ALEC Travels to Poland to Engage on Transatlantic Security
ALEC has long recognized that collaborating with like-minded partners builds strength.
As evidence of growing global reach, ALEC was invited by the Alliance for Global Security (AGS)/New Security Leaders (NSL) to present at a Warsaw Security Forum side panel entitled: Transatlanticism: Making It Work in the 21st Century – How Should the Transatlantic Partnership Adapt? A lot of ideas aimed at repairing the alliance were discussed, and I highlighted an area that national governments often overlook – increasing subnational engagement.
Taiwan’s years-long and sophisticated outreach program is one of the reasons that Americans understand and care about the challenges that the island nation faces. However, many countries, including those in Europe, are missing opportunities to cement economic ties and to repair some of the strained transatlantic lines of communication.
Despite their lack of jurisdiction over foreign and national security policy, the states are the ultimate stakeholders in foreign policy. In the months after Russia’s 2022 attack on Ukraine, hundreds of pieces of legislation were considered in state legislatures across the country – most of it supporting Ukraine. State lawmakers are also proud of their current international engagement, including attracting high profile foreign direct investment (FDI) like the recently announced TSMC FABs in Arizona and Texas, as well as their National Guard State Partnership programs.
Trade is an area ripe for more subnational engagement, and the UK and Germany are among those nations that have gotten a head start on this process, exemplified in the ALEC model Joint Declaration of Intent to Promote Investment, Innovation and Research between This State and the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the ALEC model Memorandum of Understanding on Economic Cooperation and Trade Relations between This State and the United Kingdom. One by one, the states are negotiating deals with foreign countries.
Topics in national security lend themselves to greater subnational engagement as well. According to the 2025 Reagan National Defense Survey, most Americans want the United States to lead in international affairs by supporting Ukraine and defending Taiwan. Favorability toward NATO rose to a record-high 68%.
However, there is a disconnect on some issues. Almost all Americans are happy that NATO allies are allocating more of their budgets to defense. However, many are unaware of how much Europeans have already done to support Ukraine in terms of military and humanitarian aid. European countries have accepted significant numbers of Ukrainian refugees given their population sizes, with Poland and Germany leading the way with 1.3 million and 980,000, respectively. At the same time, Americans tend to overestimate U.S. support. The U.S., with a population four times greater than Germany’s, accepted 101,000 Ukrainian refugees through the Temporary Protected Status Program and another 240,000 through the Parole Programs during the Biden Administration.
In my recent travels, I also had the distinct honor of participating in a panel at the NATO Headquarters of the Multinational Division Northeast (MND-NE) in Elblag, Poland with several officers serving at MND-NE, a vital part of NATO’s force structure in northeastern Europe. Comprised of 14 partner nations, MND-NE coordinates activities of the multinational battle groups deployed in Lithuania and Poland and is ready to carry out defensive operations in accordance with Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. The discussion topic was: Problems and Opportunities in Multinationality, and the questions posed to me were:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of NATO’s multinational approach?
- What is the future of multinationality for NATO?
ALEC, which prioritizes developing and sharing best policy practices, exemplifies the advantages of multinationality, which is basically multinational cooperation between allies. ALEC has long recognized that collaborating with like-minded partners builds strength, and sharing and adopting appropriate best practices is smart. Multinationality helps forces accomplish both objectives. From a military perspective, multinationality facilitates power projection by small nations when working together in a coalition, and additional benefits include readiness and interoperability in equipment and personnel.
I also shared an anecdote about a military fair in Sigulda, Latvia hosted by the Canadian-led NATO Multinational Brigade Latvia, which is the Alliance’s most multinational military unit and seeks to deter potential adversaries and to defend NATO’S eastern flank. This relatively simple event reassured Latvians that they are not alone and helped create excitement about the military among the young attendees, which might make future force recruitment and retention a little easier.
ALEC’s emphasis on sharing best practices is also a factor in multinationality, where Finland, which joined the alliance in 2023, has already shared its unique but replicable formula for resilience with NATO partners. My conclusion was that multinationality advantages far outweighed the disadvantages, and some of the disadvantages could even be viewed ultimately as advantages. Redundancy is a disadvantage, except that it can increase survivability in certain circumstances.
Given Europe’s current challenges – an increasingly aggressive Russia and an American focus shifting to the Western Hemisphere – multinationality is here to stay, although instead of large groupings of nations, there might be more bilateral and trilateral coalitions sharing common objectives. ALEC strategies for enhanced collaboration and guiding principles are universal and fit seamlessly into both presentations.