Overall, while the recent NATO Summit in Strasbourg wasn’t as groundbreaking as many had hoped, there was a lot to be optimistic about.
I welcome NATO’s two newest members—Croatia and Albania—into the alliance. Their membership shows what reform and hard work can achieve, but they must also realise that with membership comes responsibility. The membership of Croatia and Albania should send the message to the rest of the region that the natural home for the Balkans is inside the family of Europe and part of NATO.
There was a lot of talk at the Summit about further troop contributions for ISAF in Afghanistan—especially for the period leading up to and during the upcoming elections in August. Time will tell if these contributions, which read so well on paper, will ever become real capability on the ground. In addition, I hope our European allies will be able to contribute more combat troops to the dangerous south and east of the country—but recent history has thought us to be sceptical.
President Sarkozy’s decision to rejoin NATO’s Integrated Command Structure should be welcome on both sides of the Atlantic. France can bring real military capability to the alliance, but this decision should not be at the cost of deeper EU defence integration. It must be made clear that NATO has the right of first refusal and primacy for all matters pertaining to the security and defence of Europe. For the last 60 years NATO has been the cornerstone of our collective defense and it should stay this way.
Even after this summit I think many are still asking the question: “What is NATO for?”
The inconvenient truth is that NATO had it good during the Cold War: bigger defence budgets, bigger armies, and a clear mission with a clear goal - to stop the Red Army in the Fulda Gap and defeat it on the plains of Central Europe.
Today, the NATO alliance must come to terms with the trials it faces and the resources it has available. In a globalised and interdependent world NATO must be prepared for a full spectrum of challenges. There has rightly been a lot of focus on expeditionary warfare because of NATO’s challenges in Afghanistan. However, we must also ensure that NATO, as an alliance, has the capability to fulfil its raison d'être and defend the continent.
The luxury of the bi-polar world during the Cold War allowed us to make clear and distinct differences between these two roles. However, times have changed. The post Cold War world is one where our economic and security interests are so interlinked with many other countries that we have an unavoidable shared set of interests with forces in all parts of the globe.
Consequently, we now have the unavoidable importation of strategic risk. It is under these terms that NATO is just as relevant now was it was during the Cold War. NATO leaders must resolve those political issues that underline military operations.
However, this will not be enough. Once political aims have been agreed by the various NATO members, these must be equally matched with the military capability to follow them through. Leaders in NATO must work together to identify future threats that are in all our security interest. Strong arguments can be made that Article V, the mutual defence clause, needs to be expanded to cover new 21st century threats such as energy security or cyber terrorism.
If those challenges are not enough to deal with we also have the current situation in Afghanistan. Defeat, or the mere appearance of a NATO defeat, in Afghanistan could mark the beginning of the end for the alliance.
We know that the war in Afghanistan is unpopular in many European countries. We need all governments to remind their citizens why the fight in Afghanistan is so important in order to get wider support from the public.
For NATO to work properly as a security alliance in the post Cold War world, NATO members must have the willingness to take equal risks. We need to see the supply of troops and equipment, and the willingness financially to fund and sustain operations until the mission is accomplished spread more equally across all member states.
Currently there are certain members who are doing a disproportionate amount of the hard fighting and the funding. This is not sustainable. NATO’s success depends on the support of its members. NATO members need to understand that membership brings implicit and explicit responsibilities to ensure that their militaries have the capability to fight and win on the modern-day battlefield.
Even with all the current challenges, NATO has not stopped working as a functioning security alliance. Its members still have the same shared values as they did during the Cold War. However, there are now divergent views on Nato’s external threats and how the alliance should respond to them.
With the current struggle in Afghanistan, the tinderbox which is the Balkans, the threat of global terrorism, problems with energy security, and a resurgent Russia the stakes are too high. Establishing a purpose and an agenda for the 21st Century is way forward for NATO.
