NATO risks military irrelevance says Robert Gates

In a final policy address before retiring, Gates said NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and Libya had exposed significant shortcomings in military capabilities and political will among the allies.

With the United States facing budget cuts at home, he warned that US lawmakers may begin to question the 75 per cent share that Washington pays in NATO defence spending.

This meant there was “a real possibility for a dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance”, he said.

“The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling (US) appetite and patience … to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be a serious and capable partners in their own defence,” Gates said.

To avoid the very real possibility of collective military irrelevance, member nations must examine new approaches. Robert Gates

“If current trends in the decline of European defence capabilities are not halted and reversed, future US political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me, may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.”

Despite having more than two million troops in uniform, non-US NATO states struggled to sustain 25,000 to 45,000 troops in Afghanistan, “not just in boots on the ground, but in crucial support assets such as helicopters, transport aircraft, maintenance, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance”.

“This … bodes ill for ensuring NATO has the key common alliance capabilities of the future,” Gates said. “To avoid the very real possibility of collective military irrelevance, member nations must examine new approaches.”

‘Choices must be made’

Gates said the United States was facing a deep economic crisis and defence spending would have to bear part of the burden of dramatic cuts.

“Choices are going to be made more on what’s in the best interest of the United States going forward,” he said.

“My hope is that the fact that the reality is changing in the United States will get the attention of European leaders to realise that the drift of the last 20 years can’t continue, not if they want to have a strong transatlantic partnership.”

Gates’s remarks followed two days of NATO meetings at which he said too few nations were bearing the bulk of the burden in Libya, and singled out five that he urged to do more.

Officials said he asked Spain, Turkey and Netherlands to fly strike missions in addition to the air operations they currently undertake. He urged Germany and Poland, which are not contributing, to find ways to help, the officials said.