in 2024. and the potential for for a president that is is less inclined to to support the transatlantic Alliance but I I share Jim's uh concern and I think when we think about security assistance uh to Ukraine how pivotal that is uh Michael kimmage uh one of our our colleagues uh mentioned an event earlier today actually on Russia that you know Wars are basically fights of political economy and Russia's political economy compared to the West political economy it's just you know it's completely at it they're completely overmatched uh but Russia overmatches Ukraine's and so if our support for Ukraine dwindles then this is where the scenario that um that Jim outlined uh becomes real and I think it's going to be much harder this year to provide the same level of assistance uh we're gonna their means and there's other means that the United States can provide assistance that doesn't need to go through Congress but that all of those require friction require bureaucratic trade-offs between you know taking systems that would be for their indo-pacific to Europe and that's going to put some sand in the gears I think of R of the speed at which we can provide things and then if the Europeans are running out of equipment and the industries aren't really uh pumping that is I think the the concern but you know I think on the to leave on maybe on a positive note uh look if a year ago if you had told me all the things that the Europeans were going to do all the things that we would do in fact I actually wrote a piece at the center for American progress it was like what we should do a fresher invades and I think I hit all the points but I really underestimate how far we would go uh how strong the ukrainians would be and you know things like the UK evicting all the Russian oligarchs that had really infiltrated uh UK's economy and and politics just sort of overnight I think is is really extraordinary so we have taken uh amend steps and I think when I look forward I'm not I don't have that many sleepless nights because I think what we sort of demonstrated is the strength of the transatlantic Alliance of Europe of democracy over the last year thank you for ending on a positive note but that's important is to remind the absolute necessity of this United transatlantic community and the support to Ukraine so I want to thank all of you very much for joining us today for the audience online please stay engaged with the work that csis is putting out on this CNAs as well brussels sprouts if you heard just that name during the event it was a podcast not just brussels sprouts eurofile and then smartwoman smart power as well thank you again so much and have a great day [Music]

Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies

Views: 21,356

Keywords: Center for Strategic and International Studies, CSIS, bipartisan, policy, foreign relations, national security, think tank, politics, global food security, food loss, food waste, sustainability, food tech, biotech, #Event, #ISP #SWSP, #EREP

Id: _3smq2Q8zbQ

Length: 68min 55sec (4135 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 15 2023