We are in a season of terror attacks, and the odds are high they will increase over the short term. The principle drivers will be the so-called Islamic State and its various affiliates, as well as the still-dangerous al Qaeda, which is wounded but still capable of launching attacks. Worst of all, we are likely to see more of the “inspired” attacks by self-radicalized terrorists in both the United States and Europe. Given the potential for such attacks to increase in numbers and scale, NATO has a fundamental responsibility to address terror attacks and a powerful toolbox with which to do so.
Most fundamentally, NATO stands for its values: democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, human rights, and other basic tenets of western tradition. The most powerful tool the U.S. holds, over the long term, is our adherence to what makes us true to those values. Thus, we must reject calls for torture (including water-boarding), excessive surveillance regimes that violate norms of privacy, unwarranted detention, and artificially streamlined justice systems. As tempting as it is to call for such measures in the face of barbaric actions from terrorists, we have to hold on to our values, and a value-based organization like NATO helps us do so.
At a more practical level, NATO has enormous resources that can be brought to bear against what is a clear and present danger to the Alliance. While the front-line forces domestically must be composed of law enforcement professionals, NATO has a rich set of tools that can be employed to support them. The Alliance has enormous manpower reserves, for example, that can back up police in domestic situations (more than three million men and women in uniform, almost all volunteers).
NATO also has huge logistic capabilities both on the ground and in the air (more than 24,000 military aircraft, for example) to move people and equipment in responding to terrorist attacks and in establishing and holding safe zones at high profile activities (major sporting events, political rallies, and other large gatherings). NATO’s anti-terror toolbox also has excellent capabilities in intelligence, cyber, and information operations. While these activities must be led by domestic agencies, the ability of the Alliance to employ its complex systems in these areas is profound.
In addition to the impact NATO has in the defensive terrain of the member nations, the Alliance can also have significant impact in the transit zones approaching the borders of the various countries. The ability to patrol the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, as well as the southern central Mediterranean between Libya and Europe is important, and NATO’s 800+ oceangoing warships can play an important part (many are doing so already in the Aegean, where refugee numbers have dropped significantly since last summer due to NATO operations there). NATO’s excellent remotely piloted vehicles (such as the Global Hawk UAVs operating out of Sigonella, Sicily) can provide powerful situational awareness over vast reaches of the Mediterranean.
Finally, NATO can have its most powerful effect in the source areas for terror: the lands of the Levant and Middle East. In the end, all that we do in the defensive zone within our borders and in the transit zone is only dealing with the symptoms of terror. To get at the disease itself, we will need to address the spread of terror at the source, in places like Raqqa, Syria – the headquarters of the so-called Islamic State – and the Pakistani-Afghan border where al Qaeda still holds sway. Here, the Alliance must continue to provide troops to deal with the spread of terrorist organizations beyond the ability of local governments to suppress. This means a continuing and significant mission in Afghanistan (roughly 15,000 U.S. and European troops) as well as a new mission in Iraq (requiring roughly the same level of boots on the ground).
Both of these missions do not need to be the massive ground deployments of the past decade, when there were nearly 250,000 U.S. and Allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in total. But we will need about 15,000 troops in each of these areas to support local soldiers with logistics, intelligence, information operations, cyber defense, advice, mentoring, and planning.
Finally, the Alliance can play an important role in the true “long game” against terrorism. After all, terror is only a tactic – the real fight is about turning young men and women against the kind of dark philosophy of radicalized elements in the Islamic faith and back to the path of civilization. This means stability on the ground, the beginning of an economic rebirth, educational opportunities, and the other elements of soft power that are so challenging to successfully deploy. Here the Alliance has done good work, for example in Afghanistan, with literacy training, anti-corruption, building schools and clinics, and a host of other activities. Strategic communication is vital as we interact in the marketplace of ideas. NATO has the ability to increase those soft power activities at a relatively low cost in cooperation with the private sector and other government actors, such as USAID.
NATO is very good at launching missiles and will need to do so on the hard power side; but we also need to work more with our friends and allies in the region to launch ideas and fulfill the promise of a region that continues to export jihad and threaten the Alliance in very real ways. By combining all the tools in its impressive toolbox and acting in our own nations, through the transit zone and at the source of terror, NATO can be an important element in fighting terrorism globally.
