NATO 1AC
NATO 1ACPlan: The USFG should withdraw from NATOPlan: The United States federal government should withdraw from NATO.ADV 1: Russian LashoutWe’re at the nadir of U.S./Russia relations. Rejecting stereotypes and hyperbole is critical to avoidwarJoseph Dobbs, 2018, Research Fellow and Project Manager at the European Leadership Network, “Proud and Prejudiced: The risk of stereotypes in Russia-West relations” ELN, Policy Brief 29 January 2018, accessed 6/16/20 *tog NCC-ADA Packet- Wave Demo.The question is an important one, given the state of Russia-West relations at the start of 2018. Even the most pessimistic at the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis in late 2013 would have scarcely predicted that relations would deteriorate as far as they have in the following years. If either side is hopeful of reducing risk and one day improving relations it is crucial that we become mindful of the perils of relying on stereotypes and easy hyperboles as substitutes for effective, and nuanced, analysis. NATO creates an ongoing multi-pronged security trap. It exposes the US to greater risks defending areas like the Baltics, puts US credibility on the line, and causes the US to overreact and ignore de-escalation. That leads to crisis with RussiaJ.R. Shifrinson (2020), Assistant Professor of International Relations, Boston University. PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “NATO enlargement and US foreign policy: the origins, durability, and impact of an idea”, Int Polit 57, 342–370 (2020). the other hand, NATO enlargement exposes the United States to a variety of security ills while limiting its ability to respond to these dilemmas. First, ongoing expansion requires the United States to defend several Eastern European states of questionable strategic value, up to and including the use of nuclear weapons. Even if some of the members to which NATO has expanded are useful for denying prospective rivals maneuvering room to prove their mettle (e.g., the European Union) or expanding their geographic reach (e.g., Russia), many of the member states to which the United States offered security guarantees via NATO are of minimal long-term importance. Loss of the Baltic states to Russia, for instance, would do little to shift Europe’s strategic map, while none of NATO’s new Southeastern European members are of use in either reinforcing US power or denying power to others (Shifrinson 2017a, 111). Having taken on the commitment, however, the United States— as NATO’s principal military backer—is now stuck having to try to defend these actors.This is no easy task, especially in the Baltics; local geography is unfavorable, the distances involved make reinforcement difficult, and the proximity to local prospective threats—in this case, Russia—means it is nearly impossible to obtain favorable force ratios. Nevertheless, the United States and other NATO members have tried to engage the problem, committing growing assets along the way (Kuhn 2018; O’Hanlon and Skaluba 2019; Lanoszka and Hunzeker 2019). The alliance is therefore playing a fraught game. The United States and its partners can certainly try to develop military tools to meet NATO’s expanded commitments, but doing so is expensive, may exacerbate tensions with Russia, stands a real chance of failure, and—insofar as allies are under the US security umbrella—risks the United States putting its own survival on the line by extending US nuclear guarantees in the face of a nuclear-armed opponent.12 In sum, US backing for enlargement has left the United States with a suppurating sore of a strategic commitment, putting it on the firing line in Eastern Europe.Relatedly, NATO enlargement limits US fexibility with Russia. Arguably the premier counterfactual in post-Cold War Europe concerns whether US relations with Russia would have turned so contentious absent NATO enlargement. It is certainly true—as the Marten and Lanoszka articles in this issue highlight—that US–Russian friction was likely inevitable after the 1990s as Russian power recovered from its post-Cold War nadir. Still, the persistent warnings proffered by Russian analysts from the 1990s onward that NATO enlargement was likely to be uniquely harmful to Russian policymakers arguing for cooperation with the West suggests that the US push for expansion exacerbated, reinforced, and/or accelerated problems (Wallander 1999; Talbott 2019). By this logic, the enlargement consensus imposes an opportunity cost on Russian–US relations. Even if expansion was not uniquely responsible for the downturn, the continued emphasis on enlargement limits flexibility in dealing with Russia, hindering the United States’ ability to explore options such as retrenchment, spheres of influence, or buffer zones in Eastern Europe that might potentially dampen bilateral tensions. Put differently, with enlargement enjoying substantial domestic support, linked to broader US power maximization, and taken as a sign of US leadership and credibility, policy options that might ameliorate tensions with Russia are screened out of the policy agenda.Along similar lines, the enlargement consensus may exacerbate the intensity with which the United States reacts to challenges to the (now enlarged) alliance. This is partly a product of US efforts to keep NATO the lodestone of European security affairs, as well as of linking US leadership, prestige, and internationalism with NATO enlargement. Seeking, for instance, to assert US prerogatives and to be seen as opposing Russian pressure, US policymakers have led the charge to keep NATO’s door officially open for Georgia and Ukraine irrespective of the problems this poses for East–West relations (e.g., Congressional Research Service 2019, 15; Cirilli 2014; Myers 2008).13 Likewise, US support for and investment in the Kosovo (1999) and Libya (2011) air campaigns seems to have been partly motivated by a desire to avoid questions about the US commitment to NATO and its efficacy outside of Cold War borders. For instance, one former US official remarked during the Kosovo campaign that failure to obtain NATO’s ends in Kosovo could reopen ‘the question of why American troops are still in Europe’ (Rodman 1999; also Cottey 2009). In the case of Libya, meanwhile, US policymakers eventually decided that the United States would take the lead in the bombing campaign despite having sought a European led effort—an action difficult to explain if not for concerns over NATO’s credibility (Goldberg 2016; Gates 2014, 520–522).Any one of these behaviors is not necessarily problematic. Nor are they unique to the NATO enlargement era; concerns with preserving a credible US commitment to NATO were a major feature of Cold War debates, for instance. Still, in an era without great power threats to justify and motivate the US interest in European security, concerns with sustaining US credibility loom larger and have pushed the United States to undertake a range of risky behaviors for unclear ends. The United States is reluctant to allow an enlarged NATO to be seen as a failure for fear of the blowback on the post-Cold War organization. This outcome is again hard to explain without a post-Cold War policy consensus mandating that NATO remain a potent force in European security with options for the future. After all, with the United States having sidestepped allied opposition on issues ranging from the Multilateral Force (MLF) to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty during the Cold War, one would expect it to settle or de-escalate at least some of NATO’s post-Cold War disputes as well. Instead, the United States has proven to be trigger happy and prone to use NATO to escalate confrontations rather than go over NATO’s collective head to defuse crises.The only “reset button” for US-Russian relations is the removal of NATO centrality.Sushentsov and Wohlforth, March 28, 2020 (Andrey, Professor at MGIMO University and William, Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, Author Information, 3-28-2020, "The tragedy of US–Russian relations: NATO centrality and the revisionists’ spiral," International Politics, , DoA 6/16/2020, DVOG) First, the generative processes of the US–NATO–Russia spiral are deeper than they are presented as in narratives featuring fundamentally flawed policies on one or the other side. To get out of the spiral is costly to each side’s deeply set understandings of the requisites of its security. Evidence showing Russia’s willingness to cooperate with NATO centrality has led some analysts to think that compromise deals would have been possible earlier in the game and might still be possible today. That is unlikely. The concessions needed are more costly for each side than that narrative (here captured by positions 1 and 2) suggests.Second, both sides in the US grand strategy debate—those who favor deep engagement and those who urge offshore balancing—may underestimate the downside risks of their preferred strategies when it comes to European security. It is harder than many US analysts admit to reconcile standard Washington understandings of US grand strategy, including US primacy in Europe, with non-antagonistic relations with Russia. As long as Washington defines its security requisites as demanding a leadership role in Europe’s only serious security institution, it will pay the price of antagonism with Moscow, which can incentivize Russia–China alignment. The flip side of this coin is that the price of a restraint grand strategy in Europe could be some form of Russian primacy, depending on estimates of Europe’s ability to create autonomous capabilities and strategy. Through all its turbulent transitions, Russia has consistently maintained a greedy-security interest in the ability to influence the wider European security architecture. That interest is not likely to go away if America goes home. And that means that if America does go home and later perceives a strong national interest in coming back, it may find a European security architecture under a Russian leadership ill-inclined to open its doors to US power.Third, the US and Russia’s deep-set understandings of security are greedy. Each side bargains to get the other to accept a more restrained conception of security, while it maintains greedy security for itself. Changes in the two states’ relative power have also influenced events. The USA attained greedy-security goals and Russia largely did not because USA had power and Russia did not. The spiral has reached new levels of intensity because Moscow thinks that power balancing will force the USA to reduce its security requisites to what it believes would be more reasonable levels; and the USA thinks that sanctions will coerce Russia to do the same. Until and unless those estimates converge to the degree that each side’s estimate of its bargaining power more closely matches the other’s, all attempts to reset the US–NATO–Russia relationship will be transitory interruptions in the spiral.NATO/Russia War goes nuclearAlexey Arbatov, April 2017, head of the Center for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, a former scholar in residence and the chair of the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Nonproliferation Program. Formerly, he was a member of the State Duma, vice chairman of the Russian United Democratic Party (Yabloko), and deputy chairman of the Duma Defence Committee. He is a member of numerous boards and councils, including the research council of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the governing board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, and the Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, “ELN Issue Brief: Arms Control Beyond the Nuclear Threshold: Russia, NATO, and Nuclear First Use”, accessed 6/10/20 *tog NCC-ADA Packet- Wave Demo.Even in peacetime, large-scale military exercises of Russian and NATO armed forces close to each other create a threat of collisions and accidents between ships and aircraft with an accompanying risk of escalation. Such a chain reaction might be hard to stop: the Kremlin is keen to prove that the weakness of the 1990s will never return, while the White House is determined to demonstrate that it remains the “toughest guy on the block”.In the present state of confrontation, a direct military conflict between Russia and NATO in Eastern Europe, the Baltic or the Black seas would provoke an early use of nuclear arms by any side which consider defeat otherwise unavoidable. This risk is exacerbated by the fact that tactical nuclear and conventional systems are co-located at the bases of general purpose forces and employ dual-purpose launchers and delivery vehicles of the Navy, Air Force, and ground forces. No risk of a deterrence turn--Russia is only aggressive in response to NATO enlargement attempts, but the plan resolves it.Mearsheimer, 2014 (John Campbell, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, 8-20-2014, "Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault," Foreign Affairs, , DoA 6/16/2020, DVOG) Other analysts allege, more plausibly, that Putin regrets the demise of the Soviet Union and is determined to reverse it by expanding Russia’s borders. According to this interpretation, Putin, having taken Crimea, is now testing the waters to see if the time is right to conquer Ukraine, or at least its eastern part, and he will eventually behave aggressively toward other countries in Russia’s neighborhood. For some in this camp, Putin represents a modern-day Adolf Hitler, and striking any kind of deal with him would repeat the mistake of Munich. Thus, NATO must admit Georgia and Ukraine to contain Russia before it dominates its neighbors and threatens western Europe.?This argument falls apart on close inspection. If Putin were committed to creating a greater Russia, signs of his intentions would almost certainly have arisen before February 22. But there is virtually no evidence that he was bent on taking Crimea, much less any other territory in Ukraine, before that date. Even Western leaders who supported NATO expansion were not doing so out of a fear that Russia was about to use military force. Putin’s actions in Crimea took them by complete surprise and appear to have been a spontaneous reaction to Yanukovych’s ouster. Right afterward, even Putin said he opposed Crimean secession, before quickly changing his mind.?ADV 2: European CohesionNATO centrality trades off with a strong European Union Elie Perot (2019), PhD Researcher European Foreign & Security Policy at the Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Master in Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris (Summa cum laude, 2014) and a M.A. in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe, Bruges (Chopin Promotion, 2015-2016), “The art of commitments: NATO, the EU, and the interplay between law and politics within Europe’s collective defence architecture”, European Security, 28:1, 40-65, DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2019.1587746, tog, NCC-ADA Packet- Wave Demo.This evolution of Europe’s collective defence architecture has not attracted, however, as much attention as it could – which is all the more unfortunate given the renewed salience of this issue in the present geopolitical context. In NATO, collective defence is clearly back to the fore since the Ukraine crisis (Deni 2017) although, meanwhile, the Trump administration has repeatedly sowed doubts about its willingness to honour NATO's mutual defence pledge (Shear et al. 2017, Sullivan 2018, Barnes and Cooper 2019). More surprisingly maybe, the topic of collective defence has also started to gain political traction within the EU itself. The 2016 EU Global Strategy (EUGS) proclaims that the first objective of the Union is to “promote peace and guarantee the security of its citizens and territory”. The Global Strategy adds that “[t]his means that Europeans, working with partners, must have the necessary capabilities to defend themselves and live up to their commitments to mutual assistance and solidarity enshrined in the Treaties”, i.e. Art.42.7 TEU and Art.222 TFEU. However, in this document, it is also recognised that, “[w]hen it comes to collective defence, NATO remains the primary framework for most Member States” (High Representative 2016, pp. 7, 14, 19–20).US withdrawal from NATO would shift mutual defense framework to the European UnionElie Perot (2019), PhD Researcher European Foreign & Security Policy at the Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Master in Public Affairs from Sciences Po Paris (Summa cum laude, 2014) and a M.A. in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe, Bruges (Chopin Promotion, 2015-2016), “The art of commitments: NATO, the EU, and the interplay between law and politics within Europe’s collective defence architecture”, European Security, 28:1, 40-65, DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2019.1587746, tog, NCC-ADA Packet- Wave Demo.In Europe, turning to NATO and to its mutual defence clause inscribed in the Article 5 of the Washington Treaty has appeared for decades as the natural answer. But these days may be over. To everyone’s surprise, in the wake of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the decision of the French government was rather to invoke the “EU mutual assistance clause”1 (Daalder 2015, Guibert and Stroobants 2015, Biscop 2016).At the time, this first concrete involvement of the EU in the domain of collective defence has not functioned as a catalytic episode (Tardy 2018, pp. 12–13), but this issue is now returning to the frontstage. For instance, the French President announced in August 2018 that he wanted to “spearhead a project to strengthen European solidarity in security matters” by giving “more substance” to the EU mutual assistance clause, saying that “France [was] ready to enter into concrete discussions with European States on the nature of reciprocal solidarity and mutual defence relations under our Treaty commitments”. At this occasion, Emmanuel Macron also put into doubt the United States’ security guarantee to Europe, echoing previous remarks made in the same vein by German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Macron 2018, Merkel 2018).The legal basis already exists, in effect, for the Union to play a role not only in crisis management but also in the field of collective defence. Since the Lisbon Treaty, two legal commitments to collective defence bind EU member states together, namely the EU mutual assistance clause (article 42, paragraph 7, of the Treaty on European Union), and the EU solidarity clause (article 222 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union).2 In Europe, those two commitments come therefore on top of the key defence clause enshrined within the Washington Treaty.A strong and cohesive European Union is key to peace—its failure triggers European nationalism and global economic collapse.Belin, 2019 (CéLia Belin, visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, 4-2-2019, "NATO matters, but the EU matters more," Brookings, , DoA 6/23/2020, DVOG) Americans who are truly committed to the idea of a Europe “whole and free” should realize that NATO is no longer the main spinal cord of the European project; the European Union is. When George H. W. Bush?coined?the phrase in 1989, the level of intra-European integration was arguably on par with the defense alliance as providing stability and prosperity to the continent, and Americans were still heavily involved in both. Remember, this was pre-Maastricht Treaty, before the EU itself. Three decades of political, economic, and monetary integration later—and 16 new members later—the European Union is deeply entrenched in the lives of Europeans.Today, 28 European democracies, which used to compete among themselves and sometimes fight to their ultimate demise, now choose to pool sovereignty and have their interests communally discussed and collectively defended. The EU is a power multiplier: Every one of the 28 has a stronger individual voice because they stand together in the European Union. Small European countries, whose geography and demography would force them to cave to stronger neighbors, can now count on the solidarity of the group—as illustrated by the?unwavering support?for Ireland by the other 26 member states and the Brussels institutions in the Brexit negotiations.The neighbors of the European Union are no fools. Those who seek prosperity and stability hope to join the EU club. Those who reject the model set by the West and liberal democracies feel threatened by the European Union—it is the?prospect?of Ukraine moving into the EU’s orbit through an Association Agreement that triggered Russia’s hostility and ultimate aggression, not NATO. The power of attraction of the European Union, at least as much as the security guarantees of NATO, has helped stabilize Eastern Europe.Despite these realities, Americans often indulge in a scornful disregard for the EU. Recently, benign contempt has taken an ugly turn. Since taking office, President Trump and his administration have attacked the European Union and individual member states repeatedly, with near impunity.At first sight, American complaints appear to be centered on the issue of Europe’s trading power, which rivals that of the United States. For Donald Trump, the EU was created to “take advantage of” the United States and it is “worse than China.” Early in his mandate, the American president pushed for tariffs on steel and aluminum and threatened to go after automobiles, until a meeting with EU Commission President Juncker?put a brake?on the downward spiral.However, a deeper look reveals a fundamental ideological contention: The brand of nationalism and populism that defines this administration stands in direct contradiction with the very existence of a liberal, supra-national body such as the European Union.As?laid?out by the State Department’s Director of Policy Planning Kiron Skinner in December 2018, the administration holds the view that “international institutions have steadily encroached on the rights of sovereign nations” and that “nothing can replace the nation-state as the guarantor of democratic freedoms and national interests”—an indictment of the EU’s very existence. The ideological clash is reminiscent of older times.?Addressing a crowd?in Warsaw in July 2017, President Trump likened the European Union to the Soviet Union, criticizing a similar “steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people,” an equivalency popular in?conservative circles. Similarly, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in a December 2018?speech?in Brussels that EU bureaucrats were not really working for the interests of European citizens.By making no secret of his personal support for euroskeptic forces, Donald Trump has become an active political opponent of the European Union in its existing form. He?celebrated?the Brexit vote,?expressed?support for far-right candidate Marine Le Pen ahead of the French presidential elections,?disparaged?Angela Merkel repeatedly, and appeared to?rejoice?at the Yellow Vests protest movement. He?criticized?Theresa May for negotiating a “soft” Brexit, and even recommended to Emmanuel Macron that?France leave?the EU. The American president has nominated ambassadors famously?critical?of the EU, and his administration demoted the EU ambassador’s status without notification, before?reversing?under criticism.As Donald Trump torments both the Atlantic alliance and the European Union, all rush to NATO’s bedside, and few worry about the EU. Truthfully, Atlanticists love to love NATO. It stands for values, valor, unity, solidarity. NATO won the Cold War. Celebrating NATO is celebrating the military. It is much harder to love the EU, the bureaucracy, the politics, the regulations. The EU lacks democratic appeal, and its slow-moving decisionmaking process create many frustrations. Unlike in NATO, the United States sits on the sidelines, it does not control who enters, or who stays in. The EU is also an economic peer competitor, a tough trading partner, and a sovereign international actor, at times?non-compliant?with American demands.Yet, the prospect of an implosion of the European Union should be as unbearable and intolerable to an American audience as the dissolution of NATO—or more so, as no one wants to see the demons of nationalism back on the European continent, along with a global economic catastrophe. Benign neglect is counterproductive; but a policy openly hostile to the European Union is a grave mistake. In a world where?the strongmen are striking back, Americans should not forget that the European Union stands with the United States when it matters most. The NATO summit in Washington this week should be the occasion to recall not only the utmost importance of the Atlantic alliance to trans-Atlantic security, but also the crucial contribution of the European Union to peace, unity, and ultimately security for Europe and beyond.ADV 3: US LeadershipUS lack of restraint in the status quo triggers counterbalancing at a variety of levels.Barry R. Posen (2013), professor of political science at M.I.T. and director of its Security Studies Program, “Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy” Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2013, accessed 6/20/20 *togThis undisciplined, expensive, and bloody strategy has done untold harm to U.S. national security. It makes enemies almost as fast as it slays them, discourages allies from paying for their own defense, and convinces powerful states to band together and oppose Washington's plans, further raising the costs of carrying out its foreign policy. During the 1990s, these consequences were manageable because the United States enjoyed such a favorable power position and chose its wars carefully. Over the last decade, however, the country's relative power has deteriorated, and policymakers have made dreadful choices concerning which wars to fight and how to fight them. What's more, the Pentagon has come to depend on continuous infusions of cash simply to retain its current force structure -- levels of spending that the Great Recession and the United States' ballooning debt have rendered unsustainable.It is time to abandon the United States' hegemonic strategy and replace it with one of restraint. This approach would mean giving up on global reform and sticking to protecting narrow national security interests. It would mean transforming the military into a smaller force that goes to war only when it truly must. It would mean removing large numbers of U.S. troops from forward bases, creating incentives for allies to provide for their own security. And because such a shift would allow the United States to spend its resources on only the most pressing international threats, it would help preserve the country's prosperity and security over the long run.ACTION AND REACTIONThe United States emerged from the Cold War as the single most powerful state in modern times, a position that its diversified and immensely productive economy supports. Although its share of world economic output will inevitably shrink as other countries catch up, the United States will continue for many years to rank as one of the top two or three economies in the world. The United States' per capita GDP stands at $48,000, more than five times as large as China's, which means that the U.S. economy can produce cutting-edge products for a steady domestic market. North America is blessed with enviable quantities of raw materials, and about 29 percent of U.S. trade flows to and from its immediate neighbors, Canada and Mexico. The fortuitous geostrategic position of the United States compounds these economic advantages. Its neighbors to the north and south possess only miniscule militaries. Vast oceans to the west and east separate it from potential rivals. And its thousands of nuclear weapons deter other countries from ever entertaining an invasion.Ironically, however, instead of relying on these inherent advantages for its security, the United States has acted with a profound sense of insecurity, adopting an unnecessarily militarized and forward-leaning foreign policy. That strategy has generated predictable pushback. Since the 1990s, rivals have resorted to what scholars call "soft balancing" -- low-grade diplomatic opposition. China and Russia regularly use the rules of liberal international institutions to delegitimize the United States' actions. In the UN Security Council, they wielded their veto power to deny the West resolutions supporting the bombing campaign in Kosovo in 1999 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and more recently, they have slowed the effort to isolate Syria. They occasionally work together in other venues, too, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Although the Beijing-Moscow relationship is unimpressive compared with military alliances such as NATO, it's remarkable that it exists at all given the long history of border friction and hostility between the two countries. As has happened so often in history, the common threat posed by a greater power has driven unnatural partners to cooperate.American activism has also generated harder forms of balancing. China has worked assiduously to improve its military, and Russia has sold it modern weapons, such as fighter aircraft, surface-to-air missiles, and diesel-electric submarines. Iran and North Korea, meanwhile, have pursued nuclear programs in part to neutralize the United States' overwhelming advantages in conventional fighting power. Some of this pushback would have occurred no matter what; in an anarchic global system, states acquire the allies and military power that help them look after themselves. But a country as large and as active as the United States intensifies these responses.Withdrawing military forces and terminating membership in the North Atlantic Treaty is the first step toward a more restrained global grand strategy.Ted Galen Carpenter 19. Senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute. "Trump Should Have Already Left NATO". National Interest. 4-17-2019. should pursue a strategy to implement an orderly, but prompt, transfer of responsibility for Europe’s security to the nations of democratic Europe. The ultimate goal should be to phase-out U.S. membership in NATO—an alliance that is showing multiple signs of dysfunction. The initial step would be to withdraw U.S. military forces from the European theater. Within two years, the United States ought to complete the withdrawal of all ground units and reduce its naval and air forces in Europe by at least 50 percent. On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty in 2024, Washington should complete that withdrawal and give a one-year notice that it is terminating U.S. membership in the treaty. The option of occasional deployments of U.S. air and naval units should be kept open, based on the specifics of any agreements with the responsible European security organization or individual major powers, and Washington’s own assessment of the overall security environment. Care must be taken, though, that periodic, limited deployments do not become perpetual, large-scale “rotational” deployments that amount to a permanent U.S. military presence in all but name.Unfortunately, the desperation of NATO partisans to preserve their institution is intense. The House of Representatives’ passage of the NATO Support Act in January 2019, barring the use of funds to facilitate U.S. withdrawal from the alliance in any way, is symptomatic of that attitude. The constitutionality of such legislation is highly suspect, since presidents throughout history have enjoyed wide latitude regarding both troop deployments and continued adherence to treaties. A transparent congressional attempt to usurp that authority and seek to micromanage U.S. foreign policy is both unwarranted and unhealthy. Whoever occupies the White House in the future must have the right to implement needed policy changes regarding NATO.Great wailing and despair from the NATO preservation crowd on both sides of the Atlantic will inevitably accompany any meaningful U.S. policy shift. But seven decades is an exceedingly long period for any policy to be relevant and beneficial (much less optimal), and America’s NATO membership is no exception. Indeed, it seems to epitomize the problem of policy entropy. A U.S.-led NATO is now well beyond its appropriate expiration date. It is time to accord the alliance the retirement celebration that should have been held when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union dissolved.Adopting a new, more restrained posture does not mean that the United States will take no interest in Europe’s affairs. We need to reject the simplistic “light switch model” of America’s engagement in the world—that there are only two possible settings: “off and on.” There are many settings between those two extremes, and there are multiple forms of engagement—diplomatic, economic and cultural, as well as security.Every effort should be made to preserve a robust, mutually beneficial transatlantic economic relationship. The United States also can and should maintain extensive diplomatic and cultural connections with Europe. And Washington should forge a coordinating mechanism either with a new European security organization or on a bilateral basis with the continent’s main military powers to address issues of mutual concern. Beyond that aspect, there is nothing to prevent joint military exercises and even temporary deployments of U.S. air and naval units, if the security environment turns more threatening. But America does not need to continue being Europe’s security blanket/hegemon.That more flexible approach would constitute an updated version of Taft’s policy of the free hand. Moreover, it would be one component of a U.S. global grand strategy based on realism and restraint. America would no longer shackle itself to commitments that have more drawbacks than benefits and lock the republic into obligations that no longer make sense. It would end the thankless, unproductive strategy of trying to micromanage the security affairs of both Europe and the neighboring Middle East. It is perverse for U.S. leaders to seek to deny their own country the essential element of policy choice. A sustainable transatlantic policy for the twenty-first century must rest firmly on the principle of maximum choice for the United States.Absent withdrawal, the resulting security dilemma inevitably triggers great power conflictJoel Hillison ’17, Adjunct Professor in Political Science at Gettysburg College, received an M.S.S. from the United States Army War College in Strategic Studies and a PhD from Temple University in International Relations, has been on the faculty at the United States Army War College since 2007, retired as a Colonel in the U.S. Army after 30 years of federal service and 2 years in the Illinois National Guard, “Fear, Honor, and Interest: Rethinking Deterrence in a 21st-Century Europe,” Orbis 61:3, pgs. 340-353, the 2015 National Military Strategy and the 2015 National Security Strategy highlighted a strategy of deterring further Russian aggression while cooperating in areas where the United States and Russia share common interests. Philip Breedlove, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, stated that NATO was “adding a deterrence component with the goal of deterring Russia from any further aggressive actions.”17 Arguably, those efforts have failed. Russia has responded in kind to efforts by the United States, EU, and NATO to increase deterrence capability and impose costs on Russia. Russia has increased its military presence in Kaliningrad and on NATO's eastern border and continued provocative overflights. Russia also intervened in the Syrian civil war, catching the United States and NATO off guard.Over the last several years, the U.S. and its NATO allies have strengthened their military posture in the Baltics and Central Europe. The 2017 U.S. budget included the $3.4 billion European Reassurance Initiative, up from about $800 million in FY 16.18 This initiative was aimed at improving infrastructure, increasing military presence, enhancing training and exercises, and building partner capacity. It also included the rotation of armored and airborne brigades into Europe, increased air policing in the Baltics, and increased naval presence in Black Sea. U.S. power projection capabilities will also increase with the prepositioning of additional equipment in Europe, especially the European Activity Set in the Baltics. These efforts, along with economic sanctions, were intended to impose high costs on any Russian aggression against the Baltics or other NATO members. Beyond U.S. efforts, NATO also suspended routine cooperation with Russia including the NATO-Russia Council. During the July 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, NATO representatives again expressed their alliance's resolve to halt Russian military adventurism.However, the risk of this deterrence strategy is that the West has misjudged Russia's true intentions. University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer blames the problems in Ukraine on just such a misjudgment by the West. He suggests that current approaches will continue to be unsuccessful and could lead to even more aggression.19 These issues lead to the question of fear in the security dilemma.Fear and the Security DilemmaEven if there are no rational reasons to view an opponent's actions as threatening, fear can lead to miscalculation and retaliation. Thus, deterrence actually can lead to conflict. As Betts noted in his article, states could unwittingly “stumble into [war] out of misperception, miscalculation and fear of losing if they fail to strike first.”20 There is evidence of all three of these risks in Russian-Western relations over the past 18 years.Since the war in Kosovo in 1999, Moscow has grown leery of Western expansion around the world and, in particular, in Russia's historical sphere of influence. The first warning signs appeared during the Kosovo crisis when NATO intervened in a civil war between Serbia, a Russian ally, and the Kosovar rebels. While Russia was too weak at the time to stop NATO actions, they were able to send a strong signal of displeasure. After the conflict ended in June 1999, Russian paratroopers unexpectedly occupied the Pristina airport in Kosovo. Russia's actions surprised NATO leaders and led to a political-military standoff, which was only resolved after Russia's position on the airfield became untenable.21Adding to Moscow's fears, there were a series of “color revolutions” along Russia's geographical periphery that underscored the extent to which Western expansion could potentially serve as a catalyst for political and social instability. In 2003, the “Rose revolution” brought pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili to power in Georgia. The West viewed the expansion of democracy as a benign force that would improve security and stability in Europe. The Kremlin viewed things differently. “Mr. Putin saw Georgia's successful reforms and its determination to break out of the post-Soviet system and move towards the West as a threat, in the same way as the Soviet Union had felt threatened by liberal reforms in Czechoslovakia in 1968.”22 The following year, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine brought to power another pro-West president, Viktor Yushchenko.Perhaps a turning point came in 2008 when Kosovo declared its independence and President George W. Bush supported Georgia and Ukraine's membership in NATO. In his 2007 speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy, Vladimir Putin had described NATO expansion as “a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. .. against whom is this expansion intended?”23 In spite of these warning signs, the West miscalculated Russia's response. Later in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, ostensibly to stop Georgian aggression in a conflict over independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin justified that action by citing the precedent of Kosovo. Misperception and miscalculation would also characterize the West's foreign policy with Ukraine.The EU began negotiating with Ukraine to establish closer economic ties after the “Orange revolution.” However, in November 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich declined an association agreement with the EU. In response, tens of thousands of protestors gathered in Maidan Square, Kiev, demanding closer integration with the European Union. The United States and the EU actively supported and encouraged the demonstrators. Eventually, these protests led to a coup on February 22, 2014. President Yanukovcyh fled to a safe haven in Russia. Five days after the overthrow of the corrupt, but democratically elected Yanukovych government, Russia invaded and annexed Crimea and provided covert support for separatist rebels in the Donbass region of Ukraine.24 Russia struck before it lost Ukraine to the West.Leaders in some European capitals express concern that overreaction to Russian aggression in Ukraine could lead to a security dilemma and eventually armed conflict. Russia has actively promoted that view. During the NATO-Russia Council meeting in April 2016, the Russian Ambassador, Alexander Grushko, presented an ultimatum to NATO representatives, “any move by NATO to enhance its self-defense will be regarded by Russia as a threat.”25 In May 2016, Putin doubled down on that position, stating that he would retaliate against NATO's placement of its missile defense system in Romania.26If Russian actions are the result of fear of EU and NATO encroachment, then current approaches to deterrence will continue to be ineffective. Lebow, in his excellent analysis of deterrence in Thucydides, wrote that “deterrence is also a difficult, perhaps even an inappropriate, strategy to use against targets who are motivated by fear. It is likely to confirm their worst suspicions and intensify conflict by convincing them that unless they stand firm. .. they will be perceived as weak and subject to greater threats and demands.”27 International Relations scholar, Stephen Walt, argues that this is the case with Russia. “Russia is not an ambitious rising power like Nazi Germany or contemporary China; it is an aging, depopulating, and declining great power trying to cling to whatever international influence it still possesses and preserve a modest sphere of influence near its borders, so that stronger states—and especially the United States—cannot take advantage of its growing vulnerabilities.”28 Which one of these views is correct depends upon the probability of a Russian attack on a NATO country. These varying views lead to the question of the role of interestsGreat power war escalates and causes extinctionHallinan 16Conn Hallinan, FPIF, May 2, 2016. , NATO’s Dangerous Game: Bear-Baiting Russia: After the Cold War ended, many of the safeguards preventing war between Russia and the West have been allowed to lapse., March 2015 there have been over 60 incidents that could have triggered a major crisis between Russia and the United States. Pictured: artist’s rendering of hypersonic glide vehicle. (Photo: Wikipedia / Public Domain) “Aggressive,” “revanchist,” “swaggering”: These are just some of the adjectives the mainstream press and leading U.S. and European political figures are routinely inserting before the words “Russia,” or “Vladimir Putin.” It is a vocabulary most Americans have not seen or heard since the height of the Cold War. The question is, why? Is Russia really a military threat to the United States and its neighbors? Is it seriously trying to “revenge” itself for the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union? Is it actively trying to rebuild the old Soviet empire? The answers to these questions are critical, because, for the first time since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, several nuclear-armed powers are on the edge of a military conflict with fewer safeguards than existed 50 years ago. Consider the following events: NATO member Turkey shoots down a Russian warplane. Russian fighter-bombers come within 30 feet of a U.S. guided missile destroyer, and a Russian fighter does a barrel roll over a U.S. surveillance plane. Several U.S. Senators call for a military response to such encounters in the future. NATO and the U.S. begin deploying three combat brigades—about 14,000 troops and their equipment—in several countries that border Russia, and Washington has more than quadrupled its military spending in the region. U.S. State Department officials accuse Russia of “dismantling” arms control agreements, while Moscow charges that Washington is pursuing several destabilizing weapons programs. Both NATO and the Russians have carried out large war games on one another’s borders and plan more in the future, in spite of the fact that the highly respected European Leadership Network (ELN) warns that the maneuvers are creating “mistrust.” In the scary aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the major nuclear powers established some ground rules to avoid the possibility of nuclear war, including the so-called “hot line” between Washington and Moscow. But, as the threat of a nuclear holocaust faded, many of those safeguards have been allowed to lapse, creating what the ELN calls a “dangerous situation.” According to a recent report by the ELN, since March of last year there have been over 60 incidents that had “the potential to trigger a major crisis between a nuclear armed state and a nuclear armed alliance.” The report warns that, “There is today no agreement between NATO and Russia on how to manage close military encounters.” Such agreements do exist, but they are bilateral and don’t include most alliance members. Out of 28 NATO members, 11 have memorandums on how to avoid military escalation at sea, but only the U.S., Canada and Greece have what is called “Preventing Dangerous Military Activities” (DMA) agreements that cover land and air as well. In any case, there are no such agreements with the NATO alliance as a whole. The lack of such agreements was starkly demonstrated in the encounter between Russian aircraft and the U.S. The incident took place less than 70 miles off Baltiysk, home of Russia’s Baltic Sea Fleet, and led to an alarming exchange in the Senate Armed Services Committee among Republican John McCain, Democrat Joe Donnelly, and U.S. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, soon to assume command of U.S. forces in Europe. McCain: ”This may sound a little tough, but should we make an announcement to the Russians that if they place the men and women on board Navy ships in danger, that we will take appropriate action?” Scaparrotti: “That should be known, yes.” Donnelly: “Is there a point…where we tell them in advance enough, the next time it doesn’t end well for you?” Scaparrotti: “We should engage them and make clear what is acceptable. Once we make that known we have to enforce it.” For the Americans, the Russian flyby was “aggressive.” For the Russians, U.S. military forces getting within spitting range of their Baltic Fleet is the very definition of “aggressive.” What if someone on the destroyer panicked and shot down the plane? Would the Russians have responded with an anti-ship missile? Would the U.S. have retaliated and invoked Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, bringing the other 27 members into the fray? Faced by the combined power of NATO, would the Russians—feeling their survival at stake—consider using a short-range nuclear weapon? Would the U.S. then attempt to take out Moscow’s nuclear missiles with its new hypersonic glide vehicle? Would that, in turn, kick in the chilling logic of thermonuclear war: Use your nukes or lose them? Far-fetched? Unfortunately, not at all. The world came within minutes of a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis and, as researcher Eric Schlosser demonstrated in his book “Command and Control,” the U.S. came distressingly close at least twice more by accident. One of the problems about nuclear war is that it is almost impossible to envision. The destructive powers of today’s weapons have nothing in common with the tiny bombs that incinerated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so experience is not much of a guide. Suffice it to say that just a small portion of world’s nukes would end civilization as we know it, and a general exchange could possibly extinguish human life. ................
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