R iga p a p er S

The Riga Conference was organized by

re~reinventing nato
Ronald D. Asmus
and Richard C. Holbrooke

Riga, Latvia – November 27 – 29, 2006

With the support of

© 2006 The German Marshall Fund of the United States. All rights reserved.

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 Riga Papers

RE~REINVENTING NATO
RONALD D. ASMUS
AND
AMBASSADOR RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE

Riga, Latvia
November 27 – 29, 2006
 Preface
Over the last decade it has become a tradition to gather the world’s leading thinkers on NATO in advance
of a major Alliance summit. The German Marshall Fund of the United States, along with the Latvian
Transatlantic Organisation (LATO) and the Commission of Strategic Analysis, are proud to host this
conference on the eve of the November 2006 Riga NATO summit.
This summit comes at a critical moment in NATO’s history. The Alliance is deeply engaged in a difficult
mission in Afghanistan and is at a critical juncture in terms of transforming itself for a very different
strategic era in the 21st century. Should NATO aspire to new, more global missions in the wider Middle
East and elsewhere? If so, then does it need new arrangements with non-NATO global partners? When
and where should NATO seek to act and with what kinds of coalitions?
Should NATO continue to keep its door open to future enlargement to new democracies further East and
South at a time when there are signs of enlargement fatigue in Europe? How should NATO transform
itself to better be able to work together with the European Union around the world? And, what future
should we envision for NATO-Russia relations in light of recent trends in Russia? Last but not least, does
NATO have a role to play in new areas and on new issues ranging from energy security to homeland
defense?
These are just some of the difficult questions that the Alliance must confront. In the spirit of stimulating
thinking and debate on both sides of the Atlantic, we have commissioned five Riga Papers to address
these and other issues.
In Re~reinventing NATO, Ronald D. Asmus and Richard C. Holbrooke provide a bold and ambitious
American view on how to overhaul the Alliance so that it may assume more global responsibility and
meet future global threats from two individuals deeply involved in NATO reform in the 1990s.
In NATO’s Only Future: The West Abroad, Christoph Bertram offers a European perspective on the
Alliance’s future from one of the foremost thinkers and writers on NATO affairs on the continent. He
warns that the Alliance is losing the support of its members and that it must do a much better job in
addressing their real security needs by broadening its ambitions and horizons, if it is ever to regain its
former centrality.
In NATO in the Age of Populism, Ivan Krastev analyzes the dangers of the rise in populism in Europe and
the challenge this presents for maintaining public support for the Alliance as well as effective decision-
making as NATO tries to respond to new global threats. He argues that the only way NATO can go global
without falling victim to a populist backlash is to transform itself into a two-pillar Alliance.
In Transforming NATO: The View from Latvia, Žaneta Ozoliņa provides the perspective of a smaller,
Northern European country on these issues and debates. This essay highlights the complexity of the
challenge that NATO’s transformation poses for smaller NATO members as well as ongoing priority and
commitment to keeping NATO’s door open for additional new members.
The fifth and final Riga Paper is entitled NATO and Global Partners: Views from the Outside. Edited by
Ronald D. Asmus, it consists of four essays by authors from Israel, the Persian Gulf, Australia and Japan.
These authors explore what their countries might expect from the Alliance in the future, as NATO seeks
to develop a new concept of global partnership.
GMF is delighted to offer these papers as part of the intellectual legacy of this Riga conference and
summit. We consider them a key contribution to the spirit of transatlantic debate and partnership that
it is our mission to support.

Craig Kennedy
President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States
 

Re~reinventing NATO
Ronald D. Asmus and
Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

A fter the end of the Cold War, NATO faced a fundamental choice: reinvent itself or
gradually wither away into meaninglessness. After a period of drift and indecision,
NATO took two historic steps: it opened its door to enlarge and include new members;
and it acted militarily beyond its borders in Bosnia and Kosovo. By so doing, NATO met
the strategic imperatives of the initial post-Cold War era: to stop ethnic cleansing in
the Balkans, anchoring new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe to the West
and building a new relationship with our former Cold War adversary, Russia.
A new era began after the terrible events of September 11, 2001. Today the Alliance
must reinvent itself, yet again. Its new threats no longer come primarily from within
Europe (although some of them have active cells in Europe). Plain and simple, NATO
must become a more global Alliance, one that takes it to countries and regions beyond
the European heartland and on missions beyond the imaginations of the founding
fathers. Yet they are necessary if the Alliance is to fulfill a core mission that has not
changed much since 1949: providing for the common defense and advancing the
common interests of its members. Some tentative steps have already been taken,
notably in Afghanistan, but a formal restatement of NATO’s purposes, agreed to by all
its members, is necessary and, five years after 9/11, overdue.
Afghanistan is the first, but certainly not the last, mission distant from Europe in
which NATO is fighting an unconventional war along with non-NATO and non-European
partners. This mission requires a coordinated civilian and military effort pursued
together with institutions like the United Nations (UN) and the European Union, and
perhaps the African Union.
There is no lack of crises for NATO to contribute to resolving. The United States and
Europe face a growing need to jointly project stability, conduct peacekeeping and
stability operations beyond the continent in general, and in the wider Middle East, in
particular. In addition to Afghanistan, the Alliance should be prepared to assist the UN
mission in Lebanon, should the situation there deteriorate. Even as the West seeks
to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, NATO should be preparing plans on
how to contain and deal with the consequences of a nuclear-armed Tehran if currently
pursued diplomacy fails. For reasons detailed below, there is still an important potential
role for NATO in Iraq as we struggle to prevent that country from fragmenting and
destabilizing the broader region. And, if the shock of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans
in the early 1990s provided an important impetus for reinventing NATO a decade ago,
then the need to halt the horror taking place today in Darfur should be an equally
powerful incentive to rethink how this Alliance can be used to meet the moral and
humanitarian challenges of today.
A centerpiece of the Alliance’s reinvention in the 1990s was its enlargement to include
new members. NATO’s enlargement to new democracies from the Baltic Sea region
 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

to the Black Sea is now recognized as an historic accomplishment, but it was much
criticized at the time by some liberal commentators, as well as many in NATO’s old
guard (including Paul Nitze, George F. Kennan, Brent Scowcroft and General Andrew
Goodpasture). But, the fears of its critics were unfounded, and NATO enlargement
paved the way for EU enlargement and the creation of a peaceful stability that Central
Europe had not seen in centuries. It is crucial that NATO’s door remains open and that
the prospect of future enlargement into Eurasia and across the wider Black Sea region
be kept alive. This is especially true if, as seems likely, the doors of the EU are closing.
NATO can play a critical role in stabilizing the Southern flank of the Euroatlantic
community and in the wider Black Sea and the Southern Caucasus vis‑à‑vis an unstable
Middle East.
There are other challenges and opportunities for NATO. Questions abound. Should
the Alliance assume a role in homeland security, given the fact that neither the EU nor
individual nations are in a position by themselves to respond to the consequences of a
catastrophic terrorist attack? Should NATO play a role in the realm of energy security,
not only vis‑à‑vis Russia, but also in terms of coming to the aide of threatened Middle
Eastern countries whose energy infrastructure is critical for the West’s economic
health? Last and certainly not least, how should NATO respond to Russia’s attempts to
roll back democratic developments on its borders?
To be sure, the Alliance has taken rhetorical steps towards a more global role. A visit
to NATO’s headquarters reveals that the Alliance is engaged in a wide range of new
activities, much of it in the form of contingency plans. But, one should not confuse
busyness with strategic relevance or actual operations. Today, the Alliance is probably
less central in Western thinking and policies than at any time since its creation. Compared
to the long list of strategic challenges the West needs to address, what is most striking
is how modest and minimalist NATO’s current agenda is. Most of the issues mentioned
above are not on the agenda or even part of the important conversations taking place
in Brussels and Mons, and even less so at leadership levels.

Reinventing the Alliance

(Again)
This is not the first time NATO has had to reinvent itself for a new era. When the Alliance
was founded in 1949 there were many, including in the United States, who thought
the idea of establishing and managing an Alliance that would have to bridge so many
different national perspectives on how to confront the then Soviet threat was fanciful
and could never work.
NATO worked better than critics anticipated during the Cold War because a generic
consensus emerged on the nature of the Soviet threat and how to deal with it. That
consensus did not emerge automatically but came to fruition through leadership and
consultation across the Atlantic. And, when NATO had to shift strategy in response to
changing trends within the communist world, they inevitably produced major debates
and tensions within the Alliance as well, often including predictions of NATO’s imminent
 Re~reinventing NATO 

demise or irrelevance. Nevertheless, this generic consensus was the strategic glue
that held the Alliance together for its first forty years, and which ultimately helped the
West win the Cold War without firing a single shot.
Following the collapse of communism, NATO had to come up with new strategic glue.
An alliance whose original enemy had disappeared faced the question of quo vadis.
The answer that gradually emerged after significant debate was that NATO’s job
should be to defend the peace not only in Western Europe, but in Europe as whole.
Speaking in June 1993, Senator Richard G. Lugar coined the following memorable and
pithy phrase: “NATO would either go ‘out-of-area or out-of-business’”.
It fell to President Bill Clinton to lead the drive to reinvent NATO in the 1990s. He
pushed through the Alliance’s decision to open NATO’s door to new members through
enlargement in order to consolidate democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, along
with the intervention beyond NATO’s borders in Bosnia and subsequently in Kosovo.
Over the course of the decade, NATO consolidated a new consensus on the need to
extend the security that had been established in Western Europe eastward and across
the continent as a whole stretching from the Baltic Sea in the North to the Black Sea
in the South.
With the benefit of hindsight, this strategic leap looks inevitable and self-evident. But,
as veterans of the battles surrounding these decisions, we can attest to the fact that
they were anything but easy. Some of the fiercest foreign policy fights of the 1990s
took place over these issues. Interventions in the Balkans, NATO enlargement and the
decision to establish a NATO-Russia relationship were opposed by a majority of the
strategic community in Europe and the United States. But, they were the right thing
to do. And, they succeeded. By the late 1990s, the Alliance started to debate whether
it should also be prepared in principle to act beyond Europe and assume a more
global role. In spite of American support, that effort remained stillborn. A majority of
European allies at the time wanted to limit NATO’s scope to issues and areas in and
around Europe.
We can now look back at the 1990s as the interwar period, as a time between 11/9 and
9/11, between the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the war on terror. Since
then, NATO has faced the question of whether it should invent itself for a new and very
different strategic era for the third time in its history and, if so, what such a reinvention
would entail. The consensus to re-forge NATO to face these threats appeared to
materialize in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when the Alliance invoked Article
five for the first time in its history and NATO allies offered to join the United States
in Afghanistan, an offer that the Bush Administration inexplicably, and inexcusably,
rejected.
This appalling decision was eventually rectified when the United States, stretched thin
in Iraq, finally called on NATO in 2006 to take over most of the Afghanistan mission.
But the Administration’s failure to capitalize on that historical moment to pull NATO
into a new strategic era was a mistake. One cannot go back and recreate opportunities
lost, and the war in Iraq has made the building of a consensus for a new more global
NATO more difficult.
 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

Beyond Europe
The point of departure for NATO’s re~reinvention must be the recognition of the nature
of the strategic challenge being faced today. The United States and Europe face a
set of common threats geographically concentrated in an arc of crisis that stretches
from Northern Africa through the wider Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan into
Central Asia. The threats posed in this region are not abstract, but current and real. In
addition to NATO’s war in Afghanistan, Iraq is in danger of disintegrating. Turkey talks
ominously about invading Northern Iraq. NATO in Northern Iraq would help Turkey
deal with this complicated issue together with its allies. While hostilities in Lebanon
have been halted, they could resume at any moment. Syria could still be pulled into
such a conflict. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are under pressure from jihadists to support
Hezbollah, even though both governments hate that organization. The West looks
to Central Asia as a major source for its future energy needs, but there are signs of
Russian encroachment as well as growing Islamic resistance in that region. Afghanistan
accuses Pakistan of giving shelter to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Uzbekistan, controlled
by a repressive Soviet-era boss, could become the next Islamic Republic. India talks of
taking action against Pakistan for allegedly being behind recent terrorist bombings on
its territory. And, above all this looms the prospect of Iran going nuclear.
The list could be continued. Indeed, a local or individual crisis in one of many potential
hotspots across this region could start a chain reaction that could spread quickly
almost anywhere between Tbilisi and Tashkent or Cairo and Bombay. The instability
across this region arguably poses the greatest threat to global stability since the early
1960s and the Cuban missile crisis. Yet that crisis, while immensely dangerous, was
relatively simple, essentially only involving two states and two national leaders. Here
the dangers and risks are spread across a much larger, highly combustible, region
with the West’s ability to manage, control or even influence developments in these
individual countries far more limited and open to question.
Where is NATO in all of this? The honest answer is at the margins. This highlights the
central issue NATO today must face. Does the Alliance want to focus on maintaining
security on an increasingly secure Europe or will it make the leap to become a key
instrument in addressing these new, more global, threats beyond the continent? Are
NATO members prepared to reinvent it to address the central strategic issues of our
day? For an alliance that claims that its job is to address the primary security challenges
and threats to the democracies of North America and Europe, the next logical step
for NATO is to transform itself to address this global range of problems and potential
threats. What would and should such transformation entail?
NATO’s biggest test is taking place right now in Afghanistan, where it has belatedly
taken over the command of ISAF. Afghanistan is a central theme for this Riga Summit.
But, the war there is not going well and success is by no means assured. Indeed, what
is striking about this mission is how difficult it has been for NATO to generate the
political will and military forces required to meet its agreed objectives. There is a real
danger that more ground will be lost in this war and that the Alliance will fail if on both
sides of the Atlantic there is no political will for stepping up commitment. We cannot
avoid this challenge: Afghanistan will be with us far longer than Iraq and a defeat there
 Re~reinventing NATO 

would be catastrophic for the United States and NATO. Yet, not all NATO members
share this view.
NATO is barely present in other key hotspots along this new arc of crisis, although
there are ample issues and areas where the Alliance could make a real difference and
play a significant role. One of them is Iraq, which obviously poses the greatest threat to
regional stability. While we should do everything possible to maintain Iraq’s unity, we
must all recognize the possibility that the country could fragment or fall into full-scale
sectarian fighting. This will directly affect NATO and its members, above all Turkey.
Already today in Turkey there are voices openly calling for an invasion of Northern Iraq
to deal with the constant raids into Southeastern Turkey by the terrorist organization
known as the PKK. The best way to reduce that risk would be for NATO to deploy troops
to Northern Iraq. Such a deployment would serve several other purposes. First, as
part of a deal with the Kurdish leadership that would rein in the PKK, it would be the
best way to prevent Turkish military intervention. Second, NATO troops could help
contain the spillover of an Iraqi civil war and its spread to the part of Iraq that is still
peaceful, stable and quasi-democratic. Third, they could serve as an over-the-horizon
force should it become necessary to reintroduce troops into the broader Iraqi theater,
something that will be much more difficult from neighboring Kuwait. Finally, it would
provide the Bush Administration with at least some political cover to demonstrate that
it had not abandoned Iraq completely.
Then there is Lebanon. NATO passed when it came to the question of what kind of
international force should be deployed in Southern Lebanon under the auspices of the
United Nations. For an Alliance that has spent a decade cultivating relations around
the Mediterranean in anticipation of the Alliance assuming more responsibility at
some point, it is striking just how quickly the NATO option was dismissed. In many
ways, the Alliance’s newly created NATO Reaction Force (NRF) would have been a
logical resource to call on to support such a mission. Instead, the EU took the lead in
assembling a European force that constitutes the core of this deployment under the
UN. One can obviously envision scenarios down the road where such a force could
be challenged on the ground and find itself in the kind of trouble that would confront
European countries with the choice of calling for more muscular reinforcements or
withdrawing. If such a situation emerges, NATO may be needed, and it should be
ready. The parallels with Bosnia are all too obvious.
NATO today is largely moribund in its political dialogue in the Middle East (both the
Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative). To be sure, some
Arab countries in the region are reticent and even hostile to any expanded NATO role
in the region. Yet, there are also counties who are interested in moving further and
faster to deepen their cooperation and where it is NATO that is moving slowly. There
is potential for deeper ties not only with Israel but with a number of other countries
around the Mediterranean as well as several of the smaller Gulf States in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC). Here NATO’s own timidity and ambivalence is holding back
such cooperation.
Looming over all this is the danger of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. This would not
only force European allies to reexamine their own needs for theater missile defense,
but could lead many Middle Eastern countries to search for ways to strengthen their
own security, including through closer ties to NATO if such an option exists. Israel is
at the top of that list, but several members of the Gulf Cooperation Council may also
 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

seek closer security ties with the West. Rather than wait for such a scenario to become
reality, it makes sense for NATO to expand its political and military cooperation with
these countries now, so that these relationships are in place should such dangers
materialize.
In listing these scenarios, we do not believe that the Alliance needs to go everywhere
or be involved in every future conflict. NATO does not need to become globo-cop. Our
list is designed to highlight how bold and innovative leaders could use the Alliance’s
potential to address some of the very real security problems being struggled with
today. The reality is that we need an Alliance that is more flexible, more active and
more engaged in building coalitions to deal with possible contingencies in places
beyond Europe.
We need to think more creatively about what models of NATO involvement make the
most sense. There are several viable models. One is NATO-led operations à la Bosnia,
Kosovo and Afghanistan. Ideally, such operations would have a UN mandate. Such
scenarios are likely to be on the periphery of Europe and involve crisis where a major
NATO role is natural. As in Afghanistan, they are likely to include non-NATO and non-
European forces.
A second model is a situation like the one in East Timor in 1999, where the UN Security
Council voted for a mandate for a Multinational Force (MNF) operation with a lead
country in charge. This is not a UN peace-keeping force, although it can evolve into
one over time. Australia played this role successfully in East Timor in 1999 and in
2000 the MNF became a UN peace-keeping force. The United States kept a small, but
symbolically important, contingent of troops in East Timor, under separate national
command. In a third model, NATO actually offers no forces but provides limited, but
critical, assets to help it succeed. An obvious example of where this might work is
Darfur, where many experts believe that if allied countries provide airlift, logistical
support and modern communications (and enforce a no-fly zone), UN or African Union
forces could be helped significantly to halt the genocide that is taking place.
The primary constraint on NATO actions remains the lack of agreement among its
members. Philosophically, NATO should not limit its future scope of operations. In
reality, however, we will be fortunate if the Alliance can successfully operate in the
wider Black Sea region, Central Asia, parts of the Middle East and perhaps contribute
to international missions in parts of Africa.
This will also require the United States and Europe to reach a common position on how
the Alliance can maintain its legitimacy. In the late 1990s, NATO countries were close
to bridging their different views on whether the Alliance needed the blessing of the UN
Security Council to act beyond its immediate area. The compromise was that it was
highly desirable for NATO have a UN mandate, but that the Alliance also had to keep
open the door of acting without such a mandate if necessary. The debate was primarily
over how wide the crack in that door should be and how explicit that fallback clause
should be articulated.
With its aversion to the UN, Washington wanted the clause that NATO could act on its
own to be explicit and clear, while most European allies wanted the commitment to
get a UN mandate to be explicit and clear. In spite of all the Sturm und Drang, a simple
compromise was available. As one French official put it at the time, the American and
French were like feuding Protestants and Catholics. Washington wanted the right to
 Re~reinventing NATO 

act without a UN mandate to be explicit. France, he said, had a more Catholic view, in
that it wanted to affirm the need for a UN mandate even though it knew there would be
occasions when the Alliance would act without one, as they had (with French support)
in Kosovo. Asked why Paris would affirm a rule it knew it would break, he responded
that it was like affirming your belief in the Ten Commandments, even though you knew
sin lay in your future. Hence, Kosovo.
Despite the Bush Administration’s ambivalence toward the UN, NATO will face an even
greater need to acquire legitimacy for action in the future, if the Alliance is to make
global missions a central part of its work. This is in part because of the dramatic fall in
America’s global standing, and the fact that we are talking about the Alliance acting in
parts of the world where anti-Americanism is often widespread. Thus, it is imperative
that we make clear it is not American policy to circumvent the UN, but rather, to work
with it while recognizing its limits. Making sure such misconceptions are not abused
or used against the United States will also be important.

The Future of Enlargement

Today NATO enlargement is recognized as a key part of the successful consolidation
of democracy in Central and Eastern Europe and the building a new post-Cold War
Europe that is free and at peace. NATO must continue to play a key role in the Alliance’s
future and expanding the sphere of security of the Western world.
NATO enlargement also had a broader strategic purpose, however. It was not only
about helping the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, as important as
that was. It was also about helping Europe heal the age-old conflicts in the Eastern
half of the continent so that a Europe at peace with itself could broaden its geopolitical
horizons, look further afield and assume more global responsibility. In that sense,
the issue of new members in Europe and new missions beyond it were, and still are,
linked.
With accession of a second wave of new NATO members from the Baltic Sea in the
North to Romania and Bulgaria on the Black Sea in the South in 2002, many observers
viewed the vision of a bigger and better NATO as essentially complete, with the
important exception of the countries of the former Yugoslavia. But, the real shift in
thinking occurred with the Rose and Orange Revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine,
respectively. They opened the vista of a new wave of enlargement extending deeper
into Eurasia and across the wider Black Sea region. Kyiv and Tbilisi appeared on the
screen, for the first time, to get on a new trajectory that could make them credible
candidates for NATO membership.
The potential emergence of a liberal democracy in Ukraine, the first in Eurasia, and
the creation of a liberal democratic order in Georgia, also the first of its kind in the
Southern Caucasus, contain the potential to redraw the geopolitical map of Europe
and Eurasia. A successful democratic experiment in Ukraine is important in its own
right and could have echoes in a dictatorial Belarus, and perhaps even in Russia,
despite its current slide back into authoritarianism and intimidation. The greater our
 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

concerns over the future course of politics in Moscow become, the more we should be
investing in a democratic Ukraine.
Success in Tbilisi could be equally important. A sustained democratic order in the
Southern Caucasus would have implications well beyond Georgian borders. It could
positively impact pro-Western but autocratic countries like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
It will echo in neighboring Armenia where signs of a strategic orientation toward the
West are becoming more evident. The wider Black Sea region is a key to any meaningful
Western strategy for energy security based on a diversity of suppliers as it is the critical
transit route for Central Asian energy to the European market. Consolidating Western
values and stability along the Southern rim of the Euroatlantic community at a time
when we face rising extremism and instability to the immediate South in the wider
Middle East is critical.
So the stakes are high. It is especially important to keep the Alliance’s door open at a
time when enlargement fatigue in Europe seems to be on the rise and the EU door may
be in danger of closing. One reason why the United States embraced NATO enlargement
in the early 1990s was the judgment that the EU was unable to carry the burden of
securing democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. We may be entering another period
where the EU is unable to play the lead role of projecting stability to these struggling
new democracies. As a result, NATO could again become a key instrument in trying to
anchor these countries to the West, as it has been in the past.
Both of us were early and strong proponents of NATO enlargement. As supporters
of both Georgia and Ukraine, we recognize the far-reaching benefits their successful
Euroatlantic integration can produce. One must nevertheless be realistic about the
steep path that lies ahead. These countries have further to go than previous candidates
in terms of reform.
In the face of intense Russian pressure, the new government in Kyiv has already officially
downgraded its Euroatlantic aspirations. NATO continues to be a divisive issue inside
Ukraine and the prospect of the kind of meaningful reform needed to bring Ukraine
into the West in the years ahead is becoming less rather than more clear. Whereas a
year ago, Kyiv seemed likely to be offered a place in NATO’s Membership Action Plan
at the Istanbul Summit, the topsy-turvy course of Ukrainian politics over the last year
has taken that off the table. Ukraine may still move in a Westward direction, albeit at
a slower pace and with more ups and downs than expected and it is in American and
European interests to support and maximize such steps. But, the reality is that the
country is now on a different trajectory than one year ago and we are now, at best,
looking at a different timetable.
In the case of Georgia, the road ahead is especially tricky. While Tbilisi is making real
and significant progress in domestic reforms at home, it is also difficult to imagine
how a country can join the Alliance with frozen conflicts and foreign troops on its soil.
The resolution of these conflicts cannot be a prerequisite for Alliance membership,
though. That would give Russia a back door veto over Georgia’s aspirations and no
incentive to help resolve these conflicts, but the political reality is that we need to put
the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia on a clear path to resolution if Georgia is
to become a member of NATO.
Resolving these conflicts will require the right mix of hard work at home and diplomacy
abroad. At home, Tbilisi must continue and accelerate the reform process that will make
 Re~reinventing NATO 

Georgia an increasingly attractive society. It must convince people in the separatist

regions that their future is better secured in a decentralized democratic Georgian state
than in non-democratic, and often criminalized, enclaves. The Russian presence on
the ground in these conflicts has long ceased to be helpful or stabilizing. Moscow has
long ceased to be a neutral arbiter and is increasingly part of the problem, as opposed
to the solution. Tbilisi cannot manage Moscow by itself. The United States and Europe
need to put more pressure on Moscow. And, the West needs to find the right way
to use the perspective of closer ties with the Euroatlantic community as part of the
package to soften and eventually overcome these conflicts.
The time has also come for the West in general, including NATO, to reassess future
relations with Moscow. In many ways, the assumptions guiding our current policy on
Russia can be traced back to the mid-1990s. Western policy has long assumed that
Moscow was moving, in a two-step-forwards-one-step-back fashion, in a Western and
democratic direction and that Russia could gradually evolve into a partner of the EU
and NATO on a growing number of issues. The current NATO-Russia relationship was
established in the late 1990s as a key part of the overall Western effort to establish
and institutionalize new patterns of defense and military cooperation with Moscow.
But, Russia today is no longer on a democratic path. And, it is increasingly pursuing a
set of neo-imperialistic policies aimed at de facto rolling back democratic developments
in what it considers its near abroad. The degree to which Moscow is prepared to assist
the West in containing the North Korean nuclear threat as well as Iran is also less clear
than previously. Growing nationalism at home and high energy prices are whetting
Moscow’s foreign policy ambitions, generating the enhanced wealth and clout for
Moscow to pursue those goals in ways that run contrary to Western interests. Moscow
seems ready to take advantage of U.S. weakness caused by Washington’s dependence
on Russian support on Iraq and North Korea.
To say that Moscow is becoming increasingly difficult does not mean we are returning
to some kind of new Cold War. The reality is that the West’s relations with Russia are
increasingly marked by a mix of cooperation and competition. We have an ongoing
interest in working with Russia to clean up the legacy of the Cold War and deepen our
cooperation in the area of non-proliferation and counter-terrorism. The same threats in
the wider Middle East discussed above and which pose dangers to the United States
and Europe also threaten Moscow. In the realm of energy, Russia will remain a major
energy supplier. But, we will compete with Moscow over access to energy resources in
Central Asia and elsewhere. The halcyon days of Clinton and Yeltsin, sitting together at
FDR’s Hyde Park in 1995 to plan a joint military operation in Bosnia, are gone, perhaps
forever.
NATO-Russian relations will also have to be reassessed against this new backdrop
and as part of an overall reassessment of Western strategy. They will in all likelihood
reflect this new mixture of cooperation, competition and perhaps even confrontation
on selected issues.
10 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

Reconciling NATO and the EU

If Europe is to assume a more global role and responsibility, it will need a greater
sense of political cohesion and unity to act. If the United States wants Europe to make
that strategic leap, Washington must recognize its interest in seeing Europe politically
coalesce, in order to play that role. Generating that kind of European political will and
leadership will not happen in NATO alone. If it is going to happen, it will increasingly
have to occur in and through the European Union, only then being coordinated with
Washington.
The framework that NATO provides, while critical, is also increasingly too narrow
for current strategic needs. A more global NATO and an EU that can work together
are needed because of the nature of the operations they are likely to conduct in the
future. They will require the pursuit of integrated approaches in which the civilian and
military components of the strategy work together. As important as NATO is, it is by
itself no longer enough. As we can see from the Balkans to Afghanistan, both EU and
NATO capabilities are needed if we are to be successful. And, that means the United
States needs to work more closely with a European Union that has or is acquiring those
capabilities that NATO does not have and vice versa.
The changing nature of America’s strategic needs and what this means for policy
towards the EU can be illustrated by imagining the top ten American priorities in terms
of strategic cooperation with Europe during the Cold War and today. The former would
be dominated by military cooperation and tasks undertaken by NATO. The list today,
however, looks very different. It is more global, less military and increasingly includes
issues in the EU’s bailiwick such as homeland security, democracy promotion and
other policies addressing the root causes of terrorism. It also includes a common
strategy toward Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Kosovo, Lebanon, Darfur and
other core issues as one looks across the wider Middle East. These are all areas where
European legitimacy, resources and support are key to American success. Although
NATO can and should play a supporting role in the war on terrorism, this is a war in
which the EU is potentially as important as NATO for the United States. The challenges
of the 21st Century are making the United States more dependent on the European
Union’s success.
If we want to win European support for re~reinventing a more global Alliance, we need
to harmonize our efforts with those of the European Union. It is, therefore, time to end
the counterproductive competition that has long existed between the EU and NATO
and to recognize that each side of the Atlantic needs both. The United States needs to
support and not fear the emergence of a coherent and outward-looking EU willing and
able to act globally with Washington to address new threats. At the end of the day, it
is the European project that is the number one priority for most Europeans. If we want
to rekindle European interest in and support for NATO, we should not ask them to
choose between the Alliance and the EU, a competition we will not win. Instead, we
must pursue a strategy that removes the conflict from the issue and allows Europeans
to wholeheartedly support both.
Getting there will require change on both sides of the Atlantic, however. It is not only
Washington that has to rethink. The EU must do so as well. Loose talk of building the
 Re~reinventing NATO 11

EU as a counterweight may play well domestically in some countries. But, it is a pretty

foolish policy if one wants Washington to take the EU more seriously and work with it
more closely. It is also a luxury Europe can no longer afford. Fortunately, it also no longer
corresponds to mainstream thinking in an enlarged European Union. The EU today
is no longer the bastion of Gaullism and anti-Americanism it once was. Recent elite
studies have shown that senior European Commission official and parliamentarians
are much more pro-American and pro-NATO than European publics.
In spite of Europe’s disenchantment with the Bush Administration and historical lows
in American credibility in Europe, the simple fact remains that Europe needs America
if it hopes to deal with the new strategic challenges of our era. The EU by itself is too
weak to resolve many of the major problems it faces without the United States. It, too,
will need a more global NATO to help provide the muscle to back up its own aspirations
for a more global European foreign policy. And, the further afield Washington and
Brussels need to act together, the more it will be necessary for these two institutions
to find new ways to join forces. That will require us to build a closer and more strategic
U.S.-EU relationship, in parallel with a more global NATO.

Conclusion
Unfortunately, few if any of the issues raised here are likely to be discussed by Alliance
leaders at the NATO Riga Summit. At a time when the dangers facing the United States
and Europe are growing, the Alliance is focused on a minimalist reform agenda, which
offers few if any answers to the pressing strategic questions of our time. Bureaucrats
have set the agenda, in the absence of visionary leaders.
It is time to stop pretending that everything is fine in Brussels and Mons. NATO will
never generate the political impetus and leadership to reinvent itself unless we face
that truth and openly debate what this Alliance can and should become. Can the
United States and Europe come together to address the new threats to Western values
and civilization? Can common ground once again be found on how best to respond
collectively? Can the Alliance make another strategic leap, one that is in many ways
bigger and bolder than the renaissances that took place a decade ago, to confront the
new threats of this century? Those are the central questions that should be at the top
of our agenda.
NATO leaders have thus far demonstrated neither the vision nor the political will to
reinvent the Alliance. Many doubt whether the Alliance can be put back together after
the transatlantic strain over Iraq and other issues. Some will argue that the steps we
call for are a bridge too far and should not even be attempted. Many are too ready to
watch NATO issue grandiose paper communiqués, but then do little to back them up,
thereby condemning the Alliance to a slow but certain descent into marginalization
and irrelevance.
Those who say NATO cannot succeed in transforming itself should remember the past.
There were those who doubted the Alliance could be created in the late 1940s. Others
questioned whether it could be reinvented in the early 1990s. Today many question
whether NATO can be put back together after the strains caused by the Iraq war.
12 Ronald D. Asmus and Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke

But, what passive or even bad policy has eroded, good policy can rebuild. And, while
the leadership required for this task must emanate from both sides of the Atlantic, it
must start in the United States.
Even though there is little prospect that the Riga Summit will answer these questions,
it could be the place where the debate about re~reinventing NATO begins. It can be the
first step towards the kind of renaissance necessary if the United States and Europe
are to remain safe and secure and a single community in the 21st Century. At stake is
nothing less than our ability to recreate the West to meet the strategic challenges of
our time.
 13

About the Authors

Ronald D. Asmus is Executive Director of the Transatlantic Center of the
German Marshall Fund of the United States in Brussels, Belgium. He has
written widely on U.S.-European relations and is the author of Opening
NATO’s Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2002). He served as a Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for European Affairs in the Clinton Administration from
1997 to 2000. He has previously worked as a Senior Fellow at the German
Marshall Fund, Council on Foreign Relations, RAND and Radio Free
Europe. Ronald D. Asmus has been awarded the U.S. State Department's
Distinguished Honor Award; the Republic of Poland’s Commander’s Cross;
the Kingdom of Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star; the Republic
of Lithuania’s Order of the Grand Duke Gediminas; and the Republic of
Estonia’s Order of the Cross of St. Mary’s Land; and the Republic of Latvia’s
Order of the Three Stars. Ronald D. Asmus holds a Ph.D. in European
studies from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies
of The Johns Hopkins University.

Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke is Vice Chairman of Perseus LLC, a

leading private equity firm. His most recent government role was as U.S.
Ambassador to the United Nations, a capacity in which he was also a
member of President Clinton’s Cabinet, from 1999 to 2001. As Assistant
Secretary of State for Europe from 1994 to 1996, he was the chief architect
of the Dayton peace agreement, which ended the war in Bosnia. Later, as
a private citizen, he served as President Clinton’s Special Envoy to Bosnia
and Kosovo and Special Envoy to Cyprus on a pro-bono basis. From
1993 to 1994, he was U.S. Ambassador to Germany. During the Carter
administration, Ambassador Holbrooke served as Assistant Secretary
of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and was in charge of U.S.
relations with China when Sino-American relations were normalized in
December 1978. He worked on Vietnam at the Johnson White House and
was a member of the American delegation to the Vietnam Peace Talks in
14

Paris, France. Ambassador Holbrooke has also served as Vice Chairman

of Credit Suisse First Boston, Managing Director of Lehman Brothers,
Managing Editor of Foreign Policy, and Director of the Peace Corps in
Morocco. He has written numerous articles and two best selling books
To End a War, a memoir of the Dayton negotiations, and, as co-author,
Counsel to the President, Clark Clifford’s memoir. He is Chairman of the
American Academy in Berlin, Germany, Chairman of the Asia Society and
President and CEO of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS.
 15

About the Organizers of the

Riga Conference
The German Marshall Fund of the United States
The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a nonpartisan
American public policy and grantmaking institution dedicated to promoting
greater cooperation and understanding between the United States and
Europe. GMF does this by supporting individuals and institutions working
on transatlantic issues, by convening leaders to discuss the most pressing
transatlantic themes, and by examining ways in which transatlantic
cooperation can address a variety of global policy challenges. In addition,
GMF supports a number of initiatives to strengthen democracies. Founded
in 1972 through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall
Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the
Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has
six offices in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, and
Ankara (www.gmfus.org).

The Latvian Transatlantic Organisation

The Latvian Transatlantic Organisation (LATO) is a non-governmental
organization established in March 2000 to promote Latvia’s full and active
membership in NATO and to work for international security and democracy
in NATO and the EU near neighborhood region. It unites members from
different social groups in terms of age and professional interests. LATO
was established with the objective of facilitating Latvia’s membership in
NATO. Education and information activities, aimed at increasing public
support for NATO membership, have been carried out. These activities
explained and built public awareness about the principles and values
that unite NATO member states. Since Latvia achieved its main foreign
policy goal of joining the EU and NATO, LATO has continued its work
providing information on international defense and security issues and
questions related to Latvia’s full participation in NATO. LATO has also
16

become an active partner in the promotion of democratic values and the

strengthening of civil society in the neighboring region, including Belarus,
Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. The scope of LATO activities is both local
and international. Its activities include conferences, seminars, summer
schools and work with partner organizations and mass media. The LATO
Information Center ensures accessibility of information and facilitates
understanding about security and defense policy questions, as well as
encouraging interest in participation in LATO activities.

The Commission of Strategic Analysis

Latvia’s Commission of Strategic Analysis under the auspices of the
President of the Republic of Latvia was established on April 2, 2004,
at the initiative of the President of Latvia, Dr. Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. Its
founding resolution was jointly signed by the President and the Prime
Minister. The Commission’s main goal is to generate a long-term vision
of Latvia’s development through interdisciplinary and future-oriented
studies. The Commission of Strategic Analysis is a think tank that seeks
to consolidate Latvia’s scholarly potential for the benefit of Latvia’s future
development. It has undertaken research on Latvia’s opportunities as a
member of the European Union and NATO, along with Latvia’s place in
global development processes. The Commission also stimulates high-
quality dialogue with the country’s legislative and executive powers, as
well as the general public, on matters that concern Latvia’s development
and the consolidation of democracy.
 R iga p a p er S
The Riga Conference was organized by

re~reinventing nato
Ronald D. Asmus
and Richard C. Holbrooke

Riga, Latvia – November 27 – 29, 2006

With the support of