5th Bratislava security conference highlights enduring challenges to NATO cohesion

By Ben Thomas

The 2010 GLOBSEC security conference, held 13-14 September in Bratislava (Slovak Republic) struck a cautionary note for NATO’s forthcoming Strategic Concept. With the wider debate pessimistic on the future of the West and critical of political leadership in Afghanistan panel members highlighted the increasing contradictions within NATO’s strategic outlook and warned that the Strategic Concept needs to kick-start genuine reform if NATO is to remain relevant to member states. 

The running theme of the debate focused upon NATO’s strategic outlook and the competing security interests of member states. Former Ambassador of Poland to NATO, Jerzy Nowak, was unsure that Eastern European security concerns are being fully understood by an organisation increasingly focused upon Afghanistan and the possibility of similar future conflicts, whilst Damon Wilson of the Atlantic Council warned that without ‘power and vision’ the Strategic Concept would accelerate negative views of Europe within Washington. 

Such worries were echoed in the prominence given to Russia by panel members, with Eastern Europeans telling the audience that they remain historically mindful of the fragility of their security and voicing concern over both the inability of NATO or the EU to act in Georgia and the increasing energy dependence of the EU on Russia.  In contrast, the mood from the British and American panel members was one of concern for balancing NATO’s ability to fight both irregular and regular conflicts by emphasising functional over geographic capability.  They highlighted the disproportionate input of Germany, France and the UK in European defence spending and warned that unless the EU can develop a real strategic vision to compliment NATO’s then the re-nationalisation of defence remains a real threat to the enduring cohesion of the alliance.

Julian Lindley-French argued that NATO should focus on how to fight and afford future wars, adding that the current financial climate presents a unique opportunity to streamline wasteful command structures and procurement procedures. This was echoed by Paul Flaherty, who claimed that whilst NATO defence capabilities have shifted away from a Cold War paradigm they remain stuck in an obsolete set of threats and security challenges from the 1990s. Panel members thus urged NATO to develop better frameworks for partnership with regional bodies and international organisations in order to combat the increasingly diffuse nature of future threats.

Panel members were:

Chairman: TOMÁŠ VALÁŠEK - Slovak Atlantic Commission; Director of Foreign Policy and Defence, Centre for European Reform, London
AMB. (RET.) JERZY NOWAK - Vice President of the Board, Polish Euro-Atlantic Association; Former Ambassador of Poland to NATO, Warsaw
DAMON WILSON- Vice President and Director International Security Program, Atlantic Council of the USA, Washington, D.C.
JULIAN LINDLEY-FRENCH - Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy, Netherlands Defence Academy, Alphen
PAUL FLAHERTY- Deputy Permanent Representative, United Kingdom Joint Delegation to NATO, Brussels