Attacks in France put NATO on the spot
In U.S. and Europe, there are growing calls for the alliance to take up the fight against ISIL.
People light candles at a makeshift memorial in tribute to the victims of ISIL terrorism attacks on November 15, 2015 at the place de la Republique in Paris.
By Bryan Bender
Calls grew Sunday for the NATO military alliance to defend France in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, raising the prospect of a more robust military campaign — possibly including the use of ground troops — to take on the Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and other countries where the militant group has extended its reach.
Signs of a stronger European role in the conflict were visible on Sunday when French warplanes struck dozens of Islamic State targets in Raqqa, Syria, which ISIL claims as the capital of its Caliphate. And French officials made clear their intention to request more help from the U.S. and other allies.
Only once in the Western alliance's 66-year history has Article 5 of the NATO charter — the collective defense provision — been invoked calling for a collective response to an attack on a member state: After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
"This is clearly an act of war and an attack on one of our NATO allies, and we should invoke Article 5 of the NATO agreement, and bring everyone together to put together a coalition to confront this challenge," Republican Senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio said on ABC's This Week.
Rubio was echoing remarks a day earlier from Ohio Governor John Kasich, another GOP White House hopeful, who called for bringing in the Western alliance. "We as Americans must assert leadership and we need to stand shoulder to shoulder with France and the French people," he said at a campaign event in Orlando. "This is a moment to bring us together."
Should the collective defense clause be invoked by France or any other member, and ratified by NATO's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, it could prompt some European armies that have so far played little if any role in the anti-ISIL campaign to get directly involved, including Germany, according to current and former U.S. and European security officials.
Meanwhile, the legitimacy such a vote would bestow on the operation could also push President Barack Obama, who has been reluctant to involve large numbers of U.S. forces in the conflict, to step up American involvement — which now includes air strikes in both Iraq and Syria; roughly 3,500 U.S. troops training and advising Iraqi forces; and the newly announced deployment of roughly 50 special forces troops into Syria.
But it could also make little difference; it will all depend on what the North Atlantic Council, comprising the alliance's 28 member states, decides to do about it. Invoking Article 5 would require a full consensus among all member states — and there are prevailing pressures pushing in multiple directions.
"I think you could get consensus," Ivo Daalder, who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013, said in an interview. "The real question is what does that mean? What actions are you going to take that you wouldn't take otherwise?"
He said a number of NATO countries, particularly newer members that joined after the Cold War, may not view ISIL as the top threat to European security and still see Russia as enemy number one, especially given Moscow's recent destabilizing moves.
"Let's not forget that there are many NATO allies who think the threats in the east are at least as large as the threats in the south and would be worried that too much attention to the south would divert attention from the east," said Daalder, who is now head of the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs.
A more robust NATO role in Syria or Iraq would also likely require cooperating with Russia, which has come to the aid of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in his fight with ISIL and other militant groups.
"Some would worry that too much cooperation with Russia would be at the expense of Ukraine," where Russia is stoking a civil war, Daalder said. "Maybe you are going to mobilize everything you have to take out [ISIL], maybe you are going to do nothing, maybe it will be something in between. All that has to be decided by the North Atlantic Council. That's really where the rubber meets the road. I don't think there is any more appetite [among NATO nations] to use military force than there was yesterday or the day before. I don't see that changing by invoking Article 5. You could argue that invoking Article 5 may be a feel good measure that leaves people off the hook from doing more."
Officials at NATO headquarters in Mons, Belgium, could not immediately be reached Sunday about any ongoing discussions about NATO's possible role in the ISIL campaign.
The alliance leadership's thinking on the issue could become clearer on Monday, when NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is scheduled to speak in Brussels to an annual conference of the European Defence Agency, an arm of the European Union.
So far, the Obama administration has demurred on the question of invoking NATO's Article 5 — which is the prerogative of any member state. (After 9/11, it was Canada that invoked it.)
"That's a decision for the French to make," Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.
"What we've made clear to the French is we will be shoulder to shoulder with them in this response. They're in our military campaign in Iraq and Syria already. Clearly they want to energize their efforts. There's a French two-star general who is stationed at [U.S. Central Command] to help that coordination go forward. And we're confident that in the coming days and weeks, working with the French, we'll be able to intensify our strikes against ISIL in both Syria and Iraq to make clear that there's no safe haven for these terrorists.
Some expressed doubts that greater participation from NATO — particularly from the air — would make a significant difference.
"NATO is not going to solve this problem," said Rep. Steve Israel, a New York Democrat and member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. "NATO was created and structured and programmed around a threat by the Warsaw Pact to a free and democratic Europe. It needs to be modernized to deal with non-conventional threats that are operating in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere."
"We need a new NATO to fight asymmetric terrorism," Israel added, to include "new allies to create a stronger intelligence capacity on the ground in Syria and Iraq."
"That means using special forces and establishing collaboration with other countries," Israel said.
For practical purposes, a number of NATO countries are already participating in Operation Inherent Resolve, the US-led air campaign against ISIL that began in July 2014, first in Iraq and then in Syria, and the associated effort to train allies on the ground.
In addition to the United States, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Britain are all contributing to the air campaign in Iraq. In Syria, nations conducting airstrikes include the United States, Canada, France, and Turkey, according to the U.S. Central Command, which is overseeing the effort.
But there has been fierce debate within NATO in recent months about what role the alliance writ large should be playing — along with criticism of what some alliance officials have called its "ad hoc" approach to the threat posed by ISIL.
Two alliance officials recently made the case for greater involvement.
"NATO stands on the sidelines of the anti-ISIL fight," wrote Andreas Jacobs and Jean-Loup Samaan, research advisers at the NATO Defence College in Rome. "NATO is neither a member of the international coalition against ISIL nor does it have a mandate to play a coordinating or facilitating role in the fight."
They contended that NATO could play a greater role — not just in the fight against ISIL but in helping to stabilize the region with peacekeeping troops should the group be routed from its self-proclaimed Caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria
Calls for a more active NATO tole began almost immediately after the bloodshed on the streets of Paris Friday, led by the former US commander of the alliance, retired Adm. James Stavridis.
The attacks that killed 127 people and injured hundreds more "are the culmination of a long-running humanitarian disaster in Syria that has destabilized the Middle East and initiated the flow of millions of refugees into the heart of Europe, Stavridis, currently dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, wrote in Foreign Policy magazine over the weekend. "NATO can no longer pretend the conflict does not affect its most basic interests."
Stavridis acknowledged that disagreements among the NATO partners in the past have hampered its ability to act in unison and that it has struggled in recent years to identify its primary role in global security.
But he described a formidable force if it decides to act in response to the Paris attacks, "including over three million troops under arms (and more in reserve), over 25,000 military aircraft [and] 800 oceangoing major combatant ships."
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