Podcast: NATO on the Brink

TRANSCRIPT: NATO on the Brink

Admiral James Stavridis:

The military mind abhors nothing more than uncertainty, a lack of discipline, and a lack of a clear chain of command.

Ian Bremmer:

Hi, I'm Ian Bremmer, and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. It's an audio version of what you can find on public television where I analyze global topics, sit down with big guests, and make use of little puppets. This week I sit down with retired US Navy Admiral James Stavridis. Let's get to it.

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Ian Bremmer:

And I have Admiral James Stavridis, former supreme allied commander of NATO. Good to be with you, Jim.

Admiral James Stavridis:

You say that very well. Thank you.

Ian Bremmer:

Do I? I feel like you have to run that introduction up the flagpole?

Admiral James Stavridis:

You have no idea how many different alternative mentions there are, from supreme commander, to allied commander supreme, to el supremo. It's just all over the map.

Ian Bremmer:

Have you gotten supreme leader?

Admiral James Stavridis:

No, but I encourage my wife to call me supremo at home.

Ian Bremmer:

Supremo.

Admiral James Stavridis:

It's not working.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, you need a cigar for that I think.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Indeed.

Ian Bremmer:

That's correct. Well, okay. Let's, not go there. And instead, let's talk about what the hell is happening in the world. Our friend, Mr. Erdogan, president of Turkey, has taken possession of this Russian S-400 system. I'm starting with that because since you ran NATO, this feels like an indictment of that alliance. Is it?

Admiral James Stavridis:

I think in the mind of President Erdogan, he is very tired of being told what to do by NATO, by the United States in particular. And he's a very prideful man. I got to know him reasonably well when he was prime minister and I was supreme allied commander. He sees Turkey as not a bridge between east and west, Ian, but a center of power unto itself and he feels Turkey is not sufficiently respected. All of that collides with his concerns about US support to Kurds in Syria, as well as this nagging sense of rejection Turkey continues to feel about not being allowed to join the European Union.

Ian Bremmer:

The EU as a full member, the cabinet member.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Where this comes out is President Erdogan, if he were in this chair, would say, so I am looking for other mechanisms to help create security for my nation. Hence, I purchased this system. It's not a completely illogical position, but the problem is that when he buys this system, Ian, it is going to be plugged into the NATO integrated air defense, and who knows what kind of cyber honeypots and back doors and intelligence collection mechanisms are in it, that vulnerability is of great concern and the second vulnerability is that we want to give Turkey the joint strike fighter J-35, our top stealth aircraft. Having that airplane under continuous surveillance by a Russian S-400 system, with that data potentially going back to Russia is a red line for the US.

Ian Bremmer:

It's got to be inconceivable that if it's a Russian system, the data wouldn't be going back to Russia, right?

Admiral James Stavridis:

Indeed. Now, there is still some movement from the Turkish side to say, we can isolate it, we can quarantine the system electronically, we can clean and sweep it, I don't think that's going to stand up to technical scrutiny. So at the end of the day, we have a real collision here. Now, where will it go? I think on the spectrum that runs from, we all just shrug our shoulders and say, hey, we'll just kind of live with this till Turkey bails out of the alliance, or is asked to leave the alliance, it's kind of parked in the middle. The sanction will be the withdrawal of the J-35 joint strike.

Ian Bremmer:

That stealth fighter.

Admiral James Stavridis:

The stealth fighter. And I think there'll be blow back from the Turks when we do that, how that manifests remains to be seen.

Ian Bremmer:

So you said that this is something that the Turks feel, that Erdogan feels is important to his defense. I mean, you know what this system does, this missile defense system, is it actually important to Turkey's defense?

Admiral James Stavridis:

There are alternatives which would work just as well, and I'll give you one. It's the Patriot missile system made here in the United States. There are Israeli, as you know very well, air defense systems that are as capable as the S-400.

Ian Bremmer:

The Iron Dome system.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Yeah. Built out the aero-

Ian Bremmer:

By Raytheon right?

Admiral James Stavridis:

Exactly. Yeah. So there are many alternatives and so the argument that Erdogan had to go to this particular system really doesn't hold water.

Ian Bremmer:

So what you're saying is it's not really credible from your perspective?

Admiral James Stavridis:

I do not think it is. However, this is a case where the United States, I think needs to broaden this conversation from a US versus Turkey kind of confrontation. Get the alliance engaged in this. There are 29 nations in the Alliance, soon to be 30 when North Macedonia joins. Let's build this into an alliance wide conversation, and let's try and find a climb down for Turkey on this that would make some sense.

Ian Bremmer:

So if you were in charge of NATO right now, how much flexibility, I mean, absence the, because you're saying it's the United States that needs to orchestrate. What could the supreme allied commander do proactively given this administration, given the challenges that the Alliance presently has to try to bring Erdogan back into the fold and reduce the tensions that we see?

Admiral James Stavridis:

Yeah, I would start, if I were supreme allied commander, I would call the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and say, how about if I go to Ankara and let me have a meeting with the senior Turkish military, and in particular, I would focus on former general Hulusi Akar, who is now the minister of defense. The Jim Mattis model. Speaks perfect English, studied in England, very polished in all his interactions, has Erdogan's trust and confidence. I think he would be the place to take the conversation and do it at a military to military kind of way and say to the minister, let's find a way to solve this problem. And so I think those kind of personal contacts could be helpful. Number two, we ought to broaden the conversation beyond just air defense. We ought to be talking to the Turks about, let's look at your defenses as a package, as part of the alliance.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Maybe there are other systems, other ways we can work with you to build those out. And thirdly, we ought to look for, as I mentioned before, are there technical fixes we can take? So let's create a working group of the top minds in the alliance to take a look at the system, take a ground-based look at it and see if we can solve this thing. And by the way, before we simply kick the Turks out of the joint strike fighter program, I would say let's not announce that we're sanctioning them and throwing them out. Let's put it on hold while we take a good hard look at the technical while we have these conversations, individual to individual. And while we broaden Turkey's remit in the alliance by looking at their defenses.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, assuming that we were to do those things. Do you think that the US separately, it is appropriate to put sanctions on the Turks for taking these steps? Certainly members of Congress, members of the administration have been warning them about those steps.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Indeed.

Ian Bremmer:

Erdogan, he's delayed, but now he's formally ignored that. Does that require the Americans to take that step?

Admiral James Stavridis:

I would say not quite yet, but I can see that step from where I'm standing right now. And of course, what you're referring to is the 2017 legislation countering America's adversaries with sanctions, CAATSA.

Ian Bremmer:

CAATSA. Yes. That's right.

Admiral James Stavridis:

I think it's probably not quite time to impose those sanctions. Let's do the things I mentioned first. If we have to, then yes. I think it would be time to engage in those sanctions.

Ian Bremmer:

A matter of months. You're talking.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Oh, yeah. Months, not years.

Ian Bremmer:

Absolutely. I get you. Okay. Now, we've been talking, you and I, but also broadly about existential questions around NATO. Its purpose, its mission, and this isn't new. It's ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, and not all that much has happened in response to those conversations. How do you think about where NATO is as an organization today? Its utility, its purpose.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Sure. I often get this question as in, well, why are we still in this Cold War relic of an organization? Let me just give you a handful of things. Really swiftly, values. This is the greatest pool of partners we have in the world where they all share our values. Democracy, liberty, freedom of speech, gender equality, racial equality. Look, we execute them imperfectly and unevenly across the alliance, but it is a pool of partners that share our values. Secondly, geography. Europe is parked on the western edge of the Eurasian continent, effectively in between the United States and Asia. It's terrific geopolitical real estate. People would say to me, well, do we really need those Cold War bases? Those aren't Cold War bases. Those are the forward operating stations of the 21st century. This geography matters. Thirdly, the alliance itself, its wealth, its resources. This is 29 nations, 52% of the world's GDP.

Admiral James Stavridis:

3 million people under arms, almost all volunteers. 800 ocean going aircraft. 24,000 military aircraft. You get the idea. We outspend, the alliance outspends, Russia and China six to one, them combined. We outspend Russia 12 to one. So it is an enormous trove of value here. And about a third of it comes from Europe. And then finally, Ian, it's the experiences that we have shared in all of these operations since the end of the Cold War. We have cadres of warriors who have fought together in Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, Iraq. In all those places, we had NATO missions, counter piracy at sea. That experience base makes this a very relevant alliance for security going forward. So I think there's still a very strong case to be made for NATO.

Ian Bremmer:

And no question the US and NATO together spend vast amounts of money on all of this defense capabilities and interoperability matters and training matters and morale matters. How much has it hurt that NATO's mission in Afghanistan has been so sapping of morale? Has been so expensive? Has gone on for so long? Does that really erode NATO capabilities? NATO mission?

Admiral James Stavridis:

From a military perspective, the mission in Afghanistan has actually been salutary for NATO capabilities because it has provided a unified effort together. Under my command, for example, 150,000 NATO troops, 100,000 US, 50,000 from the rest of the alliance. And all of that has built into the alliance a real sense of ethos. Now, whether or not that mission ends successfully... to be seen. My guess is two and three chance it will end successfully, as in like almost every insurgency. It'll end in a negotiated settlement. It'll look-

Ian Bremmer:

With the Taliban?

Admiral James Stavridis:

With the Taliban. I think it'll look a lot like Columbia as in, instead of the Farc coming into government in Columbia, you'll see Taliban coming into government in Afghanistan. We're right on the knife's edge without association-

Ian Bremmer:

And you'll still see a lot of remobilisation going on.

Admiral James Stavridis:

You certainly will. And we all ought to stop and say thank you, ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, good friend of both of former US Ambassador to the United Nations, US Ambassador to Afghanistan, special envoy. If he didn't exist, would have to invent him to solve this problem. And I think there's, like I say, a two and three chance, this comes out negotiated settlement. Still a one in three chance the wheels could come off and it looks very ugly at the back end, but I think this is going to be more Columbia, less Vietnam when the US pulled out of Vietnam.

Ian Bremmer:

Another NATO question is, I mean, with all of the money on conventional military capabilities, you hear from the NSA and others that the Russians and the Americans are almost at parody in terms of cyber capabilities. Now, NATO talks about cyber an awful lot, but really hard to know how to engage in that asymmetric type of battle. And so much of what we're talking about is asymmetric. We hear about the Chinese talking about space. Again, not exactly where NATO is heading right now. Yeah. We have our space force, the French now announcing they want their space force. Does that necessarily erode NATO's capabilities over the medium term?

Admiral James Stavridis:

I don't think so. If you look at the last five years in particular, NATO has made extremely aggressive efforts to up its game in cyber. As you know, we have the cyber security center in Tallinn, Estonia, pretty appropriate. They've been attacked repeatedly by the Russians. And the leading NATO cyber countries, United States, Great Britain, France, some degree Germany is not terrible in this space, are working together more and more to share ideas, to trade information. We're not quite exposing our full package of tools, and I don't think we will. But over time, Ian, I think you'll see cyber weapons treated the way nuclear weapons are in the alliance. Britain has them, France has them, the United States has them. There'll be a set of those nukes that are effectively apportioned to NATO. And so you'll see those cyber tools, I think, gravitate in that direction over time. Not there yet. NATO's aware of it and moving appropriately.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, if that's the way that we're going to eventually handle cyber weapons, and obviously cyber weapons are unlike nukes in the sense that we do engage in offensive use of those weapons all the time.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Right.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you believe that we will see combined cyber offensive capabilities that will come from NATO?

Admiral James Stavridis:

I do. And in fact, we have a role model, if you will, and it's not a good one. It's the invasion of Georgia in 2008 by Russia.

Ian Bremmer:

By the Russians.

Admiral James Stavridis:

That will go down in military history as the first time that there was a combined cyber attack with kinetic bombs, rockets, troops, tanks, it won't be the last. And in fact, every conflict going forward is going to have a cyber component to it. You are correct that now we use them in a kind of a tactical context. And President Trump, I think correctly reached for a cyber weapon-

Ian Bremmer:

Against Iran.

Admiral James Stavridis:

Against Iran after the attacks on the tankers.

Ian Bremmer:

John Bolton said we were opening the aperture on cyber offensive capabilities. Did it scare you when he said that?

Admiral James Stavridis:

No, it really doesn't. I think that we need to understand, however, that at the far end of that aperture are society busting kinds of cyber tools that can permanently damage, for example, an electric grid. That would be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons in many scenarios, we're not there yet. We don't, my view, want that aperture to open wide and start reaching for those kind of tools on the mistaken assumption that well, we're not knocking down buildings and therefore this isn't as bad as a nuclear weapon. So that regime that has kept us from using nuclear weapons of deterrents has yet to be constructed in the cyber world.

Ian Bremmer:

He was talking a lot about NATO. We haven't talked much about America. We don't have a secretary of defense, but we are told that it is not changing the operations, the management, the functioning of the DOD at all. Is that right for you? Is that credible?

Admiral James Stavridis:

No, I find that not credible as an explanation. And for starters, the uniform military looking up toward a civilian chain of command appropriately, the military mind abhors, nothing more than uncertainty, a lack of discipline, and a lack of a clear chain of command. So there's a problem internally, as our uniform military kind of says, who's really running the joint? And then secondly, our allies kind of don't know who to pick up the phone and call. Because is this person going to be there three weeks from now? What's the remit of the job? And then thirdly, our opponents look at it with glee because they feel as though there's got to be confusion and missteps. And we all know this whether you're running a million people at NATO or 2 million people in the US Department of Defense, if you don't have clear, consistent people who are in place for a relatively long period of time, efficiency goes down. So we ought to be concerned. Having said all that, the institution will weather this.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, morale issue on that side, functionality issue on that side. On the other hand, Obama administration period, defense budgets shrinking. Trump administration period, defense budgets so far expanding. How much is that affecting morale on the other side?

Admiral James Stavridis:

It's positive. And let's face it, military people have strong ideas and they want a strong level of national defense. So certainly there's been a morale upswing in the military. And if you look at polling of the military, you'll find significant support for President Trump. On the other hand, military people do not like a lot of change in uncertainty. Many were disappointed at the departure of General/Secretary Jim Mattis.

Ian Bremmer:

Jim Mattis.

Admiral James Stavridis:

I think that right now, the best thing the Trump administration could do would be to settle out on the team in the Pentagon, get them in place, show confidence in them. That would go a long way toward writing the uncertainty of the moment.

Ian Bremmer:

Admiral James Stavridis, if I wasn't a civilian, I'd salute you.

Ian Bremmer:

That's our show this week. We'll be right back here next week. Same place, same time. Unless you're watching on social media, in which cases, wherever you happen to be, don't miss it. In the meantime, check us out at gzeromedia.com.

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