NATO’s future: Afghanistan or the Arctic?

By Christian Brose

First I read this at McClatchy:

With America’s allies likely to rebuff requests to send more combat troops to Afghanistan, many Pentagon officials want President Barack Obama to alter U.S. policy and seek NATO help only in other areas such as police training and support for democratization, defense officials said.

Obama called for more NATO combat troops while he was campaigning for the presidency. But the officials said that NATO allies are unlikely to defy the majorities of their citizens who are opposed to deeper involvement in the war, and he’d squander political capital on an almost certainly futile bid to convince them otherwise.

"The problem is that all politics is local. No constituents in those countries want to be there anymore," a U.S. defense official told McClatchy, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to comment publicly….

"We haven’t given up yet (on seeking more allied combat forces), but there is a certain realization that there is only so much water you can squeeze from that stone," said a second U.S. defense official, who asked not to be further identified to avoid speaking ahead of the new administration.

So I’m asking myself (again), what will become of NATO if it can’t fight and win wars where we need to win them most, like Afghanistan? Then I read this in the Wall Street Journal:

NATO will need a military presence in the Arctic as global warming melts frozen sea routes and major powers rush to lay claim to lucrative energy reserves, the military bloc’s chief said Thursday.

NATO commanders and lawmakers meeting in Iceland’s capital said the Arctic thaw is bringing the prospect of new standoffs between powerful nations.

"I would be the last one to expect military conflict — but there will be a military presence," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters. "It should be a military presence that is not overdone, and there is a need for political cooperation and economic cooperation."

The opening up of Arctic sea routes once navigable only by icebreakers threatens to complicate delicate relations between countries with competing claims to Arctic territory — particularly as exploration for oil and natural gas becomes possible in once inaccessible areas.

Mr. de Hoop Scheffer said negotiations involving Russia, NATO and other nations will be key to preventing a future conflict. 

Now, I take seriously the challenges emerging from a thawing Arctic turning turning into a geopolitical football for the United States, Canada, Russia, and Europe’s High North countries. So I’m happy to see that NATO is thinking strategically about that region. But I’m still a little forelorn that succeeding in Afghanistan will require us to increasingly "Americanize" the war effort there, while NATO shifts its focus to, well, not the central front of the fight against terrorism.

Then I read this in Der Spiegel:

Cold temperatures and boredom are normally the order of the day at Russia’s northernmost border post on the Arctic Ocean island of Alexandra Land. Icebergs as big as houses drift past, while old diesel drums stand silent in the dry air….

In September of last year, this ghost station of the Cold War was suddenly returned to the center of geopolitical events, when two dozen government representatives were flown there, including Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov. They quickly agreed that "the Arctic must become Russia’s main strategic base for raw materials." Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of the Security Council of Russia, was quick to point out: "If we do not become active now, we will simply be forced out."

The group of powerful men decided to have a comprehensive strategy prepared for development of the Arctic by 2020. The document will be released this week.

Some of the content has already been leaked, revealing an uncompromising tone. "It cannot be ruled out that the battle for raw materials will be waged with military means," the explosive document reads.

It seems that Russia, with almost one-third of its territory lying north of the Arctic Circle, is about to prove that the fears of Western nations bordering the Arctic are not unjustified. The nuclear power will soon begin flexing its muscles along the icy shores of its giant realm.

Well, OK. It’s not Afghanistan, but the Arctic is becoming a more consequential region, and if NATO can help to foster security and open commerce there while checking Russia’s more aggressive tendencies, then I guess that’s a mission worthy of the alliance, if not a wholly unfamiliar one. Interestingly, the Bush administration’s final National Security Presidential Directive, released 11 days before the curtains fell, was on Arctic policy. It’s a well-done, comprehensive statement, much of which will likely carry over into the Obama team’s policies. But it’s not beach reading, and not even climate change will change that.