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Nov. 21, 2024

Reforming and Enhancing Partnerships to Strengthen NATO’s Strategic Posture

Nicolò Fasola
©2024 Nicolò Fasola

ABSTRACT: This article contends that NATO’s current partnership policies, procedures, and mechanisms inadequately address the Alliance’s evolving mission. The world’s heightened state of competition should prompt NATO to reevaluate partner engagement to fulfill its strategic goals more effectively. Alongside a critical examination of NATO’s cooperative security policy evolution, this article identifies six major challenges and proposes three bold yet actionable solutions. Enriched by interviews and the author’s experiences in the field of partnerships, this article also outlines ways NATO can reform existing partnership tools.

Keywords: great-power competition, Ukraine, Asia-Pacific Four, NATO Strategic Concept, Partnership for Peace

 

After 30 years, NATO is reentering an era of great-power competition that has arisen from the void left by the receding liberal order. The shifting security landscape will require NATO to adapt its approach to maintaining international stability and underscores the need for a renewed focus on traditional deterrence and defense in North America and Europe. In response to the challenges this dynamic security setting poses, Allies have actively embarked on innovative approaches to secure a competitive advantage while ensuring that old policies and instruments continue to safeguard their interests. Partnership is one instrument that advances mutual security and defense interests through Joint activities at the politico-strategic and military-practical levels.

Partnerships, a part of the Alliance’s toolbox since the early 1990s, have evolved in format and scope alongside NATO’s enlargement and task adaptation. Nevertheless, the Alliance’s public narrative did not emphasize the pivotal role of partnerships in supporting NATO’s mission until the 2010s. Furthermore, the most recent NATO Strategic Concept emphasizes the importance of partner states in enhancing the Alliance’s resilience against existing and future security threats and highlights the significant role partners play in preserving peace and stability across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Indo-Pacific. It also reiterates how bolstering the political-military dialogue and practical cooperation with partners fulfills core NATO tasks and enhances partner interoperability with Allied forces. During the Vilnius Summit in July 2023, Allies reaffirmed these principles, stressing that partners “are crucial to protect the global commons and enhance [NATO’s] resilience.”1

Despite acknowledging the significance of partners, the Alliance has consistently overlooked issues that hinder the strategic development and efficient implementation of partnerships. Neither the recommendations outlined in the NATO 2030 expert report nor the 2022 Strategic Concept have spurred a revision of the programs, agreements, initiatives, and procedures designed to assist partners in implementing bilateral objectives and contributing to NATO’s strategic goals. Consequently, NATO and partner nations face the challenge of relying on outdated partnership structures and mechanisms to strengthen the Alliance’s resilience against existing and future security threats. To uphold the instrumental value of partnerships for Allies, NATO must modernize and reform its partnership components to ensure the effective utilization of partners in fulfilling its mission.2

To contribute to such goals, this article offers insights into NATO’s historical and ongoing evolution and management of partnership policies, procedures, tools, and mechanisms. It then highlights NATO partnership challenges and proposes original reforms and solutions to ensure NATO can leverage partnerships to address the evolving security environment.

Partnerships: An Overview

NATO’s partnerships are collections of individual cooperation agreements between NATO and third-party countries (referred to as “partners”), who strengthen their connections with NATO without pursuing full membership. While partnership activities include political and military-to-military consultations, they primarily consist of security force assistance (SFA) measures that encompass practical collaboration in defense policy and planning, civil-military relations, military training and exercises, and security-relevant cooperation in science and education. Notably, NATO partnerships possess a “demand-driven” nature—that is, the partners define the content and pace of the partnerships to serve their political interests and ambitions.

Partnerships were envisioned as a facilitator of NATO’s expansion. Toward the end of the 1980s, the weakening Soviet Union gave NATO the opportunity to push its borders eastward—initially by incorporating a reunified Germany and then by reaching out to East–Central European countries keen on disengaging from the Warsaw Pact and Soviet influence. Despite its fragility, Moscow remained averse to the Alliance’s sudden expansion closer to Soviet (and then Russian) borders and deployed political, diplomatic, and military instruments to dissuade Western capitals from this policy course. NATO leaders therefore created partnerships as a gradualist approach to expansion. By establishing loose cooperation agreements with former socialist countries instead of making them members, NATO leaders meant to reassure Moscow of their peaceful intentions while demonstrating to East–Central European countries that NATO was setting the ground for enlargement in the longer term, thereby fulfilling the commitment outlined in the Washington Treaty, Article 10. The Partnership for Peace (PfP) framework concretized this approach, and by 2004, the SFA measures implemented through the PfP framework enabled 10 former socialist countries to transition westward.3

Within a decade, the “enlargement rationale” that propelled NATO’s partnership policy declined in momentum and was supplanted by diverse goals that emerged as the Alliance’s mandate and self-perception adapted to the new millennium’s challenges. In the early 2000s, the threat of international Islamist terrorism monopolized America’s and NATO’s strategic attention, prompting the redirection of resources toward the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While Washington and certain Allies bore the military burden of the war of terrorism, NATO “projected stability” in the increasingly tumultuous MENA region by facilitating post-conflict stabilization, institutional reconstruction, and intraregional cooperation. The Mediterranean Dialogue (MD) partnership framework, established in 1994 alongside the PfP framework, was revitalized to enhance interoperability among regional partners and foster stronger ties with NATO. Additionally, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative (ICI) framework was founded in 2004 to engage partners in the Persian Gulf and leverage their political and military influence to stabilize the region.4

Despite NATO’s efforts to implement the objectives outlined in the MD and ICI frameworks—that is, security and stability in the wider Mediterranean and Gulf regions—the organization has not succeeded. The lack of progress can be attributed to partners’ limited enthusiasm to collaborate, scant allocation of domestic funds to support NATO engagement, inadequate qualifications to participate in NATO training opportunities, and challenges in identifying suitable personnel for essential cooperation activities and dialogue sessions with NATO. Additionally, the expansion of membership and tasks raised serious challenges in allocating adequate resources to assist them in addressing regional challenges. Consequently, the MD and ICI frameworks did little to ease intraregional tensions and mitigate the disruptive consequences of Western interventions. Today, the MENA region remains more divided and tumultuous than ever—and is increasingly susceptible to the influence of NATO competitors’ influence.5

After reshaping Europe and navigating the MENA region’s challenges, by the 2010s, the Alliance’s geographical scope of activities encompassed the globe. The 2010 Strategic Concept, a much-needed update since the 1999 version declared that “[t]he promotion of Euro-Atlantic security is best assured through a wide network of partner relationships with countries and organisations around the globe.” The Alliance’s shift toward globalism coincided with the introduction of the Partners across the Globe (PatG) arrangement. Unlike the PfP, MD, and ICI, the PatG framework brings together geographically discontinuous partners that, on paper, “share [NATO’s] interest in peaceful international relations.” These partners include countries as different as Japan and Afghanistan, Australia and Colombia, and South Korea and Pakistan, among others.6

The rationale behind the PatG framework’s global outreach was twofold. It gave expression to the universalism integral to NATO as a liberal security community while mirroring America’s reorientation away from Europe and the MENA region toward the Indo-Pacific. This pivot required strengthening political-military ties with Pacific allies or partners to achieve greater influence there and generate new friendly forces that could support the reduction of US and NATO contingents in different international theaters.7

The 2010–11 Arab Spring and the 2014–15 Ukraine war impaired NATO’s attempt to uphold a global outlook, compelling the Alliance to revisit more traditional geographical realms and enhance European and Middle Eastern partners’ self-defense capabilities against conventional and hybrid attacks. The 2014 Wales Summit addressed the situation by introducing the Partnership Interoperability Initiative and the Defence and Related Security Capacity Building (DCB) Initiative. The Partnership Interoperability Initiative proved invaluable for select partners, enhancing their capabilities to contribute actively to NATO’s crisis management, military operations, and the NATO Response Force through their active participation in Allied exercises. The initiative also laid the groundwork for NATO to create the Enhanced Opportunities Partners program, consisting of collaborations customized to enhance partners’ interoperability with NATO forces. The DCB initiative offered support in defense and security reform and institution building for specific partners. Its value compared to alternative partnership activities remains unclear.8

Other non-geographical partnership initiatives overlap and compete with the PfP, MD, ICI, and PatG frameworks. For instance, Georgia and Ukraine belong to the PfP framework but also enjoy the title of “Special Partners,” which affords them opportunities for political coordination with the Allies and access to additional military training and projects. Other initiatives have concentrated on thematic areas, such as the fight against corruption (Building Integrity Policy and Action Plan), science and technology (Science for Peace and Security Programme), and politico-military education projects (Defence Education Enhancement Programme). These programs and the DCB initiative are powered through trust funds, which Allies contribute to voluntarily.9

In conclusion, this analysis of NATO’s partnership programs, frameworks, and initiatives highlights the necessity for the Alliance to reform and enhance these mechanisms.

The Pitfalls of NATO’s Partnerships

Over the last 30 years, NATO has enhanced partner capabilities to achieve its mission and guarantee the freedom and security of member states in an evolving global landscape. Still, these partnerships have struggled to contribute effectively to NATO’s strategic goals due to six challenges.

Challenge 1: Lack of Coherence

The first challenge lies in the lack of coherence in NATO’s cooperative security policy due to the unsynchronized proliferation of partnership frameworks, initiatives, and programs. The impetus for this expansion originated from NATO’s recognition of the imperative to adapt to the multifaceted challenges emerging in the post–Cold War environment, coinciding with NATO’s broadening responsibilities. In doing so, the Alliance has accumulated new partnership mechanisms without ensuring coherence or alignment of objectives. The existing partnership arrangements lack interrelation, while others overlap or have become outdated in effectively addressing current security needs and defense gaps. The result is “a jungle of different relations and regulations, with attendant difficulties of practical management and political oversight.”10

Institutional expansion not tailored to the specific demands of an organization’s evolving environment can lead to inefficiency and ineffectiveness. This problem has affected NATO, as the proliferation of its partnership formats did not include the necessary reforms to tackle the specific and diverse social and geographical challenges its partners faced. New partnership frameworks have replicated old ones according to a one-size-fits-all logic. Many observers have questioned the appropriateness of this approach, including Markus Kaim, a senior fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), who noted that NATO has never terminated any partnership framework, even after it fulfilled its original goal or failed.11

The only attempt to thin out the “partnership jungle” was made in 2011, when NATO’s foreign ministers approved a reform to improve the management of partnerships by establishing a consolidated list of activities known as the “Partnership Cooperation Menu” (PCM). The list is a resource for partners to tailor their cooperation with NATO, regardless of their partnership framework. While this innovation may have streamlined the annual planning and implementation of partnership activities, it failed to address the strategic issues impeding partners from effectively enhancing their capabilities to support NATO in achieving its strategic goals.12

Challenge 2: Focus on Partners’ Self-Defined Interests

The second challenge is that partnerships focus on individual partners’ self-defined interests but offer insufficient support for NATO’s strategic goals. Partnership agreements, such as the Individual Partnership and Cooperation Programme (IPCP), are formulated based on the specific pursuits partner nations wish to undertake in the political and military domains. Partners have the autonomy to determine the scope, goals, and depth of their engagement, aligning them with their domestic political and military priorities rather than NATO’s strategic imperatives. The Alliance can suggest activities for partners to participate in and, in some cases, can dissuade partners from joining some events (such as courses or mobile training teams) by setting high qualifications. Cooperation agreements are de facto nonbinding documents, and partners may eventually choose not to implement their provisions. Due to this loose, demand-driven approach, NATO faces difficulties in utilizing partners to implement security cooperation goals and meet broader strategic needs.

NATO partnerships in the South Caucasus illustrate this point. Since the early 1990s, NATO has conducted cooperative initiatives with partners in this region whose success in achieving NATO objectives remains “ambiguous and vague.” Partnerships have manifested in one of two forms. First, as platforms for the United States and, more recently, for Türkiye to strengthen its ties with regional actors (for example, Georgia and Azerbaijan) to pursue distinct interests that do not align with those of the Alliance; and second, in the absence of pressing interests, NATO has pursued partnerships to demonstrate its presence, thereby risking the possibility that presence without tangible outcomes could alienate partners rather than foster closer ties (for example, in Armenia). In these circumstances, it is evident that 30 years of NATO engagement with the South Caucasus have failed to contribute to regional stability or the consolidation of an impactful NATO presence.13

Challenge 3: Non-consensus on a Partner Priority List

The third partnership challenge arises from the inability of NATO member nations to reach consensus on a partner priority list. All partners are equal in NATO’s eyes, which sugarcoats cooperative security in the language of friendship and explains differences in individual SFA packages by reference to partners’ free will and varied interests. In this way, the Alliance avoids taking responsibility for partnership processes and sidesteps the potential diplomatic challenge of classifying partners into “first class” and “second class” categories.

The lack of a prioritization list impedes the NATO Command Structure from assuming more responsibility in determining and justifying the allocation of its resources to partners in service of Allied and partner security objectives. This issue is critical because NATO lacks the resources to support the implementation of all partners’ security cooperation agreements and train or build the diverse capability requirements of all partners.14

The lack of Allied resources impacts NATO’s management of partnerships and exemplifies a mismatch between its rhetoric and practice. For example, although Armenia and Azerbaijan share equal status on paper, NATO’s historical practices indicate a prioritization of cooperation with Azerbaijan. Similarly, NATO has supported more robust partnership packages with Finland, Georgia, Sweden, and Ukraine than those of other PfP nations. These contradictions give rise to a gray area wherein NATO’s decisions on allocating support to partners are influenced by the level of ambition among partners and the self-interest of individual Allies rather than by a coherent partnership policy that provides clear guidance on the priority level assigned to partners.

Attempts to rectify imbalances proved ineffective. In 2012, the Allies convened a groundbreaking meeting with 13 partners at the margins of the Chicago Summit to step up these partnerships. The criteria guiding the selection of partner invitees were unclear, and the meeting did not result in the prioritization of these partners. Similarly, in the 2023 Vilnius Summit, Allies restated the importance of partnerships and affirmed the need to adapt them to the strategic needs of the new international context. The final communiqué, however, lists the majority of NATO partners, with no clear prioritization and with no definition of how and why resources should be redistributed (except for Ukraine).15

Challenge 4: Limitations of Partner Planning Process

The fourth challenge lies in NATO’s partnership planning process, which limits partners’ abilities to enhance their defense capabilities and interoperability with Allied forces. There is no publicly available evidence that NATO’s partnership planning process implements a gap analysis on partner defense institutions, structures, and capabilities. While that information may be withheld from the public, hypothesizing the lack of gap analysis on partners is not far-fetched. This speculation gains ground when one considers that, historically, Allies have been reluctant or unable to assess their capabilities. Partners may have been reluctant to participate in a gap analysis because NATO does not mandate detailed information about its security and defense sectors. As a result, the only information available to NATO staff about partners’ capabilities is publicly accessible or filtered through the partners’ national security concerns and bilateral information-sharing platforms. The lack of a comprehensive understanding of partners’ military weaknesses poses challenges for NATO planners in delineating the SFA activities needed to support partners in achieving their military objectives and tracking progress toward agreed-upon end states for military cooperation (if any).16

Challenge 5: Budget Constraints

The fifth challenge affecting NATO’s partnerships is that partnerships operate under severe budget constraints. Despite verbal commitments to strengthen partnerships, NATO has not allocated adequate resources to cooperative security. Partnerships benefit from a modest 1 to 2 percent of NATO’s overall budget, equating to approximately 0.5 to 1 percent of the military budget. NATO’s declaration to increase common funds to €3.3 billion for 2023 (with the military fund set at €1.96 billion) has not altered the outlook for partnerships. Renewing the Defence Investment Pledge and launching initiatives like the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic have not offered additional monetary support to partnerships. These initiatives are geared toward funding collective defense projects, such as the modernization of Allied military hardware.17

The insufficient funding for partnerships underscores the limited level of Allied ambition in cooperative security. It penalizes mid- and low-capability partners—specifically, partners needing more assistance to rise to Western standards. While countries such as Australia, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland independently finance their activities with NATO, other partners receive partial or full financial support from NATO to participate in its activities. NATO’s few partnership funds are, therefore, dispersed across many demands. The lack of adequate resources to support partners is even more concerning, considering that China, Russia, and other competitors of the Alliance have demonstrated a long-standing commitment of resources in support of robust military policies and deeper formal and informal ties across contested neighborhoods.18

Challenge 6: Overclassification

Overclassification, the sixth partnership challenge facing NATO (and other security and defense organizations), impedes the free flow of information and transparency with partners. The resultant communication barriers impact effectiveness in managing and utilizing partnerships to support strategic goals. For example, most NATO partnership documents are labeled “unclassified,” which, despite the literal meaning of the term, restricts circulation and prevents free and timely information-sharing with partners. Additionally, documents classified as “confidential” or “restricted” introduce further circulation limitations with partners and within the Alliance.19

Overclassification presents a three-fold problem, ranging from impeding access to critical information to placing a bureaucratic burden on partners. First, the overclassification of NATO partnership documents obstructs partners’ access to information necessary for coordinating effective cooperation with NATO policy and training staff. NATO could declassify at least half of partnership documents or partner country reports, as they contain information already openly available to experts. Declassifying appropriate partnership documents enables NATO and its partners to develop successful cooperation planning and policies.20

Second, and relatedly, the overclassification of documents and PCM activities impedes certain partners’ participation in crucial education and training courses, limiting productive cooperation. Third, overclassification necessitates a burdensome bureaucratic process on partners, even when addressing basic partnership information. Such procedures impair the management of partnerships and compromise timely communication between NATO and its partners. If “trust and confidence” are the “center of gravity” of partnerships, as one NATO official told the author, then overclassification is an imperative issue that must be solved.21

Overall, these six challenges constrain NATO’s ability to enhance partner capabilities and interoperability with Allied forces, negatively impacting the effectiveness of NATO’s cooperative security policies. Identifying solutions to these challenges appears relevant to the Alliance’s success in addressing common security concerns and ensuring international stability.

Fine-Tuning Partnerships

As NATO faces a more demanding strategic environment, it must reform its partnership policies, initiatives, frameworks, and mechanisms to engage partners and maintain international stability. The new Strategic Concept demonstrates the challenges presented by the current global environment but fails to clarify the utility of partnerships and relations with partners. Similarly, at the Vilnius Summit, Allies restated their willingness to strengthen partnerships but failed to specify the principles that should guide change. To date, most proposed reforms focus on managerial-organizational changes, leaving NATO to rely on outdated and underperforming partnership tools. To maintain its status “as the most successful Alliance in history,” NATO must address this situation. Building on previous criticisms, we propose a set of reforms to support the Alliance’s mission and evolving strategic goals through partnerships.

Make Partnerships Integral to NATO’s Goals

First, member nations could reinvigorate partnerships by making them integral to NATO’s slow but steady reorientation toward two overarching goals: the defense of the liberal order and the fulfillment of collective defense. Both goals reflect the original spirit that led to NATO’s creation and are receiving renewed attention after decades of focus on the broader, vaguer narrative of the three core tasks. A targeted reorganization of Allied partnership activities centered on these two goals can enhance the coherence of NATO’s partnership efforts, strengthen synergies across various NATO partnership offices, and reduce the dispersion of resources allocated to partnerships.

This approach might allow NATO nations to prioritize partners based on their willingness and ability to support these overarching goals and could contribute directly to Allied security against illiberal threats. Guided by these two goals, NATO would need to reassess the inclusion of countries with illiberal regimes and dormant cooperation programs, like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, in the PfP framework. Resistance to change and the termination of partnerships persist within NATO, despite the evident failure at socializing illiberal and unstable regimes into Western norms, even after 30 years of engagement. If westernization failed under unipolarity, the chance it will work in a “multiplex world order” is scant. In light of the increasing ability of NATO’s competitors to develop powerful information campaigns, the Alliance should minimize policy inconsistencies and invest strategically in consolidating its values and capabilities across liberal-minded nations.22

The proposed reorganization of partnerships around the two overarching goals would entail rejecting two features that have characterized partnerships. First, there is the demand-driven approach. While letting partners choose whether they want to partner with NATO and what security objectives they want to pursue is consistent with a liberal, vocational approach—it is nonstrategic, as it neglects the pursuit of NATO’s interests. Second, there is the geographical organization of partnership frameworks. The PfP, MD, ICI, and PatG frameworks are so vast and internally diverse that they cannot work as unified formats. The regional effects assigned to some frameworks (such as the MD and ICI frameworks) have not been fulfilled, while other frameworks (PfP and PatG) do not or cannot reflect the region-specific conditions that have emerged since their creation. Moreover, the 2011 Berlin reform package has already made geography-based architecture outdated, though without dismissing it tout court.

To prioritize partnerships, NATO could substitute its current frameworks with a tier-based system, wherein the Alliance would assign partners to a tier based on their alignment with NATO’s core values, contributions to Allied strategic goals, and active engagement in security cooperation activities and dialogue. Tier 1 partners would share similar values with the Allies and possess advanced military capabilities that could support NATO in preserving the liberal order or implementing collective defense in the transatlantic space. Countries such as Australia, Austria, Ireland, New Zealand, and Switzerland would belong to Tier 1 and would cooperate with NATO on political consultations and in military-practical terms.23

Tier 2 partners would encompass liberal or democratizing countries with limited independent military capabilities like Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine. Tier 2 partnerships would have a dual focus: 1) active participation in Allies’ efforts supporting the liberal order and liberal caucus across various multilateral fora; and 2) military capability enhancement, which could be employed in NATO’s global operational theaters.

Tier 3 partners would include countries like Iraq, Mauritania, and possibly Kazakhstan and Mongolia, which align with NATO’s strategic interests in specific regions but have uncertain democratic credentials. These relationships should be transactional, focusing on achieving issue-specific relative advantages over NATO’s peer competitors. It is important to emphasize that NATO’s allocation of financial and human resources to its partners and the quantity and quality of information shared with them would increase from Tier 3 to Tier 1 to ensure the implementation of NATO’s increasingly ambitious goals.

Furthermore, to improve partners’ effectiveness in supporting established strategic objectives, NATO must update its partnership planning process to include two essential steps: a gap analysis of partner defense capabilities and a measure of effectiveness assessment on partners’ progress toward achieving milestones. By conducting these steps, NATO planners can identify the range of educational and training activities partners require to develop their capabilities or institutions. Implementing these two steps will be resource demanding and will require NATO to consider leveraging the voluntary national contribution mechanism to attain sufficient staffing levels without drawing additional resources from NATO’s constrained partnership budget.

Reassess Procedures for Security Classification

Second, NATO should reassess and reformulate its procedures for assigning security classifications to partnership documents, activities, and events. Addressing and refining these procedures will foster a more seamless and collaborative environment, enhancing the efficacy of NATO’s partnerships. NATO should reclassify overclassified PCM courses to increase cooperation with select partners according to their assigned tier. Further, NATO should update PCM courses and training activities per NATO’s overarching goals, partner priority list, and emerging security demands. For example, NATO’s current proposed activities do not cover economic warfare. To date, NATO has not developed strategies or allocated resources to support partners preparing for, deterring, and defending against economic warfare—a key instrument wielded by competitors like China and Russia. Partners’ future military capabilities and capacity to support the Alliance in preserving international stability are linked to their resilience in economic warfare. Collaborative efforts on this front are imperative.

Reform the Partnership Budget

Third, NATO must reform its partnership budget, as the existing one has consistently fallen short of meeting NATO goals and procedures. If a more strategic approach to partnerships were adopted, these resources would become more inadequate. In addition to increasing funds, fine-tuning partnerships according to the overarching goals of collective defense and the preservation of the liberal order might redirect additional resources reserved for collective defense toward cooperative security. Moreover, restructuring partnerships through a clearly defined priority list, a tier-based framework, and a more comprehensive planning process would maximize NATO’s efficient utilization of available funds.

Conclusion

Reforming partnerships should involve a thorough evaluation of how to optimize partners’ contributions in safeguarding NATO’s overarching goals. The Alliance must reprioritize, reorganize, and redirect its partnerships strategically, forging political-military cooperation agreements that align with its interests and reflect a commonality of values. To ensure partnerships become a more effective tool, NATO must allocate increased financial, human, and intellectual resources to cooperative security. Delaying this allocation will undermine the potential for partnerships to serve valuable instruments for NATO.

Notwithstanding the enduring significance of partnerships and the imperative to reform them, NATO must approach all future collaborations with partners after careful consideration of two caveats. First, partners cannot and should not substitute for a lack of Allied commitment. Overdependence on partner contributions would endanger NATO’s credibility and strategic independence, regardless of the threats faced. Partnerships should enhance, complement, and extend the effects of Allied policies—and operate under a strong NATO lead. These principles should be integral to NATO’s ongoing efforts in Asia and Europe. Empowering the partnerships with the Asia-Pacific Four (Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea) will be a panacea if Allies do not first agree on a unified China policy and set their tasks straightforwardly. Similarly, NATO nations should avoid outsourcing Russian containment to Ukraine. They should take ownership of defense and deterrence in Europe and distance themselves from Kyiv’s narrative of indispensability to transatlantic security.24

The second caveat calls for NATO to reflect carefully on the potential negative aspects of cultivating relations with third-party countries. While NATO affirms the morally just and coherent stance of respecting the sovereign right of every country to pursue its foreign policy freely, in line with NATO’s liberal vocation, history serves as a reminder to exercise caution. Applying a touch of Realpolitik is advisable to prevent a situation where strengthening NATO’s relations with certain partners triggers, rather then defuses, regional instability. Once again, Allies should examine the case of Ukraine when deliberating on policy approaches toward Taiwan and other contested territories.

The global security challenges confronting NATO have evolved since the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949. The enduring credibility and sustainability of the Alliance will rely upon its ability to remain relevant to its members’ ever-evolving security requirements. In particular, NATO should continue reassessing its strategic posture and become a more focused, proactive security provider that prevents crises rather than reacting to them. It should include partnership reform in a process, since defending the liberal order and containing strategic competitors cannot be solely addressed by the Alliance.

 

Acknowledgments and Author’s Note: The author would like to thank Sonia Lucarelli, Angela Romano, and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of this article. This article discusses NATO’s partnerships with third countries. Partnerships between NATO and other international organizations (such as the European Union, the African Union, and the United Nations) are not treated here.

 

Nicolò Fasola
Nicolò Fasola is a research fellow in international relations at the University of Bologna, where he also teaches international relations theory and China-Russia relations. His research in the field of security studies focuses on Russia’s foreign policy and military thought and NATO’s defense and cooperative security policies. Fasola taught and conducted research at the Universities of Birmingham, Salford, Jena, and Saint Petersburg. He was an Eisenhower predoctoral fellow at the NATO Defense College and served with NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

 
 

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Endnotes

  1. NATO, NATO 22 Strategic Concept (Brussels: NATO, June 2022), § 36, 37, 42, 44, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/6/pdf/290622-strategic-concept.pdf. Quote from NATO Heads of State and Government, “Vilnius Summit Communiqué,” Press Release (2023) 001, NATO (website), July 11, 2023, last updated July 19, 2023, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_217320.htm. Return to text.
  2. NATO, NATO 2030: United for a New Era: Analysis and Recommendations of the Reflection Group Appointed by the NATO Secretary General (Brussels: NATO, November 2020), https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/12/pdf/201201-Reflection-Group-Final-Report-Uni.pdf. Return to text.
  3. It is debated whether partnerships (in particular, the Partnership for Peace [PfP]) were conceived as an enlargement strategy. We support this thesis based on several Allied documents and scholarly sources. For example, as early as 1994, Allies concurred that “ctive participation in the Partnership for Peace will play an important role in the evolutionary process of the expansion of NATO,” making a direct connection between the Partnership for Peace and NATO enlargement. This connection results even more clearly from the PfP invitation document, in which the first paragraph states that Allies “expect and would welcome NATO expansion that would reach to democratic states to our East, as part of an evolutionary process, taking into account political and security developments in the whole of Europe.” Furthermore, recent scholarship shows that, after intense internal debates, the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations spearheaded NATO enlargement via the Pf P initiative. Among others, see NATO Heads of State and Government, “Declaration of the Heads of State and Government,” Press Release M-1(94) 003, NATO (website), January 11, 1994, last updated August 26, 2010, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24470.htm; NATO Heads of State and Government, “Partnership for Peace: Invitation Document,” Press Release M-1(1994) 002, NATO (website), January 10–11, 1994, last updated October 30, 2009, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24468.htm; “Partnership for Peace: Invitation Document,” NATO (website), January 10–11, 1994, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24468.htm; M. E. Sarotte, “How to Enlarge NATO: The Debate inside the Clinton Administration, 1993–95,” International Security 44, no. 1 (Summer 2019): 7–41, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00353; and M. E. Sarotte, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post-Cold War Stalemate, Henry L. Stimson Lecture Series (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021). Article 10 of the Washington Treaty establishes that membership is open to any “European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.” See “The North Atlantic Treaty,” opened for signature April 4, 1949, NATO (website), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm. Return to text.
  4. Trine Flockhart, “Introduction: Changing Partnerships in a Changing World,” in Cooperative Security: NATO’s Partnership Policy in a Changing World, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) Report 2014:01, ed. Trine Flockhart (Copenhagen: DIIS, 2014), 17–34; Trine Flockhart, “Towards a Strong NATO Narrative: From a ‘Practice of Talking’ to a ‘Practice of Doing,’ ” International Politics 49, no. 1 ( January 2012): 78–97; and Markus Kaim, Reforming NATO’s Partnerships, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) Research Paper 1 (Berlin: SWP, January 2017), https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2017RP01_kim.pdf. Return to text.
  5. Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Greater Middle East: From the ‘Arab Spring’ to the ‘Axis of Failed States,’ ” Center for Strategic and International Studies (website), August 24, 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/greater-middle-east-arab-spring-axis-failed-states. Return to text.
  6. First and second quotes from NATO, Active Engagement: Modern Defence – Strategic Concept for the Defence and Security of the Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Brussels: NATO, November 2010),§28 (emphasis added) and §30, respectively, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_publications/20120214_strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf. Return to text.
  7. Being a liberal security community, NATO holds a “disposition towards spreading the community outward through explicit or implicit practices of socialisation or teaching.” See Emanuel Adler and Patricia Greve, “When Security Community Meets Balance of Power: Overlapping Regional Mechanisms of Security Governance,” Special issue, Review of International Studies 35, no. 1 (February 2009): 72, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210509008432. Return to text.
  8. Kaim, Reforming NATO’s Partnership. Return to text.
  9. Russia, too, was a Special Partner. Return to text.
  10. On this aspect and the problems affecting the Alliance in general, see Mark Webber, James Sperling, and Martin A. Smith, What’s Wrong with NATO and How to Fix It (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2021). Quote from Karl-Heinz Kamp and Heidi Reisinger, “NATO’s Partnerships after 2014: Go West!,” NATO Defense College (NDC) Research Paper no. 92 (Rome: NDC Research Division, May 2013): 2, https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/wps/nat/0031945/f_0031945_25941.pdf. Return to text.
  11. Relevant observations were cast in that regard by regime theory. See Oran R. Young, “Regime Dynamics: The Rise and Fall of International Regimes,” International Organization 36, no. 2 (Spring 1982): 277–97, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300018956; and Stephan Haggard and Beth A. Simmons, “Theories of International Regimes,” International Organization 41, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 491–517, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818300027569; and Kaim, Reforming NATO’s Partnerships. Return to text.
  12. “In Berlin, NATO Allies and Partners Show Unity and Resolve on All Fronts,” NATO (website), April 14–15, 2011, last updated August 2, 2016, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_72775.htm?. Return to text.
  13. Quote from Andrea Locatelli, “Handle With Care: The Limits and Prospects of NATO Partnership Policy,” in What NATO for What Threats?: Warsaw and Beyond, ed. Enrico Fassi, Sonia Lucarelli, and Alessandro Marrone (Brussels: NATO Headquarters, 2015), 87–89. The assessment on NATO’s partnerships in the MENA region is not rosier. See Chloé Berger, Projecting Stability to the South: NATO’s Other Challenge, NDC Policy Brief no. 9 (Rome: NDC Research Division, May 2020), https://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=640; and Silvia Colombo, The Unrealized Potential of Cooperative Security in the Arab Gulf, NDC Policy Brief no. 14 (Rome: NDC Research Division, July 2022), https://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=776. Return to text.
  14. For broader criticism on the political inappropriateness of rhetoric excessively focused on “friendship,” see Patrick Porter and Joshua Shifrinson, “Opinion: Why We Can’t Be Friends with Our Allies,” Politico (website), October 22, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/10/22/why-we-cant-be-friends-with-our-allies-431015. Return to text.
  15. “Fact Sheet: Chicago Summit – Strengthening NATO’s Partnerships,” White House (website), May 21, 2012, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/21/fact-sheet-chicago-summit-strengthening-nato-s-partnerships. Return to text.
  16. Author interview with a NATO official, September 2023. Return to text.
  17. Author interview with NATO and partner officials, August 2023. Data within this range also emerged during the online event “NATO’s Partnerships and Security Networks in a Contested Multilateral Order” organized by the NATO Defense College, December 10–11, 2020 (held under Chatham House rule). See also “NATO Agrees 2023 Budgets, Reflecting Higher Ambitions for the New Security Reality,” NATO (website), December 14, 2022, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_210091.htm. Return to text.
  18. Carien du Plessis, Anait Miridzhanian, and Bhargav Acharya, “BRICS Welcomes New Members in Push to Reshuffle World Order,” Reuters (website), August 24, 2023, https://www.reuters.com/world/brics-poised-invite-new-members-join-bloc-sources-2023-08-24/. Defense expenditures of Russia and China, among those of other countries, can be checked on the website of the World Bank: https://data.worldbank.org/. Return to text.
  19. David Cuillier, “Overclassification Overkill: The US Government Is Drowning in a Sea of Secrets,” Conversation (website), March 2, 2023, https://theconversation.com/overclassification-overkill-the-us-government-is-drowning-in-a-sea-of-secrets-198917. Return to text.
  20. David Cuillier, “Overclassification Overkill.” Return to text.
  21. Author interview with NATO official, September 2018. Return to text.
  22. Gorana Grgić, Partners across the Globe and NATO’s Strategic Concept, NDC Policy Brief no. 16 (Rome: NDC Research Division, October 2021), https://www.ndc.nato.int/download/downloads.php?icode=710. For a different view on reassessing the inclusion of countries with illiberal regimes and dormant cooperation programs, see Joel Springstead, Sander Mathews, and Nicholas Brougham, “Strategic Competition in Central Asia – Post-Afghanistan,” FAOA Journal of International Affairs (website), September 5, 2023, https://faoajournal.substack.com/p/strategic-competition-in-central. See also Amitav Acharya, “After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order,” Ethics & International Affairs 31, no. 3 (2017): 271–85, https://doi.org/10.1017/S089267941700020X. Return to text.
  23. For a structure based on concentric circles centered on NATO, instead, see the proposal in Kamp and Reisinger, “Go West!.” Return to text.
  24. Along these lines, see Christian Moelling, “Working Group 3 – Report,” in What NATO for What Threats? Warsaw and Beyond, ed. Enrico Fassi, Sonia Lucarelli, and Alessandro Marrone (Brussels: NATO Headquarters, 2015), 113–18. Return to text.