NATO transformation seems to be on the forefront of the agenda on both sides of the Atlantic. During a recent NATO Secretary General visit to the US President Trump reaffirmed the strong commitment of the United States to NATO, and the value he places on the transatlantic bond in general, and stated that the Alliance “it’s no longer obsolete.”3 In Brussels NATO leaders also understand that the Alliance must adapt in response to the new strategic reality. In early February 2017 Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said during a press conference after the Defense Ministerial meeting that he and the ministers had considered in detail the strategic situation facing the Alliance.
“We thoroughly discussed the increased threats facing our alliance and, unified by the threats to our democracies, I found strong alliance resolve to address these growing threats.”4
The Defence Secretary also participated in the Munich Security Conference, where he emphasized the importance of NATO’s Allied Command Transformation: “NATO has only two Supreme Allied Commanders: such is the importance NATO places on adaptation, that one of those two commanders is assigned the sole mission of charting NATO’s constant Transformation.”5 Mattis pointed out that NATO must focus on adapting the Alliance to new challenges such as terrorism, cyber threats, and hybrid war.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joe Dunford also spoke about strategy during a session at the Brookings Institute where he said that it is important that the alliance continue to transform, “to be relevant for the threats of today and tomorrow”.6
In line with that reasoning NATO held its Transformation Seminar on 23 March 2017 in Budapest, Hungary, hosted by the Hungarian Minister
3 BENNETT, Brian. “NATO ‚no longer obsolete,’ Trump says after meeting with alliance chief,”
Los Angeles Times, Apr. 12., 2017 – http://www.latimes.com/politics/washington/la-na-essen-tial-washington-updates-despite-calling-nato-obsolete-trump-1492008895-htmlstory.html 4 PELLERIN, Cheryl. “Mattis: NATO is Evolving in Response to New Strategic Reality.” DoD
News, Defense Media Activity. Feb. 16., 2017 – https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Arti-cle/1085796/mattis-nato-is-evolving-in-response-to-new-strategic-reality/
5 MATTIS, Jim. “Remarks by Secretary Mattis at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany.” US DoD, Secretary of Defense Speech, Feb. 17., 2017 – https://www.defense.gov/
News/Speeches/Speech-View/Article/1087838/remarks-by-secretary-mattis-at-the-munich-se-curity-conference-in-munich-germany/
6 GARAMONE, Jim. “Dunford Discusses Strategy, Threats at Brookings Event”. DoD News, De-fense Media Activity, Feb. 23., 2017 – by https://www.deDe-fense.gov/News/Article/Article/1093155/
dunford-discusses-strategy-threats-at-brookings-event/
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of Defence István Simicskó. The Seminar’s main theme, Charting Alliance Adaptation provided a forum for the political and military leadership to discuss the Alliance’s need to continuously adapt in order to defend against emerging security challenges. NATO’s transformation paradox was articulated by Deputy Secretary-General Gottemoeller, who said that “NATO not only needs to spend more, we need also to spend better. And Allied Command Transformation helps us to spend better.”7
The statement that triggered this paper was communicated by SACT, General Mercier, who in his opening speech emphasized that NATO needs to operate and adapt at the same time, and it is a wicked problem for the Alliance.
In this paper I would like to dig deeper into SACT’s problem statement, and present a vision of a transformation strategy for NATO in the so-called Grey Zone, a persistent federated approach, which can be a potential answer to the Alliance’s transformation paradox.
f
IgHtIng IntHeg
rey:
understandIng tHe context In a rapIdly cHangIng securItylandscapeAnalyzing the last couple of hundred years, we can realize that the majority of conflicts in fact, fall between the traditional duality between war and peace and are characterized by ambiguity, uncertainty and volatility, the so called Grey Zone.8 What is this Grey Zone, and how can we define it?
A recent study surveyed multiple conceptualizations and suggests that although there is common understanding of war and peace, it is less
7 GOTTEMOELLER, Rose. Speech at the NATO Transformation Seminar, Budapest, Hungary, Mar 23., 2017.
8 The Gray Zone is a term mostly originated in the US Special Forces community. Examples of academic articles on this topic include: VOTEL, Joseph L. – CLEVELAND, Charles T. – CON-NETT, Charles T. and IRWIN, Will. “Unconventional Warfare in the Gray Zone.” Joint Forces Quarterly, 2016/1.; Gray Zone. U.S. Special Operations Command White Paper. Tampa: USSO-COM, Sep 9 2015.; BARNO, David and BENSAHEL, Nora “Fighting and winning in the Grey Zone.” War on the Rocks, May 19., 2015; BRANDS, H. “Paradoxes of the Gray Zone.” FPRI. Feb 5., 2016 – http://www.fpri.org/articles/2016/02/paradoxes-gray-zone; ELKUS, A. “50 Shades of Gray:
Why the Gray Wars Concept Lacks Strategic Sense.” War on the Rocks, Dec 15., 2015 – http://
warontherocks.com/2015/12/50-shades-of-gray-why-thegray-wars-concept-lacks-strategic-sense/;
“Not at Peace and Not at War: An Exploration of “Gray Conflicts.” Joint Strategy Review Study.
2015; MAZARR, M. J. Mastering the gray zone: understanding a changing era of conflict. Carlisle:
Strategic Studies Institute, Army War College Press, 2015 (Advancing Strategic Thought Series).
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1303.
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understood what fall in between them.9 The academic community seems to be in agreement that Grey Zone conflicts are aggressive in intent and serve a broader strategic objective. There is also a general consensus that they use multiple forms of power to pursue their ideological or political goals, which render a militarized response inappropriate and muddles the response options.
Nearly all discussions of the Grey Zone mentions ambiguity and uncertainty, which seem to be the defining characteristics of this type of conflict.10
Based on the above it is obvious that NATO is very much interested in this topic, as it seems to be in contrast to linear military campaign models, disrupts the risk calculations, persistently complicates decision-making, force calculations and traditional deployment approaches, and overall creates strategic uncertainty. Developing a common, compelling and adaptive strategic approach, which is actionable and can be implemented in a rapid manner is essential. One thing is clear: the current NATO joint phasing model seems to be inadequate to seize and maintain the initiative in the Grey Zone, so we need something different.11
The other frequently asked question is how often we find ourselves in this uncertain situation just short of our understanding of war. The Correlates of War project at the Pennsylvania State University for example has looked at every war since the Napoleonic Era and researchers used this database to categorize the nature of war.12 The outcome of their findings was that less than 20 percent of all wars have been traditional (state-on-state) and the remaining 80 percent fell into the irregular (grey) category.
9 BRAGG, Belinda “Specifying and systematizing how we think about the Gray Zone.” NSI, Jun.
27., 2016 – http://nsiteam.com/specifying-and-systematizing-the-gray-zone/specifying-and-sys-tematizing-the-gray-zone/
10 JOBBAGY, Zoltan: “Effects-Based Operations and the Age of Complexity: A Critical Reflec-tion.” Militaire Spectator, May 2006; pp. 235–242.
11 This statement can be found in a report sponsored by the ARCIC in coordination with US JoInt Staff J-39 Strategic Multi-Layer assessment Branch. The project director was Nathan Freier with multiple contributing authors. Outplayed: Regaining the initiative in the Grey Zone, Carlisle Barracks: Strategic Studies Institute, United States Army War College Press, 2016; pp. 17 and 98–99.
12 GORKA, Sebastian and KILCULLEN, David “An Actor-centric Theory of War: Understanding the Difference Between COIN and Counterinsurgency,” Joint Force Quarterly, 2011/1.