By ROBERT BURNS, AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON – With the war in Afghanistan as his guide, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday called for sweeping changes in the way NATO prepares for and fights nontraditional conflicts.
Citing a "crisis" in the alliance, Gates said Afghanistan has exposed fundamental NATO weaknesses — shortcomings that he said can undermine the viability of NATO as it faces future security threats.
He cited a money shortage within NATO — a perennial problem that successive American administrations have tried and failed to fix. That, in turn, is a "symptom of deeper problems with the way NATO perceives threats," assesses its defense needs and sets spending priorities, Gates said.
Gates tempered his stern message with words of praise for NATO allies, saying they had demonstrated in just the last three months an "unparalleled level of commitment" to the war effort by increasing their troop contributions from 30,000 last summer to 50,000 this year.
"By any measure that is an extraordinary feat," he said. He did not mention, however, that even NATO members who have shared the combat burden in Afghanistan are finding it hard to sustain.
In the Netherlands, for example, the coalition government collapsed this month over the issue of troop contributions; the 2,000-strong Dutch troop contingent is to begin withdrawing in August. Another stalwart, Canada, plans to remove 2,800 troops by next year, even as some other nations send more.
NATO's budget squeeze reflects a larger cultural and political trend within an alliance, Gates said. After decades of success in preventing a catastrophic eruption of conflict on the European continent, NATO member countries have failed to modernize their militaries — instead relying on superior U.S. firepower. Afghanistan, however, has shown that a superpower cannot succeed alone in a conflict that requires not just traditional military strength but also civilian expertise and the clout of international support.
"The demilitarization of Europe — where large swaths of the general public and political class are averse to military force and the risks that go with it — has gone from a blessing in the 20th century to an impediment to achieving real security and lasting peace in the 21st," he told a National Defense University audience filled with uniformed military officers from many of NATO's 28 member countries.
The danger, he added, is that potential future adversaries may view NATO as a paper tiger.
"Not only can real or perceived weakness be a temptation to miscalculation and aggression, but, on a more basic level, the resulting funding and capability shortfalls make it difficult to operate and fight together to confront shared threats," Gates told a forum on rewriting the basic mission plan of the NATO alliance.
"All of this should be a wake-up call that NATO needs serious, far-reaching and immediate reforms to address a crisis that has been years in the making," Gates said.
If NATO simply rewrites its basic agenda — officially known as its "strategic concept" — without changing the practices and the mindset of alliance members, the result "will not be worth the paper it is printed on," he added.
A group of security experts led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is scheduled to produce by April recommendations for the new strategy document, which was last revised in 1999, before the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led to NATO's involvement in Afghanistan. The final product is expected to be formally adopted at a NATO summit in November.
In his speech, Gates time and again cited Afghanistan as an illustration of where NATO has failed to adapt.
"For many years, for example, we have been aware that NATO needs more cargo aircraft and more helicopters of all types, and yet we still don't have these capabilities," he said. "And their absence is directly impacting operations in Afghanistan." Similarly, he said NATO requires more aerial refueling and surveillance aircraft for immediate use in the war.
Alliance officials in Europe were largely accepting of Gates' assessment of the problem.
Norwegian Undersecretary of Defense Espen Barth Eide told The Associated Press that Gates' criticism was "understandable," but that increased funding from European NATO members was not a viable solution.
"I think Gates is right to say we've had such success demilitarizing Europe that many Europeans have forgotten that freedom and democracy aren't free and must be defended...sometimes by military force," Eide said. Member countries need to increase efficiencies by cooperating more closely, he added.
"It's not like defense budgets in Europe are going to go up. They've been going down almost across the board," Eide said.
In Prague, Michal Thim of the Association for International Affairs, an independent Czech think tank, said Gates' comments were not surprising.
"The United States have been concerned about the defense policies of European allies for a long time," Thim said. He interpreted Gates' remarks as indicating the Obama administration is losing patience with Europe.
Kees Homan, a former director of the Dutch military college and now with the Clingendael Institute, a think tank in The Hague, said Gates is only partly right about the popular aversion in Europe to war.
Europeans will fight when they see it to be in their self interest, he said. The problem in Afghanistan is that the war lacks consensus.
"There's no unified approach to Afghanistan," Holman said. "Everyone has his own view."
