Book Review: What’s Wrong with NATO and How to Fix It

Seventy-two years after its inception, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the most successful military alliance. We could end the discussion there, but among NATO’s 30 member states, there are deep divisions, proverbial elephants in the room, and persistent concerns that it is unprepared to match re-emerging and new peer competitors, not to mention internal consternations about dreaded national “caveats” whenever missions are planned. Despite NATO’s myriad problems, however, the authors maintain that it is “salvageable and worth keeping” (1).

This book is part of a series that studies not only all that is wrong with organizations, ¹ but importantly, how to fix them as well. Others in the series investigate the European Union, International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and United Nations. Mark Webber, James Sperling, and Martin Smith set out to capture key post–Cold War NATO developments and their antidotes. The question is, have they captured the most pressing and damaging issues or those that lend themselves to solutions because they are persistent issues?

The authors, representing the United States, United Kingdom, and western-European–centric viewpoints, suggest the four key challenges to NATO’s survival are (1) overextended geostrategic reach and an unwieldy security policy portfolio, (2) US weariness and European wariness that call NATO into question, (3) a failure to address capability shortfalls and meet defence spending benchmarks, and (4) intra-alliance discord over Russia’s place in the European security order and how to deal with Moscow’s destabilization of Georgia and Ukraine. NATO’s “[t]readmills of problems” (36–45) suggest they are constant concerns. If so, are they truly damaging to NATO or simply irritants? The first three of the four are internal to NATO. As NATO makes decisions by consensus, many of the challenges that NATO faces are self-inflicted and should be self-correcting.

The fourth issue is an external challenge. Turbulent relations with the Soviet Union and now Russia mean that the desired “functional relationship” with Russia has never been achieved. The authors are balanced and careful not to lay blame entirely on Russia (92–113). Brief periods of promise, especially in the early days of the Permanent Joint Council (Madrid Summit in 1997), which envisioned Russia establishing a mission at NATO HQ, were short-lived (94). Nevertheless, the treatments for the four challenges, according to the authors, are (1) for NATO to be more selective and prudent about what it does, (2) to rebalance the responsibilities of leadership toward Europe, (3) to align missions with effective and efficiently allocated capabilities, and (4) to construct a realistic partnership with Russia (15).

The authors suggest that, like street lighting, NATO is a public good which is “nonexcludable (available to all and not to be denied to those who might be regarded as undeserving) and [it is] non-rivalrous (the enjoyment ... by some does not reduce its availability to others)” (55–56). The authors, however, may have underestimated the extent to which the US way of war and its military’s global organization drives NATO. ² US foreign and defence policy unduly influences NATO priorities, which means challenges and remedies 1–3 are akin to similarly charged magnets; there will never be a meeting of the poles in theory. The Russian problem is best solved, the authors suggest, by abandoning the pretense of a normative relationship with Russia and instead establishing a “tacit” NATO–Russia security regime, meaning deconflicting via a shared understanding of interests (214–215). This is very sensible advice, but proving vexingly difficult in principle.

The book will be of tremendous help to strategic studies students (of which there are a dwindling number), especially on the history of NATO. It provides, however, predictable advice. The last chapter is the most interesting as it wrestles, albeit far too briefly, with the consequences of Brexit, a rising China, and COVID-19. Here is where there is the promise of new thinking. Having begun the book in 2013 and publishing in 2021, the authors, of course, had to make choices, so these “newer” issues were appended. The Trump effect within the analysis is properly balanced, given that his “reign” represented less than 5% of NATO’s history, and were the authors to revise the book, China would feature as more than “an object of NATO’s attention” (228). China will be NATO’s biggest concern in the very near future. But other, serious problems are either given short shrift or are overlooked completely.

First, some of the NATO members, especially Turkey, Hungary, and Poland, are highly problematic because of their decided slide toward authoritarianism. Turkey’s relations with NATO are described as “fraught” (141) and its relations with Russia as “incompatible with NATO membership” (143). These states, passively and actively, are undermining NATO and its core democratic values. We are beyond fraught and incompatible, but the authors are diplomatic. More analysis on NATO’s “civilian” side would be instructive, especially as it is likely to be key to dealing with problematic members and initial discussions with NATO’s soon-to-be chief competitor—China.

Second, NATO’s military structure and makeup are perfect for a post-WWII world, but not for today’s. Domain-specific component commanders devise plans within stovepipes that are impotent to deal with an all-domain threat environment that thrives on hybrid tactics short of war. Estonia, for example, is given brief mention in the book, and yet this newer member, on the frontline having suffered direct cyber attacks by Russia, is NATO’s cyber expert and likely to be one of the most important members in the new threat environment.

Next, NATO forces are still overwhelmingly skewed toward the land domain. If NATO chiefs of defense staff (CHODS) are reflective of their forces in terms of strength or importance (and typically, they are), then armies (and overwhelmingly from Eastern Europe) are well represented (twenty-one of twenty-nine CHODS ³ ), with five naval and three air force representatives. And while there are a medical officer (Albania) and planning officer (Denmark) who represent novel occupations, the majority are overwhelmingly operators.

Third, a review of military representatives ⁴ to NATO’s military committee reveals a gallery of twenty-nine men and only one woman, after Canada’s female representative LGEN Frances Allen became Canada’s new vice chief of the defence staff—the seventh in five years. Chaos within the senior leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces connected to sexual or other misconduct is negatively impacting operations. If Canada is facing these challenges, every NATO member is ⁵ —and if not addressed, this failure of leadership will do more to undermine NATO internally than Russia could ever hope to achieve. What is more, the lack of diversity in organization, representation, and occupations makes for stale thinking that perpetuates the tried, not the innovative. Solving these challenges, however, requires breaking new, and messy, ground.

While not an encomium to NATO, the book is optimistic. The authors are best at providing the historical context to NATO decisions and missions, and this will be well appreciated by many. As a reference text, ⁶ this book lays down important foundational ideas. As a guide to fix NATO, I am less certain.