| | Coordination is good, but so is a happy citizenry. By: Caroline D. Rose
June
is a big month for NATO. A year shy of its 75th birthday, the alliance
will host Air Defender 2023, the largest combined air exercises in its
history and one of the biggest Atlantic aerial deployments since the
Gulf War. The German-led multinational exercises will test
trans-Atlantic interoperability with more than 200 aircraft and 10,000
personnel from 24 countries, pulling forces and equipment from hubs
throughout Germany, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, and
exploring various avenues of rapid deployment and multilateral
coordination between airfields in Eastern Europe. It will also simulate
out-and-back missions into the Baltic states. Notably, Air Defender 2023
features new NATO member Finland and applicant country Sweden, and the
drills just so happen to coincide with one of the alliance’s largest
combined ground exercises, Defender Europe 2023, which will enter its
third month of operations in June. All
this activity, however, has overshadowed the fact that NATO member
countries are binge-buying military equipment to boost their own
defensive commitments at home. A recent study from the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute found that in 2022, Europe
witnessed its largest uptick in defense spending since the final year of
the Cold War. Europe’s spending spree has now made NATO’s once-lofty
goal – having members spend 2 percent of gross domestic product on
defense – a floor rather than a ceiling, at least for some members. In
fact, as global defense expenditures increased by 3.7 percent, European
countries collectively increased spending by nearly 14 percent, the
largest spikes coming from Finland, Lithuania, Sweden and Poland – that
is, countries directly threatened by Russia. Their
spending pales in comparison to that of Ukraine, of course, which spent
34 percent of its GDP on defense, but it nonetheless shows that they
are becoming much more serious about defending themselves unilaterally
as well as collectively. NATO coordination has made remarkable strides
over the past year, adding a new member, staging massive exercises and
considering new battlegroups along Ukraine’s western flank in Romania,
Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria, and it seems as though its members want
to do their part in kind. Even
so, defense and deterrence are expensive, and growing economic
uncertainty throughout Europe will complicate the situation. Many
organizations, including SIPRI, predict that Europe will steadily
increase defense contributions in the coming years regardless of the
outcome of the Ukraine war. And though that conflict has rallied much of
Europe to the NATO cause, it has done nothing to allay concerns over
the cost of living, inflation and access to alternative sources of
natural gas for the upcoming winter – all of which are starting to curb
European enthusiasm. Recent
opinion polls bear this out. Eurobarometer data shows that Europeans
are not as concerned about the war in Ukraine as they are about economic
conditions. Some 93 percent of respondents ranked rising costs of
living as their biggest concern, while 82 percent ranked poverty as
theirs. The poll also indicated that 40 percent of EU citizens have
experienced declining living conditions, 46 percent of which blame this
on “consequences of global affairs.” As Europe braces for winter,
strapped for natural gas and facing high rates of inflation, it’s
possible that these financial concerns could block plans to bolster
defense. Meanwhile,
the Continent is beginning to confront dilemmas related to unilateral
defense planning. Procuring new weapons systems is all good and well,
but money alone won’t create the protective blanket Europe envisions
against Russia. For example, the European Defense Agency recently noted
that the Continent still struggles with acquiring long-distance air
transportation vehicles, fuel tankers, air defense systems and aircraft
carriers. As many EU members have bolstered defense and acquisition
plans in isolation, many states have created redundancies in purchasing
the same, flashy pieces of equipment and, as a collective, have
disregarded broader logistical and resupply needs that would be vital in
any Article 5 scenario against Russia. To
be sure, NATO is having its moment. Skeptics of militarization have
folded into the alliance, while its forces are conducting some of the
most complex, largest combined arms exercises across Europe as summer
approaches. NATO members are making considerable progress in domestic
spending, and the group as a whole is looking to expand its presence to
establish deterrence in the Black Sea region. But this hasn’t changed
certain geopolitical realities. Europe still needs Russian energy, and
it still struggles to coordinate continent-wide management on all kinds
of policy, military or otherwise. If it continues to spend this kind of
money at the expense of its citizens, the backlash could be enough to
hinder defense policies in the future. |