Old Dominion University Graduate Programs in International Studies The Future of NATO Working Paper 95.5 Jan. 1996

Organizing for Security in Europe: What Missions, What Forces? Who Leads, Who Pays? by Stephen A. Cambone Series Editor - Simon Serfaty Associate Editor - Tom Lansford The Future of NATO This paper was prepared for a series of round table discussions, entitled The Future of NATO, held at Old Dominion University during the 1995-96 academic year. This Project, directed by Dr. Simon Serfaty, brings together leading analysts in the field of transatlantic relations as well as academics and military officers from the NATO countries. The papers and related meetings are made possible by generous grants from NATO (Office of Information and Press, Academic Affairs), SACLANT and Old Dominion University.

Organizing for Security in Europe: What Missions, What Forces? Who Leads, Who Pays? The responsibilities of existing or emerging security institutions and arrangements in Europe and across the Atlantic -- including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Western European Union (WEU), the Partnership for Peace (PFP) and the Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) -- overlap in the context of two sets of questions: What missions and what forces, who leads and who pays? These questions are especially significant at a time when a NATO implementation force to Bosnia is meeting its first tests, decisions on NATO and European Union (EU) expansion are about to be made, interest in PFP has grown since the Moscow Summit in May 1995, and an intergovernmental conference (IGC) is scheduled to review the development of a common foreign and security policy for the EU. Each of these issues is inherently complex. Considered simultaneously, their relations are made even more complex by the changing roles and missions assigned to US and allied forces, the evolving structure and capabilities of those forces and the fact that defense budgets are decreasing in all allied nations. Still further complication is created by the issue of leadership. In late 1995, the United States and its allies fought publicly over the nomination of the next Secretary General for NATO, and EU countries struggle openly over whether they are prepared to move to the next stage of union under German leadership. Even the relief with which conclusion of the Dayton accords on Bosnia was met initially did not last long as Europeans showed annoyance over the high-handedness allegedly shown by US negotiators throughout the negotiations and Americans showed irritation over Europe's refusal to accept a US deputy to the EU "high representative" tasked with implementing the civil and economic elements of the accord. As to the question of who pays, it is often cast in terms of money but uncertainties regarding leadership and the way it is exercised has focused attention on political credibility as the currency of greatest value in the construction of a security plan for Europe. In a subject as vast and complicated as this one, it is useful to establish a point of departure. In this case, the starting point may be the consensus that has developed over the years on the broad outlines of security purposes and objectives in Europe. The evolution of this consensus can be traced through the progression of accords, agreements, pacts, and concepts that have been promulgated since 1975 in Helsinki through the Paris Charter of 1990, the New Strategic Concept (NSC) for NATO in 1991, the NATO Brussels Summit of January 1994 and the Stability Pact signed later that year. These have established first, that the purpose of security policy and planning in Europe is to assure the safety and prosperity of Europeans in their individual persons; second, that the objective of security policy is to create a single Europe, whole and free, from the Atlantic to the Urals; and third, that the preferred vehicle for achieving this purpose and this objective is the European Union. The effort to harmonize such a consensus on security in Europe with the existing set of security structures -- primarily NATO but also the WEU, as well as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN) -- is the task assigned to diplomats, politicians, and soldiers in the United States and in Europe. The result of these efforts is hardly impressive, however. There is no consensus on how the organizations are to be harmonized and no agreement on who (nation or organization) is responsible for what -- if anything -- in Europe. The bifurcated plan for Bosnia is a case in point. The United States has agreed to lead the military task -- organized and operating according to its preferences -- while the allies have taken responsibility for the civil and economic task -- organized and operated according to their preference. While the high representative has a liaison with the military, the military are wholly independent actors with self-contained sub-tasks. These sub-tasks, however, do not include military support to the efforts of the high representative. For such support, the high commissioner must presumably turn to national forces, UN forces or those of the combatants themselves. The lack of a broad consensus is underscored by the dual commitments made by the United States -- to its allies and to Congress -- to disarm the combatants and to arm the Bosnian government, commitments with which the allies strongly disagree. In the charged political climate associated with security planning in Europe, raising the questions of missions, forces, leadership, and cost in order to engage a coherent debate on the matter is to invite frustration. Yet such a discussion needs more, not less, frankness in assessing the components and implications of this consensus on European security. In this spirit, this essay suggests that the underlying cause of the current impasse in coming to terms with European security is not a lack of goodwill in the efforts to harmonize organizations and institutions but the fact that the task, as stated, is a contradiction in terms: on the basis of the concept for security in Europe outlined above, the task as defined -- particularly as related to NATO -- cannot be completed. Collective Security At bottom, the security perspective in Europe is rooted in the concept of collective security. That is, in contrast to collective defense concepts that assume that alliances or other forms of state-to-state cooperative relations are based on addressing threats posed by states that are not part of the group, collective security concepts assume that threats to the collective will arise from within the group -- if they arise at all. Put another way, collective defense organizations deal with external threats while collective security organizations address internal stability. That collective security concepts should dominate security policy and planning in Europe is not surprising. They are inherited from the ideological battle which, during the cold war, pitted realists against idealists. The battle was waged between those who saw differences in kind between the West and the East, and those who saw only differences of degree -- between those who believed those differences imposed on the Western states the moral obligation to oppose those of the East and those who believed ideology itself was at the root of the conflict; between those who view political affairs through the prism of the regime, nation, and state and those who view them in the context of people-to-people relations. Those who adhered to collective defense may have won the cold war. But in the view of their antagonists in the West, if the peace is to be kept we must never return to such concepts. Collective security concepts are also inherent to the idea of "Europe" embodied in the EU. In its most ambitious and interesting formulation, the EU represents an effort to convert sovereign states into an unprecedented "new model" of sovereignty. The EU is an attempt to encompass and recognize differences of nationality, still extant state- based competencies rooted in historical sovereignty, and the delegation of powers to the EU from the states and from the EU itself. This new model of sovereignty requires new under-standings of constitutional forms of government, as evidenced by the establishment in the EU of a Commission, a Council and a Parliament. In the context of creating this new model, it is not surprising that relations among EU members would be based on collective security concepts. For in the end, collective security organizations aim at stabilizing the status quo -- or, to put it differently, at preventing any of the members of the collective from upsetting its operations or the security of its members. The unique character of the EU is compounded by the twofold objective served by the collective security concept on which it rests. Past collective security organizations such as the concerts of Europe stressed only the protection of its members' security. More recently, value has also been attached to the preservation and advancement of collective security organizations in their own right, with the UN and the OSCE serving as nascent examples of this latter commitment. The EU is the first "collective" institution that comes close to embodying both tasks. Its members wish both to preserve and advance the EU and to establish a modus vivendi among its members on their relations vis vis one another. This dual task creates some tensions because the latter task -- security vis vis one another -- is the essential condition for the former -- namely, the preservation of the Union and the purposes for which it stands. Understood this way, claims that the EU process has ended the possibility of war between and among its members mistake less cause and effect ("process" being the word used to blur the two) than the conditionality and the goal of the EU. In sum, until the members irreversibly confirm (and new members explicitly decide) to renounce making war on others in the EU, they cannot be a part of the EU. The Inherent Contradiction Recognizing this "conditionality" of the EU helps one to understand why the task given those planning security in Europe is not possible on the current terms of reference. Until all states of Europe have met this condition, the concept of collective security can be applied only to the security of EU members vis vis each other (and then only until distinctions among them continue to have meaning -- that is, until full sovereignty is assumed by the EU over the "citizens" of the EU). Whatever the desires of EU commissioners, councilors and parliamentarians -- in Brussels and Strasbourg or in national capitals -- the collective security concept has no basis for implementation in the parts of Europe outside the EU. This conceptual, even theoretical, point carries little weight, however, in the many considerations of how best to achieve security in Europe because, in practice, concepts about the EU have been inflated to cover the entire European continent. Indeed, the EU and Europe are treated as if they were synonymous. An expanded Union for a single European home in a Europe whole and free ranging from the Atlantic to Urals relies on a rhetoric that sees only new partners, never potential adversaries or actual competitors. This rhetoric seeks to avoid drawing lines and means to assure all countries in Europe that they are included in planning for the new security architecture of Europe and are being counted on to participate actively in its construction. Policies are developed that avoid taking actions if it is thought those actions, however reasonable in their own right, might offend influential segments of opinion -- official and otherwise -- in some of the more powerful European states in the belief that baring the offense the natural inclination of that opinion is to agree with our premises about Europe's future and its security. It is little wonder, then, that the task of harmonizing the institutions of European security -- primarily, those sponsored by NATO and those sponsored by the EU -- has met with so little success. This is despite the fact that the alliance, while at its root a collective defense organization, has done everything it can to disguise this fact and to alter its mode of operation. It has changed its security concept (NATO Security Concept, 1992), and with it its subordinate command and force structures, to reflect the collective security affinities of its European members. It has created the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC) to provide a forum for discussion with former state of the USSR and other non-NATO states of new security issues in Europe, that is, issues that are properly the purview of collective security organizations. It adopted the PFP, initially as placeholder, and subsequently implemented it in a way that stresses more its contribution to current members' security -- broadly defined -- and less its role as trainer of new NATO members. It has offered itself as a tool for the implementation of UN mandates -- whose conceptual basis relies heavily on concepts of collective security. It has offered to make its assets available to the WEU to engage in operations motivated by the concerns of its EU members, which nearly by definition fall into the collective security category -- otherwise the operations would be conducted by NATO as a collective defense organization. Yet, the alliance has resisted change in two dimensions: the integrated command structure and the identification of its primary mission as the defense of its members' territory. In this latter context emerges the inherent contra-diction of security planning in Europe. Most specifically, the integrated command structure refers to the chain of command that runs from SACEUR to the subordinate commands. But it encompasses also the related factors associated with the assignment of European forces to the alliance, the force goals of the members, the infrastructure of the alliance, and much more. Even more significantly, it includes the inextricable association of the United States within the political leadership and the combat power of the Alliance. In the past, that leadership and that power were derived from the US nuclear guarantee to, and the 300,000 servicemen and women deployed in, Europe. Today and for the future, although the guarantee is still in effect and some 100,000 troops are deployed, it is derived primarily from the long-range, precision strike capabilities of the United States, its transport and logistic capabilities, and its intelligence and communications capabilities. Other NATO members are not able to provide these capabilities no less essential today than were nuclear weapons in the past, in similar quantities or with comparable quality. The most significant feature of the integrated command is, however, is that it brings into Europe a country, the United States, which is not a member of the EU, is not eligible for membership, and has a wholly different concept of security than that embraced by its European allies. To be sure, the United States has signed the various accords, charters, and agreements previously cited -- in Helsinki, Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere. But these broad elements of policy in Europe define neither "a" US policy toward Europe nor a view of how US security policy should be pursued elsewhere in the world. Thus, while signing all these documents and playing an active role in NATO's effort to remain "relevant" to Europe's security, the United States insisted that the integrated command structure be retained in the NSC; that a NATO CJTF operate within the NATO integrated command; that the WEU be granted access to NATO assets for a WEU-led CJTF only after the NAC has explicitly decided not to commit the Alliance to the task. All of this was done by way of retaining a measure of US control and influence over the alliance and the political-military evolution of the continent -- both in its own right and in the context of wider US interests. The exercise of these US prerogatives runs counter to the aspirations of the most energetic of those states in Europe that are members of both the EU and NATO -- France. France is determined that the EU will become an entity in its own right. Hence, for the past few years French governments have advocated the creation of a European defense identity and a force to support it. To be sure, the French government denies fervently that the Eurocorps and the ad hoc military arrangements it has made with other EU members are not intended either to replace or to challenge NATO. But few believe such denials in detail. In the summer of 1995, French actions on Bosnia, as well as its subsequent positions over the choice of a new Secretary General for NATO, may have been due in part to President Chirac's impetuousness. But they are also consistent with a pattern of French efforts designed to challenge the US leadership for security in NATO as well as in Europe. The same is true of France's position on the CJTF, its continued insistence that the integrated command has outlived its usefulness, and its renewed offers to extend its nuclear umbrella to other EU states. (To be sure, France has agreed to rejoin the defense and military committees of NATO. But how far this activity will alter France's agenda remains to be seen.) What is at stake here is a clash between two views of European security. For the United States, Europe is a place which is central to US interests, of course, but which does not define the totality of those interests and which, therefore, must be addressed in a broader context. For France, and other EU states, Europe must become a place congenial to their national interests, but more importantly to the interests of the EU. And that means it must be an area in which security is addressed less in terms of defending from without than from within. Put another way, in order to expand the EU must develop its future members as friends not adversaries. Hence security affairs become associated not with defense of the EU or NATO, but with the export of stability, the maintenance of security, and the keeping of peace -- presumably among states that share a common appreciation of their security needs. Thus, the defense of allied territory, the second feature of the alliance that has not been changed, is for the EU an anomaly, conceptually as well as practically. This is not to suggest that the EU does not recognize territorial defense as a legitimate right of states, or that NATO should not have the mission to attend to it. Rather, it is to suggest that for the EU to say so and act accordingly is to admit that there still exists a "them" and an "us." To say so calls into question the basic premise for security planning in Europe, especially within the EU. And for those particularly worried about the EU itself, and impressed with its weakness vis vis NATO, it is a reminder that the EU is not the only way of organizing political power and directing its purpose within Europe. But whatever it may say of how NATO and EU members view other countries in Europe, it is certainly the case that it causes those others to note that they are not part of either NATO or the EU. The power of the Russian position at present derives from this argument. When they ask against whom NATO is aimed they have no doubts. The purpose of the question is to sow doubt in the minds of NATO's EU members that they are being consistent in their own concepts of security and whether they should not be more forthcoming with respect to Russian demands. The irony, of course, is that the states of the EU are not blind to these points. French ambition is fully recognized in Europe, and resisted, as appropriate, by the majority of states. Few in the EU have any illusions about the real state of security affairs in Europe. They know that those outside the EU have not renounced war against each other or against the EU. This sorry fact was confirmed each day by the war raging among Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia, worries that the war will "spillover" if it resumes, the still open wounds in the Caucuses and Transcaucuses, the inherently unstable relations between Moscow and Kiev, the explicit fears of the Baltic countries and the muted fears of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Most EU states believe, however, that apart from Bosnia, the near-term probability of war in Europe is low. Instead, they reason that such non-traditional security problems as immigration, internal strife, drugs, organized crime, and proliferation, pose far more immediate if less vital threats. Hence, they are prepared to indulge the rhetoric of collective security in rallying support for efforts to deal with these threats. The reason is simple enough. These problems will persist unless the states from whose soil the "threats" emanate are part of the solution. As a result, it is believed that these states have to be treated as if they share the security concerns of the EU and NATO countries. As a result, too, there is little inclination to challenge orthodoxy on the basic premises of European security. Instead, there is an unending series of efforts to breathe new life into a process that can have no successful conclusion -- adapting NATO to be responsive to, and advance the objectives of, the collective security concepts of the EU. Ending The Frustration If the frustration was not itself a source of increased friction between America and its allies in the EU -- and to a lesser extent among allies in the EU and out -- this would matter little. But serious issues are at stake, including relations with Russia, the Baltic and Nordic states, the Balkans and Central Europe, and influence elsewhere in the world, over trade, finance and much more. The better the United States and its allies get on, the more effective they will be in working together on these issues of mutual interest. One approach to ending the frustration is to relax. It could well be that what we see in Europe today is not a decline in prospects for a "civil European space" but instead a period of adjustment on the way toward such a space. The present difficulties being experienced by the EU are, like all past difficulties, merely transitory. Already we see with the commitment of the Chirac government to deficit reduction in lieu of job creation the by-now expected, and laudable, French inclination to sacrifice a measure of national well-being for the benefit of Europe. One might argue, too, that Russia is unlikely to become a threat -- certainly not to Western Europe and probably not to the East either -- for the foreseeable future, whatever its form of government. The nervousness exhibited by the countries of East and Central Europe may very well be less a rational response to a real threat than some combination of habitual forms of thinking and rhetoric designed to speed their acceptance into the West. Under this approach, the less said about NATO expansion the better. The PFP is adequate for the purpose of keeping Central European states in touch with Western institutions generally and defense planning in particular. Similarly, the issue of integrating the WEU into the EU can wait -- and a common foreign and security policy (CFSP) for the EU will make progress in its own time. But this relaxed approach continues to assume that on the whole no state in Europe wishes to make trouble, and that what trouble does occur will be limited in scope, intensity and duration. That is not merely a comforting, and comfortable, view; it is also the usual view -- especially in the early stages of crisis and war. In my view, however, the probability of crisis and war in Europe -- while still low -- has increased as a result of the way in which the war in Bosnia has been handled. Whether the current US model has any prospect of bringing peaceful and stable relations among the parties in Bosnia is doubtful. Less doubtful is the probability that America's intervention -- first in sponsoring NATO's air campaign in mid-1995, then in brokering a "peace" and then in insisting on making Russia a party to the "peace process" -- has transformed the war into an issue of great power politics and relations. In other words, the next time war flares in the region it will take an act of will that has eluded the great powers this time 'round to stay out of it to avoid making it a test of their relations, relative power and competing visions of security in Europe. Beyond the particulars of Bosnia, there is the fact that very weak states border on a fundamentally unstable Russia. What will emerge from that instability, and when, is unknown, but the least likely outcome anytime soon is a Russia led by a popularly elected government friendly to the West and the states spread between them. Moreover, Russia's relative power is more than sufficient to cow and if necessary intimidate by force its neighbors. This is already the case in Central Asia and the Caucuses. The Baltics, too, are no less vulnerable. Russia's military and some political leaders continue to speak of these regions as Russian -- by right of past conquest or because of the settlement of Russian nationals -- and profess a right of intervention in the affairs of former USSR states. As already noted, the United States has invited Russia as a full player into the Balkans. It continues to have substantial economic leverage over Ukraine and the Central European states. In these states, there is a substantial political minority disillusioned with the West, and if not sympathetic to Moscow at least willing to explore the possibilities for productive relationships. In short, not only have states outside the EU, to its east and to its south not renounced war, the prospects they will at any time in the near future seem to be receding. Admittedly, these states are unlikely to launch a major war against NATO or the EU; but it is not improbable that they could wage war against each other, raising substantial (though perhaps not vital) concerns to EU and NATO members that could draw in NATO or the EU. Easing The Frustration Accommodating such an assessment without threatening either the reliability of the US commitment or the integrity of the EU requires each institution be assigned roles commensurate with its nature and consistent with the views of its members. Thus, NATO's primary mission is to deter, and if necessary defend, the territory of the members of the alliance and their vital interests from attack or coercion. This latter mission, though never explicitly recognized by the Alliance, is inherent in the North Atlantic Treaty and made necessary by the changing geo-strategic and geopolitical conditions in Europe. To fulfill this mission, NATO must attend to four tasks. First, it must maintain a force-in-being adequate to deter Russian aggression and in excess of what Russia can overcome without an investment in military power that would be substantial not only in real terms but also in domestic opportunity costs. Second, the alliance must make the preparations needed to make Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic full members of the Alliance within seven to ten years. Third, PFP arrangements in the Balkans and Baltic must be strengthened (with consideration of NATO membership by these states postponed for ten years) and protocol arrangements with Sweden and Finland developed. And fourth, NATO must be able and willing to conduct task force-level operations against threats posed to European security, as defined and authorized by the NACC. The EU would have as its primary mission consolidating its growth in Western Europe and engaging in a process for expansion that would see accession of the first states in the 15 year timeframe. Its tasks would include promotion of regional and sub-regional cooperation -- including but not limited to economic and political cooperation -- as well as reconfiguring public and private sector practices across the Atlantic and other items on the comprehensive transatlantic agenda, elements of which were outlined at the December 1995 Summit meeting between President Clinton and the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission. The EU's development of its CFSP might be rescheduled in light of the internal reforms needed in the EU to assure its consolidation in Western Europe, and its capacity to expand. A CFSP would need to be in place before expansion is completed. The WEU could remain outside the EU, but measures for WEU/NATO consultations provided as an Article IV commitment from NATO to the WEU. NATO would agree to release forces to the WEU for the conduct of EU-related security functions -- fisheries, S&R, etc., the same activities called for under PFP going to the East -- and perhaps for paramilitary operations related to non-traditional security problems. NATO would have no direct affect on purely national undertakings, provided they did not result in the withdrawal of critical NATO elements from the command structure. Finally, the OSCE would function as the forum for longer-range discussion of security structures in Europe -- i.e., beyond 15 years. A "table" might be created for this purpose to which Russia, the CIS, EU, WEU, NATO, the United States and sub- regional European representatives might come. Implications This discussion began with the suggestion that a frank appraisal of the conceptual basis for security in Europe is necessary if we are to harmonize the roles of the various security institutions in Europe. In the course of the discussion, an effort was made to distinguish the concept at the root of the EU -- collective security -- from that needed to attend to the vital interests of the United States, its NATO allies, and ultimately the EU itself -- collective defense. This effort has brought to the surface two particularly contentious points. First, that there are states in Europe that have renounced war as an ordinary instrument of state policy. This renunciation has taken place only in the EU. Hence, the conclusion that worrying over "lines" being drawn in Europe is more about projecting a hoped-for future into the present than about planning for tomorrow based on today's realities. The second contentious point is that in light of this reality, the United States, as well as its allies in NATO and the EU, would be better served by a security policy based on a concept of collective defense than on one of collective security. Accepting these two points would impose on all these countries an obligation to redistribute responsibilities for European security. For the United States, this would mean accepting that its "leadership" is an asset whose value is sustained and increased only through its use. Consenting to "lead" only when, in the words of President Clinton, "it can make a difference" reduces the US role from that of the leader in NATO to that of a limited partner in European security affairs. Leadership on such terms cannot sustain a collective defense organization. Members of an alliance, as sovereign states, may be "separate but not separable" but if the alliance is to thrive and prosper, its members must reach consensus on the irreducible foundation of their collective defense in Europe. The alliance may choose to use combined joint task forces to accomplish certain missions. But this should be a matter of operational or tactical choice, not a demonstration of political or strategic difference among the allies regarding European security and what to do about it. Adversaries should have no doubt that a CJTF goes forward with the full faith and credit of all the members of the alliance, including the United States. For America's allies in the EU, it means accepting the distinction between Europe as a place and "Europe" as an idea. The United States has been the only modern state able to accomplish this successfully: it is possible to be an American without living in America. To be sure, Americans have some trouble distinguishing the United States from North America. Yet, it is recognized that Canada and Mexico are foreign states, and that they must be addressed not as one of "us" but one of "them". Relations with both are good now; so they have been for a long time, and so they can be expected to remain well into the future. But neither, nor both together, dispose the combination of power and interest that could do the United States harm. Neither, nor both together, have access to territory or to allies or to economic resources that might threaten US interests. States beyond the EU in Europe are in a different position relative to both the EU and to NATO. Making distinctions between "us" and "them" in the context of intra-European and trans-Atlantic relations is not invidious, but the critical first step in defining policies appropriate to the circumstances inherited after two world wars and one cold war. It might even be argued that making such distinctions would help the EU to develop its idea of itself. Freed of pressure to expand east, the members of the EU can concentrate on putting in place the still-missing elements of its new model sovereignty. For the states between NATO/EU and Russia, the states stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans, the two-part approach suggested here has two benefits. First, it clearly demonstrates the US commitment to their security. Second, it provides them time to bring their economies and domestic policies into conformity with those standards that will obtain after the EMU goes into effect. These benefits are not without costs. For those brought into NATO, their candidacy and membership means accepting considerable allied, and particularly American, influence on their national security policies -- with all that implies for domestic politics. For those not brought into NATO, it means accommodating political realities -- East and West -- in a way that appreciates that NATO would be better positioned to act on their behalf after a modest expansion than would be without and that encourages Western states to be ever mindful of their security. This might be accomplished through the PFP or associate memberships in the WEU -- the latter of which would be enhanced by a NATO Article IV agreement with the WEU. Russia might be seen as the one nation that gains the least in this approach. But how much can be gained is up to Russia. If it wishes to count itself a victor of the cold war, this approach spells security for it as well. If it counts itself a victim of the cold war it is impossible to see what the West might do to enhance Russia's security as Russians might define it. So long as the United States, NATO and the EU maintain high-level contacts with Moscow and take care to invite Russian participation -- as appropriate -- in Western political and economic planning and activities as they affect Europe or Russian interests elsewhere, a basis for cooperation can be built. How far such activity, in combination with others like those associated with the PFP and OSCE succeed in building cooperation depends, in the end, on Russia. Conclusion The answer to the questions raised at the beginning, then, is deceptively simple -- NATO and the EU need to be assigned tasks commensurate with their purpose and modulated to reflect their relative competencies. The United States cannot be part of a European security collective; the EU is not able to provide for security in Europe beyond its borders -- and it is not ready to make its borders coterminous with Europe. For this simple solution to work, however, two conceptual changes are necessary. The United States must accept that its security interests in Europe cannot be dealt with la carte. This being the case, leading NATO is not a burden assumed on behalf of others but as a basic US interest. The members of the EU will need to act -- even if they never tell -- in a way that admits Europe is far from being whole and free and that they can hasten such an outcome only by getting the affairs of the EU in order. And here we have the basis of the new quid pro quo and a new transatlantic bargain. The United States can agree to lead the West to the East through NATO, but only if the EU takes on the task of making itself fit to follow, to consolidate in Europe the gains in security that can be achieved by the Alliance. About the Author Dr. Stephen A. Cambone is a Senior Fellow in the Political-Military Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, where he is engaged in regional security analysis and strategic force studies. Dr. Cambone was Director of Strategic Defense Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 1990 to 1993. In this capacity he was responsible for policy guidance and arms control policy as well as negotiations for the Strategic Defence Initiative program. He was a major contributor to President Bush's proposal for a global protection system (GPS) and a member of the High-Level Group established by presidents Bush and Yeltsin at their June, 1992 Summit. In previous years, Dr. Cambone worked for a private consulting firm, SRS Technologies, and for the Los Alamos National Laboratory Dr. Cambone is currently completing a report on US foreign and defense policy commissioned by members of the House of Representatives, and he has begun a new study examining possible changes to the National Security Act of 1947.