“The Future of NATO,” Speech by Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, Brussels, Belgium, 6/10/11
By Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
Text: www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=1581 
Review by John Coffey

Capping 40 years of distinguished public service with a synoptic series of policy addresses, on June 10 in Brussels Defense Secretary Gates rebuked Europeans’ failure to bear their share of the common defense. A flaccid political will has starved funding for an adequate defense capability, European defense spending declining 15% since 9/11 and only 5 of 28 allies (including the U.S.) meeting an agreed 2% of GDP spending on defense. Uncle Sam now foots over 75% of NATO’s military bill. NATO has become a “two-tiered alliance” of fighters and freeloaders, and, warned Gates, American patience for supporting partners who won’t help themselves is running out.

The wars in Afghanistan (where ISAF is sometimes known as “I Saw Americans Fighting”) and Libya revealed NATO’s hollow military. Gates affirmed that the July U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan “will be no rush to the exits” and cautioned against precipitate, uncoordinated allied force reductions. NATO’s dissension and faltering performance in the Libyan humanitarian venture, instigated by France and Britain and initially opposed by Gates, threaten the alliance’s political cohesion and military credibility.

If these trends persist, Gates admonished, future U.S. leaders may decide America’s investment in NATO not “worth the cost.” Gates posited “the real possibility for a dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance.”