[Senate Hearing 115-780]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 115-780
ASSESSING THE VALUE OF THE NATO ALLIANCE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web:
http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
40-165 PDF WASHINGTON : 2020
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
BOB CORKER, Tennessee, Chairman
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
MARCO RUBIO, Florida BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware
CORY GARDNER, Colorado TOM UDALL, New Mexico
TODD YOUNG, Indiana CHRISTOPHER MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
ROB PORTMAN, Ohio JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
RAND PAUL, Kentucky CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
Todd Womack, Staff Director
Jessica Lewis, Democratic Staff Director
John Dutton, Chief Clerk
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Corker, Hon. Bob, U.S. Senator From Tennessee.................... 1
Menendez, Hon. Robert, U.S. Senator From New Jersey.............. 2
Haass, Hon. Richard N., President, Council on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC................................................. 4
Prepared Statement........................................... 7
Burns, Hon. R. Nicholas, Former U.S. Permanent Representative to
NATO and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts................... 9
Prepared Statement........................................... 11
Sloan, Stanley R., Professor and Author, Middlebury College,
Middlebury, Vermont............................................ 15
Prepared Statement........................................... 16
(iii)
ASSESSING THE VALUE OF
THE NATO ALLIANCE
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Wednesday, September 5, 2018
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Bob Corker,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Corker, Risch, Rubio, Johnson, Gardner,
Young, Barrasso, Menendez, Cardin, Shaheen, Coons, Udall,
Murphy, Kaine, Markey, and Merkley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB CORKER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
The Chairman. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will
come to order.
And I want to thank our witnesses for being here with us.
It is a very important hearing. I know there is a lot of noise
this morning going on in Judiciary, but this is a very
important topic. We thank you for rescheduling. I know we had
hoped to do it before and the Senate schedule changed. But we
are glad to have three such distinguished witnesses.
As our members know, this is the third in a series of
hearings on Russia, with today's hearing assessing the value of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In a strong bipartisan manner, this committee has expressed
support for our NATO allies and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment
to the transatlantic partnership.
I know most members of this body believe, like I do, that a
strong NATO is essential, especially given the level of
aggression from Russia not seen since the Cold War.
Unfortunately and the reason we are here today is that in
recent months the value of this critical alliance has been
repeatedly questioned. The recent NATO summit was, in my view,
a low point in that regard.
While I strongly support the notion that all NATO
countries, especially Germany, need to meet the 2 percent
requirement for spending on defense, at the same time, a
weakening of the alliance is not in U.S. national interests.
And by questioning the very premise of NATO, harshly
rebuking individual member states, purposely using false
information in an effort to turn public opinion against the
alliance, and casting doubt on our commitment to Article 5, in
effect inviting our rivals to test it, NATO is undoubtedly
weakened. And, of course, this in turn plays right in the hands
of Vladimir Putin.
Today I hope we can set the record straight and provide the
American people with a true understanding of this important
alliance. We will go into these issues in greater detail as we
hear from our witnesses, but I would like to frame our
conversation starting with a few facts.
Since 1949, NATO has been a vital block of American
security. It has linked the U.S. with Europe and Canada through
mutual defense, shared interests, and basic values.
Our partners stood ready during the height of the Cold War
and stood with the United States following the September 11
attacks on our nation, the only time in the 69-year existence
of the alliance that Article 5 has been invoked.
Let me repeat. Article 5 has been invoked once in 69 years,
and it was in response to an attack on the U.S. homeland.
Now, in regards to funding, here is the reality.
We spend less than 1 percent of our overall defense budget
on NATO itself. And even if we were to add up all of the costs
associated with the European security, our forward presence,
missile defense, and security assistance, it totals just 5
percent of our defense spending.
But it is true that not all of our NATO allies are meeting
their commitments, which is why I support the administration
urging our NATO partners to commit more resources to defense.
So the bottom line is, yes, some of our allies need to step
up. But at the end of the day, NATO is a very good investment
for U.S. national security.
I think Secretary Mattis understands that. I think
Secretary Pompeo understands that. And I think many others
within the administration understand the same.
I think it is important that we give the American people a
clear-eyed assessment of NATO, its value, and its relationship
to our country. I am hopeful that today's hearing will provide
just that.
I want to thank the witnesses again for being here. I look
forward to your testimony.
And now I will turn to my friend, our ranking member, Bob
Menendez.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT MENENDEZ,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW JERSEY
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, thank you
for convening this hearing on assessing the value of the NATO
alliance.
I appreciate all our witnesses as well coming back--well,
making the arrangements to be here. So we appreciate that very
much.
As we will continue to seek information about the debacle
in Helsinki, I appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your willingness to
lead a series of hearings on the U.S. policy with respect to
the Russian Federation.
NATO has secured peace in Europe since 1949 and has been
critical to U.S. efforts in places outside of NATO like
Afghanistan, Bosnia, and Kosovo. It is an alliance based not
only on security commitments but shared values among its
members of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.
In a world where various forces are eroding democracy and
the rules-based international order, it is a core interest of
the United States to bolster and strengthen alliances like
NATO, a guarantor and the cornerstone of peace for Americans in
the transatlantic region for 70 years.
Unfortunately, President Trump clearly takes a different
view. He has questioned the value of the alliance to the United
States and said that NATO, quote, ``was helping Europe more
than it was helping us.'' He has repeatedly dismissed and
undermined the merits of the Article 5 mutual defense clause,
intimating that the, quote, ``aggressive country of Montenegro
with its 600,000 people could lead the United States into World
War III.'' And some of his comments regarding NATO have been
patently false. If we accomplish nothing else this morning, I
hope this committee can dispel the President's harmful
disinformation.
The President has claimed that NATO Secretary-General
Stollenberg has given him total credit for the rise in NATO
members' defense spending because the President, quote, said it
was ``unfair.'' The truth is that defense spending by NATO
allies has been on the rise since Russia's invasion of Crimea
in 2014 in reaction to a security threat from Putin, not
insults and bullying from Trump.
The truth is that NATO allies continue to work hand in
glove with United States partners in Afghanistan and other
places around the world, risking and even losing their lives, a
sacrifice that the President seems unable to comprehend if it
is not expressed in dollars and cents.
The truth is that NATO allies have committed to spending 2
percent of their GDP on defense, and this defense spending
comes out of the budgets of individual countries for their own
militaries. The 2 percent commitment by NATO allies is not
membership dues nor are they paid into some sort of centralized
piggybank in Washington or Brussels.
The communique and some of the decisions coming out of the
NATO summit were positive and constructive, but those measures
only go so far.
Secretary Pompeo made clear last month that the President's
statements are the policy of our government, and I agree. So
when President Trump says things that clearly contradict his
own administration's actions, it undermines their work. And
worse, it sends mixed signals to our friends and foes alike who
are likely to hedge their behavior in response to protect their
interests. This incoherence calls into question what we as a
country stand for.
That is why Senator Graham and I included language in our
Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which
would subject U.S. withdrawal from NATO to a congressional
vote. I want to thank Senator Kaine for his leadership on a
similar legislative effort. We must make clear to the
administration and to our allies that the U.S. commitment to
the alliance is rock solid.
Mr. Chairman, to understand the value of the transatlantic
bonds bolstered by NATO, you need to only know a simple number
and that is the one that you referred to. And that number is
one, the number of times that NATO's Article 5 provision on
collective defense has been invoked by the United States. After
we were attacked on September 11th, our NATO allies swiftly
came to our aid after that terrible day and have been alongside
us ever since.
One person has been clear-eyed about NATO's value because
his top priority is to undermine it, Vladimir Putin. His regime
has grown increasingly hostile towards not just NATO but also
the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule
of law on which it is based. Indeed, his regime has staked its
reputation on antagonizing NATO members and all that the
alliance represents.
This committee has taken bipartisan steps recently to send
a different responsible message to our allies. We stand for the
rule of law and an international order based on liberal
democratic values. We stand for security alliances among
democracies based on mutual defense against our enemies. We
stand against dictators that invade their neighbors with
soldiers and cyber-attacks, and we stand with our allies and
friends through thick and thin.
I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses
today about their thoughts on what more this body can do to
concretely embody those values.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Our first witness today is the Honorable Richard Haass,
President of the Council on Foreign Relations. He has been here
many times before us.
Our second witness is the Honorable Nicholas Burns, who has
also been before us many times, former U.S. Permanent
Representative to NATO and Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs.
Our third witness is Mr. Stanley Sloan, a non-resident
senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
at the Atlantic Council.
We thank all three of you for being here. I know that each
of you knows if you have any written materials, we would be
glad to enter them into the record. If you would not mind
summarizing in about 5 minutes, we would appreciate it. We are
thrilled that you are here. And with that, if you would begin,
Mr. Haass, we would appreciate it.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD N. HAASS, PRESIDENT, COUNCIL ON
FOREIGN RELATIONS, WASHINGTON, DC
Ambassador Haass. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for this opportunity to testify. It is good to be back
before this committee where I am shocked to say I began my
government service 44 years ago now.
I am also really pleased to be with these two individuals.
At least two out of three of your choices were first-rate.
Let me just make clear that my views today are mine alone
rather than the Council on Foreign Relations, which does not
take institutional positions.
Let me say one other thing in the way of introduction. I
would be remiss if I did not note the passing of one of the
great men of this or any institution, John McCain. And John was
a great advocate of the Atlantic Alliance and also of a
realistic policy toward Russia, and I am sure he would have
welcomed the hearings that you, Mr. Chairman, and your
colleagues are holding.
We meet today in what I would describe as the third era of
NATO. The first paralleled the Cold War, and it was dominated
by the effort to deter and to prepare to defend against the
threat posed by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. The
second era followed the Cold War, and it was defined by
enlargement, the consolidation of democracy in former Warsaw
Pact countries, and in going out of area. That second era,
though, drew to a close and the third began with Russia's
illegal annexation of Crimea and its intervention in eastern
Ukraine, which gets us to our topic for today.
And through each of these eras, including now, NATO, as
both you and the ranking member said, have proven itself to
have value and substantial value at that. The Cold War stayed
cold until it ended on terms even optimists had trouble
envisioning. There has been no armed Russian aggression against
any NATO member. And as again you both pointed out, NATO allies
rallied to our side following 9/11.
Now, I fully expect that European defense spending levels
and military preparedness will figure prominently today, but it
is essential that a concern over burden sharing not blind us to
the reality of benefit sharing. The United States stays in and
supports NATO not as a favor to Europe, but as a favor to
itself. NATO membership is an act of strategic self-interest,
not philanthropy.
The United States can afford what NATO costs. Total U.S.
defense spending is less than half the Cold War average as
measured by a percentage of our GDP. What the United States
spends on NATO and European defense is but a fraction of that.
We can have the guns we need without sacrificing the butter we
want. What this country does with NATO and in the world more
generally cannot be blamed for our domestic shortcomings. What
is more, American society could not insulate itself from the
adverse effects of a world characterized by increasing
disarray, which would be certain to result if NATO ceased to
be.
Central to NATO's continuing relevance is that Russia poses
an all-too-real threat to what we used to call the West. Russia
needs to know that the United States and its NATO partners have
both the will and the ability to respond locally to anything it
might do. Deterrence is obviously preferable to defense, but
deterrence is never far removed from the perception that this
alliance is willing and able to defend its interests. It is
entirely conceivable that Moscow could seek to test the
readiness of NATO members to stand by the Article 5 clause. The
United States also needs to be prepared for the sort of gray
zone aggression Russia has employed in eastern Ukraine with its
dispatch of irregular forces and the arming of locals. What is
required to meet this threat is training along with arms and
intelligence support so that NATO members near Russia can cope
with what I would describe as Article 4 and a half
contingencies.
The United States never wants to put itself in a position
where the only response to a challenge is to escalate, whether
by expanding a crisis in terms of geography or in the type of
weaponry used.
Yes, NATO members and Germany in particular should spend at
least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. But as I am sure both
of my colleagues will point out, European defense spending
levels are in fact rising. European members of NATO, along with
Canada, spend some $300 billion a year on defense.
But more important I would say and for you to think about
than how much is spent is how it is spent. There is far too
much duplication and not nearly enough specialization within
and across NATO. And European countries must possess a range of
capabilities along with the ability to get them there and
sustain them once they are there.
The U.S. cannot introduce uncertainty as to its commitment
to NATO. Alliances are about collective defense, that an attack
on one is an attack on all, and any doubt as to U.S.
reliability risks encouraging aggression and increases the
inclination of countries to accommodate themselves to stronger
neighbors. A failure to respond to clear aggression against any
NATO member would effectively spell the end of the alliance.
Let me just make a few final points.
The first is that I believe NATO membership for either
Ukraine or Georgia should be placed on hold. Neither comes
close to meeting NATO requirements. Going ahead further risks
dividing the alliance at this time and adding military
commitments the United States and NATO are not in a position to
fulfill.
Second, the time has come to face the reality and rethink
our approach to Turkey. We are witnessing the gradual but
steady demise of this relationship. Turkey may be an ally in
the formal sense, but it is no partner. Nor is it a democracy.
The Trump administration is right to have confronted Turkey
over the detention of an American pastor, but its focus is too
narrow and with tariffs it chose the wrong response.
We also need to rethink Afghanistan. We need to rethink our
policy ambitions and limit our policy ambitions to building
government capacity and limiting the ability of terrorists to
base themselves there. Extending government control over the
whole of the country or creating conditions for peace are
likely to be beyond reach.
Let me make two final points, and then I will stop.
It is important to recognize that NATO cannot survive in a
policy vacuum. It is part of a larger U.S.-Europe strategic
relationship. There is no economic or strategic justification
for a trade war. The overuse of sanctions and the overuse of
tariffs set back U.S. economic and strategic interests alike.
There are other better options for advancing our economic and
trade interests across the Atlantic.
The EU, the European Union, is a friend; not a foe. It is
the best partner available to the United States for tackling
the full range of global challenges that define this era. It
also remains an essential partner for containing Iran.
And a final point. I began with a historical point. I want
to end with one. No one should assume European stability is
permanent. To the contrary, history shows that the last 70
years are more exception than rule. It should be the objective
of the United States to extend this exception, given the many
benefits and the costs of European instability. And a strong
NATO in the context of a robust European relationship is the
best way to do just that.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Haass follows:]
Prepared Statement of Dr. Richard N. Haass
Mr. Chairman: Thank you for this opportunity to appear before the
Committee on Foreign Relations on the subject of the value of the NATO
alliance. I want to make clear that my views are mine alone and that I
am not speaking for the Council on Foreign Relations, which takes no
institutional positions on matters of policy.
I admit to being somewhat surprised that this is the subject of a
hearing just now. Although the question of NATO's value was
understandably raised at various times over recent decades, I would
have thought the Russian interventions in Ukraine and Georgia, its
interference in the elections and referenda of various NATO members,
and NATO's role in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq, and its other ``out
of area'' contributions would have settled the question. But the one
thing we should have learned from recent months and years is to be
careful of assumptions and of taking anything for granted. That is one
reason why this hearing is well-timed, as Congress has the ability to
be a much-needed classroom for the country.
Let me take a step back before I address today's topic directly. We
are in what can best be understood as the third era of NATO. The first,
which began with NATO's inception and ran for four decades until the
end of the Cold War, was dominated by the effort to deter and to
prepare to defend against the threat that the Warsaw Pact posed to the
Atlantic democracies. NATO was also a vehicle for promoting stability
and trust among the countries of Western Europe and North America,
seeking to eliminate the dangerous impulses that had twice before in
the previous half-century triggered war at great cost to themselves and
the world. In all this and more NATO succeeded. The Cold War stayed
cold until it ended on terms even optimists had difficulty envisioning.
Success, however, created its own questions, including whether NATO
was still needed and, if so, in what form and with what functions. The
answer was that NATO still had a role to play, one defined by
enlargement and the consolidation of democracy in former Warsaw Pact
countries and, additionally, in going out of area to meet shared
security challenges beyond the formal treaty area. Actions were
undertaken in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Libya, albeit
with decidedly mixed results.
Another function for NATO in this, its second era, was to stay in
business so as to provide a hedge against the unavoidable uncertainty
as to what sort of an international actor Russia would turn out to be.
Enlargement was successful in that NATO membership increased from 16 to
29 countries and we have seen no armed Russian aggression against any
NATO member. Whether NATO enlargement contributed to Russian alienation
and the emergence of a Russian threat to Europe makes for an
interesting historical inquiry, but it is just that. We are where we
are.
What is most relevant for our purpose here today is that NATO is
now in its third era, one that began in earnest with Russia's illegal
annexation of Crimea and its intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
What was a possible Russian threat had become an actual one. At the
same time, out of area challenges have not gone away. Democracy has
proven difficult to promote in new members and appears to be struggling
in some older ones. All of which leads us to the questions of the day:
Does NATO still have value? If so, how much? And what can be done to
increase that value?
The answer to the first question is that yes, NATO continues to
have value, and substantial value at that. I expect that European
defense spending levels and military preparedness will figure
prominently in today's conversation, but it is essential that a
legitimate concern over burden-sharing not blind us to the no less
important reality of benefit-sharing. The United States stays in and
supports NATO as a favor not to Europeans but to itself. NATO
membership is an act of strategic self-interest, not philanthropy.
NATO members rallied to our side in the aftermath of September 11.
The United States has gained in important ways from a Europe that has
been largely peaceful, stable, prosperous, and democratic. NATO members
have proven to be dependable, capable partners out of area; the troops
of NATO members have fought and died alongside American troops in
Afghanistan. Out-of-area missions in and around Europe, the Middle
East, and North Africa will be required for the foreseeable future
given the resilience of terrorists and the need to enhance the
capabilities of local states fighting them. Here I would concur with
what was agreed on by all NATO members a little over a month ago, that
``the Alliance remains an essential source of stability in an
increasingly unpredictable world.''
One piece of good news is that the United States can afford what
NATO costs. Total U.S. defense spending, which helps us to meet our
global responsibilities and protect U.S. interests worldwide, is less
than half the Cold War average as measured by percentage of GDP. What
the United States spends on NATO and European defense is but a fraction
of that. We can have the guns we need without sacrificing the butter we
want. NATO and what this country does in the world more generally
cannot be blamed for the sorry state of much of our infrastructure, the
poor quality of many of our public schools, or our ballooning public
debt. What is more, American society could not insulate itself from the
adverse effects of a world characterized by greater disarray, something
certain to result if NATO ceased to exist.
Central to NATO's continuing relevance is that Russia poses an all-
too-real threat to what we used to call the West. It has modernized its
conventional and unconventional military capabilities and demonstrated
both an ability and a willingness to use them effectively. In Georgia,
Crimea and eastern Ukraine, and Syria, Russia has resorted to both
conventional and hybrid warfare to pursue its interests. Russia has
also demonstrated the ability and will to employ cyber-related tools to
influence and disrupt its neighbors, other European countries, and, as
we know, democracy in this country.
Russia needs to know that the United States and its NATO partners
have both the will and the ability to respond locally to anything it
might do. Deterrence is obviously preferable to defense. But deterrence
is never far removed from the perception that the Alliance is willing
and able to defend its interests. This argues for the stationing of
military forces in and around areas that Russia might claim or move
against, something that translates into maintaining sizable U.S. ground
and air forces in Europe. In light of the current political discord
within and among Western democracies, it is entirely conceivable that
Moscow could seek to test the readiness of NATO members to stand by the
Article 5 common defense clause. The United States needs to be prepared
as well for the sort of ``gray zone'' aggression Russia has employed in
eastern Ukraine, with its dispatching of irregular forces and arming of
locals. Such tactics may not trigger NATO's Article 5, but they
threaten stability all the same; what is required is training along
with arms and intelligence support so that those NATO members near
Russia can cope with such ``Article 4 \1/2\'' challenges should they
materialize.
Capabilities can be further enhanced through the regular dispatch
of visiting forces and frequent military exercises. Such activity also
underscores commitment and concern, thereby reassuring friends and
allies and signaling actual or would-be foes. It is important that all
this be done locally in areas of potential threat and with conventional
military forces, as the United States never wants to put itself in a
position where the only response to a challenge is to escalate, whether
by expanding a crisis in terms of geography or in the type of weaponry,
or to acquiesce to the results of successful aggression.
All that said, there are other steps to be taken to increase the
value of the Alliance. Yes, NATO members, and especially Germany,
should spend more on defense, and we should continue to hold NATO
members to the commitment they made at the Wales Summit to spend at
least 2 percent of GDP on defense. But it is important to take note
that European defense spending levels are rising and that European
members of NATO along with Canada spend some $300 billion a year on
defense, in the process covering the bulk of the costs of the Alliance.
The United States covers only about 20 percent of NATO's common budget
and, although U.S. defense spending as a share of GDP is well above the
NATO average, a relatively small portion of U.S. expenditure goes to
European defense.
Even as we press our allies to spend more on defense, we should
appreciate that more important than how much is spent is how defense
dollars and euros are spent. There is far too much duplication and not
nearly enough specialization within and across NATO. If NATO is to be a
pool of resources that can meet challenges within and outside the
treaty area, European countries must possess a range of capabilities
along with the ability to get them there and sustain them once there.
The European Union's ongoing efforts to reform its defense and
procurement policy hold promise on this front.
As it seeks to increase and rationalize allied contributions to
common defense, the United States cannot introduce uncertainty as to
its commitment to NATO. Alliances are about collective defense, that an
attack on any member, even the smallest and weakest, is an attack on
all. Any doubt as to U.S. reliability will only encourage aggression
and increase the inclination of countries to accommodate themselves to
a stronger neighbor. A failure to respond to clear aggression against
any NATO member would effectively spell the end of NATO. None of this
is inconsistent with the reality that much of what NATO now does lies
outside Article 5 and that we have to expect such undertakings will
rarely if ever involve all members of the Alliance.
That Russia has emerged as a threat is not to argue for a one-
dimensional policy toward that country. To be sure, we should push back
where necessary, and not only with sanctions, when Russia violates a
norm we hold to be central or puts at risk U.S. interests. But we
should also be open to diplomacy and cooperation where possible and
explore the potential of reviving the arms control dimension of the
relationship.
NATO membership for either Ukraine or Georgia should be placed on
hold. Neither comes close to meeting NATO requirements, and going ahead
risks further dividing the alliance and adding military commitments
that the United States is not in a position to fulfill. Beyond making
good on the pledge to make the Republic of North Macedonia NATO's 30th
member, the United States and NATO would be wise to focus on meeting
existing obligations before taking on new ones.
The time has come to face reality and rethink our approach toward
Turkey. What we are witnessing is the gradual but steady demise of a
relationship; Turkey may be an ally in the formal sense but it is no
partner. Nor is it a democracy. The Trump administration is right to
have confronted Turkey over the detention of an American pastor, but
its focus is too narrow and with tariffs it chose the wrong response.
We should reduce our dependence on access to Turkish military
facilities, deny Turkey access to advanced military hardware like F-
35s, and stand by the Kurds in Syria in the fight against ISIS. We may
well have to wait out President Erdogan and seek to rebuild relations
with Turkey once he no longer wields political power.
We would also be wise to rethink Afghanistan. There are situations
in which ambition is called for. There are other situations in which
even a modest course of action can prove to be ambitious. Afghanistan
surely qualifies as an example of the latter given its internal
divisions and Pakistan's provision of a sanctuary to the Taliban. We
should design a policy around building governmental capacity, holding
Kabul and the other major cities, and limiting the ability of
terrorists to base themselves in the country. Extending governmental
control over the whole of the country or creating conditions for peace
are beyond reach. Afghanistan is better understood as a situation to be
managed than a problem to be solved. This argues for a continued but
sharply limited U.S. and NATO effort there.
NATO cannot survive much less thrive in a vacuum. It is part and
parcel of the larger U.S.-European relationship. There is no economic
or strategic justification for the sort of trade war the United States
has launched. The overuse of sanctions and tariffs will set back U.S.
economic and strategic interests alike. The EU is a friend, not a foe.
European countries offer the best set of partners available to the
United States for tackling global challenges ranging from how best to
regulate cyberspace to mitigating and adapting to climate change to
reforming the global trade system. They also remain an essential
partner for containing Iran, a reality that argues for less
unilateralism on our part and more coordination across the Atlantic.
I said at the outset of my remarks that we should be careful with
assumptions. No one should assume European stability is permanent. To
the contrary, history plainly shows that the last 70 years are more an
exception than the rule. It should be the objective of the United
States to extend this exception until it becomes the rule. A strong
NATO in the context of a robust U.S.-European relationship is the best
way to do just that.
Thank you again for this opportunity to meet with you today. I look
forward to your comments and questions.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Secretary Burns.
STATEMENT OF HON. R. NICHOLAS BURNS, FORMER U.S. PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE TO NATO AND UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
POLITICAL AFFAIRS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Ambassador Burns. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Menendez,
members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be
here. I am very pleased to be with Dr. Haass and Dr. Sloan.
You have asked three questions this morning. The first is
what is NATO's value to the United States? I agree with both of
your opening statements. It is our vital alliance, and it is
still relevant and the key factor in trying to contain Russian
power. And we have seen that emerge in Georgia, in Crimea, and
eastern Ukraine over the last 8 years.
I also think of NATO allies as indispensable force
multipliers for the United States and for American power. And
in a way, they represent the power differential between the
United States and Russia and with our East Asian allies, the
United States, and China. We have allies who will fight with
us, and we can depend on them, and the Russians and Chinese do
not.
The NATO allies also help us project force from a forward
deployed position in Europe. Think of Ramstein. A lot of you
have visited these bases. And Aviano in Souda Bay and Rota in
Spain. That is how we prosecute the war in Afghanistan and go
after ISIS and the Taliban and other terrorist groups.
And as Richard said, most of the NATO members are also EU
members. And if you think of the great transnational threats
that we are facing, that our kids are going to face, climate
change and terrorism and pandemics and crime and migration, we
need these countries on our side, and they largely are on our
side.
And I think most importantly--I have just come back from
visiting five European countries this summer--the key issue in
Western and Eastern Europe is will democracy survive. It is
under challenge from an anti-democratic populace. The NATO
allies are greatest defenders in defending democracy and
challenging the autocrats in places like Poland, inside the
Polish Government, inside the Italian Government, and in
Hungary itself. So we are stronger with them than without them.
Your second question, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Menendez, was on
President Trump's policy towards NATO. I am concerned. I
believe we are witnessing the greatest crisis of American
leadership in NATO since 1949. It is one thing to push the
allies to meet their security commitments. President Trump has
been right to push the NATO allies on defense spending, and he
has made some progress. But it is quite another for an American
President to call NATO obsolete on the campaign trail in 2016,
to then refuse in 2017 to reaffirm the Article 5 commitment on
the President's first visit to NATO headquarters, and then 6
weeks ago to be publicly, I would say, shockingly ambivalent
about whether or not the United States will defend Montenegro,
our NATO ally, if it is threatened by the Russian Government.
Words matter in diplomacy. Our ability to deter Russia
depends on the Kremlin believing that the United States
President--and the United States President is NATO's leader--
that he or she will stand up to Russian aggression and defend
our smaller allies. That is now in doubt in Europe after the
Helsinki Summit.
President Trump is the first American President in NATO's
history to equivocate on our security commitment to the NATO
allies. And so our reliability and credibility and our
commitment to the alliance are being questioned by our best
friends and by our closest friends.
To make matters worse, the President has been supportive of
anti-democratic leaders in Hungary and Poland, while being
consistently critical publicly of Prime Minister Trudeau and
Prime Minister May and Chancellor Merkel. The result is that
President Trump objectively is viewed by the European
leadership as weak and unreliable, the opposite of Eisenhower
and JFK and Reagan and the Bushes and Obama.
It is a crisis of confidence that focuses squarely on your
third question, what should Congress do; it is imperative that
Congress--and I think all of us hope on a bipartisan basis--to
revive and reaffirm the American commitment to NATO. The
resolution that you passed in the Senate just before the
Helsinki Summit I know was welcomed and positively received in
Europe. The proposed McCain-Kaine bill would be a fitting
tribute to the late Senator John McCain, as would the Graham-
Menendez bill, as would Rubio-Van Hollen. I know you are
considering lots of bills to strike back against the Russians,
to stand up to them, but also to reaffirm our support for NATO
and not for a diminution of our role in NATO.
I would say, Mr. Chairman, we need your leadership
desperately given the hole that the administration--the
President I should say--has dug for the United States with our
strongest alliance.
A final thought, and let me close on this.
I was U.S. Ambassador to NATO on 9/11 for President George
W. Bush. When we were attacked, our allies, led by the
Canadians, let me know at NATO headquarters that afternoon that
they would defend us, that they were ready to invoke Article 5.
They did so, as all of us have said, the next morning on
September 12th. They all went into Afghanistan with us. Our
partners and allies have suffered 1,100 dead, many more
wounded. They have pledged to be with us until the day we leave
Afghanistan. And that to me is the true meaning of this
alliance and its value to the United States.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Burns follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Nicholas Burns
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Menendez and members of the Committee,
thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization.
I served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2001 until 2005 during the
Administration of President George W. Bush. NATO remains our most
important alliance. It is an irreplaceable asset for the security of
the United States. We must do everything possible to work with Canada
and the European allies to strengthen it for the many challenges ahead.
NATO is facing, however, one of its most difficult crises in seven
decades. It is not a crisis of military strength or readiness. The
Alliance is preserving the peace in Europe and containing an assertive
Russia. It is not a crisis of relevance. NATO troops continue to serve
in Afghanistan, in the fight against the Islamic State, in preserving
the peace in Kosovo and in providing security in the Atlantic,
Mediterranean, Black Sea, Baltic Sea and Balkan regions. It is
assisting the EU in managing the migration crisis through its maritime
capacity.
The allies also remain with us in NATO's most important mission--
the defense of free, democratic countries in North America and Europe.
The crisis is one of allied trust and confidence in America's
leadership of NATO. During the 18 months of the Trump Administration,
the President's personal leadership of NATO has been called into
question on several key fronts.
President Trump's repeated public doubts about NATO's importance to
the U.S. have had a highly negative impact on European leaders and
European public opinion. For the first time in NATO's seven-decade
history, there is growing concern in Europe and Canada about an
American President's commitment to the alliance.
The U.S. has been the acknowledged leader of NATO since its
founding in Washington D.C. in 1949. As the strongest ally, the U.S.
has always played an outsized role within the Alliance. While
differences among allies are normal and criticism of each other is
warranted on serious issues, our Presidents also need to project
confidence in NATO and its member states in order to deter potential
aggressors such as Russia and provide the leadership that alliances
need to stick together.
As a Presidential candidate, Donald Trump called NATO ``obsolete''.
As President, he refused to confirm his support for NATO's Article 5
security guarantee at this first NATO Summit meeting in 2017. He has
suggested that U.S. support for our allies will be conditioned on the
level of their defense spending. While rightly pushing allies to meet
their defense budget commitment of 2 percent of GDP, he proposed
impulsively at the recent Summit a doubling of that goal to 4 percent--
a level the U.S. had never discussed before with the allies and is
itself unprepared to meet.
This crisis has been exacerbated by the contrast between the
President's negative public comments about allied leaders Chancellor
Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Teresa May with his refusal to utter a
word of criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin, NATO's most
dangerous adversary, before, during or after their recent Helsinki
press conference.
The President did not criticize Putin publicly for his annexation
of Crimea and the destabilization of Eastern Ukraine, Russia's nerve
agent attack against the United Kingdom, its support for the Asad
regime in Syria and its cyber assault on our 2016 elections. The
President's performance in Helsinki was weak and submissive.
The President was also ambivalent in a prominent interview
following the Helsinki Summit about whether the U.S. would meet our
Article 5 security obligations to Montenegro, the smallest and newest
member of NATO and a victim of an attempted Russian-inspired coup just
2 years ago.
Words matter in diplomacy. NATO's ability to deter Russia and other
potential foes has always rested on the strength and clarity of
American Presidents starting with Harry Truman. President Trump is the
first President to equivocate on the issue of America's commitment to
the security of our allies. Such lack of resolve concerns allies who
worry the U.S. may not be prepared to defend a NATO member from Russian
aggression. As the NATO leader, the U.S. President must remain strong
and clear about our resolve in order to reassure allies and to deter
political foes.
Finally, the President is seen by many Europeans as more committed
to authoritarian leaders in Hungary, Poland and Italy than democratic
leaders such as Merkel. Based on recent visits to four European
countries this summer, I believe allied governments are most concerned
by the rise of extreme anti-democratic forces in their countries. They
would welcome rhetorical support from the U.S. in their battle to
preserve the rule of law and democratic freedoms. They have not
received it.
The crisis in NATO today is not the first the U.S. has had with the
allies and likely will not be the last. The U.S. disavowed the actions
of France and the United Kingdom in the Suez Crisis of 1956. The U.S.
and some of the allies argued about the deployment of American nuclear
missiles to Europe in the early 1980s. We experienced a major division
within the Alliance over the Iraq War in 2003 when I was Ambassador to
NATO. In none of these crises, however, did the U.S. and the allies
question each other's basic commitment to NATO itself.
This is what is happening now. It makes this crisis different from
those in the past. As a result, a dangerous breach of trust has opened
across the Atlantic. The former Polish Defense and Foreign Minister,
Radek Sikorski, a friend of America, summed up the fear of many in
Europe after the Helsinki Summit when he said publicly, ``We have no
idea what President Trump would do in a crisis with Russia.''
Such a situation is a gift to Putin whose strategic aim is to
weaken NATO and to divide it from within. It has also caused some
Europeans to prepare for a future without a strong U.S. presence in
NATO. The debate in Germany has already begun with some outside the
government advocating the country consider creating its own nuclear
deterrent if it cannot count on the U.S.
the role of congress
Barring a fundamental change in President Trump's attitude toward
NATO as well as Russia, this crisis calls for concerted action by
Congress to revive and reinforce American leadership in the Alliance.
The Senate's overwhelming vote to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to NATO
before the recent Summit was received very positively in Europe. The
recent Menendez-Portman Resolution condemning Russia's annexation of
Crimea was another important step to assert Congressional authority.
The proposed McCain-Kaine bill to give Congress a voice and role in
any decision by the Administration to reduce U.S. force strength in
Europe or to withdraw from NATO is now a critical next step for
Congress to take. The Senate ratified the Washington Treaty with a two-
thirds majority in 1949. No President should be able to walk away from
that commitment unilaterally without the advice and consent of the
Senate.
The Graham-Menendez bill would be an effective way to counter Putin
by strengthening sanctions against Russia and providing greater support
to democracies at risk.
These are among the most important measures Congress can take at a
time when the President's basic commitment to NATO appears so tenuous.
Congress can also help to convince the American public that NATO
remains vital for our own security at home. Until President Trump's
election, most polls showed strong support for NATO among Americans. We
should be concerned that the President's constant belittlement of NATO
before American audiences may diminish public support for an alliance
that cannot be truly effective without the allegiance of our citizens.
nato's value to the united states
Mr. Chairman and Mr. Menendez, you have asked for an assessment of
NATO's value to the United States. In my judgment, NATO continues to be
of vital importance to American security interests in five principal
ways.
First, NATO is at the core of one of the most significant foreign
policy accomplishments in American history--the creation of a long-term
peace in Europe following the close of the Second World War. Because of
NATO and the emergence of the European Union, Europe is united after
centuries of division and war. NATO's military strength has been a
major reason for the absence of war with the Soviet Union and Russia
since 1949.
A recent Atlantic Council study reminds that America spent 14.1
percent of its GDP on defense during the First World War, 37.5 percent
during the Second World War and 13.2 percent during the Korean
Conflict. We spend nothing close to those levels now in large part due
to the great power peace we have enjoyed for over 70 years. NATO has
been a major factor in that peace.
And due to the expansion of NATO and the European Union eastward
after the fall of the Soviet Union, millions of East Europeans now live
in free, democratic societies--a significant success for U.S.
diplomacy.
Second, NATO delivers additional benefits to U.S. military
objectives and operations beyond our shores.
NATO is at the heart of our defense of North America and
Europe from nuclear and conventional threats. British and
French nuclear weapons join ours in deterring aggression in the
North Atlantic area. Since the late 1940s, every Administration
has believed that the best way to defend our country is through
American forces forward deployed in Europe with the NATO
allies. This strategy remains right for today given Russia's
invasion of Georgia in 2008, of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine in
2014 and its current pressure on Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and
Poland. NATO remains our primary vehicle for deterring Putin in
Eastern Europe.
The NATO allies host a great number of critical bases for
U.S. forces--Ramstein in Germany, Aviano in Italy, Rota in
Spain, Souda Bay in Greece and Incirlik in Turkey--that serve
as a platform for our presence in Europe, as well as for U.S.
force projection against terrorist groups in North Africa and
the Middle East and for our continued military operations in
Afghanistan.
Europe is a critical link in the development of our
Ballistic Missile Defense network focused on the Middle East
with Turkey, Romania, Poland, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands,
Denmark, the UK and other allies all hosting elements of this
system.
NATO allies continue to participate in the U.S.-led
coalition against the Islamic State in the Middle East.
Many of the allies play lead roles in other counter terror
operations such as French forces in Mali supported by the U.S.
In Afghanistan, the NATO allies remain with us in combat
operations and in training the Afghan military. Over 1000
soldiers from European and other partner nations have died
there during the last 17 years.
NATO continues to maintain the hard-earned peace in Kosovo
with European troops bearing the large share of the burden. An
EU-led force has taken on all of the peacekeeping
responsibility in Bosnia, freeing up the U.S. for other
activities.
Third, the NATO allies are among our closest and most supportive
global partners as we confront the great transnational challenges that
define this century--the fight against terrorism, the entire complex of
cyber threats, climate change, the risk of pandemics, mass migration
and others. The NATO allies and our partners in the European Union act
together with us on these and other issues. This is of incalculable
benefit to the U.S. Neither Russia nor China have treaty allies. NATO
is a significant advantage for the United States when it acts as a
force multiplier for American interests.
Fourth, the great majority of the NATO allies are also members of
the European Union. Every U.S. President has seen the EU as a strategic
partner. After all, the EU is our largest trade partner and largest
investor in the American economy. Our combined economic might has been
a major reason for the effectiveness of sanctions against both Russia
and Iran in recent years. While we also compete with the EU in trade,
previous Presidents have worked hard to prevent those differences from
overwhelming our military and political ties to the EU countries. Let
us hope that President Trump's recent meeting with the EU Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker might ease the trade battles of the last
few months across the Atlantic.
Fifth and most importantly, the European countries are our most
faithful partners in promoting and preserving democracy in the world
today. The strongest link we share with the NATO allies is one of
values--our mutual commitment to ``democracy, individual liberty and
the rule of law'' as the Washington Treaty states. At a time when
democracies are being challenged around the world and when anti-
democratic populists are on the rise in several European countries,
this link with Europe is vital to the U.S.
The sad irony in NATO's current crisis of trust is that the
Alliance has made significant progress in many areas.
Alliance defense spending has been on an upward trend since Putin's
invasion of Crimea in 2014. But there is no doubt that President
Trump's persistent campaign to convince allies to raise defense
spending has also had an important impact. And allies such as Germany
must not only raise their defense spending levels but also reform their
militaries to achieve a far greater capacity to be more effective
militarily.
The recent NATO Summit Declaration noted substantial positive
progress starting with 4 years of real growth in allied defense
budgets. Two thirds of the allies have plans to reach 2 percent of GDP
by the target date of 2024. More than half of the allies currently
spend more than 20 percent of their military budgets on defense
technology and research and development. NATO expects that 24 of the
allies will reach the 20 percent level by 2024.
In addition, NATO agreed at the recent summit to expand its
readiness to deploy forces and to create two new commands that should
add to its operational strength. Together with the deployment of a
battalion of troops each to Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, much
has been done during the Obama and Trump Administrations to beef up
NATO's armored presence to deter Russia and other potential foes.
Secretaries Jim Mattis and Mike Pompeo and Ambassador Kay Bailey
Hutcheson are all respected for their professionalism and dedication to
NATO.
These positive developments have been obscured, unfortunately, by
President Trump's persistent criticism of allied leaders, his lack of
criticism of Putin and his publicly expressed doubts about his
adherence to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty. If the President is
unwilling to change course and to be a more positive and effective
leader of NATO, Congress will have the responsibility to take the kind
of measures I highlighted in the first part of my testimony.
conclusion
I saw the true value of allies first-hand on 9/11 as a new American
Ambassador to NATO. After the U.S. was attacked in New York and at the
Pentagon, the Canadian and European Ambassadors to NATO let me know
within hours that their governments were willing to come to our
defense. On the following morning, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first
time in history. The allies stood up to defend us. They decided that
Osama Bin Laden's attack on the U.S. was an attack on them as well. All
of them deployed forces to Afghanistan with us. They remain with us
there today 17 years later. This is the true meaning of NATO for
America.
That experience convinced me that, despite our extraordinary power,
the U.S. is far stronger and better able to protect our own country by
working in alliance with Canada and the European countries. For this
reason and others, the U.S. needs to act quickly and resolutely to
revive, repair and restore American leadership at NATO. Congress can
help to achieve that worthy aim on behalf of the American people.
The Chairman. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Sloan.
STATEMENT OF STANLEY R. SLOAN, PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR, MIDDLEBURY
COLLEGE, MIDDLEBURY, VERMONT
Dr. Sloan. Thank you, members of the committee.
20 years ago I was a senior specialist with the
Congressional Research Service. I worked closely with this
committee and with the Senate NATO Observer Group on the first
round of post-Cold War NATO enlargement. It is my pleasure to
return today to discuss the alliance that in my opinion remains
vitally important to American interests.
U.S. leadership of the alliance has been based on joint
management of the transatlantic bargain by the Congress and by
every presidential administration since 1949. From the
beginning, the congressional partner regularly raised questions
about the burden sharing issue. In response, both Republican
and Democratic administrations defended the alliance, even as
they tried to get the Europeans to do more.
Until President Trump, all American Presidents have
remained committed to the North Atlantic Treaty's Article 5
collective defense provision. The credibility of Article 5
depends not just on military strength, but also on national
political will to use it.
The recent NATO summit declaration emphasized the
importance of cohesion, unity, and shared goals. But our NATO
allies now believe that the most powerful and influential among
them, the United States, is damaging political trust within the
alliance, seriously weakening the credibility of NATO
deterrence. I doubt that this is what any member of this
committee would wish.
The preamble of the treaty makes it clear that NATO's
purpose is not just to defend territory but also to defend,
quote, ``the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and
the rule of law.'' The defense of these values by NATO nations
puts political backbone into the liberal international order.
Today many countries on both sides of the Atlantic are
facing decisions about what kind of democracy they want. Is it
liberal democracy based on the North Atlantic Treaty's value
statement, or is it what has been called electoral democracy in
which elections take place but the rule of law and individual
liberties like freedom of speech and freedom of the press are
limited?
Decisions by NATO member states, including our own, about
which path to choose will have at least as much impact on the
viability of the alliance as will decisions regarding levels of
defense spending.
As requested, here is my summary of the benefits of NATO
membership for our country.
The North Atlantic Treaty includes our key values and
therefore reaffirms the legitimacy of the American political
system.
NATO brings together like-minded nations that share our
values and are willing to work with us to defend them.
The shared interests and values underlying the alliance
provide a strong coalition for dealing with international
security issues.
The U.S. role in the world is strengthened by the fact that
those countries outside the alliance realize that the United
States has a coalition in waiting that normally will support
us.
Members of NATO provided their support after 9/11 and then
contributed thousands of troops to the war in Afghanistan, as
Ambassador Burns has just pointed out.
The NATO consultative framework, the integrated command
structure, the day-to-day defense cooperation, and NATO's
defense planning process facilitate fighting together if it
becomes necessary.
The NATO commitments provide a foundation of common trust
that can serve as a stable starting point for managing
disagreements when they occur.
NATO nations provide vitally important base facilities for
American forces deployed for operations in the Middle East and
Africa.
A unified NATO presents a strong front to deter aggression.
Transatlantic security will continue to depend on effective
U.S., Canadian, and European cooperation in NATO. European
political and military unification, as much as we hope for
that, as an alternative is not likely in the foreseeable
future.
The desire for membership in NATO has led many European
countries to reform their political and economic systems and
meet other conditions for NATO membership. This stabilizes
international relations and supports the spread of democracy.
NATO's Partnership for Peace expands American influence and
strengthens our national security.
Finally, in my judgment, there currently is no realistic
alternative to NATO that would serve U.S. interests as well.
As with previous generations on both sides of the Atlantic,
current leaders need to choose. Will we continue to sustain and
improve the transatlantic alliance, or will we risk a much
darker future?
This committee has long played a critical and positive role
in sustaining NATO and its benefits for the United States. You
now are challenged once again to choose which role you will
play in charting the future of America's membership in this
vitally important NATO alliance.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Sloan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Stanley R. Sloan
Thank you, Chairman Corker, Ranking Member Menendez, and members of
the Committee, for calling today's hearing. I am happy to have the
opportunity to talk about the value of the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization to the United States.
Twenty years ago, as a Senior Specialist with the Congressional
Research Service, I worked closely with this committee and the Senate
NATO Observer Group during consideration of the first round of post-
Cold War NATO enlargement.
It is my pleasure to return to discuss the alliance that, in my
opinion, remains so important to American security.
I will take this opportunity today briefly to fill in a little of
the historical background to the questions you are addressing, to say a
few words about NATO as a ``political'' alliance, and then about the
value of U.S. membership in, and leadership of, the alliance.
Over the course of seven decades, U.S. leadership of the alliance
has been based on joint management of the ``transatlantic bargain'' by
the Congress, particularly the Senate, and successive presidential
administrations. From the very beginning, the Congressional partner
regularly raised questions about the persistent burden-sharing issue.
This questioning began with the initial debate in the Senate on whether
it should give its advice and consent to the Treaty. The administration
of President Harry Truman reassured Senators that the European allies
would contribute to their own defense and that the United States would
not end up carrying a disproportionate share of the burden.
As the European states recovered from the devastation of World War
II, some Senators argued that the Europeans had become capable of
defending themselves. Montana's Senator Mike Mansfield promoted
resolutions from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s that sought to
force administrations to begin withdrawing U.S. forces from Europe. He
was opposed by several administrations which argued that the American
NATO commitment was essential to counter the Soviet threat.
Since 1949, both Republican and Democratic administrations sought
ways to get the Europeans to relieve the United States of some of its
NATO burdens. The Congress did most of the complaining while successive
presidents of both parties urged allies to do more but largely defended
the alliance and its costs as necessary for U.S. national interests.
In this area, President Trump has reversed institutional roles with
his burden-sharing complaints and his threats to abandon key
commitments in the 1949 Treaty. The Congress and the Department of
Defense, in response, have largely assumed the roles of NATO-defender,
while still lobbying for better European contributions.
One thing remains clear to me: NATO is both a political and
military alliance. I can't tell you how many times I have heard someone
erroneously claim that NATO is ``just a military alliance.''
NATO is a civil alliance with a strong military structure and
capability that facilitate military cooperation aimed at deterring
attacks against member states and defending them if necessary. Until
President Trump, all American presidents have remained committed to the
North Atlantic Treaty's Article 5 collective defense provision. Article
5 does not say exactly what member states must do when another member
is attacked. That is left for the sovereign decision of each state,
whose decision-making independence is guaranteed by the treaty.
Article 5 does commit each member nation to regard an attack on
another member as an attack on itself, and to take ``such action as it
deems necessary, including the use of armed force to restore and
maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.'' Allied military
deployments, training, exercises, plans and weapons acquisitions are
designed to endow this commitment with hard military reality,
particularly for an adversary. NATO's Defence Planning Process is a
historically unique mechanism to share and coordinate plans and
acquisitions.
Moreover, the credibility of Article 5 depends not just on military
strength, but critically on national political will to use it--will
that must be communicated effectively to both adversaries and allied
citizens.
Article 5 does not exist in a vacuum. The overall political
relationships among member states affect its credibility. The recent
NATO summit communique emphasized the importance of cohesion, unity,
and shared goals. But our NATO allies believe today that the most
powerful and influential among them--the United States--is damaging
political trust within the alliance, seriously weakening NATO
credibility in deterrence to adversaries and reassurance to citizens.
I doubt this is what any member of this committee wishes to happen.
The preamble of the treaty makes it clear that the purpose is not
just to defend territory, but also to defend values--this is where the
``political'' part comes in. The treaty enumerates those values as
``the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of
law.'' In recent years, the United States and its allies have added
``human rights'' to the list. The defense of these values by NATO
nations puts political backbone into the liberal international order.
The alliance has not always succeeded on the value side.
Undemocratic governments have, from time to time, gained power in NATO
countries. They were tolerated for geostrategic reasons. But they were
the rare exceptions.
Today, many countries on both sides of the Atlantic are facing
decisions about what kind of democracy they want. Is it liberal
democracy, based on the North Atlantic Treaty preamble's value
statement? Or is it what has been called ``electoral democracy,'' in
which governments are elected but power is increasingly centralized? Or
are they headed toward ``electoral authoritarianism,'' in which
elections take place but the rule of law and individual liberties, like
freedom of speech and the press, are strictly controlled by central
authority.
Decisions by NATO member states, including our own, concerning
which path to choose will have at least as much impact on the viability
of the alliance as will decisions regarding levels of defense spending.
In fact, authoritarian populists like those currently on the rise in
the West don't particularly like NATO and tend not to support engaging
in collective action to provide public goods.
Moreover, elected officials in sovereign, democratic allied states
usually seek to get the best security for their populations at the most
reasonable price. This means that alliances among sovereign states will
always face questions concerning an equitable balance of costs and
benefits among the members. This reality caused constant friction
between the United States and its allies throughout the Cold War.
The burden-sharing issue was built into the transatlantic bargain,
emerging in many ways from the foundation provided by contrasting U.S.
and European geographic realities, historical experiences, and military
capabilities. The original concept of the alliance was that the United
States and Europe would be more or less equal partners and would
therefore share equitably the costs of alliance programs.
The seeds for a perpetual burden-sharing problem were planted when
the original transatlantic bargain was reshaped in 1954 following the
failure of the European Defense Community. The revision of the original
bargain meant that the alliance would become heavily dependent both on
U.S. nuclear weapons and on the presence of U.S. military forces in
Europe to make those weapons credible in deterrence as well as to
fortify non-nuclear defense in Europe.
The U.S. burden-sharing complaint took many forms and was
translated into a great variety of policy approaches between 1954 and
the end of the Cold War. In the early 1950s, the allies arranged common
funding of NATO infrastructure costs, such as running NATO civilian and
military headquarters and building and maintaining fuel pipelines,
communication systems, and so on. Each ally was allocated a share of
the infrastructure costs, according to an ``ability to pay'' formula.
As European nations recovered from World War II and experienced
economic growth, the U.S. share of infrastructure expenses was
progressively reduced. However, such expenses were not the main cost of
alliance efforts. The large expenses were the monies spent by nations
to build, maintain, and operate their military forces. In this
category, the United States always outpaced its European allies.
The administration of President John F. Kennedy in the early 1960s
sought a greater European contribution to Western defense. Its policy
optimistically advocated an Atlantic partnership with ``twin pillars''
featuring shared responsibilities between the United States and an
eventually united Europe. The Kennedy presidency also witnessed the
beginning of the financial arrangements between the United States and
West Germany designed to ``offset'' the costs of stationing U.S. forces
in that country. These agreements were renewed and expanded in the
administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to include
German purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds and, in the 1970s, the repair
of barracks used by U.S. forces in Germany.
The U.S. experience in Vietnam, French withdrawal from NATO's
integrated military structure in 1966, and U.S. economic problems all
diminished support in the Congress for U.S. overseas troop commitments
in general and led the Johnson administration to press the Europeans to
increase their defense efforts.
This period saw a strong congressional movement, led by Senator
Mike Mansfield, to cut U.S. forces in Europe. Senator Mansfield
introduced the first of the ``Mansfield Resolutions'' on August 31,
1966. The Senate was asked to resolve that ``a substantial reduction of
United States forces permanently stationed in Europe can be made
without adversely affecting either our resolve or ability to meet our
commitment under the North Atlantic Treaty.''
Senator Mansfield reintroduced the resolution in 1967, 1969, and
1970, when the resolution obtained the signatures of 50 co-sponsors.
However, U.S. presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, consistently
opposed such efforts, and these resolutions and similar efforts through
1974 failed to win final passage. The Nixon administration, after
unsuccessfully attempting to get the Europeans to increase ``offset''
payments, took a new tack. The Europeans objected to the prospect of
American troops becoming little more than mercenaries in Europe and
argued that the U.S. troop presence was, after all, in America's as
well as Europe's interests. Nixon shifted to a focus on getting allies
to improve their own military capabilities rather than paying the
United States to sustain its own. The so-called Nixon Doctrine, applied
globally, suggested that the United States would continue its efforts
to support allies militarily if they made reasonable efforts to help
themselves.
Congress continued to focus on offset requirements, passing
legislation such as the 1974 Jackson-Nunn Amendment requiring that the
European allies offset the balance-of-payments deficit incurred by the
United States from the 1974 costs of stationing U.S. forces in Europe.
However, a combination of events in the mid-1970s decreased
congressional pressure for unilateral U.S. troop reductions in Europe.
The East-West talks on mutual force reductions that opened in
Vienna, Austria, in 1973 were intended to produce negotiated troop
cuts, and U.S. administrations argued that U.S. unilateral withdrawals
would undercut the NATO negotiating position. Congress turned toward
efforts to encourage the Europeans to make better use of their defense
spending, and President Jimmy Carter, in 1977, proposed a new ``long-
term defense program'' for NATO in the spirit of the Nixon Doctrine,
setting the goal of increasing defense expenditures in real terms 3
percent above inflation for the life of the program.
In 1980, Congress, frustrated by allied failures to meet the 3
percent goal, required preparation of annual ``allied commitments
reports'' to keep track of allied contributions to security
requirements. Throughout the 1980s, Congress developed several
approaches linking the continued U.S. troop presence in Europe to
improved allied defense efforts. However, the burden-sharing issue was
never ``resolved.'' In fact, the growing U.S. concern with Soviet
activities in the Third World put even more focus on the fact that the
Europeans did little militarily to help the United States deal with
this perceived threat to Western interests.
In sum, throughout the Cold War, the United States felt strongly
that the Europeans needed to ``do more.''
Although some Europeans agreed that their countries should increase
their relative share of the Western defense burden, the prevalent
feeling was that many American criticisms of their defense efforts were
unwarranted.
Perhaps ironically, the biggest burden-sharing issue at the end of
the Cold War was how the allies should work together to deal with non-
collective defense security threats arising beyond NATO's borders, an
issue that had always been a source of division among the allies. That
would become one of the biggest challenges for the allies in the 1990s.
At least in the first decade after the end of the Cold War, the
United States and all its allies looked for a peace ``dividend'' by
reducing defense expenditures, taking the opportunity to shift
resources to other priorities.
Following the 9/11 attacks, the allies, for the first time in
NATO's history, invoked Article 5, the North Atlantic Treaty's
collective defense provision. The allies followed up the Article 5
actions by contributing thousands of troops to the War in Afghanistan,
agreeing to establish a NATO command there, and suffering the loss of
more than 1,000 military personnel.
In 2014, the Russian annexation of the Crimea and support for
separatists in the Donbas region of Ukraine produced a dramatic change
in threat perceptions and, consequently, defense spending commitments.
The allies agreed at the Wales summit that September to increase
defense spending to the level of 2% of Gross Domestic Product by the
year 2024. The recent 2018 summit in Brussels added further defense
improvement plans to fortify the response to the Russian threat as well
as to international terrorism.
That's a summary of the history. Now, here is my summary of the
benefits our country receives from NATO membership:
The alliance reaffirms the legitimacy of the American
political system, as the North Atlantic Treaty rests explicitly
on our key values: democracy, individual liberty and the rule
of law.
It brings together like-minded nations that, for the most
part, share our political values and are willing to work with
us to defend them.
The shared interests and values underlying the alliance
provide a strong coalition for dealing with international
security issues.
The U.S. role in the world is strengthened by the fact that
those countries outside the transatlantic alliance realize that
the United States has a coalition in waiting that, under most
circumstances, will support us.
Members of NATO provided their support when they invoked
NATO's collective defense clause in response to the 9/11
attacks. They followed up the Article 5 actions by contributing
thousands of troops to the War in Afghanistan.
The NATO consultative framework, Integrated Command
Structure, day-to-day defense cooperation and NATO's Defence
Planning Process facilitate fighting together when necessary.
The NATO commitments provide a foundation of common trust
that can serve as a stable starting point for managing
disagreements when they occur.
NATO nations provide vitally important base facilities for
American army, navy, marine and air force capabilities for
operations beyond Europe in the Middle East and Africa.
A unified NATO presents a strong front to deter aggression
by adversaries, particularly Russia in today's world.
In theory, a unified Europe should be able to defend itself.
But in the real world, political/military unification of Europe
is not likely in the foreseeable future and transatlantic
security therefore will continue to depend heavily on effective
U.S. cooperation with Canada and the European allies in NATO.
The desire for membership in NATO has led many European
countries to reform their political and economic systems,
resolve differences with their neighbors, and meet other
conditions for NATO membership. This stabilizes international
relations and supports the spread of democracy.
NATO has provided a framework for active security
cooperation with countries that do not meet geographic or other
requirements for membership, or do not choose to join. The
Partnership for Peace program expands American influence and
strengthens our national security.
No practical alternative to NATO that would serve U.S.
interests as well has so far been developed and defended
convincingly
In 1984, on sabbatical from the Congressional Research Service, I
wrote a book entitled NATO's Future: Toward a New Transatlantic
Bargain. The new bargain that I proposed was a more equal alliance in
terms of both contributions and influence. It addressed the burden
sharing issue quite directly by calling on the Europeans to strengthen
the alliance by coordinating more effectively their defense efforts. I
cautioned at that time that such improved cooperation would have to
take place within, not outside, the broad framework of the
transatlantic relationship
A lot has changed since then, and I am less optimistic than I was
then about what might be possible among the Europeans, and what kind of
leadership the United States would provide.
I see no chance that the members of the European Union will decide
to create a full political union anytime in the foreseeable future. In
my judgment, this would be required before anything like a European
army or fully unified European militaries could come into being.
Our allies are making progress toward improving their cooperation.
The European Security and Defense Policy, the Permanent Structured
Cooperation (PESCO) and the new European Defense Fund (EDF) are already
helping promote better military cooperation among the allies.
Our president's questioning of American commitments to the alliance
has led Europeans reasonably to wonder if they can rely on the United
States in the future. If they decide that they can't, their cooperation
could move toward greater autonomy from the United States, outside of
NATO and ineffectively coordinated with the alliance.
Such a development would amount to a total failure of U.S. policy
that has supported a strong Western alliance for seven decades. The
Europeans may do more, but the questions about the U.S. commitment may
lead them to assumptions that would damage what NATO calls ``the
transatlantic link.''
As with previous generations on both sides of the Atlantic, current
generations of leaders need to choose whether we will continue to
sustain and improve the transatlantic alliance of democracies, of which
NATO is the most important pillar. Will we choose to defend democracy,
individual liberty and rule of law, or will we risk a much darker
future?
This committee, and the Senate as a whole, have long played
critical and positive parts in sustaining NATO and its benefits for the
United States. You now are challenged once again to choose which role
you will play in charting the future of America's membership in this
vitally important North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before the
committee today.
The Chairman. Thank you. We thank all three of you again
for being here with us, and we look forward to the questions
now. And I will turn to Senator Menendez. I will reserve my
time for interjections.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for your testimony. It is not common that we
get almost a unified view here before the committee. So it is,
I think, pretty powerful about the subject matter.
And the one thing I glean from all of your testimony: it is
time for Article 1 oversight in a big way.
So, Ambassador Burns, in your written testimony you
remarked that the President Trump's repeated public doubts
about NATO have a highly negative impact on Europe. We have had
members of the administration here who basically have said do
not listen to what the President says. Listen to what we do.
When it comes to NATO, what is the tangible impact of this
dissonant situation where the President's words belie maybe the
policy actions of the administration?
Ambassador Burns. Mr. Menendez, two points.
One is I think one thing that did not come out in our three
presentations is that, fortunately, we have had a lot of
bipartisan consensus between the Obama administration and I
would say Secretary Mattis, Secretary Pompeo, and Ambassador
Kay Bailey Hutchison that we should stay in NATO, strengthen
it, strengthen our true presence in Eastern Europe. I think it
is good that the Trump administration is now sending arms to
Ukraine.
So there have been some positive things done, all of them
completely now diminished and outweighed by the words of the
President. And the words matter because ultimately Article 5,
as well as Article 4, the imminence of an attack on a NATO
ally, rest on the credibility of the United States. We have
always been the backbone of NATO since President Truman's time.
And when President Trump has consistently thrown into doubt
whether or not he is President at that 3:00 a.m. call would
back up a NATO ally, it has really undermined the confidence
that all the Europeans have. And I have been struck by it and I
have served both parties as a career Foreign Service officer.
This is not a political statement. I have been struck and
really saddened by the lack of faith in the United States in
Western and Eastern Europe on this question. And it is about
words because words, of course, convey whether or not we have
the policy in place to deter Russian aggression.
Senator Menendez. Let me follow up on that. I was disturbed
but not surprised to read in your testimony that the President
is seen by many European leaders as more committed to
authoritarian leaders than democratic ones. And you wrote that
some would welcome rhetorical support from the United States
but it is not getting it.
In the DASKAA bill that I wrote with Senator Graham and
others who have joined us, we increased funding for programs
that build democratic resilience across the continent. But I
would welcome any additional thoughts on how you believe the
Senate can help to fill the rhetorical void left by the
President's leadership, particularly as it relates to democracy
and the rule of law.
Ambassador Burns. I was really struck. As I mentioned, I
visited five different NATO ally countries this past summer.
The degree to which the allied leaders are now focused on the
battle for democracy inside their own societies. Three of the
NATO allies survived the 2017 elections, the assault by the
anti-democratic populace, but they know they will be back. And
they see President Trump--and Steve Bannon has been all over
Europe this summer supporting the anti-democratic populace in
Poland, Hungary, and the Italian Government and now trying to
organize--this is Bannon--the anti-democratic populace in
Western Europe. They feel there is zero rhetorical support from
President Trump for the democrats, small D democrats, whether
they are Christian democrats or socialists inside these NATO
ally governments.
We are a political alliance--and Dr. Sloan pointed this out
in his written testimony--as well as a military alliance. The
second sentence of the NATO treaty of 1949 signed in this city
talks about the rule of law, liberty, and democratic freedoms.
And so we have a responsibility to back these countries up. The
President will not do it, and so it is up to the Congress. And
I very much support the Graham-Menendez bill and the other
bills that would allow at least our government representatives
who believe in this to try to strengthen democracy.
Senator Menendez. Dr. Haass, you said in your testimony
something I think is very valuable, that there should be a
conversation about benefit sharing in addition to burden
sharing. How do we assess the value that membership in the NATO
alliance has for U.S. national security interests? What are the
most tangible benefits the U.S. derives from NATO in that
regard?
Ambassador Haass. Well, the tangible benefits are, one, we
got partners in going out of area, places like Afghanistan,
Libya. Again, whatever you think of the specifics, we are not
on our own. So we have partners and we have facilitators in
those areas.
Secondly, if you think about every global challenge that is
coming down the pike from how to regulate cyberspace, which is
the wild west of the modern era, to how to improve the WTO so
it is a better global trading regime to how to make sure the
next pandemic does not happen, or if it does happen, its
effects are not ruinous, who are we going to turn to?
You know, when I worked at the White House for President
Bush, the father, every time a crisis happened, national
security aides would walk into Brent Scowcroft's office with
telephone numbers. And it would be who he could get on the
phone with because these are the people who are going to be
like-minded and able to partner with us. All the telephone
prefixes--just about--were European because that is where we
are going to go when the chips are down.
Or the question you just asked Ambassador Burns. If you
believe that democracy and markets are valuable to the United
States--and I believe they are--well, then we should partner
with the Europeans, the EU, not just promoting them in Europe
but promoting them globally. There are things we can do in
energy security. We can down the list. And the most obvious one
is history shows that an imbalance of power in Europe is the
greatest direct threat to the welfare of the United States. Two
world wars were fought over that. The Cold War was waged on
precisely that as well. That is the most fundamental lesson of
20th century history.
Senator Menendez. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Johnson.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here, for your service.
Dr. Burns, I was certainly appreciative of the fact that
you did mention the sacrifice of our NATO partners in terms of
over 1,000 lives lost. I think we need to point that out to our
fellow countrymen as often as possible. It is a priceless type
of sacrifice.
I would be interested in your thoughts. You take a look at
NATO. You take a look at the U.S. You combine our economies. It
is well north of $30 trillion in terms of size and strength.
Russia, depending on the calculation, probably less than $2
trillion.
Looking back in history, you know, the frozen conflict in
Transnistria, their invasion of Georgia. We stopped their
invasion, sent over a couple of cargo planes, a pretty powerful
signal, was unable to prevent their annexation or their
takeover of Crimea, their invasion into eastern Ukraine, their
pervasive propaganda that we do not really counter. What have
we done wrong? Why does such a large economic group allow--I am
sorry--such a puny one--I know they got 7,000 nuclear weapons.
But I would just like to have your evaluation of what have we
done wrong to allow Putin to have so much power?
Ambassador Burns. Senator, thank you. And to maintain my
academic integrity, I have to tell you I am not Dr. Burns.
Harvard University----
Senator Johnson. Oh, I am sorry. I mean Ambassador Burns.
Ambassador Burns. That is okay, but I have to say it.
Senator Johnson. You are surrounded by two doctors.
Ambassador Burns. I do not have a Ph.D. unlike my two
colleagues.
I think you have asked an important question. Every
President since President Clinton has been dealing with
Vladimir Putin. And we know his true colors. We know what his
strategic ambitions are. He is in relatively good health in his
mid-60s. We are going to have to contain him as long as he is
president of Russia. It is the last Soviet-trained generation
of KGB officers, diplomats and military officers. They are
still in power, and they have that Soviet mentality.
So my first answer to you would say moving our battalions
into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland--President Obama
did that, and President Trump has reaffirmed it--is the right
move.
The European Reassurance Initiative--Congress voted the
money to strengthen American and NATO forces in the east--is
the right move.
But you are also right. We are engaged in a war of ideas
with authoritarian powers because Putin and definitely Xi
Jinping, if you read his party speech from last October--they
believe that their model is superior to ours. And so we engage
them militarily to deter but we have got to engage them on what
we know we can win on, that the democratic model is better and
it is more true to the human spirit. And I do not think in any
administration we have taken that on as aggressively as we
should.
And I feel compelled to say this. I see Secretary Mattis
doing it, Secretary Pompeo doing it. The President is absent in
this. The battle right now in Paris and Berlin, in the
Netherlands, in Belgium is can democracy survive, and the
President is not involved. So I hope he will engage on that. He
really should as the NATO leader.
Senator Johnson. As chairman of the European Subcommittee
of this committee, I meet with European delegations all the
time and find myself in the position trying to reassure our
allies that we do--you know, this branch of government is
completely supportive. One of the examples I use, which I think
was quite extraordinary, is we unanimously approved $300
million of lethal defensive weaponry for Ukraine. It was not
used in the last administration. A small group of us had dinner
with President Poroshenko on Friday night. He came in to honor
Senator McCain.
To me, Ukraine has to be a top priority. We need to stop
and push back Putin's aggression there. We need support for
President Poroshenko. I would just like to have--Dr. Haass,
maybe you can give us some thoughts on that.
Ambassador Haass. Well, I agree. We need to push back
against it. And I think this transfer of defense articles to
Ukraine was a step in the right direction. Ukraine has to be a
better partner. I will be blunt. And I have had this
conversation with President Poroshenko. The anti-corruption
movement has got to gain traction. There needs to be a
dedicated institution to deal with those issues.
I also think being realistic--to get Russia out of eastern
Ukraine--and that ought to be our goal, the short-term goal.
Crimea I think unfortunately is a long-term goal to get that
back. But to get Russia out of eastern Ukraine ought to be a
short- to medium-term goal.
We have to think hard about what kind of conditions to be
created so Putin believes he could leave and there would not be
reprisals.
Senator Johnson. Do we not also have to take a look at what
right now is the alternative to Poroshenko? Listen, stamping
out corruption is a difficult process. Again, my concern is
what the alternative is.
Ambassador Haass. Alternative----
Senator Johnson. To Poroshenko.
Ambassador Haass. To him?
Senator Johnson. Yes. We are going to have the election.
Right now the polls are not looking real good.
Ambassador Haass. The last few years in this country have
taught me to be wary of making political predictions about
elections.
Look, Ukraine--I will just be blunt. It is a frustrating
political culture. The difficulty the elite has in working
together--let us put aside personalities, but just
collectively. The whole is clearly less than the sum of its
parts. And the last decade has been repeatedly frustrating. To
me it is almost less important over the individual, whether it
is Poroshenko or somebody else. It is can you get a
relationship within the government and between the government
and the opposition so you have a degree of commonality and
consistency. That has been consistently frustrating in Ukraine.
Disappointing but true.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of
our witnesses.
You have all mentioned the service of Senator McCain. So
let me just start by quoting from Senator McCain. It expresses
my view. ``For the last seven decades, the United States and
our NATO allies have served together, fought together, and
sacrificed together for a vision of the world based on freedom,
democracy, human rights, and rule of law. Put simply, the
transatlantic alliance has made the United States safer and
more prosperous and remains critical to our national security
interests.'' And I think we are all saying the same thing.
The challenges today, this hearing, Russia, Russia's attack
on our democratic institutions and on our national security.
But as all of you have pointed out, we have problems from
within. We have problems of countries that are NATO allies that
are moving away from democratic institutions. We see that
clearly in Hungary, the signs in Poland, and very notably, as
has already been pointed out in your testimony, in Turkey. And
then we have the problems from within with the leader of the
United States of America and the statements that have been
made.
So let me first start as it relates to Russia. A summit
between the two leaders is a clear opportunity for us to
advance our national security interests, and the Helsinki
meeting between President Putin and President Trump--Ambassador
Burns, you have already commented as it relates to the
Montenegro statement. But how was that summit perceived by our
NATO allies in regards to our common defense against Russia?
Ambassador Burns. Well, Senator, you will remember in the
lead-up to the Helsinki meeting, President Trump was in
Brussels and was very critical publicly of both Chancellor
Merkel at a time of real challenge to her government in Germany
and Prime Minister May at a time when her coalition in the
conservative party was splintering over the Brexit issue. So
that was unprecedented in my experience working for both
Republican and Democratic Presidents. We disagree all the time
in private but never try to go after another leader
politically. And I think that sets a stage for--to answer your
question, the allies were dismayed by those attacks on the two
leaders, as well as on Prime Minister Trudeau a month before.
And then to see, at least in the press conference, that the
President did not raise and had opportunities to the nerve
agent attack on the UK, the invasion of Crimea, the invasion
and occupation of eastern Ukraine, the pressure on the Baltic
countries, and the assault on our elections, the German
elections, the Czech elections, the Dutch elections, the French
elections.
The allies look to the United States for leadership. They
looked to President Reagan for leadership, President Clinton
for leadership, and they do not feel they are getting it on
these issues concerning democracy and the survival of
democracy. And I think that is the weakest point of the
administration's policy, and it has produced what I said in my
testimony, I think a crisis of leadership. The allies are
openly questioning whether we are leading effectively.
Senator Cardin. Dr. Haass, I want to follow up on one point
that you made in your statement in regards to Turkey.
But first let me make a comment where you say there is far
too much duplication and not enough specialization in regards
to the capacity in NATO. I could not agree with you more, but
it starts with the United States of America. We would not give
up any of our capacity. So for us to complain about the lack of
specialization where the United States has been, I think,
duplicating in defense puts us in a tough position.
But let me get to my question on Turkey. You raise, rightly
so, the reliability of Turkey and the fact that their
government is anything but democratic today. And then you point
out a couple specifics about not making certain weaponry
available to Turkey, et cetera. Should we be looking at the
reality that Turkey really--if today we are looking at
expansion of NATO and looking at Turkey as a potential member,
I think there would be very little question as to whether we
would allow Turkey as a member of NATO. Should we be looking at
the ultimate decision as to whether they still should be a
partner within NATO?
Ambassador Haass. Well, there is no mechanism as I----
Senator Cardin. I understand there is no mechanism. I
understand the challenges of a formal----
Ambassador Haass. My view is we should accept the reality
that Erdogan's Turkey will not be a partner. So whether they
are formally a member of NATO, I would simply say put that on
the back burner. Some day we will have a post-Erdogan period in
Turkey, and I think the goal of the United States and the
European members of NATO ought to be to try to revive the
relationship with Turkey at that point.
In the meantime, I think we have to take specific measures
to protect our interests, and that involves everything--and
this Congress is already involved in it, not transferring the
F-35's.
I also think the Pentagon ought to be directed to look very
closely at alternatives to the dependence on Incirlik. Anyone
who thinks that we can assume the availability of those
facilities in most crises where we would want to use it, I
would say that is simply unwise. I also think it would send a
useful signal to Turkey in the meantime that we were not
entirely dependent on access to that facility. So I would like
to see--essentially come up with a substitution plan. It will
not be perfect. Turkey has real estate and geography that you
cannot substitute for entirely. But I believe both as a way of
protecting our options and to send a signal we ought to find
ways to be less dependent.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Barrasso.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Haass, you had mentioned that there are things we can
do on energy security as part of your earlier statement. At the
NATO summit, President Trump I believe was absolutely right to
raise the issue of energy security in NATO. He specifically
talked about Nordstream 2, the natural gas pipeline that the
Russians are building between their country and Germany. The
United States opposes the Nordstream 2 pipeline because of the
detrimental impact and the national security vulnerabilities
that it creates for our allies, for our partners. I believe it
threatens the security of Europe and NATO. It makes Europe more
reliant on Russian gas by undermining the diversification of
Europe's energy sources, its supplies, its routes. I think it
is a serious concern because Russia does use energy resources
as a geopolitical weapon. Nordstream 2 makes Europe, our NATO
allies more dependent and even more susceptible I believe to
Russian coercion. It also means a lot more money from our NATO
allies straight into the Kremlin pockets. So Russia can use
that money to fund their aggressive actions against Europe and
other parts of the world.
So a number of us introduced a piece of legislation in July
of this year called the ESCAPE Act, Energy Security Cooperation
with Allied Partners in Europe. It enhances our allies' energy
security. It helps end the political coercion and the
manipulations by Russia. And this is what the bill does. It
directs the U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO to encourage
NATO member states to work together to achieve energy security.
It creates a transatlantic energy strategy focused on
increasing the energy security of our NATO allies and partners,
increasing American energy exports to those countries. It
requires the Secretary of Energy to expedite approvals of
natural gas exports to NATO allies, and it authorizes mandatory
U.S. sanctions on the development of Russian energy pipeline
projects such as Nordstream 2.
So it is in America's national security interest to help
our allies reduce their dependence on Russian energy. Our NATO
alliance is strong. I think ending dependence on Russian energy
will make it even stronger.
So following up on what you had said that there are things
we can do on energy security, talk about things and your
thoughts in terms of what additional actions we can take to
stop Russia from using its energy source to coerce and
manipulate our allies and what steps should we and NATO and the
EU take to end the Nordstream 2 pipeline.
Ambassador Haass. Thank you, sir.
Look, Russia has three forms of power at its disposal. One
is energy, one is military, and one is active measures and
cyber. And they use all three. As was pointed out, their
economic weight is negligible. But they punch above their
weight because of--in terms of energy, I think we have to
decide what is the best approach. And I would defer to my
colleagues. They may know about this. But I think it is useful
intellectually to distinguish between things we do to stop
Russia and things we do to incentivize the Europeans to go
elsewhere. One is a negative policy and one is a positive
policy.
One of the most important things we have done is the
decision in this country several years back to allow crude oil
exports. That to me is one of the best energy security
decisions we made. Expanding our willingness and capacity to
export natural gas again would be a major step in the right
direction.
I think having this conversation with the Europeans is a
useful one, about what you call your energy strategy framework.
It cannot be done on a dime. It cannot be done overnight, but
the idea of coming up with a long-term goal of moving in that
direction--that is something I think we ought to be doing. I
have not read your legislation, the ESCAPE legislation, but the
thrust of it seems to me to be pointing in the right direction.
Senator Barrasso. Well, thank you.
One other thing with NATO and the emerging threats across
the world. I think it is important that we ensure that NATO has
the tools and the resources needed to maintain a strong defense
and military alliance. It is clearly important to our own
national security. So I am committed to strengthening NATO,
advancing our shared strategic objectives.
And I support what the President is doing to encourage our
allies to fairly share the military and the financial burdens
within NATO. It is certainly something that Senator McCain
brought up every time we had visited a number of these
countries prior to even President Trump's election. So the
number of allies spending the 2 percent of GDP on defense has
increased since 2017 since President Trump was elected. The
administration has worked with NATO allies to bring about the
largest European defense spending increase since the Cold War.
We can go through all the statistics.
Are there additional actions that Congress can take to
build on these successes and strengthen our alliance within
NATO?
Ambassador Haass. Let me just push back a little bit. I
understand all the emphasis on burden sharing on getting the
Europeans to do more. It is not new. I remember when, among
others, Senator Mansfield was pushing that nearly 50 years ago.
Senator Barrasso. Eisenhower. I mean, you go way back.
Ambassador Haass. I think it is also important, though, to
recognize what the Europeans are doing. It is not as though
they are free riders. They are doing quite a lot. And as we
were talking before, I would focus much more on how they are
spending it. There is way too much duplication in European
armies, not enough with interventionary forces, the ability to
project and sustain power far afield. So the emphasis simply on
how much they spend seems to me to be too narrow.
And I think this is something Ambassador Burns was saying
also. It is one thing to kind of use this as a hammer on them.
It is something very different to encourage it in the context
of an overall relationship where we are not using national
security provisions and trade authorizations as a way of going
after the Europeans or first you would agree on what our common
policy is towards European security dealing with Russia. Then
it might be less difficult to get some of the European efforts
in the area of defense spending that we want.
Senator Barrasso. My time has expired. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
I will have my first interjection. I really appreciate the
efforts that Senator Barrasso has had relative to us exporting
LNG and other energy resources we have here. They have been
outstanding.
The Europeans, on the other hand, have been here especially
about Nordstream and Nordstream 2. They look at it as a private
deal. They look at our LNG cost there as a much higher cost
than getting Russian gas. And they say they are diversifying.
So yes, no. We have three people with three different
sensibilities. Should we do everything that we could, which
some of these bills that you are talking about do? Should we do
everything that we can sanctions-wise and otherwise to stop
Nordstream 2 or not? What should be the U.S. Government policy
as it relates to Nordstream?
Ambassador Burns. Mr. Chairman, I would say first I think
President Trump was right to raise this, introduce into the
NATO discussions. Every administration going back 20 years has
opposed this excessive European dependence on Russian gas,
specifically in Eastern Europe but also Germany.
I would not support sanctions against the European allies.
We have got to work with them on lots of other issues, and we
are already in a hole with them over climate change, over Iran,
and over NATO. But certainly for the President to use his moral
power to lean on the Europeans and to try to encourage American
natural gas exports--I would be in favor of that.
The Chairman. And the other two of you specifically? No
comment?
Ambassador Haass. Again, we have weaponized too much of
foreign policy with tariffs and sanctions. I just think we are
overloading the circuits of U.S.-European relations. We will
cause new problems. We will not solve the differences over
energy independence or dependence.
I think what the Senator is doing in terms of making the
United States and others alternative reliable suppliers--I
would much rather do it through positives and also be a little
bit patient. We are going to get the immediate results we want.
But I think having sanctions against European countries or
firms that are doing this--my own view is it is overloading the
circuits of this relationship at a time it is already pretty
stressed.
The Chairman. So you would rather use rhetoric than doing
something in that regard. I mean, I am not criticizing.
Ambassador Haass. Well, it is not just rhetoric, but let us
come up with alternative supply arrangements and let us work
with the Europeans on diversification of energy and supply.
The Chairman. Well, let us carry it a step further. So
there are bills here. And I strongly support the NATO alliance.
That is why we are having the hearing. I vehemently oppose the
President purposely trying to mislead the American people
saying that Europeans owe us money, that they are in arrears. I
mean, that to me was the height of the worst as it relates to
us demagoguing the issue of our country, the leader of our
country.
However, there are some bills here now, and you all say you
support these bills. But there are bills here that punish
Russia in advance for election interference, and then there are
bills that punish them if they do, they lay out what they do.
So you are telling me you support those? I mean, that is in
essence what you all have said.
So that means putting sanctions in place now in one case or
telling people the sanctions you are going to put in place,
which by the way have implications. They affect things because
people believe that there is a likelihood of those going in
place. Do you all support that? I mean, you all are very
important people that people listen to. So yes, no. I mean, I
heard you say you supported it.
Ambassador Burns. Mr. Chairman, I do not support further
sanctions against the European allies for the reasons that we
both suggested. But as I have read some of the draft bills that
members of this committee are involved in, I would support
current sanctions and the promise of future sanctions against
Russia if Russia continues to engineer and assault against our
midterm elections this year or the 2020 elections because we
have not yet sent a powerful message to them. Congress can do
that if the executive branch is not willing to do that.
Ambassador Haass. Let me just say I have read some of the
legislation on sanctioning Russia for interference in our
political systems or those of others. No problem again with the
thrust.
I think there were some questions about who would make the
determination, what was the degree of effort they did, whether
it had effect or not. So I think there was some wording or
specific questions.
But I do not think either Ambassador Burns or I are pushing
back against the basic idea that Russia ought to be penalized
for what it did. And there ought to be clear sanctions
threatened against them as a deterrent, and if the deterrent
fails, then we ought to follow though. This is a form of war
they are carrying out, and we would not stand by if they
carried out other forms of warfare. So we ought to be prepared
to try to deter and then respond to this form of warfare.
Dr. Sloan. Could I just add one footnote to that?
Historically it has been demonstrated that sanctions are not
effective unless you can get almost universal application. And
this means that the United States needs its European allies on
its side when it seeks to employ sanctions against Russia. And
therefore, I would chime in and agree with my two colleagues
here that sanctions against our European allies work directly
against getting their cooperation and imposing the kind of
sanctions on Russia that might have an effect. That is just a
little bit of perspective from the woods of Vermont.
The Chairman. Thank you all.
Senator Merkley.
Senator Merkley. Dr. Haass, you referred to the
consideration of not transferring the F-35's. And that has come
up here in the context of the S-400, but you referred to it
more broadly than that. Turkey is the regional maintenance and
operation hub for the other folks we sell the F-35 to, and we
co-produce parts in Turkey that go not into their F-35's but
ones we use more broadly.
Apart from the S-400, are you advocating that we send a
strong message even given those complexities?
Ambassador Haass. Well, you asked the right question, but I
lean in that direction. I do not have confidence about the
availability of facilities. I do not have confidence about
Turkey, whether they enter into the S-400 deal or not, whether
they would protect sensitive technologies. So to use a phrase
that Mr. Eisenhower used in a different context, I think it is
time for an agonizing reappraisal of our relationship with
Turkey, and I would hold off transferring the F-35's until we
had essentially a relationship that took into account or policy
that took into account the new realities of what is going on in
Turkey and in terms of its foreign policy, including what is
playing out in the Middle East as we sit here today.
Senator Merkley. Ambassador Burns, do you share that view?
Ambassador Burns. We cannot rely on Turkey, the point that
Richard made, in a crisis. We cannot know whether Erdogan would
make Incirlik available to the United States military. So we
have to have alternative plans.
I think, however, we are going to have to be a little bit
patient here. Erdogan has made a big power play over the last 2
years, since the attempted coup of July 2016. But he is by no
means secure forever. We have seen Turkey go from two military
dictatorships in the 1980s to democratic governments, now back
to authoritarianism. It is too important a country for us I
think to begin to seek sanctions against. We are going to have
to be patient, not rely on them, but I do not think it is
inevitable that Turkey will be where it is 5 or 6 or 7 years
from now.
So you need institutional relationships, and particularly
what we have found, I think, in past decades is that the
relationship between our Joint Chiefs and our European Command,
our military command, and the Turkish military as a power
center is very important to maintain. If you begin to sanction
and you cut off those ties, then I think it probably hurts us.
Senator Merkley. I could imagine a sequence of events,
outside of the S-400, if we ban the transfer of the F-35's, it
could lead to an unraveling of some of the things that are
slightly holding things together and providing that foundation
for the future.
Dr. Haass, you mentioned that Russia might test Article 5.
What do you think are kind of the top two or three concerns
about where they might test it?
Ambassador Haass. Some of their small, weak neighbors,
whether it is Montenegro or whether it is the Estonias and some
of the smaller countries there.
It gets back to a question Senator Menendez asked. Foreign
policy is about capabilities, but it is also about intentions
and it is the combination of the two. So people who say watch
what this administration does not what it says, they only get
that half right. The capabilities are going up but the
intentions are heading in the wrong direction. So Putin is a
calculated risk-taker. He did it in Georgia. He is doing it in
Ukraine, and he obviously took a big risk and it paid off, a
fairly low investment, high return operation in Syria. So why
do we assume that he is done taking risks? And Article 5 would
be a big risk, but what I call Article 4 and a half, whether he
would do something akin to what he is doing in eastern Ukraine
and a NATO member, so it would not quite get to the threshold
of an Article 5 response but it would still have significant
implications for the security of a neighbor. I think the odds
of that happening are real.
Senator Merkley. Can I interject there because we are
almost out of time?
What he is doing in eastern Ukraine is a territorial
occupation if not directly by Russian troops, certainly a lot
of Russian support. Would that not be an Article 5 violation? I
cannot imagine for a NATO member that that would not be.
Ambassador Haass. You could have something that again was
blurrier than that where you had ethnic Russians in some of
these countries and arms could reach them. You are not going to
have Russian divisions going across the border, but there could
be, quote/unquote, civilians or others being there in a
personal capacity advising them.
Senator Merkley. Well, that is helpful. This all goes to
the point you are all making, which is why it is so important
for us to be adamant about Article 5 and about the importance
of NATO. I never anticipated I would be alive to hear an
American President attacking NATO as a problem rather than an
asset or the western economies, the G-7, and so forth. But here
we are. Unusual times.
I am out of time, so I will just mention that if I had more
time, I wanted to ask about Macedonia and I know, Ambassador,
you were in Greece. And they have reached a deal but the deal
has not been ratified yet. And then it would take a year and a
half or more. So we are seeing that I think probably at least 2
years or more down the line? Yes, thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Paul.
Senator Paul. I think we got very close to making an
important point, and I am going to try to get to where we
actually get to the point.
The new Graham bill on sanctions does have sanctions on
European interests who have a deal with Russia on the gas
pipeline. So if you think it is a bad idea to sanction them,
you are really opposed to the new Graham sanctions bill because
the Graham sanctions bill in section 236 says any entity that
does business or invests in any Russian energy project outside
of Russia. It is a bad idea.
It gets to a larger question. Is trade a good or a bad
idea? And I hear from Dr. Haass that generally trade is a good
idea. I hear from others that trade is a good idea even with
our adversaries, maybe even more particularly with our
adversaries. If we are going to wait until China has a perfect
human rights record and is a democracy and looks like America,
we will never trade with China. All right? If we are going to
do the same with Russia, we will never trade with Russia. None
of this is an excuse to Russian behavior. But, my goodness, you
have to at least in diplomacy think about what your opponent is
saying. What is Russia saying? They are saying the new Graham
bill would be the equivalent of economic warfare.
We are talking about cutting off pipelines. I see the
pipeline as a good thing. Interconnectedness between Europe and
Russia is a good thing. It makes them less likely to fight. Why
would you want to fight somebody who buys your oil? It is a
good thing for us to be interconnected. Trade is a good thing.
And so I think we need to rethink where we are on this. We
need to think do we have enough sanctions. We have lots and
lots of sanctions. We need now to ask the question Dr. Haass
asked. Are we at a point where the overuse of sanctions and
tariffs will set back U.S. economic and strategic interests?
So I could not disagree more. But it is important to know
what is in these bills before we say we are for them because to
say you are for them but then you are against any sanctions
that would affect our European allies, that is specifically
what the Graham will do and it is specifically why the Graham
bill is a terrible bill that we should not entertain.
I would like to go to another point, though, and this is
for Dr. Haass. You mentioned that NATO is in our strategic
self-interest. And that is a conclusion, and a lot of people
would agree with you. I think that is a conclusion, though,
that is so general that maybe could be examined more
specifically.
So, for example, if we make the argument is the alliance
with France and England in our strategic national interest, our
self-interest, I think you would have a pretty impressive case
and not a whole lot of pushback. But really Montenegro is not
France. Macedonia is not England. And I think the question
really becomes--and I think if it were honestly asked, I think
we would say they are different and we would say that, well,
does Montenegro actually increase our national security by
putting them in NATO, or do they possibly increase our
strategic risks?
And I think there are times in our history when we have
seen alliances that actually cause action and reaction in such
a way that leads to war. I mean, most historians that look at
World War I say that alliances were part of the problem and
that these tripwires and blind allegiance to alliance was
actually part of the problem of World War I.
We have been passing resolutions around here like crazy. If
it is a sanctions bill, it will pass. If it is a bill in
support of NATO, it passes. So, I mean, there is not really a
problem with the will of people saying they are behind NATO.
What I object to, though, is that people say, well, any
willing aspirant that qualifies should be admitted into NATO. I
think that dilutes the effect of NATO to a certain degree, but
I think it also is ignoring basically what the response is from
our adversaries to this. And I thought George Kennan put it
very well in 1998 when he said if you expand NATO into Eastern
Europe, what you will see is a rise of militarism and
nationalism and aggressive leaders.
And, Dr. Haass, even though you have been a supporter of
expanding NATO, you said in 1997, speaking of opponents, that
opponents of a larger NATO predict that NATO's easterly
expansion will provoke a hostile Russian reaction, weakening
the position of responsible forces and strengthening the hand
of Western nationalists. But you went on to really not agree
with the opposition. You agreed with expansion.
But I think there is some point at which it is too much.
You have admitted that Georgia and Ukraine may be a bridge too
far at this point. And so really, I think there has to be some
discussion. Do we want everybody in NATO? Is there no
limitations to who we will put in NATO? Does it dilute the
value of NATO? Is it provocative? And people say, oh, you are
giving credence to Russia's arguments. No, but we have to know
what our adversaries think. If we want to change their
behavior, you have to know what they think. They have been
saying since Boris Yeltsin, who we did like and got along with
better. Gorbachev, Yeltsin, every one of the Russian leaders
have said it is provocative to expand NATO.
So I guess my question to Dr. Haass, is there a difference
between which countries? Does every country that we admit into
NATO increase our national security or our strategic self-
interest?
Ambassador Haass. Thank you, Senator.
The Chairman. I do not think we have ever had anybody
perfectly time a 5-minute monologue to end with a question with
1 second left.
Ambassador Haass. I am impressed with that.
It is always dangerous to have someone quoting you against
yourself.
One quick point. Interconnectedness is not necessarily
stabilizing. A lot depends on the balance of it. There is a
whole theory that trade and interconnectedness--it turned out
to be before World War I--was going to prevent the world war.
It clearly did not work. One dimensional or one directional
dependence is not necessarily--because I think the question
with Europe and Russia is, is Europe's dependence on Russia as
a gas supplier--is that per se good, or might Russia exploit
that dependence for its own geopolitical--essentially take geo-
economics and turn it into geopolitics? That is my area of
concern.
Look, I think you raise a serious point about NATO
enlargement, that it is not just an idea, it is a reality. If
you do it, you undertake not just risks, but obligations. So
NATO enlargement again is something we have got to undertake
seriously, and then we have always got to match capabilities
and willingness to act if we do it. So, no, every country that
wants to become a member should not become a member.
For the record, I did not always favor NATO enlargement.
Indeed, I had questions and I thought there were alternatives,
whether it was Partnership for Peace. At one point I even wrote
a memo in the State Department suggesting that we should look
at the possibility of Russian membership in NATO, and that was
about as successful as many of my other memos when I ran the
policy planning staff.
But we are where we are where we are. And I just think now
I would not do further NATO enlargement.
I would say one other point. Russian aggression in Europe,
whether it is against NATO or not, has consequences. What they
have done against Ukraine has consequences. So if Montenegro
were not in Europe and Russia committed an act of aggression
against it, it is not as though it would not have implications.
The fact is now Montenegro is in there. Montenegro's ability to
contribute to NATO is obviously modest, but our willingness and
ability to defend Montenegro now has, I think, European-wide
benefits because it shows that the United States takes Article
5 seriously.
The Chairman. I appreciate the efforts that are underway to
push back against what Russia may or may not do--they are
already doing but may do more of.
I will say that there is a point here and that is that it
is very difficult in some of the bills that have been laid out
to only punish Russia without punishing our European friends.
And I think that is a well taken point that we have got to
figure out if we are going to do this in the right way.
Secondly on the NATO issue with Turkey that came up
earlier, I mean, I think to say that they are not really a NATO
ally and we should just move them aside--I could not agree
more. There is no way we would let them into NATO. No way. But
we still have the Article 5 commitment. We still have the
Article 5 commitment. Now, unfortunately for us, they are
playing footsy with all of our enemies. So the likelihood of
them having issues is low. But I think that is an issue that
somehow or another we have got to resolve. It is more than just
saying they are not really going to be with us because we also
have the reciprocal agreement.
Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the
witnesses.
And I just want to pick up on Senator Paul's question
because I think it does get to some really fundamental issue.
Is NATO just about purely what is in the U.S.'s interest?
Montenegro is a great example. President Trump uses Montenegro
to kind of denigrate the relevance of NATO. He asked why his
kids should have to go defend Montenegro in the invocation of a
collective defense. I got a kid in the military. So I think
about these issues too.
If it is just about what does it matter to the U.S. and our
immediate interests, that is a really good question. But the
question is, does the promotion of democracy matter to the
United States? Because at the same time as Russia was attacking
the U.S. elections in November 2016, they had an assassination
plot to try to tackle and wipe out the leadership of Montenegro
if they felt that that leadership would support joining in with
other democracies of NATO.
Now, if promotion of democracy means nothing to us, if we
could care less about whether other nations embrace the
democratic model or not, if we have given up on the belief that
that is in fact the best model to help humans achieve their
aspirations, then you are right. Who cares about Montenegro?
But if we think that that matters to us--and it should--
then the fact that an authoritarian nation would want to wipe
out and assassinate their leadership--I do not think we can
turn a blind eye to that.
So fundamentally the question about NATO is about U.S.
interests, but it is also a question about whether the U.S. has
an interest in democracy as a form of government. And that is
what we have to grapple with, the immediate interest, but also
whether we care anymore about democracy as a model that will
help people achieve their aspirations.
One of the false dichotomies that I think has been set up
in some hearings earlier is an administration--and I will pick
up on Senator Menendez's point--that says do not worry about
our words, worry about our actions. Now, those words, as you
point out, are pretty painful. When the President was asked who
was the biggest foe in the world, as he is over interacting
with the EU and NATO countries, and he says the EU is our
biggest foe, those words can be very painful.
But I would not like to allow a false dichotomy as if it is
just words because when you use a national security waiver in a
trade matter against allies, that is more than words. When you
use a national security waiver against allies whose folks have
been killed fighting side by side with American troops, when
you use a national security waiver against Canada when we have
the largest undefended border in the world with them and their
troops fight side by side with our troops in every war since
the War of 1812, we are not talking about an administration
where it is just some intemperate language but actions that are
purely supportive.
There are supportive actions. At NATO there was a
commitment to set up a new NATO command for maritime security
in the Atlantic in Norfolk. There is the reconstitution of the
Second Fleet. Those are some positive actions. But there are
also many actions that are very, very harmful, and labeling
allies as national security threats to me is insulting. It
denigrates the contributions that they have made, and it is
very significant.
I want to ask you about the bill that Senator Gardner and I
and Senator McCain introduced a few weeks ago. And I think,
Senator Menendez, the Menendez-Graham bill and this Gardner-
Kaine bill I think were the last two bills that Senator McCain
signed on to cosponsor. He was not cosponsoring a lot of
legislation in his last few months.
But this sets aside the question of sanctions and it is
just about this question of whether Congress should have to
weigh in to get out of NATO.
Now, the treaty powers of the Senate are such that we have
to offer advice and consent for entering into treaties. There
is a constitutional silence about getting out of treaties. In
some instances, congressional approval has been either required
or sought for exiting treaties. In other instances, Presidents
have gotten out of treaties without Congress. Our bill is just
about this question about removal.
Do any of you have problems with the notion that getting
out of the NATO treaty should require either advice or consent
of the Senate or an act of Congress?
Ambassador Burns. Senator, I think that the Washington
treaty was passed by a two-thirds majority of the Senate in
1949. The Senate was critical in putting that treaty together
with Dean Acheson, President Truman. It is the Central American
alliance in the world. It speaks to our most important
interests.
So hypothetically if there was an attempt to remove the
United States from NATO or to alter our position in NATO in a
fundamental way, the Congress should be involved in that
decision. They should speak for the American people, especially
in an extraordinary time when you have an American President
acting unlike any previous President of both parties. So I have
looked at the draft, and I think it makes sense for Congress to
inject itself into this question.
Dr. Sloan. If I may, Senator. In my introductory comments,
I made the point that the Congress has always been a joint
manager of the transatlantic bargain, along with every
President since the treaty was signed. And I think it is
important because there is a role for Congress to play even
though the Constitution is silent about getting out of
treaties.
But I think the Senate in particular does have an important
responsibility here. The Senate did agree to the North Atlantic
Treaty by more than a two-thirds majority vote, and for any
executive to threaten or create the possibility of the United
States leaving this alliance, I think it is something that the
Senate is justified in looking at its responsibilities under
the Constitution and taking action.
And so I do not have a problem with your proposal. I think
it is something that makes a lot of sense. Whether
constitutional lawyers would have problems with it, I do not
know. I am not one of those. But from a practical point of
view, I do think the Senate continues to have a responsibility
for our commitment to this alliance and needs to act on it if
it is necessary.
Senator Kaine. Mr. Chair, might I ask Mr. Haass also to
respond? He was about to join in.
Ambassador Haass. Very quickly. The mere fact of the
legislation being passed would send a useful signal that I
think would be well received in Europe.
Second of all, I am not a constitutional scholar. I took
one course in constitutional law in graduate school. But I do
not understand why exiting a treaty would be any less
consequential than entering a treaty. In this case, it would be
every bit as consequential. I think the precedent ought to be
that however we got into something, we ought not to get out of
it differently. So it is one thing if a President got into some
arrangement by executive authority, but if we get into it with
the full participation of Congress, I believe we should only
consider getting out it with the full participation of
Congress.
Senator Kaine. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Gardner.
Senator Gardner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the
witnesses for being here today.
Obviously, NATO is one of the most, if not the most,
important security alliance, architecture of our time.
Following up on Senator Barrasso's questions on Nordstream,
here is the Nordstream 2 website. The Nordstream 2 pipeline
will transport natural gas into the European Union to enhance
security of supply, support climate goals, and strengthen the
internal energy market. The EU's domestic gas production is in
rapid decline. To meet demand, the EU needs reliable,
affordable, and sustainable new gas supplies.
Is working with Nordstream a reliable, sustainable,
affordable pipeline? Ambassador Burns?
Ambassador Burns. It is Russian leverage over Western
Europe. That is how President Reagan saw it. We had this debate
now for 35 years with the Europeans. How every American
President has seen it, you cannot trust the Russians not to use
it. Just look at what they have done to Ukraine and to Belarus
and to other neighbors with their gas and oil supplies.
Senator Gardner. Ambassador Burns, Dr. Haass, I think this
is the challenge we have with the American people when we talk
about expending the scarce resources of taxpayer dollars in
NATO trying to explain to them this is an important
architecture. This is a key architecture of our security,
global security, and what we are doing to counter malign
Russian activities in Europe and beyond, but to explain to them
why we are doing this and to watch this pipeline come through,
it is almost as if we have to go back and justify to the U.S.
taxpayer, hey, you know, I know they are doing something that
is not good. They are doing something that is going allow
Russian leverage into their economy, into their energy sector,
but we got to keep spending this money there. That is a
difficult message to be sending to the American people.
Dr. Haass.
Ambassador Haass. Sure it is a difficult message, and that
is true of any relationship where you have got to essentially
argue on balance whether the relationship serves you, you are
better off with it than not. With every alliance relationship,
every even informal relationship, there are parts of the other
country's behavior that gives us heartburn for good reason that
we cannot defend or agree to. So you think you have to look at
the totality of U.S.-European relations and you have got to
look at the best approach for trying to reduce or ultimately
wean the Europeans on dependence with Russia. And I think what
you are hearing from Ambassador Burns and myself is questioning
the efficacy of sanctions at a time when we are already
overusing that instrument and instead let us sit down and
figure out a long-term approach with alternative energy
resources, whether it is gas, oil----
Senator Gardner. Is the totality of security in Europe
enhanced by the Nordstream 2 pipeline?
Ambassador Haass. No. Nordstream detracts from it because
it gives the Russians leverage.
Senator Gardner. And that is why I think you see this
effort by Senator Barrasso, myself, and others to use this
leverage. I understand concern with sanctions, but at some
point, we have to get somebody's attention as we are explaining
to the American people why billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars go
to this very important security alliance, that we make this
point as strongly as possible. So thank you for that.
We have seen obviously March 2018 Russian Government
attempts to assassinate two Russian nationals in Salisbury. We
have seen the Russian Federation use of chemical or biological
weapons in violation of international law. Senator Menendez and
I have introduced legislation that would require the State
Department to consider whether or not Russia should be named a
state sponsor of terror.
Do you believe or agree that Russia is a malign actor? Do
you believe their actions have undermined U.S. national
security, global peace and stability? I think all three of you
would say yes. Is that correct?
Ambassador Haass. Yes. Selectively the answer is yes. I
think the question for you and your colleagues is to say, okay,
given that and given the full range of interests and issues we
have with Russia, what is the smartest overall response? Okay,
there are sanctions, but what else forms the U.S.-Russian
relation? Where does diplomacy fit in? We want to avoid a
situation, I would think, Senator, where it is all or nothing.
So we still want to be able to deal with some issues where
there is some overlap in U.S.-Russia relations, say, areas of
arms control. We do not want Russia to do certain things that
help North Korea. We do not want Russia to do certain things
that could help Iran. So the issue is how do we respond to the
particulars given the totality of this relationship.
Ambassador Burns. Could I just add, Senator, very quickly?
Senator Gardner. Sure.
Ambassador Burns. The reason why our sanctions against
Iran, which Congress voted in 2010 and 2011, were so effective,
we joined them with the EU. The reason why the Russia sanctions
after Crimea were so effective in 2014, 2015, 2016, we joined
them with the EU. So I am for sanctions against Russia. I am
very reluctant to think that we should sanction Europe because
we hurt ourselves in this balance, this equation that we have
always got to keep in mind.
Senator Gardner. Going back to the question of the
legislation Senator Menendez and I have introduced, do you
think it is legislation that would ask the State Department to
designate or consider the designation of Russia as a state
sponsor of terror is something we should pursue or not? Dr.
Haass?
Ambassador Haass. Without knowing the full consequences--
but look, Russia is carrying out state-sponsored terrorism when
it is killing these individuals. This is not foreign policy.
These are acts of aggression against individuals. What is
terrorism? Traditionally it is the use of military force or
violence by non-state actors against innocents for political
purposes. The one exception here is Russia is obviously a state
actor. So whether it is technically called terrorism or not,
this is an act of violence committed by a state. Put aside the
definition of whether it is terrorism or not, we ought to think
about how we respond to it. And this I think very much we ought
to do with Europe because they have been the principal targets.
Senator Gardner. Ambassador Burns, do you think we should
pass legislation to require the State Department to go through
a consideration of whether Russia should be named a state
sponsor of terror?
Ambassador Burns. And I believe there is a statute, and we
have been working on it for decades. And Congress and State
should look into Russian actions that would be defined as
terrorism, yes.
Senator Gardner. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you all for being here.
I want to go back to the issue that Senator Johnson raised
about given the size of Russia versus the EU and the United
States and NATO, how they have been able to be so successful.
And as we are looking at the future, are we looking at or
should we be prioritizing conflict against a nation state like
Russia, or should we be prioritizing conflict that is more in
the gray zone that includes hybrid warfare? And can you assess
to what extent NATO is prepared for those two efforts?
Ambassador Burns. Senator, I think where NATO's comparative
advantage is strongest is to use our military power to contain.
Very important that President Obama, Secretary Ash Carter, and
now the Trump administration have both agreed to move forces
east. That is the language that Putin understands. I think we
had a conversation with Senator Paul earlier. The probability
of a Russian conventional attack on a NATO ally is quite small.
The probability of an asymmetric intelligence operation is much
higher. So you guard against the conventional one. We are not
as good, frankly, at recognizing and then responding under
Article 4 or Article 5 of the NATO treaty to that asymmetric
attack. The denial of service attack against Estonia way back
in March 2007--it took us months to figure out what it was. So
I think that is where NATO needs to do more work.
President Obama and the Trump administration have been
pushing NATO on the cyber end to have a greater appreciation to
recognize threats and then to respond to them on a cyber-
intelligence basis. And I think that is where the soft
underbelly is right now of the NATO alliance.
Dr. Sloan. And one of the positive things that came out of
the Brussels NATO summit is that NATO is moving ahead in this
area, much more concentration on it.
Senator Shaheen. Right. We saw that, which I agree is a
very positive step.
So take that into Syria where we have a quagmire that it is
not clear what U.S. policy is on Syria right now I think, where
we are seeing Russia and Iran and the Assad regime partnering
to essentially take over Syria and throw us out of even the
limited presence that we have. What should we be thinking about
in terms of Syria?
Ambassador Burns. Here I would say that we have not had a
clear strategy since----
Senator Shaheen. Ever.
Ambassador Burns. --since 2013. President Obama did not and
President Trump does not.
We are in an unfortunate position. The Russians hold most
of the cards through their alliance with Iran, Hezbollah, and
Syria.
We have some leverage. It is the several thousand U.S.
Special Forces east of the Euphrates. It is our coalition with
the Syrian Kurds. We ought to use that leverage. If I am
reading the papers correctly, the administration has decided to
leave the troops there. I think that is wise. But certainly now
in a country of 22.4 million people, to have 12 million people
displaced as refugees or displaced internally, we have got to
turn our attention to that problem. And that gets to
immigration and refugee admittance into the United States. It
gets to forward deployed assistance in the field to the NGOs
and the U.N. that run the camps that are so essential.
And I think last--and here there is maybe a glimmer of
hope--one of our very best diplomats has just been appointed
the Syria Coordinator, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey. We need to get
involved diplomatically with the Turks, with the Iranians, with
the Russians and the Syrians to try to end the war. It is not
going to end in terms favorable to us. But if there is an
offensive in Idlib province, the bloodletting, the civilian
casualties could be even higher than we saw in 2015 and 2016.
So I think it is the diplomatic play, maintaining our military
leverage that gives us at least a chance to play a role here.
Ambassador Haass. I was going to say I think the most
difficult question, though, if it seems likely we see an
intensified offensive, Iran, Russia, and Syria against Idlib,
the question is do we do anything. Are we prepared in any way
to intervene directly or indirectly through the forces that we
have been associated with? If we do not, we know what will
happen. The Syrian Government will reassert authority over its
entire territory and there will be massive human casualties. If
we do, it is less clear. If we were to help, it is not exactly
clear what we would do and it is not exactly clear what the
consequence is. But time is running out to answer that question
because this is going to play out rather quickly. But we are at
that point. This is now the last hurrah of this phase of the
Syrian civil regional war.
Senator Shaheen. I agree, and I would argue that we have a
presence in the northern section of Syria. That gives us some
negotiating ability that we should continue to support.
I know I am out of time, but I want to get to the
Afghanistan question, Dr. Haass, because General Nicholson
retired this week, and when he did, he said it is time for the
Afghan war to end. So how does that end in any way at all that
provides for some reassurance to all of those lives that were
lost in Afghanistan that provides us reassurance that it is not
going to again become a hotbed for terrorist activity?
Ambassador Haass. I do not think I can give you an answer
that you are going to like. I do not think the war is going to
end. I do not believe peace is at hand, and I cannot imagine
the scenario by which peace would be at hand. I simply do not
see the unity amongst the Afghan Government and the various
tribes. I do not see Pakistan fundamentally changing its
policy. I do not see the Taliban changing their stripes. So my
guess is if your definition of victory is how does this war
end, I do not think we are ever going to get there. I think a
more realistic policy is what are the minimal interests we need
to try to defend in Afghanistan. And it might be keeping Kabul
under the government, not seeing terrorists set up shop again
as was done before 9/11. If we have a more modest approach,
that will be plenty ambitious. But I think if our idea is to
somehow have a formal peace or have the government win
militarily and take over the entire country, I think neither
one of those is realistic.
If I can say one other thing and it slightly gets at what
you said, Senator. We have to decide if we are going to look at
Afghanistan as a place we have now invested for all these
years, for nearly 2 decades, and we are going to act in certain
ways because of that, or are we going to treat Afghanistan like
any other piece of real estate because we have dozens of
countries where we do not want terrorists to take up shop and
where we are helping governments through training, arming,
intelligence. We have a degree of Special Forces presence, some
direct action against them.
And I would say the time has probably come to treat
Afghanistan the same way we treat several dozen other countries
as simply one of the venues in the world where we have to worry
about terrorism and that we need to dial it down. We cannot
have Afghanistan be a place of ambitious American foreign
policy. So this does not end the war, but I think it does
reduce the ambition and the cost of it.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Young.
Senator Young. Well, thank you, Chairman, for holding this
important hearing.
I want to thank all our distinguished panelists for your
thoughtful testimony.
Mr. Burns, you made a really good point that I think needs
to be underscored, which is that NATO is a political alliance
as much as it is a military alliance. And that suggests that we
can build off of those relationships since we share common
values and have a foundation for common trust, I think as Mr.
Sloan put it, and perhaps solve other issues.
So with that in mind, I would like to explore with you
whether we might harness the power of the NATO relationship
historically, even in light of some recent anxiety about the
strength of that alliance, to deal with predatory international
economic practices, particularly those by China but also to a
lesser extent by other countries.
Dr. Haass, you write, quote, ``the EU is a friend not a
foe. European countries offer the best set of partners
available to the United States for tackling global
challenges.''
Mr. Sloan, you characterized NATO as a coalition in
waiting, presumably to solve all manner of different
challenges.
Mr. Haass, you indicated that one potential area that NATO
could be helpful moving forward is our effort to optimize and
reform WTO and its efficacy.
So with all these thoughts having been laid before this
committee by our panelists, I am just going to ask each of you
to build out on some of your prior thoughts and imagine how we
might work with our NATO allies or, more broadly, our EU
partners to deal with predatory economic practices. And that
could be by establishing a collective economic security
framework that emphasizes reciprocity, as well as following the
established norms of a liberal trading order, or through some
other mechanism. But is it possible for us to operationalize
this collective effort to deal with a threat shared by all,
which is these predatory economic practices, and if so, how?
Mr. Haass, we will begin with you, sir.
Ambassador Haass. It is sure worth an effort because we are
now on a trajectory that will be bad for American national
security and for our economy alike.
Look, there are all sorts of practices that we and the
Europeans ought to be working on to try to reduce or eliminate,
from currency manipulation, government subsidies, which are a
major trade distorter, obviously intellectual property
protection. Now, some progress was made in the area of
improving trade called TPP. And I believe we made a major
economic and strategic error by pulling back from TPP. We ought
to have a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. We want to
have it on our terms, not China's. So one thing would be for
Congress to push in that direction.
With Europe, let us begin to design the architecture of a
transatlantic trade and investment area. We have been talking
about it for years. Let us not talk to Britain about it
narrowly as in a post-Brexit scenario. Let us talk to the EU
writ large about that, and then we can also talk--the last
round of global trade talks ended in failure, the Doha Round.
But we ought to be looking at what has to happen at the WTO.
WTO provides some very useful functions, dispute adjudication
and so forth. It has been very good at tariff reductions. It
still has to work on things like non-tariff barriers and some
of the other issues I mentioned. This ought to be the agenda.
But unilateralism and tariffs and sanctions I do not think is
the way to go here.
Senator Young. Mr. Burns.
Ambassador Burns. Two quick points, Senator.
Number one is in my experience, just thinking globally for
the United States, NATO and the EU are our best partners in
upholding what you were talking about, this international
system, economic, political, military, that we have constructed
since the Second World War. That is fair value. And if I had
had a chance to respond to the very good question from Senator
Paul, I would have said that. That is the value to the United
States. NATO--it is security of Europe and it is that political
value system that you referred to where we can work with the
NATO allies, and we have to right now in Europe to preserve
democracies.
The EU I think is the instrument on the trade issue, the
largest trade partner and largest investor. They are our
competitors--the Europeans--as well as our partners. They would
have been with us in a big trade action against China if we had
not hit the Europeans first. And that was I think the problem--
--
Senator Young. Has the water gone under the bridge? I mean,
do you think we might revisit that if in fact the President's
approach does not work? And that is an open question at this
point. We see that the Chinese economy is somewhat brittle. I
have my own anxiety, which I have been very clear about, with
respect to the lack of clarity on the strategic front. But do
you think it is still a possibility?
Ambassador Burns. I do. I do not think this option has
disappeared because long-term what the Europeans have to worry
about is the same thing we have to worry about: China ripping
off our intellectual property, China not playing by the rules
in a way that benefits them and hurts us. They want to be on
our side. So tactically it makes sense for us to bring them to
our side and use that combined power of 800 million people, the
two largest global economies, against China.
Senator Young. Well, I agree.
Mr. Sloan.
Dr. Sloan. I guess my bottom line is that it would be a big
mistake to try to operationalize NATO in this area. Article 2
of the North Atlantic Treaty, what is called the Canadian
article, does promote economic cooperation in resolving
economic conflicts among member states in the alliance. But
NATO has never been used for that purpose, and I think trying
to operationalize the alliance in that way at this point would
be more disruptive than helpful because it would not respond to
the security mandate, which is the primary--political and
security mandate of the alliance, which is the primary role of
the alliance.
Senator Young. Do you think this effort would drain energy
from the NATO alliance if in fact we focused on predatory
economic practices that injure not just Americans but
Europeans? I am confused.
Dr. Sloan. I think the problem, Senator, would be that the
United States and European allies would all look at those
practices somewhat differently because they are affected
differently by those practices. And that could be disruptive
inside the alliance. I do not have any problem with saying the
political and military unity of the alliance could be helpful
in terms of making us recognize that these are issues that we
need to deal with, but in terms of using NATO to deal with them
I think would be a mistake. It is always bad for an
organization to take on a task or set an objective that it
probably cannot accomplish, and I think that would be bad for
the alliance.
Senator Young. I am grateful for your thoughts. Thank you,
sir.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Murphy.
Senator Murphy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This has
been very, very helpful. Thank you to all three of you.
So we have spent most of our time here questioning you
about asymmetric threats presented by Russia and other
competitors to the alliance. We have not spent a lot of time
talking about the threat of Russia marching across a border.
And yet, we are still all stuck in this world in which we
assess the contributions of both the United States and our
partners through their spending on conventional military means.
We have talked around this a bunch, and I maybe am just going
to try to rephrase the question that has been asked to you in
pieces.
Either NATO is a comprehensive mutual defense treaty or it
is not. And most of what we are doing with our European
partners to stand up capacities against all these other threats
we are doing outside of the technical confines of NATO. Much of
what Europe does on counterterrorism initiatives, on energy
independence initiatives it does through the European Union,
for instance, or it does through bilateral relationships and
conversations between member states and the United States.
And so I guess the tough question is it seems like this is
a moment in which we have to either fundamentally rethink all
of the things that need to be inside the NATO umbrella and then
come up with an assessment as to whether a country is measuring
up, or we need to just say, you know what, listen is going to
be a conventional military alliance that is going to make sure
that nobody marches an army across a border and we are going to
work on all this other stuff in a variety of other ad hoc
manners.
For instance, the propaganda war is something that Senator
Portman and I spend a lot of time thinking about, and so do
lots of countries in Europe. In fact, many countries in Europe
spend a lot of money, spend a lot of resources to try to fight
back against Russian propaganda. But nowhere do we assess those
contributions when deciding whether they are adequately doing
their duty as a member of the transatlantic alliance, which
makes me think that we are really not serious about this
alliance actually meeting the multiplicity of threats that are
presented to us.
I mean, are we not at a moment where you have to really
fundamentally rethink what is inside NATO, what counts as a
contribution, or just admit that NATO is going to address a
fairly narrow and lingering conventional military threat?
Ambassador Burns. I think what you are saying, Senator--and
I agree with it--is that we have to have a strategic
relationship with Europe. And part of that relationship, as it
has been since 1949, providing for the security of the European
countries and us, is going to be primarily through NATO. Part
of that is going to be primarily through the European Union
because, as you know, a lot of the capacity on the cyber side,
on trade and sanctions side is going to be in the EU, and the
Europeans will insist that we work through the EU on those
issues. Not every member of NATO is a member of the European
Union. And so we have to have a combined strategic alliance
with both. We have a formal treaty with NATO, but we have a
very close interlocking relationship with the EU.
That is why in my judgment the problem that we have right
now is that the President has talked down NATO and diminished
NATO. He has also described the EU, as everyone has said, as
the foe of the United States. It is the reverse.
And so you need two senior American ambassadors in Brussels
working together on both of those institutions to do everything
that you have just suggested, which is everything under the sun
to protect the United States, working with Europe and to
advance our interests. It is institution-based.
Ambassador Haass. I agree it is institution-based, but let
me make one other point.
I would not offer offsets, if that is what you are getting
at, Senator. I would say the military dimension of European
security and common U.S.-European effort is necessary but not
sufficient. So I think it is important for the purpose of a
NATO alliance, which has a political but, above all, a military
dimension, that there is sufficient effort there.
I think we have also got to work with Europeans on the full
range of other threats to our common welfare, be it economic,
cyber, counterterrorism, health, what have you, but I would not
say it is okay to only spend 1 percent on defense because you
are doing all this other work on other things. I would say you
ought to be spending more on defense and doing all these other
things not as a favor to us but as a favor to yourselves. It is
the same argument, the mirror side of it. And I would not put
it in NATO if you do not have the right personnel. NATO has got
more than enough on its hands or on its plate doing what it is
meant to do. But you need to have some people who take a step
back and look at the totality of these relationships.
Senator Murphy. I understand, but when we have a measurable
means of assessing conventional military threats and an
unmeasurable means of assessing non-military threats, then we
tend to have our conversations only in the place that we can
measure. And so we do $4 billion of European Reassurance
Initiatives, and none of that money goes to energy
independence. And yet, we harangue the Europeans for not being
more serious about breaking their dependence on Russian oil and
gas.
So I just think this is a moment in which we need to talk
about the way in which we measure contributions to NATO and the
way in which that incentivizes us to continue to have this
overly militaristic view of the capacities of the alliance.
Dr. Sloan. If I could just add to that perspective. Back in
the 1980s when the Congress insisted on an allied commitments
report from the Defense Department every year, at one point the
Defense Department decided to include in what the European
allies were asking to have put in that report, and that is
development assistance. And the Congress came back and said no,
no, no, that is not what we want. We want to know only about
military efforts.
So there has been some resistance to counting things that
actually do contribute to security. And I think what you have
raised is a very important point and that is that other
contributions other than military ones need to be included. And
the United States makes important contributions to security
that are not military contributions. So I think it is wise to
try to broaden our perspective.
One of the wild cards in this equation is the relationship
between NATO and the European Union. It has never been
institutionally easy. It has gotten better, and the Ambassador
certainly experienced that in his time in Brussels. But it is
something that needs to get better, and I think it is headed in
the right direction now.
Senator Murphy. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Thank you very much. Gentlemen, thank you.
We heard Mr. Haass' view of where we ought to be in
thinking about where we are going in Afghanistan. Mr. Burns,
Mr. Sloan, I would like to hear your thoughts on that same
issue hopefully in a little more of an executive summary
because I have got a couple of other issues I would like to
explore. Mr. Burns?
Ambassador Burns. Thank you, Senator.
First, I think the President's appointment of Ambassador
Khalilzad is very positive. He knows the country.
We appear to be heading to a situation where we have to
promote some kind of diplomatic discussions between the Taliban
and the Ashraf Ghani government. That makes sense for us. I did
not believe in this for a long time when I served in the Bush
administration. I believe in it now, 17 years in, a lot of
Americans dead, 2,400 Americans dead, a lot of wounded, allied
losses. We cannot win the war conventionally. So we have got to
have a combined military presence, which we have, and the
allies are going to stay with us until we leave and they have
got the money to do it. But we have to have a diplomatic side
to this, and I think Ambassador Khalilzad is going to be very
important in developing that for President Trump.
Senator Risch. Thank you.
Mr. Sloan.
Dr. Sloan. I think I agree with the general assessment. It
is very difficult for our country to admit that we have not won
when we have dedicated so much effort, lost so many lives for
something like Afghanistan. But it is something that we need to
consider, and that is how as a nation we bring ourselves to the
point to acknowledge that this war is not winnable in
traditional terms. And so it is a huge political problem as
much as a technical issue of exactly what kind of presence and
efforts we maintain in Afghanistan. But until we get that
national consensus, I think that it will be very difficult for
any President and any Congress to decide exactly what to do. I
think building some kind of national consensus behind the idea
of exactly how we do shape the future of our policy toward
Afghanistan is an important first step.
Senator Risch. I appreciate that.
Let us turn to Syria for a minute, starting with you, Mr.
Haass. Again, hopefully in an executive fashion, if you would
give me your same assessment.
I think all of us are very troubled with what we see coming
in the future in Syria. There is a bloody conflict coming there
that is going to be painful for everyone to watch, let alone
experience. And there is not really any discussion in
Washington going on about what we are going to do about this.
Are we just going to stand by and watch it, or are we going to
send a letter of protest? What are we going to do?
So, Mr. Haass, briefly can you tell me where we ought to go
and what your thoughts are on that?
Ambassador Haass. Senator, if there ever were good options
in Syria, they are no longer around. The moment I think that
there was a chance for ouster of Bashir al-Assad has long since
passed. I think a lot of this area is going to be taken by the
combined Russian, Iranian, Syrian effort. So I think our focus
ought to be on how do we protect as many lives as possible, how
do we create whether it is a safe area or some area where
people can be protected. But I do not think at the moment I can
sit here and make the case that if we were to intervene
militarily directly, we could have results that would be
commensurate with the risks and costs. I think that day has
passed.
Senator Risch. Mr. Burns.
Ambassador Burns. Three quick points.
One, maintain the U.S. troop presence. It is the only
leverage we have.
Number two, a diplomatic initiative. And I just lauded the
appointment of Ambassador Jim Jeffrey. He is as good as it
gets. He knows the region. We have to get in the game
diplomatically almost to cut our losses but to retain American
influence.
And number three, continue the very generous assistance of
the Congress and the American people to refugees. I would
respectfully say that the administration should now determine
that we need to take in more Syrian refugees, do our share as
the Canadians and Europeans are doing, because it is a crisis
with 12 million Syrians homeless out of a population of 22.4
million.
Senator Risch. Mr. Sloan.
Dr. Sloan. I basically endorse the Ambassador's three
points. I think that that kind of an approach is critically
important. Dealing with the refugee issue is obviously
something that is in the interests of the United States and
also in terms of the interests of our European allies and
stability in Europe because it has been the flow of refugees,
because of Syria and ISIS, into Europe that has led to the
strengthening of the radical right populist parties that have
taken advantage of the fear of this process of migration and
created instability for a number of our European allies.
Senator Risch. Thank you very much.
My time is almost up. I wish I had more time to explore
this.
But I say this with all due respect, and I mean it. I think
that all of you have underestimated the difficulty that this
Turkey situation is causing us and going to cause us with NATO.
And I hope I am wrong on that, but so long as Mr. Erdogan is
there and hopefully not after he is gone, this is a serious,
serious problem. Particularly when you look at the Turks and
their long, long adverse history with Russia and they are
playing footsy under the table with Russia, this is a very
difficult problem.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Sloan. Could I just very briefly since I have not had
the opportunity to say anything about Turkey? I think what you
are saying is incredibly important, Senator. And I think we
have to recognize in the United States and the Europeans have
to recognize that we bear some responsibility for what has
happened in Turkey. The European Community and the European
Union maintain the fantasy tale that Turkey could become a
member of the European Union while at the same time most
Europeans did not believe this would ever happen. And the
United States continued to support that objective when we
perhaps should have been looking at ways to create or to
encourage Turkey to take a different role that would be more
autonomous with the relationship with the European Union, but
not to put all of our eggs in the basket of Turkey joining the
European Union.
I think we should look back at the history here, and as
both of my colleagues have said, we need to be patient with
Turkey in terms of not moving away from her any further than is
necessary and holding out the hope for the future and working
toward a future in which a different government will be in
place in Turkey.
Senator Risch. My view is they are moving away from us as
opposed to us moving away from them. So thank you very much.
The Chairman. Senator Udall.
Senator Udall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you all very much, the panelists here today. I
think it has been very enlightening--your comments on where we
should head and where we should really rethink some of the
policies we have had in the past.
The chairman and several other members traveled to
countries over the Fourth of July right on the border of
Russia, and this was just before the Helsinki Summit took
place. And the countries, specifically Finland that was not a
part--these countries and all their leaders were very worried
about the approach of this administration and what President
Trump was going to do. And one of the things that was worried
about was President Trump going to announce no expansion of
NATO. And I know, Mr. Haass, I think you said earlier--and I
wanted to explore this. You said you did not think we should
expand NATO now. But if you announce that publicly, does that
not play into Putin's threat and the feelings that these
countries have? What are you thinking on that?
Ambassador Haass. I do not feel there is any need to make
an announcement. That would be inconsistent with the
enlargement process. I simply do not see that Georgia or
Ukraine now or any time soon are going to meet the
requirements. So I think it is basically a moot point for now
and for the foreseeable future.
Senator Udall. Ambassador Burns and Mr. Sloan, please.
Ambassador Burns. We are a European power. We have been
since the late 1940s. So we are the key country. We need to
signal that NATO's door remains open to further enlargement. It
is well understood that Ukraine and Georgia do not meet the
requirements right now. It will be a long time. If you close
the door, then you give Putin an opportunity to take the kind
of measures that he has taken against both of those countries.
Senator Udall. Mr. Sloan, you wanted to say something.
Dr. Sloan. Yes, I would.
It is very important to keep that door open even though I
agree that Ukraine and Georgia are not at this point ready for
membership in terms of what NATO has insisted on, the
requirements for membership in the past.
But I would comment on Finland and Sweden, and that is if
both Finland and Sweden decided that they wanted to apply for
membership, they would be in in a day. That is an exaggeration,
but we would welcome them in with open arms I am quite sure.
They already are cooperating, as you know, so intensely with
NATO, and it is because of their enhanced fears of what Putin
is up to, what he might do against them. And so in terms of
that enlargement, if they decided politically internally that
they wanted to join, I am sure that NATO countries would
welcome them in.
Senator Udall. And those countries, by the way, are
expending I think above the target that we have talked about in
terms of military spending, which is very impressive.
Mr. Haass, I think you made a very important statement when
you talked about this not being an all or nothing response to
Russia. I was at a dinner last night with Ambassador Pickering,
and he said something very similar. And he talked about the
kinds of things that we have worked on over the years with the
Russians. You mentioned one in terms of arms control. We were
able to work with the Russians in terms of Iran on the JCPOA
and all of those kinds of activities.
I mean, how do we proceed on these issues where you have
these election threats and all of the other things that are
going on? What additional role do you think Congress should
play in this, and is there an opening for us to get involved in
this?
Ambassador Haass. I would say two things.
One, when I was last in Russia, which was maybe 6 months
ago, it had been several years since there had been a
congressional delegation in Russia. Since then, there has been
one but I think it was simply one party.
I think the resumption of, if it can be worked out, a
bipartisan CODEL so the Russians hear that it is across the
American political spectrum, here are our concerns with what
Russia is doing in its various aspects of its foreign and
domestic policy, I think that would be good. I think they need
to hear these things. We are not against the relationship with
Russia, but we are against these Russian behaviors. And to the
extent they got a sense that was broadly and deeply shared in
the American political spectrum, it would be good.
Second of all, I would just say we need to be mindful of
sanctions in the following way. If we introduce sanctions for
all sorts of behaviors, we have got to make sure we retain some
flexibility to keep the relationship open. We cannot preclude
areas of limited cooperation. This almost is an anti-linkage
policy. I do not think we want to get in a situation with
Russia that because of what you are doing on A, B, and C, we
preclude potential cooperation on D, E, and F. So I think we
have got to be very narrow and targeted in our sanctions.
I think the best we can hope for, as we look toward the
future with countries like China and Russia, is we are going to
have relationships. We are going to have big areas of
disagreement or even worse, but we are still going to have some
areas of selective interaction, even conceivably cooperation.
So we have got to be mindful, and when we introduce penalties,
we do not preclude the selective areas of cooperation.
Senator Udall. Would you both respond to that?
Ambassador Burns. I would agree that both President Trump
and the Congress need to keep the lines open to Moscow. We need
to be talking to them. What is the agenda? North Korea, Syria,
Iran, Afghanistan, the future of arms control. New START that
President Bush negotiated expires in 2021, and so we are going
to have to deal with the Russians. At the same time, we are in
containment mode through our sanctions and troop presence in
Eastern Europe and we have got to contain Putin and his
generation until they pass from power.
Dr. Sloan. Senator, ironically from the Cold War era, there
is a formula that I think is still relevant today. It was
called the Harmel Formula. In those days, it was called the
formula for defense and detente. You manage your defense to be
able to deter the Soviet Union in those days and you try to
promote detente between the east and west.
Today it is more of a defense, deterrence, and dialogue.
And I think the United States and its NATO allies pursue that
kind of a formula wisely and making sure that we do not let
Russia get away with its activities that are contrary to our
interests. I think that is a good formula to work with in the
future, as well as it was during the Cold War.
Senator Udall. Thank you. And thank you for your
courtesies, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Yes, sir.
Senator Rubio.
Senator Rubio. Thank you.
I want to address head on sort of this strain of thinking
among some that our challenges with Russia are the result of
something we did, that we offended them in some way and if we
were just nicer to them, Putin would be more cooperative.
Perhaps you disagree. That is why I want to ask all three of
you. You spend a lot of time on this.
It is my view that by and large that Putin wants to be a
great global figure on top of sort of deep, historical
rationale for both Russian nationalism and sort of the trauma
of losing its great power status at the end of the collapse of
the Soviet Union. And domestically too, by the way, being able
to argue that he is an indispensable global leader and that
Russia matters again allows him to paper over some of the other
difficulties in Russian society and the like.
And so the truth of the matter is that in Vladimir Putin's
view of the world, he is in a direct geopolitical competition
with the United States, and the only way he wins is if we lose.
In essence, the only way he has more influence and power and is
bigger and greater is if America has less.
Is that an accurate assessment of what we are dealing with?
Ambassador Haass. I think we can have an argument about
whether NATO enlargement, what we did with Libya and all that
contributed to Russia's alienation. But I am not going to fight
your basic point. We are where we are where we are. And it
clear to me that Mr. Putin has rejected as a goal Russia's
integration in what we would call the liberal world order.
Indeed, I believe he has rejected what we would call the
liberal world order. He seeks a very different place for
Russia. He seeks a very different world. And I think we have to
see him in most situations now not as a partner, but as someone
who has a very different agenda which is inconsistent with
ours.
Ambassador Burns. Well, I am going to be in violent
agreement with you. Putin caused this strategic mess that he is
in and that we are in with him. We gave Russia every chance--
President George H.W. Bush, President Clinton in the 1990s with
a lot of aid from the United States and a lot of friendship to
see if democracy would work. We were right to expand NATO. The
Russians did not like it, but they did not end the relationship
over that. They ended it over the perception that the United
States was supporting the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the
Orange Revolution in Kiev back during the George W. Bush
administration, in which I served. I think that was the issue
that turned Putin against us, but I do not blame us. I am glad
we supported those democratic efforts in Georgia and Ukraine.
So now we are stuck in Putin's zero sum world, as you say,
Senator, and we have to compete. And we are a lot stronger and
we will emerge if we defend our allies in Eastern Europe,
defend NATO enlargement. We will win this without a war because
he is not going to attack NATO. At some point he passes from
the scene in the next decade or so. We have just got to have
the courage to stay with our policy of containment until that
happens.
Dr. Sloan. Can I respond briefly as well?
There are those who say that what NATO and what the United
States did in enlarging the alliance was provocative and is
responsible for a lot of Putin's behavior. I really reject that
completely because even though I think what NATO did was
provocative in one respect, and that was it offered an
alternative political approach for countries that wanted to
become members of the alliance and wanted to move away from
being controlled by the Soviet Union. For Putin, this was, I
think, threatening.
I think he understood, has always understood that NATO is
not the kind of alliance that will attack Russia. I do not
think that he has any fear of NATO militarily, but he does fear
that countries on Russia's border becoming liberal democracies,
Western democracies will present a model of governance that
will threaten his power and his ability to sustain his control
in Russia.
Senator Rubio. A quick point I want to make. There is a lot
of concern about adding countries could get us into a war. We
have no obligation under the NATO treaty to come to the defense
of an aggressor. The NATO treaty is and our obligations are
almost exclusively defensive in nature. Is that not correct?
Ambassador Burns. That is how Article 5 is written. First
of all, there is no obligation to do anything under Article 5.
You have to assess what you want to do. But it is a defensive
article. It is not an offensive article.
Senator Rubio. In that context about Putin in general, as
we talked about the zero sum game, he is, though, a cost-
benefit analyzer. He makes decisions on the basis of--that is
the reason why these influence campaigns have provided a
benefit that exceeds the cost.
Is there not then wisdom, for example, in putting in place,
for example, a cost ahead of future interference to say this is
the price you will pay? Sanctions are one thing. You have
already paid that price. It is another thing is to say this is
what will happen, sanctions and otherwise, in the future if you
do X, Y, or Z so that he knows ahead of time what the price
will be and theoretically he would want--or in reality, you
would want that price to be higher than the benefit he thinks
he derives. Is there not wisdom in deterring a future influence
campaign by putting in place predetermined penalties he knows
he will pay so he knows exactly what the price point is?
Ambassador Haass. I think the answer to that is yes in part
because let us be honest about the context he is making his
decisions. He made a heavy investment in Ukraine. His cost-
benefit paid off. He made a heavy investment in Syria. His
return on investment--if we did that on Wall Street, we would
be extraordinarily happy. And his active measures in various
elections again have paid off. So he has taken three fairly big
geopolitical risks. In all three, I would say, his benefits
have outweighed his costs. So in order to change that thinking,
we have to persuade him that if he were to take another big
risk again, this time there would be a different outcome. So it
cannot leave a lot of discretion.
And quite possibly Congress will have to take the lead here
given the statements of this President, given his views of
Russia. Plus I do not know--maybe you do--what he communicated
in the one-on-one in Helsinki. So I think the more that we can
be explicit about the cost, the more likely we are to deter.
Ambassador Burns. Can I just say, Senator, the problem we
have had since 2016 is we have not been clear about what the
penalty is or shall be? And so if part of the bill that you may
be referring to or the draft bill that I have read would set
out very clearly what the penalty is--Putin is a rational
person. He is opportunistic but rational. He will understand
that those are going to be the penalties. We have got to make
sure that he perceives that we are serious about it. So I do
favor that kind of approach.
The Chairman. And if those penalties affect Europe
adversely? I mean, we are talking around something. You
understand there is no way to hit Russia without hitting
Europe. So you are saying hit Europe too.
Ambassador Burns. I am not saying that. I think there are
ways to hit Russia with further sanctions against Russian
oligarchs, against Russian economic interests, if they
interfere in the midterms or in 2020, that are separate from
the kinds of sanctions that were being talked about on the
Nordstream 2 issue.
Ambassador Haass. We also want to look at Russia's
participation in the global financial system. Again, we want to
narrow them rather than have Europe to the extent possible--we
do not want Europe to be collateral damage.
The Chairman. We are probably going to settle this issue
over the next 3 weeks. Otherwise, there is no reason to settle
it. I think everybody would agree.
So just again, as we move down the road, I am all for the
kinds of things that are being discussed unless we are hurting
our friends also. I think it is easy to throw things around
here until you get into the specifics. Specifics matter because
we are going to be passing laws. Especially when you start
talking about a financial system, you are not just talking
Russia. So we have to actually pass things that have words in
them not just tilts towards things. And I hope that you will be
helpful to us over the next 3 weeks also.
Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
I would like to turn to an issue which I think we should be
talking about, which is nuclear arms control, so that we
reflect the fact that even at the height of the Cold War, the
U.S. and the Soviet Union were talking about these issues. And
I would like to, if I could, just turn to the New START treaty
and its central limits and the desirability of trying to have
that conversation so that we have an extension of the New START
agreement beyond 2021 so that we do not wind up with no
replacement in place and an unnecessary set of expenditures
that are made on both sides that could be put to better use.
So, Ambassador Burns, Ambassador Haass, I would love to get
your reflections on that.
Ambassador Burns. Senator, thank you.
You can see in the press there is an ongoing debate, as
there should be, in the Trump administration about what we do,
several different options being discussed publicly.
No question. This is one of the reasons why we have to have
an open channel to the Russians. As we compete with them and
sanction them in some places, we have got to have a discussion
about stability on the nuclear arms front.
The easiest solution that I think is available to us for
President Trump would just be to extend the current treaty and
to give us some time to stabilize that part of the relationship
because we have a very disruptive agenda with the Russians in
other places. But that would be my recommendation at this
point.
Senator Markey. Ambassador Haass, could you add in any
comments you might have on the potential deployment of
hypersonic weapons that we should be talking about with the
Russians, the INF Treaty, the Russian violation of that treaty
and what our actions should be in response? There is some
discussion on this side that perhaps we should pull out of the
INF Treaty. What would you recommend for New START, for these
hypersonic weapons, for INF in terms of the United States and
Russia engaging in constructive dialogue apart from all of our
other disagreements?
Ambassador Haass. I do not want to represent myself as more
of an expert than I am on this.
But, one, I agree. The simple extension of New START is the
least complicated, least--it would be positive. It is the most
doable or realistic option at this point. I do not think this
is a moment where you want to get ambitious given the overall
state of the relationship.
With INF, given Russian deployments, again I would rather
not toss the treaty out. My instincts are if we have issues
with compliance, let us press the issues of compliance. It is
one thing to modernize the American strategic or nuclear
arsenal. It is something else to go ahead with deployments that
would not be part of a normal modernization program simply in
response to what we see as Russian noncompliance or violations
of existing agreements. That is an area of defense spending I
would not necessarily encourage. So my going-in position
dramatically would be to look whether we could bring about what
we consider to be compliance. If not, then I think it is a fair
question to look at what our options are and whether our
response is new deployments or we want to respond
asymmetrically.
Senator Markey. Again, if I can come back to you,
Ambassador Burns, just to get your reflections upon how
important it is to get ahead of these hypersonic weapons before
we get into an additional race on those issues and the INF
Treaty from your perspective, how important is it, what would
you recommend that we do in order to make sure that we do not
go backwards on the already existing nuclear arms control
agreements.
Ambassador Burns. Thank you, Senator.
On INF, it gets back to Senator Corker's very good
question. Where do you put the balance? Again, we need the
Europeans to be with us on this. I think that treaty--President
Reagan signed it--still makes sense for us. The Russians are
exceeding it. We need to call them on that. We are going to
have to have European support. So that gets back to your
question, Mr. Chairman, if you sanction the Europeans, you are
reducing the probability of success.
Senator Markey. Which NATO countries would we put at most
immediate risk if we did pull out of the INF Treaty?
Ambassador Burns. Well, Poland certainly, the Baltic
States, Germany, the states in the east. They are being greatly
affected.
I also just wanted to add this one point, Senator. Your
question is going to have to be expanded to artificial
intelligence, quantum computing----
Senator Markey. Could you just move to hypersonic weapons,
please, and how you view that as a potential threat moving
forward?
Ambassador Burns. I am not an expert on hypersonic weapons.
I cannot give you a decent answer to that question.
But I just wanted to say with China and Russia, we have to
have an expanded arms dialogue in these new technologies that
if they get out of control will also be competitive spaces.
Senator Markey. Mr. Sloan, hypersonic weapons?
Dr. Sloan. No.
Senator Markey. Okay, great. Thank you all so much. Thank
you for your service.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Menendez.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the
opportunity. I just want to wrap up some things. I have heard
some interesting comments here today, and so I just want to get
the expertise of the panel.
So what happens when a nation is attacked and does not
respond? What is the likelihood of the aggressor? What are they
likely to do?
Ambassador Haass. Senator, is that a rhetorical question?
Senator Menendez. No. It is a question.
Ambassador Haass. I mean, obviously, it will simply
encourage greater adventurism.
Senator Menendez. Anybody disagree with that?
Ambassador Burns. I very much agree.
Dr. Sloan. I do too.
Senator Menendez. So I listened to my colleague from
Kentucky, and I find it interesting. Who is going to fight
someone who buys your oil? Obviously, the Russians have done it
to the Ukraine and others. So energy can be weaponized if you
choose to do so. And I think one of you mentioned that Russia
has three different tranches, you know, its military might, its
cyber, and its energy. So if you want to weaponize it, you can
weaponize it. And we have seen that Russia is willing to
weaponize it.
We have seen that Russia has created a series of cyber-
attacks not only against the United States but other Western
democracies. And from my perspective, very little, relatively
speaking, has been done in response to that in a way that sends
a clear and unequivocal message that there is a consequence for
doing that. And so it will continue to happen.
So the sanctions legislation--I appreciate some of these
insights here, and of course, an opening salvo on a legislation
is never its final version. We are more than willing to tailor
it in terms of some of the comments the chairman has made. But
we have not been responsive enough to the attacks that we have
received as a country, and in any other iteration, we would
clearly consider it an act of war.
Let me ask you something. NATO enlargement--it is not any
willing aspirant. It is any willing aspirant who is capable and
meets the goals of NATO. Is that a fair statement?
Ambassador Burns. And that we would all agree by consensus
to admit them. It is our decision.
Senator Menendez. Absolutely.
Ambassador Burns. It is not just that they are capable.
Senator Menendez. And on this question of Russia and Putin
that we basically stroked the tiger, at the end of the day in
the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of those former Soviet
bloc countries--we had a choice. We had a choice to say those
who are willing and want to move to a liberal democracy,
respect for human rights, and rule of law, you are welcome to
join us. And if not, we would have isolated them actually and
pushed them back into the possibility of a reconstitution of
the greater Russia that Putin seeks. Is that not a fair
statement?
Ambassador Burns. That is exactly the situation we faced. I
was President Clinton's special assistant on Russia at the
time, and that is how he saw it. That is how President Bush saw
it. That is how President Obama saw it. But 120 million East
Europeans living between Russia and the West and we had to
bring them into NATO and the EU simultaneously to cement them
in the West. Wilson talked about this. FDR struggled with it
and failed at Yalta. We succeeded, Republican and Democratic
administrations together in a unified policy over about 20
years. I have no regrets about this. I think this was a very
positive thing to do.
Dr. Sloan. Could I add to that? In the early 1990s when I
was working for Congress at CRS, I wrote a report for the
Congress in which I asked the question without being an
advocated because CRS people are not supposed to be advocates,
but without being an advocate, I said how can the NATO allies
say no to countries that they have been trying to convince all
this time, these decades that they need to move toward
democracy and become Western countries, and how can we say no
to them now? It was a difficult question for the United States
and the European allies. I think they made the right answer,
the right choice. We did.
Senator Menendez. Let me ask you one last set of questions.
If someone commits or some entity commits a chemical attack
upon another citizen in another country, would we not consider
that an act of terrorism?
Ambassador Haass. The question came up before, and I think
it is state sponsorship or however you want to--state conduct.
You can get into definitions, but the bottom line is we ought
to take it for what it is, which is an unacceptable violent act
and we ought to think about how we respond.
Senator Menendez. And if someone supports or a government
supports another entity that ultimately uses chemical weapons
against its citizens, is that not an act of terrorism?
Ambassador Haass. Absolutely. U.S. policy has been to hold
terrorists responsible or those who in any way aid, abet, or
facilitate. We do not draw distinctions between terrorists or
the government.
Senator Menendez. Reading the definition of the law,
international terrorism means terrorism involving citizens or
the territory of more than one country. And the term
``terrorism'' means premeditated, politically motivated
violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets.
So it seems to me that the designation that we gave North
Korea in this regard was appropriate, and it seems to me that
based upon the actions that Russia has taken in both Syria, as
well in chemical attacks against citizens on foreign soils,
that it falls squarely within the ambit. Whether or not it is
the right policy is another question, but certainly the law
seems to be rather clear to me.
Ambassador Burns. And I would say if you look at the UK
nerve agent attack, it fits that description. It also fits the
use of chemical weapons elsewhere.
Senator Menendez. Thank you all for your answer.
Ambassador Haass. Can I just quickly say I think, though,
you asked the right question whether it is the right policy,
and we would want to look at the implications or consequences
of it and whether it would serve the totality of our aims,
given what we are trying to accomplish with Russia, also what
we are already doing. What would be additive about this, and
would we welcome what was additive about it, again, given
everything else----
Senator Menendez. I would just like to see us be far more
forward leaning in response to the attacks that we have
received. And Putin, as you have said so aptly, Dr. Haass, is
someone who calculates. You know, at the end of the day, his
calculations have payoff. He gives speeches. He tells you his
road map and he pretty much follows his road map. It seems to
me that we need to have him understand that the calculation is
wrong.
Ambassador Haass. And the most important aspect of his
calculation is what he does and how we will react. What will it
mean for his own political position at home? Putin, above all,
is about Putinism and his domestic political base. And what we
have to think about are what would be the things we would say
or do that would raise questions in his mind about his domestic
endurance. That I think gives us as much leverage as anything.
The Chairman. Well, this has been a great hearing and I
thank you for being here.
I mean, let us face it. This dilemma that the ranking
member is raising and that we have to deal with is--you know,
the Russians and Putin are willing to do things that we are
not. I mean, we are not for logical reasons, for rational
reasons, but they do assassinate people in other countries.
They use the military to invade people, and they use their
military to intervene in places like Syria. Let us face it. We
intervened to a degree but not to a degree to have an effect.
So we try to solve this problem with sanctions.
They are able to do things surgically. They interfere with
our elections directly. They create a frozen conflict in
Georgia directly. They take Crimea directly. They create
instability in eastern Ukraine directly. They are intervening
in Syria directly. We are not willing to do those things, at
least not to the degree that they are for good reasons.
And so the tool we use here is sanctions, and sanctions are
not surgical. They end up affecting lots of other people,
including ourselves I might add. Including ourselves.
So I agree with the sentiment here, strongly agree. And let
us face it. The exacerbating problem is we have an
administration that will not even use rhetoric in an
appropriate way to push back. So it frustrates us. We end up in
some cases I think doing things that even go beyond what we
would normally do because we have an administration that we
know otherwise is not going to do some of these things, not
even rhetorically. And so here we are in this situation where
we are trying to react in a manner that supports democratic
freedoms and human rights. And I do agree 100 percent with
everyone here other than maybe one Senator, that NATO is about
promoting democracy also and good governance, and there are
other things that come with NATO membership.
So we are in a challenging place here, exacerbated by the
role that the administration is not playing or that they are
playing in helping destabilize Europe. And we have got to
figure out how we react in a manner that does not cut our own
nose off to spite our face and does not blow back on our
friends which, by the way--let us think about this. I mean,
blowing back on our friends--even though it may be painful to a
degree to Russia, blowing back on our friends actually inures
to Putin's benefit. Right? It inures to Putin's benefit.
So again, I just want us to be thoughtful as we move down
this road. We do things that have words and have impact, and we
did a pretty good job on CAATSA. We made some mistakes there.
We did a pretty good job, though. But let us face it. That was
also in reaction to the fact that we have an administration
that we did not feel would take appropriate steps against
Russia. So we find ourselves in a very unusual place.
I do want to say that as it relates to having this group of
people throughout our democracy that have knowledge that have
served, that in some cases have access to intelligence, I hope
that by virtue of you being here today and testifying, that the
American people can see the importance of having people that
are not just serving in the Senate, that are not just serving
in an administration, that have knowledge that is helpful to
all of us and will serve in future administrations to make our
country even stronger. We thank you for being here.
And with that, the meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
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