Even though the threat of direct military attack is low, there is no guarantee that it will remain so.  Armed forces act as an insurance policy against the emergence of a future threat. Once they have been reduced, they cannot be rapidly reconstituted as recruiting and training personnel, and purchasing or manufacturing arms are long term processes. Effective armed forces cannot simply be conjured into existence.  Further, the threat of military attack is low because, in part, Europe’s armed forces deter such a threat.  NATO’s new strategic concept acknowledges this: “[Peace in Europe] is an historic success for the policies of robust defence, Euro-Atlantic integration and active partnership that have guided NATO for more than half a century.”[1] Reducing Europe’s armed forces would weaken this deterrent.

In a globalized world, instability anywhere affects our own security and way of life.  As Canada, a NATO member state, notes: “Globalization means that developments abroad can have a profound impact on the safety and interests of Canadians at home. Indeed, the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 and those carried out since, demonstrate how instability and state failure in distant lands can directly affect our own security and that of our allies.”[2] Our own security depends on our ability to prevent and stop conflicts abroad, provide stability, protect trade routes and so on. Further, the plights of people in need in places such as Libya, or those suffering from natural disasters, cannot simply be disregarded. NATO’s European member states have an ethical duty to maintain forces to help people in need.  The capabilities to support such operations, and to deploy and sustain troops in distant lands are expensive in terms of both people and budgets – there is no case for reducing Europe’s armed forces or cutting defense expenditure.  Finally, although NATO members may spend a lot maintaining forces for intervention operations, there is no guarantee that other ways of spending money would be more effective in achieving the same goals.  After all, no development can take place without the basic stability that NATO forces provide in conflict zones.

European member states cannot assume that NATO will come to their defense if attacked. Article 5 of the NATO Treaty states that the member states “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”[1] – it is not an automatic commitment to military defense.  According to Michael A. Goldberg, Editor in Chief of the Boston College International & Comparative Law Review, “after NATO invokes Article Five, each Ally must then consider what assistance it should and will provide;” and, “Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to the situation”[2].  Relying on NATO is unwise. This is especially true because of NATO’s decision-making structure requires full consensus, which Jay Bergman, professor of Russian history at Central Connecticut State University, describes thus: “if just one member objects, a course of action the remaining 27 members favor cannot be carried out.”[3] Therefore NATO’s European members must still be able to defend themselves, because one dissenting country could unravel their full protection.

Furthermore, NATO is a collective defense organization.  The European member states – 25 of the 28 Allies - cannot unilaterally reduce their own armed forces and still expect the United States and Canada to come to their aid.  Commentators in North America are already concerned that the European member states are not pulling their weight.  As outgoing US Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted in his final speech at NATO: “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – 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 serious and capable partners in their own defense.”[4] The European member states thus need to continue to invest in defense if they are to continue to benefit from membership of NATO.

Many of the forces available to NATO are structured and equipped to deal with Cold War threats.  They have limited deployability and cannot operate for extended periods away from home.  The figures on paper do not give a full picture of NATO’s real capabilities or provide a justification for European Allies to reduce their force levels or spending.  Tomas Valasek, an analyst at the Centre for European Reform has noted that “Too much heavy Cold War weaponry remains in place in Europe; it is expensive to maintain and, unless modernised to include up-to-date electronics, nearly useless. EU countries also spend one third of what the Americans spend per soldier: this means that fewer EU servicemen and women get the expensive equipment and training necessary for overseas operations.”[1]

The problem with nuclear deterrence is that nuclear weapons cause many small wars, a phenomenon known as the stability-instability paradox. Peter Lavoy explains: “mutual fear of big weapons may produce, instead of peace, a spate of smaller wars… states armed with nuclear weapons might bully or attack their non-nuclear neighbors and then use their nuclear arsenals to intimidate foreign powers from intervening.”[1] Indeed this has played out in the history of the nuclear age. Nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction provided the backdrop for Cold War confrontations between the superpowers that occurred through their proxies in theatres like Vietnam and Afghanistan.[2]  So even when they have nuclear weapons nations need to keep their troops for conventional wars.

Moreover, third party groups (mainly terrorists) can avoid this deterrence by remaining stateless. Deterrence relies on the enemy having cities and a population that can be threatened with obliteration. Terrorist organisations have neither. They are simply groups of individuals with no responsibility for, and no control over, a state or its population. As a consequence there is no deterrence as there is nowhere to retaliate against. ^[3]  Furthermore, Sofaer argues that “States can attempt to avoid responsibility for attacks by using terrorists to carry them out. States can also enable terrorists to attack other states by refusing to prevent such attacks, as the Taliban did. In either situation, establishing responsibility for attacks is a formidable problem, greatly complicating national deterrence.”[4] So, armed forces are necessary to combat these threats.

Finally, nuclear deterrence doesn’t take into account irrational actors, as Dershowitz shows: “[Nuclear deterrence] theory depends largely upon actors making calculations and counter-calculations based on each other’s contemplated actions and reactions. Near the other end of the continuum are largely futile attempts to deter impulsive actions by irrational actors. These actions may be caused by such factors as passion, [or] impulse.”^[5] Given that actors such as North Korea may be considered somewhat irrational, nuclear deterrence is not sufficient justification to reduce armed forces.

Spending just 2% of GDP on defense – NATO’s target, which, in fact, very few Allies meet - is historically a very small sum. The European Allies collectively spend only about a third of what the US and Canada spends.[1] This is not enough.  Politicians demand more and more of their armed forces – commitments to international operations, support to the civil authorities at home, preparedness to conduct territorial defense operations – and most European armed forces are already suffering from overstretch, i.e. they have insufficient capacity to carry out the tasks placed upon them.

And we should not forget that the European Allies have already substantially reduced their armed forces since the end of the Cold War.  In 1990, the (then) 13 European Allies had armed forces totaling 3.5 million personnel; in 2010, with 25 European Allies, this number had reduced to a little over 2 million.[2]