British report outlines weaknesses in NATO

NATO is poorly prepared for an attack on a member state from Russia, an influential group of Ministers of Parliament has warned. The Commons Defense Committee said the recent Ukraine conflict showed "serious deficiencies" in NATO's preparedness to counter threats - and "radical reform" was needed. The MPs said the risk of a conventional assault remained low, - but warned over methods such as cyber-attacks and the use of irregular militias.

NATO said it would study the findings. The MPs also warned NATO "may not have the collective political will to take concerted action to deter attack." Moreover, they said public opinion might not support the use of military force to honor Article 5 commitments in a confrontation with Russia.

"NATO is currently not well-prepared for a Russian threat against a NATO member state," the report said. "A Russian unconventional attack, using asymmetric tactics - the latest term for this is 'ambiguous warfare' - designed to slip below response threshold, would be particularly difficult to counter."

The report said that while NATO had not seen Russia as a territorial threat for 20 years, recent events meant it was "forced to do so."

NATO representative Oana Lungescu said: "We have not seen the report by the UK Defense Select Committee but we'll study it carefully once it's published. The alliance has expanded widely in the past 15 years, admitting states that border Russia and three - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia - which were once part of the Soviet Union.

Park Sae-jin swatchsjp@ajunews.com

British report outlines weaknesses in NATO

Related