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Collective Deterrence

Allies, Partners unite to defend against common enemies, emerging threats

Sentry Staff

Tensions between strategic competitors, North Korea’s persistent nuclear weapons expansion and Russia’s attempts to shift Europe’s balance of power with its war against Ukraine have contributed to a coalescing among the United States and its Allies and Partners to modernize strategies that more effectively combat 21st century security threats. Geopolitical changes, particularly in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, threaten to upend decades of peace and stability. Alliances such as NATO and burgeoning security partnerships in the Indo-Pacific have met these challenges by more closely linking defense plans that span battlespaces across the globe.

“Never before have NATO and defense plans been so closely interlinked,” Royal Netherlands Navy Adm. Rob Bauer, chairman of the security alliance’s Military Committee, said after a chiefs of defense meeting in January 2024. “Allies are now actively working to maximize the executability of these new defense plans. NATO is stronger and readier than it has ever been. Together, we have made immense strides in our collective defense.”

Decades of cooperation and military exchanges will aid Allies and Partners in developing the advances needed to educate, train and equip forces who must now defend against attacks in cyberspace and outer space in addition to those by land, air and sea. “All security is connected. And that made it all the more valuable to talk to our Partners face to face on developments that concern us all,” Bauer said. “Meeting with our Partners reminds us that none of us stand alone in the face of challenges or threats. As long as you have partners, you have better solutions.” 

Republic of Korea (ROK) Navy destroyer ROKS Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong, from bottom, U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer JS Ariake sail in formation during an exercise in April 2024. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NATO stronger, better prepared

For the first time in 30 years, NATO has deterrence and defense strategy plans to make the alliance “fit for the purpose of collective territorial defense,” U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commander of the U.S. European Command and NATO’s supreme allied commander Europe, said after the chiefs of defense meeting.

Making those plans work requires force commitments and command and control arrangements. It also requires rigorous training and exercises like the 2024 iteration of Steadfast Defender. The largest NATO exercise in decades, it comprised 90,000 personnel from all 32 alliance nations.

From January through May, Steadfast Defender included drills hosted by various countries. Part 1 focused on trans-Atlantic reinforcement, which included the strategic deployment of North American forces across the Atlantic and Europe, and live maritime exercises and amphibious assault training. Part 2 focused on multidomain exercises across Europe that demonstrated NATO, national and multinational capabilities while testing the rapid deployment of troops and equipment across borders within the alliance.

Steadfast Defender underscored “a clear demonstration of our unity, strength and determination to protect each other, our values and the rules-based international order,” Cavoli said. 

Despite the success of collaborative military transformations, more progress must occur to keep pace with evolving threats, according to German Air Force Gen. Chris Badia, NATO’s deputy supreme allied commander. 

“We, as an alliance with all its nations, need to be sure to be more agile and be more flexible, and we do this through our agreed transformational pass,” Badia said after the NATO defense chiefs meeting. “As the warfighting of tomorrow becomes more complex in a multidomain, we need to ensure that we are in every aspect faster and better than our competitors. This goes with nations’ transformation, and this is a perpetual journey and not a one-time event. Our war transformation journey pushes boundaries, forging a collective edge in order to become better every day.”

ROK Gen. Kang Shin Chul, center, Combined Forces Command deputy commander, inspects an F-16 Fighting Falcon during the 11-day Freedom Shield exercise at Osan Air Base, South Korea, in March 2024. SENIOR AIRMAN ELIZABETH DAVIS/U.S. AIR FORCE

Allies and Partners improve through multidomain integrated operations, working to seamlessly deploy across all realms. “We are identifying the capabilities we need individually and collectively, with speed and strength,” Badia said. “And capabilities are the foundation, because without capabilities, we can’t put anything against it.”

During a May 2024 Military Committee defense chiefs meeting, Bauer said the allied armed forces can make NATO’s new defense plans fully executable by: 

  • Putting more troops on higher readiness
  • Building and developing capabilities
  • Adapting command and control structures
  • Creating and sustaining more enablement, including logistics, host nation support, maintenance, military mobility, and replenishing and prepositioning stocks
  • Increasing collective defense exercises and training

“As exercise Steadfast Defender has recently shown, NATO is stronger and readier than it has ever been, and it’s growing stronger by the day,” Bauer said. “We have it within ourselves to build on the groundbreaking work that has already been done.”

Avoiding major conflict

Amid concerns about deterring rising Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aggression and maintaining a stable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, Australia and the U.S. have advanced a strategy of collective deterrence that sees Australia playing a greater regional role in bolstering the U.S. forward military presence, according to the September 2023 report “Collective Deterrence and the Prospect of Major Conflict” published by the United States Studies Centre (USSC), a joint venture between the American Australian Association and the University of Sydney.

“In the past few years, alarm over China’s fast-growing military heft and coercive efforts to remake the Indo-Pacific order in its image has set the U.S.-Australia alliance on an unprecedented trajectory,” the USSC reported. “Strengthening independent and collective efforts to deter Chinese aggression is now the organizing principle of strategic policy in both Canberra and Washington.”

Both nations have changed their strategic approach to defense. The U.S.’s 2022 National Defense Strategy, for example, describes Allies and Partners as “the center of gravity” and the 2022 U.S. Nuclear Posture Review mentions Australia for the first time in the context of leveraging Allies and Partners’ nonnuclear capabilities to support nuclear deterrence, USSC reported. Australia lists collective security at the heart of its regional defense strategy, and its 2024 National Defence Strategy clarifies the need for greater focus on deterrence by denial. 

Elsewhere in the Indo-Pacific, bilateral partnerships have modernized and expanded to include more like-minded nations to protect the vision of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific amid CCP military expansion and North Korean provocations in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions. 

Leaders of Australia and Japan discussed shared strategic challenges and, for more than a decade, the nations have had an agreement on cooperation between the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. In August 2023, the nations’ Reciprocal Access Agreement entered into force. It will enable deeper trilateral cooperation and enhance interoperability by facilitating an ADF presence alongside the U.S. forces in Japan and Japan Self-Defense Forces alongside U.S. forces in Australia. In early 2024, Australia and Japan signed a research agreement on undersea warfare as they build strategic capabilities in undersea communication and interoperability. “Maintaining a technological edge in our rapidly changing strategic environment is vital,” an ADF news release stated. The collaboration “illustrates the increasingly strong defense science and technology relationship shared by Australia and Japan. By partnering, we deliver science and technology outcomes that we cannot achieve alone.”

The USSC report also noted a network of key defense partners among like-minded nations to achieve strategic deterrence, including coordination among India, Japan and South Korea, as well as between Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S., the members of the AUKUS partnership, are considering cooperation with Japan. 

“All these initiatives are designed to better compete with, deter, and, if necessary, defend against adversaries determined to rewrite the regional order in ways that align with their interests,” the report stated.

Among key concerns for Allies and Partners are the CCP’s nuclear buildup and North Korea’s missile program. “Both developments are taking place rapidly and without transparency,” the USSC reported. “It is nonetheless clear that Beijing and Pyongyang are expanding their arsenals and diversifying their forces, thereby strengthening their capacity to issue nuclear threats both quantitatively and qualitatively. Many Americans and Australians fear [CCP General Secretary] Xi Jinping and [North Korean leader] Kim Jong Un might have drawn the wrong lessons from [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s use of explicit nuclear threats against NATO states in the context of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine (i.e., concluding that nuclear saber-rattling worked to deter direct Western intervention and that they, too, could exploit this strategy to advance their interests in the Indo-Pacific).”

The April 2023 Washington Declaration seeks to allay such fears, with then-U.S. President Joe Biden and then-South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol marking the 70th anniversary of the nations’ alliance by committing to “an ever-stronger mutual defense relationship” and affirming “in the strongest words possible their commitment to the combined defense posture under the U.S.-ROK [Republic of Korea] Mutual Defense Treaty,” the declaration stated.

“The ROK has full confidence in U.S. extended deterrence commitments and recognizes the importance, necessity and benefit of its enduring reliance on the U.S. nuclear deterrent,” the declaration said. “The United States commits to make every effort to consult with the ROK on any possible nuclear weapons employment on the Korean Peninsula, consistent with the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review’s declaratory policy, and the alliance will maintain robust communication infrastructure to facilitate
these consultations.”

The nations’ leaders also launched a Nuclear Consultative Group to strengthen strategic deterrence, discuss nuclear and strategic planning, and manage threats. 

“Korea rose from the ashes of war and has become one of the leading countries in the international community. Now, the ROK-U.S. alliance is not only the linchpin of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula but also across the globe,” Yoon said during his summit with President Biden. “Our alliance is an alliance of values based on our shared universal values of freedom and democracy.”

Yoon called the alliance resilient and everlasting. “Together, we can resolve any issues between us through close consultations,” he said.

Safeguarding freedom and security

Deterrence and defense are the core of NATO’s mission, which calls for maintaining a credible military posture based on nuclear, conventional and missile-defense capabilities, complemented by space and cyber defense. Russia’s war in Ukraine poses the “gravest threat” to Euro-Atlantic security in decades, shattering peace in the region and reinforcing the need for NATO to ensure a strong force posture, according to the alliance.

“NATO faces the most complex security environment since the end of the Cold War. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is jeopardizing European security, and terrorism continues to represent a global security challenge and a threat to stability,” NATO stated. “At the same time, China’s stated ambitions and coercive policies challenge the alliance’s interests, security and values. Growing global uncertainty, more sophisticated and disruptive cyber and hybrid threats, the increasing prominence of nuclear weapons in potential adversaries’ strategies and exponential technological change are having a substantial impact on the alliance.”

NATO’s founding aim was to counter the risk of the Soviet Union extending control into Eastern Europe and elsewhere on the continent. At the heart of the alliance’s treaty is Article 5, which commits members to mutual defense in the event of an attack against any NATO nation.

Deterrence remains the primary goal, with NATO’s strategy seeking to prevent conflict and war, protect Allies, maintain freedom of decision and action, and uphold principles and values such as individual liberty, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Further evidence of the alliance’s growing strength and capabilities to safeguard freedom and security is the unprecedented increase in defense spending among member states. In 2024, NATO Allies in Europe invested a combined $380 billion in defense, reaching 2% of their combined gross domestic product for the first time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced in February 2024. “We are making real progress,” he said.

The stakes for maintaining peace and stability are high, and alliances such as NATO are fulfilling their commitments During NATO’s 75th anniversary celebration in April 2024, Bauer noted that the allied forces’ “sacred pledge” protects “much more than physical safety.”

“We are collectively defending freedom and democracy,” Bauer said. “Across Europe and North America, 3.5 million men and women in uniform are upholding a shield against aggression. We deter and defend against any adversary, at any time, in any place. In a world where authoritarian regimes are desperately trying to portray an image of strength, and brutal tyranny strives to take away the sovereign rights of peoples and nations, we need that shield more than ever. We need to show the world that democracy is worth fighting for.”  

Sentry magazine is a publication of the U.S. Strategic Command.

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