Could NATO fall apart by accident?

The point of running a game like The Belarussian Right Hook is to discern the potential contours of an emergent future. In my form of foresight, the point of studying the future is to outline these potential contours in order to take action to reinforce the futures that we like and to act to resist the ones that we don't. This makes the exercise necessarily analytical, but this act of cognition needs to underpin any action that may affect a future outcome. 

It should be said that many possible outcomes could result, not just the single outcome from a single game. When we previously played this game, NATO was able to destabilise Russia to such a degree that we could question whether the current Russian regime would survive a defeat in the field. Such are the uncertainties of military action. However, our focus is now upon the defeat of NATO in the field that resulted from this game. We ask the question of whether or not NATO is robust enough to withstand defeat in the field?

We identified three key areas of interest. First, does NATO have sufficient political cohesion to survive a defeat in the field? Much of the defeat can be attributed to a piecemeal approach to the conflict, along with varying degrees of commitment from the various NATO members. Second, there is the question of the point at which NATO ought to become involved to counter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe. Had NATO become involved earlier, then it could be argued that things would not have gone so badly. Third, to what extent has long term budgetary parsimony severely degraded the ability of NATO to act in the field? Budget restrictions are a recurring theme, everyone seems to agree that something should be done. Then other priorities emerge for the funding. This had quite an impact in the game.

NATO is essentially an organisation for mutual defence in Europe. It has only been used in anger once - in Afghanistan - which some might argue was a bit of a mistake. Western hubris gave NATO a role outside of Europe. Now that history hasn't ended and the Russian challenge has re-emerged in the 21st Century, the political effectiveness of NATO can be called into question. NATO suffers from three weaknesses. First, NATO is not the only security organisation in Europe. The Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union blurs the issue. In the game, we had NATO members not in the EU, we had EU members not in NATO, and we had countries that were in neither the EU nor NATO. This fragmentation of authority and decision making made the NATO response hesitant, which proved to be a decisive factor. It would be interesting to play the game again, where NATO can mobilise in Turn 1 of the game, rather than sitting things our.

Second, NATO contains differing views on how warfare should be conducted. Some members are relatively war-like, whilst others tend to incline towards more peaceful solutions. This manifests itself in the willingness for the public in the NATO nations to engage in military action. We didn't model this into the game other than a political hesitancy on the part of some nations to become involved. This touches upon the third weakness - the activities of Russia. Russia has been involved in a campaign of political influence amongst the European NATO nations for some time. It uses a combination of propaganda and commercial interests to influence European opinion. This has an impact on the willingness of the nations affected to undertake and support action at the point of conflict. It certainly has an impact on the second key area of interest - the point at which NATO becomes involved in the conflict.

In this game, NATO only became involved with the triggering of Article 5 by virtue of the Russian invasion of the Baltic States. It was only at this point that NATO started to mobilise for action. By the time that the NATO forces - especially the German and Polish armies - had mobilised, Russia controlled Estonia and Latvia. This had the effect of placing the conflict zone in Lithuania. There were two points at which NATO - given the political will - could have achieved a better result. NATO could have mobilised and deployed in the Baltic States as Russia invaded Ukraine. This might not have deterred Russia, but it would have changed the basis of Russian calculations. We ought to play this game. Second, after crushing Ukraine, it seems obvious that an ambivalent response from NATO would encourage Russian ambitions in the Baltic States. Had NATO mobilised and deployed as the Russian forces re-positioned themselves, that would have changed the basis of Russian calculations. Again, this could prove to be an interesting game. 

However, this presumes the relative effectiveness of the European NATO forces. This is an assumption worth challenging. A decade of austerity across Europe can be believed to have had an impact on the combat effectiveness of the European NATO forces. Many senior officers, upon retirement, have written about the degree to which combat effectiveness has been degraded. Some of this, one suspects, might be vested interests pleading their case. However, some of this might represent an accurate warning of a very real shortfall. We won't know until the point of conflict arrives. A policy that relies upon the European NATO allies as first responders could be questioned on grounds of effectiveness. This is a fairly large unknown. In the game, the German and Polish armies were relatively ineffective and the whole NATO campaign relied upon them. This is from where defeat originated.

A defeat for the organisation would be a significant threat to its survival. It is interesting to speculate how a future NATO would evolve after a defeat in the field. This would make an interesting game in itself. Our game ended when Russia occupied all three Baltic States. We had it that Russia then offered peace terms to the European NATO allies. That peace conference, in itself, would make an interesting game as a precursor to the game about how NATO would evolve - if it survived - after the peace settlement. Those are games for another day.

For now, the conclusion that we draw from this game is that, under the right circumstances, NATO could fall apart by accident. Of course, this future is not a given. NATO can act in the present to avoid this. It can bolster its political cohesion, it can sharpen its defences, and it can act to counter Russian influence in Europe. It remains to be seen whether or not this will happen.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan

© The European Futures Observatory 2021