Defense Secretary Robert Gates is unhappy with our European allies, and he went to Brussels last week to let them know it. NATO, he complained, is divided between countries “willing and able to pay the price and bear the burden of alliance commitments” and those who “enjoy the benefits of NATO membership” but “don’t want to share the risks and the costs.”
This is not a new problem. But it’s having serious consequences in Libya.
Countries like France and Italy took the lead in demanding military action against Moammar Gadhafi, while President Barack Obama had to be persuaded. As the campaign drags on, though, the U.S. is being forced into a bigger role than it had in mind. Gates says that though every NATO country voted for the mission, most have not done a thing to help it succeed.
“We have the spectacle of an air operations center designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150,” Gates said. “Furthermore, the mightiest military alliance in history is only 11 weeks into an operation against a poorly armed regime in a sparsely populated country — yet many allies are beginning to run short of munitions, requiring the U.S., once more, to make up the difference.”
The basic problem is that most member nations shortchange defense. Of the 28 members, only five spend more than 2 percent of their gross domestic product on the military. The U.S. spends 5 percent.
Gates has been harping on the disparity for years, without success. But the explanation is not that mysterious. Most allies skimp on military outlays because they know they can always count on us. The U.S. government is like a frustrated parent who repeatedly gripes that a kid doesn’t clean her room — and not only fails to impose penalties but proceeds to clean it for her.
Libya was a great opportunity for Washington to rebalance the relationship. Since our allies were keener on the intervention — and had more at stake, given their proximity to North Africa — we could have stepped back and let them handle it on their own.
By participating, the Obama administration put itself on the hook to make up any deficiencies among its partners. Had the president steered clear of the fight, our allies would have asked whether they could muster the means and will to fulfill the mission. Had they fallen short once they went in, they would have had the useful experience of being forced to devise their own solutions.
With this approach, of course, the U.S. would have incurred the risk of failure on the part of NATO. But the long-term benefits of forcing other countries to grow up and shoulder responsibility would have been an asset in future security crises — some of which may be more vital than this one.
Instead, Europeans have found once again that what they fail to do, their rich uncle across the pond will take care of. Gates and his successors at the Pentagon can grouse all they want. Like a teenager plugged in to her iPod, our allies are very good at tuning out.
