ATLANTIC TREATY ASSOCIATION

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 1

- Flora Pidoux & Maria Mundt

September was a key month for NATO: the

Summit in Wales gathered all the leaders of the

member and partner countries in order to

discuss the future of the Alliance. What was

meant to be an event to assess the relevance of

the organization in today’s world turned out to

be a reaffirmation of its goals. Considering the

recent crises that have emerged right at the

door of NATO, namely the crisis in Ukraine,

Syria, and caused by the emergence of ISIS, the

Alliance is faced once again with threats to the

security of its member states. NATO therefore

needs to adapt to this new situation

The coinciding Future Leaders Summit

enabled the young generation to also debate on

issues the Alliance is currently facing.

This issue of Atlantic Voices focuses on

the Wales Summit as well as the parallel Future

Leaders Summit, and their outcomes. The

articles aim at providing several viewpoints on

common threats, and how to respond to them

through NATO. A month after the NATO

Summit, this issue of Atlantic Voices presents

some of the outcomes of the Summit.

NATO Wales Summit and Atlantic Council Future Leaders Summit official logos (Photo: NATO)

NATO Summit Review

Volume 4 - Issue 10 October 2014

Contents:

Communicating The NATO Summit: A View From The Inside

Daniel Hatton offers an interesting insight on the Wales Summit, both from a

British and from an organizational perspective, presenting the challenges and

expectations from the Wales Summit.

NATO Post-Wales: Meeting Challenges In A Changed Security

Environment

Marte Ziolkowski, from the Norwegian delegation,examines the various topics

that have been touched upon during the Future Leaders Summit, from the dif-

ferent security threats to the future of the Alliance.

A View From Canada

Julie Lindhout and Christian Paas-Lang present the perspective of Canada: how

they prepared, and what they took home from the Summit.

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 2

But what was the Summit going to be about?

What would the big issues be? What would our narrative

be? All good questions. And we thought we had decent

answers.

Afghanistan: 2014 would see the end of NATO’s

ISAF mission, which for

over 10 years had fought

to stop Afghanistan from

ever again becoming a

safe haven for terrorists.

We’ve built up the

ANSF. We were looking

forward to launching

Resolute Support.

Capabilities: we wanted

to strengthen NATO’s

ability to deliver security

for its members by mak-

ing sure it was fast, flexible

and fit for the future.

Partnerships: NATO’s 2010 strategic concept out-

lined ‘cooperative security’ as one of the Alliance’s core

tasks. An important part of Future NATO would be to

strengthen and deepen NATO’s already large network of

partners, both politically and operationally. The Summit

would look to deliver on all these.

And then Russia annexed Crimea, and continues

to destabilise the east of Ukraine. Russia’s actions threat-

ened the Alliance’s vision of a Europe whole free and at

peace – the very thing NATO leaders had committed to

the last time they met in the United Kingdom in 1990.

The Wales Summit had just got a whole lot bigger.

Communicating The NATO Summit:

A View From The Inside

By Daniel Hatton

I t all happened very quickly. NATO had not held

a Summit since Barack Obama had invited his

fellow heads of state and government to his

home patch of Chicago, Illinois in 2012. NATO, unlike

the European Council, with its regular meetings of Pres-

ident and Prime Ministers, only meets around every two

years or so. At the height

of the Cold War, Alliance

leaders only met once be-

tween 1957 and 1974 –

they became a bit more

regular after that.

So when the

Prime Minister decided

back in September 2013

that the UK would host

the next NATO Summit,

it was a big deal. The UK,

while no stranger to playing an

important role within the transatlantic alliance, was sud-

denly thrust to the forefront. Every word from “our

Summit hosts” would be scrutinised, every action ana-

lysed, and, in the digital world we live in, every tweet

re-tweeted. For the UK Delegation to NATO, where I

work, it was going to be a big challenge. This, in the

words of a former Ambassador, “small but perfectly

formed” part of the UK Government was going to have

to step up to the plate; but it was a challenge we rel-

ished. From a communications perspective, things got

off to an interesting start. High international diplomacy

was conducted before the public announcement of the

UK’s intention to host the Summit over what hashtag to

use. The nature of working in a multilateral setting

meant that there were many different stakeholders to

coordinate with. In the end we managed to settle on

one, and people used it, quite a lot.

Member States Leaders during aircraft demonstration (Photo: NATOWales)

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 3

Comms Approach

Now I would like to talk a bit about what it was like

to work on the Summit, what I did, and what happened at

it. As I mentioned earlier, I work at the UK Delegation to

NATO, which was at the heart of the UK’s effort to deliver

the Summit. The Summit presented many challenges. Secu-

rity; logistics; policy; communications; accommodation;

catering – the list goes on. My small part in this was com-

munications. Working with two other colleagues in

UKDEL’s communications team, we helped to deliver the

UK’s communications output around the Summit. What it

means is that we used all the tools we had at our disposal,

from the traditional, such as press conferences, briefings,

articles, speeches, events and interviews; to the more mod-

ern and innovative, including digital and social media.

On the press side, we used the increased media to

set up media opportunities for our Ambassador, the Foreign

Secretary and the Defence Secretary. Every two months or

so, NATO foreign and defence ministers come to Brussels

to assess, steer and drive forward the work of the Alliance.

These high-level meetings have always garnered media at-

tention, but the added focus

of the Russia/Ukraine cri-

sis, and the steady progress

towards the Wales Summit,

meant there was even more

media attention on these

meetings. The UKDEL

comms team managed to

find some time in busy min-

isterial schedules to organise

various media engagements,

i n c l u d i n g

‘doorsteps’ (where minis-

ters make comments on arri-

val and departure from NATO HQ), and interviews with

various broadcasters, including the BBC and the British

Forces Broadcast Network.

Outside of ministerials, we organised media en-

gagements for our Ambassador, Sir Adam Thomson. Press

briefings formed the most important aspect of these engage-

ments. Our Ambassador conducted several well attended

press briefings for the Brussels based press corps, and one

pre-Summit brief to correspondents based in London.

One of the challenges of working with media on a high

profile international event is that for most of the journal-

ists covering the Summit, NATO wasn’t really their

patch. So we needed to do a lot of work to bring them up

to speed on some of the basics. What is the NAC? What

is Article 5? What is ISAF? The press briefings, as well as

conversations with journalists on the margins, provided

opportunities for us to inform their reporting, as well do

a bit of NATO jargon busting (the Alliance uses a stagger-

ing amount of acronyms).

Promoting Wales on the international stage was

another important aspect of the comms for the Summit.

At NATO HQ, UKDEL played its part. While most of

Brussels was on its holidays in late July, we hosted

NATO and national delegation staff for a ‘pre-Summit

party’, which allowed staff at HQ to get a ‘taste of

Wales’, in the midst of the final preparations for the

Summit. But the biggest event was by far the UK-hosted

foreign ministerial dinner in June. Here, we used the

opportunity of the last meeting of NATO ministers be-

fore the Summit to give NATO foreign ministers them-

selves a ‘taste of Wales’. Me-

dia, including the BBC and

ITV, and various print journal-

ists from Wales, were invited

to cover the arrivals and wel-

come reception, where minis-

ters were able to enjoy fresh

Welsh produce. The First Min-

ister for Wales also attended

and gave a speech. Dinner was

literally ‘food for thought’, as

that evening, ministers had im-

portant discussions on NATO’s

Open Door policy; agreeing a substantive package to help

Georgia come closer to NATO; and an opening of inten-

sified and focused talks with Montenegro.

But before we knew it, the Summit was upon us.

As part of a 60 strong UK media liaison team, I headed to

a Summit which we at UKDEL had been working on for

nearly a year. It was great to see the announcements,

Osprey landing (Photo: NATOWales)

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 4

speeches, meetings, plans and drawings, come to-

gether into the ‘real thing’. Plans for displaying mili-

tary capabilities on site had turned into reality: an F-

35 here, a Eurofighter Typhoon there. Celtic Manor,

the Summit location,

had a real buzz about

it, helped by the pres-

ence of more than

1000 representatives

of the world’s media.

And the weather was

fantastic.

As the media

liaison officer respon-

sible for NATO’s cen-

tral Asian partners, I

helped facilitate the

media activities of the

heads of delegations

from these countries. These were mainly focussed

around the ISAF session (the final such meeting be-

fore the end of the mission in December 2014),

where central Asian countries had made important

contributions.

Day two of the Summit saw some spectacu-

lar set piece events, as well as some meaty policy

decisions. Leaders (and media liaison officers) got up

early to watch a flypast by fighter jets from nations

that had contributed to NATO’s Baltic Air Policing

mission, which has been strengthened as part of on-

going reassurance measures. At lunchtime there was

a landing of an Osprey aircraft (which can take off

and land both vertically and horizontally), to mark

the opening of NATO’s Special Forces operations

HQ. But the main headlines on day two were on the

policy side of things, mainly the announcement of a

‘spearhead force’, which will be able to be deployed

across Alliance territory in 48 hours. The spearhead

force, known in NATO jargon as the VJTF (Very

High Readiness Joint Task force), provided one of

the main components of the Readiness Action Plan,

which was also agreed at the Summit.

So after almost a year of planning, press, meet-

ings and media, the Summit was finally behind us. The

key thing now, as new NATO Secretary General Jens

Stoltenberg stressed in his first public remarks earlier

this month, is to im-

plement the Summit

decisions. Russia’s

illegal annexation of

Crimea and destabili-

sation of eastern

Ukraine, and the

threat posed by ISIL,

show that we live in

a dangerous and un-

predictable world.

NATO’s core task of

collective defence, as

well as the tools it

can bring to crisis

management and co-

operative security, show that the Alliance matters now

as much as ever.

Next stop, Warsaw 2016.

Daniel Hatton studied International Relations (BA

Hons) at the University of Leeds, Daniel moved to Brus-

sels for an internship in the European Parliament.

Working for a British Labour MEP, Daniel followed

policy matters on the EP’s civil liberties, justice and

home affairs committee. After completing his intern-

ship, Daniel worked for The Parliament Magazine, or-

ganising EU policy events and discussions. Since May

2013 he has worked on press and communications at the

UK Delegation to NATO, where he was involved in the

UK’s cross-Government communications campaign for

the NATO Summit in Wales.

Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and British Prime

Minister David Cameron (Photo: NATOWales)

About the author

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 5

and the Ukraine crisis. The rhetoric used by nearly all

government officials speaking at the Future Leaders

Summit was condemning, critical and clear: Russian

aggression is not acceptable and poses a direct threat to

the entire European neighbourhood. However, handling

the threat and ensuring the security of all member states

is not as straight forward. The crisis in Ukraine has put

focus on some of the key challenges for the member

states in the time ahead.

Failing To Meet The 2% Defence Spending

Guideline

European member states still do not take enough

financial responsibility for their own security. The situa-

tion in Ukraine puts the NATO allies under pressure

when it comes to realizing the weakness of their current

capabilities given the steadily declining defence budgets.

Collective defence was a key word at the Summit, but at

the moment, the military capabilities are too weak for

the “collective defence” to have serious meaning. The

US remains the main contributor to the NATO defence

budget covering almost 75% of the expenditures. There

were high hopes that the threat of military invasion from

the East would mean that the European member states

would own up to the responsibility. However, although

there was an agreement at the Summit, the language in

the Wales Declaration reveals that there is still a serious

lack of political will. The agreement states that: “Allies

whose current proportion of GDP spent on defence is

below this level will: (…) aim to move towards the 2%

guideline within a decade with a view to meeting their

NATO Capability Targets filling NATO’s Capability

shortfalls”. Not only is the phrasing unambitious, but the

language is vague and puts little pressure on the allied

nations. This is not surprising, but disappointing.

The Threat in the South: ISIL

The threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the

Levant was another key topic at the Alliance. Although

NATO Post-Wales: Meeting Challenges In A

Changed Security Environment

By Marte Ziolkowski

W eeks have passed since the world lead-

ers gathered at Celtic Manor in Wales

to discuss the future of the North At-

lantic Treaty Organization. In the time leading up to the

summit, the media attention was high and the expecta-

tions were even higher. The Summit in Wales started a

new chapter for NATO in a highly unstable security

environment. In this article I seek to address some of

the impressions I am left with after attending the coin-

ciding Future Leaders Summit, and the key challenges I

believe the Alliance will be facing in the future.

The Crisis In Ukraine At The Top Of The Agen-

da

At the opening of the Wales Summit in Septem-

ber, the then Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmus-

sen, started off by stating that the Summit was “one of

the most important summits in the history of the Alli-

ance” and “a crucial summit at a crucial time”. 65 years

after the Alliance was created to “keep the Russians

out”, using Lord Ismay’s own words, it seems that the

recent changes in the security environment in Europe

have made this quote relevant again. The illegal Russian

annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the crisis in

Ukraine altered the entire NATO summit agenda. Be-

fore the crisis in Ukraine burst, it was expected that the

2014 Summit would be the meeting where the mem-

bers states needed to find a new raison d’être for the Alli-

ance, as international forces were being withdrawn

from Afghanistan and the international engagement was

coming to an end. It was therefore expected that the

withdrawal from Afghanistan would be the main discus-

sion point at the summit. However, the recent Russian

aggression and the ongoing crisis in Ukraine made Af-

ghanistan a much smaller issue on the summit agenda.

In other words, the overshadowing topic at the

Summit was, without comparison, how to handle Russia

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 6

many speakers at the Future Leaders Summit spent

most of their time focusing on the current crisis in

Ukraine, some also focused on that from the extrem-

ist Islamist group. The Norwegian Minister of For-

eign Affairs, Mr. Børge Brende, was one of them. He

underlined that there is a need to tackle the threat

from ISIL, who, with their brutal violence and crass

rhetoric towards the West and Western values, pose

a direct threat to the Alliance. If ISIL continues on

the road that they have started on, it could be that

NATO’s next Article 5 intervention will not happen

in Eastern Europe, but in the South, at Turkey’s bor-

der. Although there was no agreement during the

Summit, it was stressed in the Wales Declaration

that ISIL poses a grave threat to the Alliance and that

the member states condemned their actions in Syria

and Iraq. However, there was no agreement at

NATO-level to commit to any particular actions.

Nevertheless, during the Summit, the US in-

vited a small number of countries

to join them in a coalition against

ISIL; namely Britain, France,

Germany, Canada, Australia,

Turkey, Italy, Poland and Den-

mark. Although understandable,

this is also a worrisome move in

the position that the Alliance is

currently in. Characterized by

economic crisis and thereto low

defence budgets, there is little

that needs to be added in order to

drive the member states further

apart with coalitions like these, as

this further adds to the

weakening of a com-

mon strategic culture in

NATO. This strategic culture could be the little

nudge the member states need in order to overcome

national differences and commit to joint efforts. The

number of current crises has contributed to accentu-

ating the diverse strategic environment surrounding

the Alliance. While the Eastern European countries,

with Poland at the forefront, are raising their aware-

ness and focusing on the perceived threat from Rus-

sia, other member states are more concerned with the

situation in the Middle East. The member states need to

return to the common basis that NATO was founded

on, and the member states need to combine their re-

sources, and also figure out where to use them.

Keeping Important Partners Close

At the Summit, there seemed to be little will or

wish to expand the Alliance in either direction. Both

Montenegro and Ukraine seemed to have their hopes up

before the Summit, but were quickly reminded that

NATO is in no position to expand or negotiate new

agreements at this point, especially not in the East.

However, two countries that could join the Alliance

without much debate are Finland and Sweden. In both

of these countries, the discussion about joining NATO

has reappeared in the media and amongst politicians.

There is no doubt that both of these countries are

feeling Russia’s closer presence. Russia has violated

Swedish airspace and one of Putin’s envoys threatened

Finland by saying “they should not join

NATO unless they want to start World

War III”. Although the Finnish Minister

of Defence said at the Future Leaders

Summit that membership was currently

not an option for Finland, both Sweden

and Finland were given a so called “Gold

Card” during the Summit, which in

practice means that they are in a select-

ed group of close partners to the Alli-

ance. This could prove to be a wise

move. Both countries have vast eco-

nomic resources and are better off fi-

nancially than the majority of the

rest of the member states. By

giving these countries this Gold

Card, NATO facilitates a closer relationship while en-

suring that the Swedish and Finnish governments will

not have to face the domestic debate about whether or

not they should join the Alliance. This adds to the Alli-

ance’s resources, capabilities and training options. At

the same time, NATO needs to be careful and they need

to make sure they do not lose the incentive of member-

Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the Future Leaders Summit

(Photo: NATOWales)

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 7

ship by offering agreements like these.

Maintaining The Experiences And Interopera-

bility From Afghanistan

Afghanistan was downplayed in this Summit.

Somewhat because the Ukraine crisis demanded the

main attention of the politicians present, but also be-

cause there was, at the time, still no agreement between

the two Afghani presidential candidates in regards to the

outcome of the Afghani presidential election. Neverthe-

less, it was still on the summit agenda, and one of the

main issues discussed was how to maintain the experi-

ences NATO countries and their partners have achieved

after over a decade in international military operations.

The lengthy deployment to Afghanistan has taught the

diverse national armies vital lessons. The interoperabil-

ity and international training they have brought with

them from this period needs to be maintained. This can

be done through frequent training missions in all mili-

tary branches, knowledge sharing and frequent exercis-

es.

Joint Efforts And Commitment Needed To En-

sure Strong Euro-Atlantic Defence

The Wales Summit showed that the member

states still see this alliance as an important one. There is

no doubt that the member states still believe in a strong

defence, they just do not have the means to build it.

Combining resources, equipment and expertise will

continue to be vital in maintaining a strong Euro-

Atlantic defence. However, the language in the Wales

Declaration shows that there may not be enough politi-

cal will to fulfil the standards that need to be met. The

28 member states need to find common ground in eval-

uating which threats are important – and which are not.

The defence budgets will have

to be increased accordingly.

Without doing this, the Alliance

will be fumbling in an unstable

security environment without

the means and resources to han-

dle an external threat if met with one.

Marte Ziolkowski works at the Norwegian

Atlantic Committee and holds an MSc in Politics and

Government in the EU from the London School of Eco-

nomics where she specialized in European Security and

Defence. She represented Norway at the NATO Future

Leaders Summit in Wales. Her main fields of interest

are NATO and NATO-EU relations.

Barents Observer. Putin envoy warns Finland against

joining NATO. [Online] Available from: <http://

barentsobserver.com/en/security/2014/06/putin-

envoy-warns-finland-against-joining-nato-09-06>;

North Atlantic Treaty Association Website, NATO

Funding [Online] Available from: <www.nato.int/cps/

en/natolive/topics_49208.htm>; North Atlantic Trea-

ty Association Website, Wales Summit Declaration.

[Online] Available from: <http://www.nato.int/cps/

en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm>

The Guardian Online Edition, Nato summit in Newport

'one of the most important in alliance's history. [Online]

Available from: <http://www.theguardian.com/

world/video/2014/sep/04/nato-summit-newport-

most-important-in-alliance-history-video>

The crisis in Ukraine has put focus on some of the key challenges for the member states in

the time ahead.

About the author

Bibliography

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 8

A View From Canada

By Julie Lindhout & Christian Paas-Lang

I n January of this year, the upcoming NATO Summit in Wales looked to be a dull affair. Though the world continued to be wracked by crises, few of them direct-

ly impacted NATO states. Even the rapidly developing invasion of Iraq by ISIS forces concerned primarily just the United States, not NATO as a whole.

Events quickly robbed the summit of its potentially relaxed atmosphere. Ukrainian President Victor Yanu-kovych’s decision not to embrace an EU partnership deal sparked massive street protests that eventually led to his removal and flight from Kiev on February 22, 2014. The ouster, deemed a coup by neighbouring Russia, incited a secessionist movement in much of eastern Ukraine, a region dominat-ed by Russian speakers. In Cri-mea, the movement quickly devel-oped into a rebellion encouraged and materially supported by Rus-sia. Following a referendum in the peninsula, Russia annexed Crimea on March 18.

NATO’s response was swift.

Scheduled joint military manoeu-vres with Russia were cancelled and NATO states imposed sanctions on Crimean and Russian officials. Additional troops and warplanes were deployed in Romania, Poland and the Baltic states. Assurance of collective defence be-gan emanating from NATO headquarters in Brussels and from foreign offices on both sides of the Atlantic.

Despite this, the extent of NATO’s response suf-

fered immediately from some of the realities on the ground. Direct intervention against the growing rebel movement in Eastern Ukraine, centred around Donetsk and Luhansk, was nearly impossible due to Russia’s mas-sive deployment of troops to the border region. Political will in Atlantic states extended only so far as bolstering the defences of NATO’s newest members in Eastern Europe.

Other political considerations factored into

NATO’s actions. Many European states continue to be heavily reliant on Russian oil and natural gas for their ener-gy consumption, weakening their leverage in potential negotiations. Canada and the United States, relatively independent from foreign energy imports, have been markedly more assertive than their neighbours across the Atlantic. As the insurgency in eastern Ukraine fully devel-oped, further sanctions were laid against Russian and rebel

officials. NATO has other issues apart from the Ukrainian

crisis. NATO faces many challenges in securing Afghani-stan after the departure of the majority of International Security Assistance Forde (ISAF) troops. “Insider attacks” by Afghan security personnel against ISAF members occur often enough to be a real concern. The Taliban forces are still active in much of Afghanistan, as well as across the porous border in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

The war in Afghanistan has had effects that reach beyond the country’s borders. Do-mestically, NATO states have struggled to address the issue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among war veterans. With fatigue and frustration running high from the experience in Afghanistan, inter-ventions like those possible in Syria and Iraq appear even less attractive. Even a previously successful intervention in Libya in 2011 fades as that country has collapsed back into conflict.

In addition, given the economic downturn of 2008, most NATO countries have cut back substantially on their defence budgets, which will affect their ability to

respond to any call by NATO to guarantee security, espe-cially in the less capable states in Eastern Europe.

NATO states, especially multicultural states such as

Canada, have experienced strong debates regarding cultur-al values, in part as a result of NATO’s actions overseas. Compounding this, the phenomenon of radicalization has led to nationals of NATO states travelling abroad to fight in foreign conflicts, and returning home with dangerous skills.

Roundtable, August 21, 2014

It was against this background that the Atlantic Council of Canada organized a Roundtable to discuss issues for the then upcoming NATO Summit. Professor Stephen Saideman of Carleton University in Ottawa, and Professor David Wright, Kenneth and Patricia Taylor Distinguished Visiting Professor in Foreign Affairs, Victoria College, University of Toronto, and former Canadian Permanent Representative to NATO led a stimulating and informative discussion with interested attendees, several of whom were experts in international politics and security issues in their own right.

Anders Fogh Rasmussen and David Cameron

welcome Stephen Harper , Prime Minister of

Canada (Photo: NATO)

Atlantic Voices, Volume 4, Issue 10 9

The discussion first turned to what is perhaps the most pressing and most significant issue facing NATO today: its changing relationship with Russia. Though Putin is clearly the driving force behind Russian aggression, there was also a dis-cussion of some dangers that Putin may be facing in the near future. First, the economic impacts of confrontation with the West may eventually undermine Putin’s support, as Russian integration into the global economy has made the country more vulnerable to international sanctions. Second, Russian nationalism, so long stoked by Putin, may be a force he is una-ble to control in the long run. Trying to tame Russian irreden-tism for practical purposes —compromise or accommodation with the West— may prove difficult and unpopular for the Russian president, who has gained enormous domestic support for his belligerent actions. Despite this, Putin risks solidifying a Russian isolation that neither he nor the country can survive. Participants felt that the situation had become even more dangerous as a result of the strong evidence that surfaced over the summer of Russian troops being active in Ukraine in support of rebel units. Some felt that marked a clear escalation of the crisis, an incontrovertible breach of international law and a strong challenge to the West and NATO. This new de-velopment would almost surely strengthen the need for NATO personnel to be deployed in countries like Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to provide both security and assurance. The result from the emergency Security Council and NATO meetings would, no doubt, prompt additional measures, if need be. While the recent ceasefire in Ukraine was a hearten-ing sign that peace could be restored to the region, there was some doubt as to how well the ceasefire would hold, or wheth-er it would simply be a pause to allow the conflicting factions to regroup. Some suggested that NATO, in some ways, is reaping what it sowed in its waves of enlargement after the Cold War. While the perception in Russia that NATO expansion is aimed against it is misguided, Russia’s interests and strength should be taken into account. Russia has far too much influence in crisis zones like the Middle East and Central Asia to be ignored without consequence. Knowing this, it is interesting to see debate being sparked in countries like Finland, Sweden and Georgia concerning possible membership in NATO. Though talks are unlikely to start in the near future, renewed Russian aggression has led to renewed interest in NATO from coun-tries that have traditionally been sensitive to Russian interests. It was suggested, however, that such developments can pose dangers to NATO and the countries involved. If NATO shows itself to be too willing to support these states, it risks escalating any possible conflict, as occurred in Georgia in 2008, by em-boldening a faction. The situation in Afghanistan also featured heavily in the discussion. While official Canadian government policy makes it clear that Canada would have little, or nothing, to do with Afghanistan after the last of its troops has left, security con-cerns would remain. The Taliban continues to have a presence in the region, the Afghan-Pakistan border remains porous and the government unstable. NATO’s involvement has been ex-pensive, both in human life and in money, and the ambiguity of

the mission’s success has contributed to growing war-weariness in Western states. Nevertheless, no one could foresee 9/11, and no one can guarantee that there would not be some event of sufficient impact on NATO countries in the future, that might draw NATO in again. The situation in Iraq was also briefly discussed. The quasi-revival of the “coalition of the willing” by President Obama, this time to fight ISIL, was seen as an interesting development both in American foreign policy and in NATO’s role in Iraq. Many NATO states have already signed on to the mission, and Obama is working closely with Gulf and Arab League members to secure their support for a coordinated assault against the ISIL. The participants at the roundtable stressed the need for a representative gov-ernment in Iraq, while underlining the difficulties of multi-lateral military operations. It was also suggested that thanks to the challenges it faces in Ukraine and elsewhere, NATO may be experienc-ing a rejuvenation it has been searching for since the end of the Cold War. Reorienting the Alliance from an organiza-tion explicitly meant to counter the Soviet Union to one relevant in the post-Soviet world has proven difficult. With Russia as a clear and present threat to peace in Europe, NATO has in some sense regained its initial purpose. Re-newed Russian aggression may help to strengthen emphasis on transatlanticism, a policy focus previously losing ground to North America’s growing interest in the Pacific region. The Summit So how did the Summit in Wales actually deal with these issues? In the first place, the Summit addressed all the issues raised and a few more. According to the official text of the Wales Summit Declaration, its first order of business was to approve the NATO Readiness Action Plan (NRAP), an overarching plan “capable of meeting current and future challenges from wherever they may arise.” The plan includes a significant enhancement of the NATO Response Force (NRF), and the establishment of a Very High Readiness Joint task Force (VJTF). The VJTF will consist of a land component with appropriate air, maritime, and special operations forces support, which can be deployed quickly especially when challenges arise on the periphery of NATO’s territory. The NRAP also includes a greatly enhanced exercise program for all elements of the plan, including complex civil-military scenarios. There is special mention of a focus on the south-ern and eastern peripheries of the Alliance. Reading be-tween the lines, that allows NATO to enhance its presence in those states without permanently stationing forces there, which Russia would see as a provocation, and which some of NATO’s member states would not agree to. The second major issue addressed in the Declaration is the need to increase defence budgets and the need for a more “balanced sharing of costs and responsibilities”. While the Declaration acknowledges that “how we spend it” is also important, the major focus of Section 14, is on the amount of spending. There is much emphasis on the guideline for

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member countries to spend a minimum of 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is a guideline emphasized by successive Secretaries-General, but met by very few countries over the more than 60 years of NATO’s existence.

The Declaration also makes very strong state-ments condemning Russia’s illegal military interven-tion in Ukraine, including its “illegitimate ‘annexation’” of Crimea. It also identifies “Russia’s pattern of disregard for international law” referencing the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act, and the Con-ventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, citing Rus-sian behaviour in Georgia and Moldova as further ex-amples.

The Declaration spe-cifically acknowledges measures taken by Canada, Norway, and the United States, as well as NATO’s immediate decision to sus-pend all practical civilian and military cooperation with Russia, to put pressure on Russia to deescalate and lead to a political solution in Ukraine. It emphasizes that political channels of commu-nication will remain open, but that any sustainable, political solution must respect “Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity within its inter-nationally recognised borders.” In other words, Russia is not entitled to keep Crimea. The declaration uses the same terms of sovereignty, independence and ter-ritorial integrity with reference to Armenia, Azerbai-jan, Georgia, and Moldova.

With regard to the situation in the Middle East, the declaration re-affirms NATO’s continued commit-ment to the NATO-Iraq partnership, and states that NATO will consider other assistance measures within the framework of NATO’s Defence and Related Secu-rity Capacity Building Initiative if the Iraqi Govern-ment should request it. The Declaration also expresses concern about developments in Syria and references NATO’s role in deploying Patriot missiles to defend Turkey, and the role of NATO Allies in the still ongo-ing process of securing the destruction of chemical weapon material in Syria. NATO also continues to stand ready to support Libya with advice and the will-ingness to develop a partnership which might lead to Libya’s membership in the Mediterranean Dialogue. Not surprisingly, the Declaration repeats the statement in the 2010 Strategic Concept that “as long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance,” and affirms the “deterrence and security” value of the nuclear forces of the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. It also restates the

aim “to provide the Alliance with a NATO operational Ballistic Missile Defence” to protect all Europe, but em-phasizes that this capability is purely defensive and can only complement the role of nuclear weapons in deterrence. A large part of the Declaration is taken up with details of enhancements that have been made or will be made to the various elements of NATO’s capabilities including the Joint Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance initia-tive and the AWACs. It also describes various initiatives undertaken by groups of Allies for joint operations. Almost buried in the middle of the Declaration is a very important endorsement of an Enhanced Cyber Defence Policy which acknowledges that a cyber attack could have sufficient harmful impact to make it an Article 5 attack, but that a decision to invoke Article 5 would be taken on a case-by-

case basis. The Declaration gives special recognition to the value of partnerships with other organiza-tions like the UN, EU, the Afri-can Union (AU), and OSCE, in enhancing international security especially in the face of terror-ism. It also celebrates internal partnerships mentioning the 20 years existence of the Partnership

for Peace, and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council; 20 years of the

Mediterranean Dialogue; ten years of the Istanbul Cooper-ation Initiative, and the development of a Defence and Related Security Capacity Building Initiative to help part-ner nations. The first countries involved in this initiative will be Georgia, Jordan, and Moldova, at their requests.

The establishment of a permanent position of NATO Special Representative for Women, Peace, and Security confirms NATO’s commitment to UN Security Council Resolution 1325, and also to UNSCR 1612 on the protection of children affected by armed conflict. There is also a strong statement on the Open Door Policy under Article 10 of the Washington Treaty as one of the Alli-ance’s great successes. NATO’s door will remain open to all European democracies who meet the requirements and it is emphasized that “decisions on enlargement are for NATO itself.” Special mention is made of Georgia, including a call to Russia to reverse its recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mention is made of the good progress made by Montenegro, and that the aspirations of Bosnia and Herze-govina are fully supported, but that the country needs to meet conditions set by the NATO Foreign Ministers in Tallinn in 2010, before it can be admitted to the Member-ship Action Plan. As at all Summits since the 2008 Bucha-rest Summit, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia continues to be invited to join the Alliance as soon as a mutually acceptable solution to the name issue has been reached within the framework of the UN. The Declaration also expresses appreciation for the country’s long-standing

Armed Forces Declaration by the NATO Heads of State and

Government (Photo: NATO)

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commitment to NATO operations and to the NATO ac-cession process. There is a separate Wales Summit Decla-ration on Afghanistan which outlines NATO’s commit-ment for short-term training, advising, and assisting of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) after 2014; con-tribution to the financial sustainment of the ANSF in the medium term; and strengthening NATO’s partnership with Afghanistan in the long term, with the commitment and cooperation of Afghanistan.

Canadian Reaction Canadian media and government opposition parties have largely concentrated on the first two topics: the Re-sponse Force and the defence spending guidelines, but not with great enthusiasm. There has been little focus even on such previously hot button items as Ballistic Missile De-fense and very few picked up on the issue of a cyber attack being a potential Article 5 attack. Most media commenta-tors are skeptical at best about the extent to which the plans for the NRF will be implemented. Even in real crisis situations like Libya and Ukraine, they contend, there is no concerted effort to provide real resources. There is always much talk, but only certain countries provide the heavy lifting and it is not always the same countries. Even the most capable countries have pulled back in recent years in active operations, so how can one expect real commit-ments to the NRF? They also point to the fact that not all NATO members see the various crises in the same way, with the same degree of urgency, and the same willingness to act in the larger interest of the Alliance rather than in their narrower national interests.

When pressed on the issue of defence spending, Prime Minister Harper has stated that 2% of GDP is an arbitrary amount. It is more important to look at specific expenditures that need to be made, rather than talk about spending a certain amount for the sake of spending it. He has also pointed out that when it was necessary, Canada spent a lot of money to equip its forces in Afghanistan and that the country continues to deliver military supplies to forces fighting ISIL in Iraq, contributes planes and ships when asked, and is spending a lot of effort and money in Ukraine. One media opinion writer also asked if countries were to meet their 2% of GDP targets in good times, would it be acceptable for them to lower their spending appreciably in bad economic times to match a reduced GDP?

The fact remains, that on the whole the Canadian public is war weary and does not support significant de-fence spending. The general reaction after Canada’s with-drawal from Afghanistan has been in effect to say, “We have done our bit, and now it is time to focus on domestic needs.” The official opposition New Democratic Party has always been pacifist, and the Liberal Party does not have a strong record from which to attack the government. The official statements from all opposition parties have usually promoted diplomatic efforts, and condemned specific ex-penditures, so there has been limited discussion of the broader defence spending issue in Parliament.

Some more hawkish commentators have attacked specific examples of lack of spending, such as the delays in replacing aircraft and ships, and the need to provide better support to veterans, but they have not, by and large, sup-ported the concept of spending a certain percentage of GDP, and have generally left the impression that when necessary, Canada will rise to the occasion and spend what it takes for its troops to do their usual excellent job. Julie Lindhout is the President of the Atlantic Council of Canada. Julie previously worked as a secondary school teacherm , then for the Ontario Ministry of Education. In 1998, Ms. Lindhout established Lindhout Associates Edu-cation Consulting, and increased her involvement with the Atlantic Council of Canada (ACC) and became President in 2002. She has also been active in the Brussels-based At-lantic Treaty Association (ATA). She is also a director of the Canadian Turkish Business Council, the Canada-Albania Business Council, and a member of the Ontario Special Education Tribunal. She is the recipient of a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Christian Paas-Lang was the program editor for Cana-da’s NATO during his internship with the ACC in the summer of 2014. His interests are wide-ranging, including topics such as economics, security and international rela-tions. He is particularly interested in European and Middle-Eastern history, international relations and culture. As a second year student, Christian has just started a specialist degree in International Relations at Trinity College, Uni-versity of Toronto. He looks forward to eventually pursu-ing graduate studies in international relations upon the completion of his degree. Opencanada.org, The NATO summit: commitmentphobia [Online] Available from: http://opencanada.org/features/blogs/roundtable/the-nato-summit-commitmentphobia/; Prime Minister of Canada, PM delivers closing remarks [Online] Available from: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2014/09/05/pm-delivers-closing-remarks-nato-summit; Prime Minister of Canada, The gov-ernment of Canada’s response to the crisis in Ukraine [Online] Available from: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2014/09/11/government-canadas-response-situation-ukraine-0; Prime Minister of Canada, PM concludes successful NATO Summit in Wales [Online] Available from: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2014/09/05/pm-concludes-successful-nato-summit-wales; Pugliese, David, Stephen Harper prom-ises boost in defence spending but provides non details [Online] Available from: http://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/stephen-harper-promises-boost-in-defence-spending-but-provides-no-details; Pugliese, David, Canada and Germany derail NATO request to increase military spending targets [Online] Available : http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/03/canada-and-germany-derail-nato-request-to-increase-military-spending-targets/; NATO, Wales Summit Declaration [Online] Available from: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/09/03/canada-and-germany-derail-nato-request-to-increase-military-spending-targets/; NATO, NATO Wales Summit Declaration on Afghanistan [Online] Available from: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_112517.htm?selectedLocale=en

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Two months after the Wales Summit, The German Atlantic Asso-

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summit and to discuss the process of policy implementation. On 4-5th

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