[A-List] The end of NATO?

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

An alliance in search of a role
As Nato presses the case for enlargement, there is growing uncertainty
on both sides of the Atlantic about its purpose, says Judy Dempsey
Financial Times: April 10 2002

This should be a glorious year for Nato. By November, when the military
alliance holds its summit in Prague, it hopes seven countries from the
Baltic to the Balkans will be ready to join. George Robertson, the
organisation's secretary-general (pictured), has been putting the case
for enlargement to lobbies in Washington and has received strong support
from George W. Bush, the US president, whom he met last night.

Yet for all the growing support for Nato's "big bang" enlargement, the
alliance is in crisis. There is little consensus in Washington or Europe
as to exactly why the alliance should expand. Indeed, the Bush
administration is divided over what role Nato can usefully play in the
future.

"Washington does not have a strategy for Nato," says Istvan Gyarmati,
who negotiated Hungary's entry into the alliance in 1999. "As long as
the US does not take Nato seriously, enlargement does not matter. If the
US does take the alliance seriously, then we have big decisions to make
over who should be invited to join next November and why they should
join."

September 11 was a turning point in the US's approach to Nato.
"Overnight we became a convenient diplomatic and political prop for
Washington," says a senior Nato diplomat.

After the attacks, Lord Robertson was quick to give his support for the
US's war against terrorism. For the first time in the alliance's 52-year
history, he pushed through Article 5, declaring that an attack on one
member was, in effect, an attack on all. But Washington snubbed the
offer by declining to make full use of it.

"Washington did not want its hands tied and it did not want its options
restricted by Nato or its European allies. It wanted decisions to be
made quickly and unilaterally," says Francois Heisbourg, director of the
Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research. "But Washington at least
could have rejected Article 5 in a more elegant way. It left a bad
feeling among several Nato countries," he adds.

True, Nato had little to offer Washington in terms of capability such as
airlift and intelligence. For example, when Germany sent peacekeeping
troops to Afghanistan, they were stranded in Turkey for days because
Berlin lacked adequate transport. But for veteran Nato observers, the
main reason Washington marginalised Nato was because the post-cold war
era had ended and Nato's traditional role as a collective defence
organisation was coming to a close.

"September 11 showed that with the advent of hyperterrorism, the
post-cold war era itself came to an abrupt end, changing the
relationship between the US and Europe and the US's view of the
alliance," says Mr Heisbourg.

What this amounts to, according to a Nato ambassador, is that the US
will "pick and choose" what countries or groups of coalitions it
requires for any military mission, as it has done since September 11.

According to the Nato ambassador, some members of the Bush
administration believe an enlarged Nato will prove more useful to the
US's new approach. But there still remains the issue of Nato's future
role. "Enlargement still does not address the question of where the
bigger Nato will be going," he says.

For some Nato countries, enlargement is about completing the postwar
unification of Europe and ending a division that pitted two ideologies
against each other.

For others, enlargement simply continues the process in which Nato is
being transformed from a collective defence organisation into a
political and security organisation designed to carry out crisis
management and peacekeeping. Nato is already involved in such operations
in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia. "The reality is that the old,
traditional threats are over," says a Nato military official. "Russia is
no longer the enemy."

In Washington, Mr Bush, at least for the moment, belongs to the first
school and appears committed to a "big bang" enlargement. The Pentagon
does not share his view. Defence officials are sceptical about a bigger
Nato and closer relations with Russia. They say enlargement will make
sense only if new members can defend themselves and contribute to Nato's
overall defence. They add that the three Baltic states of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania have tiny armies that add nothing to Nato's overall
capabilities. They also complain that current Nato members are not
spending enough on defence.

The state department, taking a wider political view of the alliance's
future role, thinks enlargement is about expanding the security and
stability of Europe. But officials there also believe that some
candidate countries are not ready to join.

Nicholas Burns, US ambassador to Nato, says aspiring members have to
face two tests. "Will they strengthen the alliance? And can we be
assured that each new country is fundamentally committed to democracy
and will achieve political stability?"

Strengthening the alliance is not only about military capabilities, Nato
officials warn. It is also about adapting decision-making procedures to
a much larger number of member states.

Lord Robertson is the first to admit that exactly how easily Nato
absorbs the new members is unclear. "Before Prague, hard decisions have
to be made," he says. He also insists there are far too many structures
in Nato that are too political, too symbolic, or simply "related to the
past".

If Lord Robertson had his way, he would reduce the alliance's 400
committees and introduce majority voting for decisions that have no
defence or military implications. As it is, Nato is based on consensus -
a fact its staff say will impede efficiency and timely decision-making
when the alliance expands to 26.

Yet Lord Robertson's reforms depend on what Washington wants from Nato.
So far, the administration has been mute, pressing for enlargement
without addressing the future of the transatlantic alliance.

That merely reinforces the view of some Nato officials that Washington
has no clear idea what to do with Nato or how to adapt it to new
military threats. As one senior Nato official says: "Nato is the last
remaining multinational organisation Washington can dominate. Yet
because it cannot decide how to reform it and therefore does nothing, it
risks marginalising Nato and alienating its own allies."

Full article at:
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3QK4G4UZC&live=true

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx