NATO's Future Not Solely Dependent on Afghanistan
James Sperling & Mark Webber | Chatham House | May 2009
Since the end of the
Cold War there have been regular prognoses concerning the absolution of NATO.
In fact since then the Alliance has undergone scores of tests: Bosnia, Kosovo,
9/11, Iraq and most recently Afghanistan. In addition to these trials came the
eight years of the Bush administration, whose indifference toward consensus and
diplomacy had corrosive effects on NATO. However, the view that the Alliance
somehow finds itself permanently on the edge of collapse must be taken with a
grain of salt. A more exacting analysis of the Balkan engagement rather
demonstrates that NATO knows how to effectively handle itself in the most
serious of situations - although in the future it would be preferable that
results materialize more quickly and with less controversy.
The crisis in Bosnia
was the catalyst for NATO's first profound changes: the first out-of-area
operation, the first authorized deployment of NATO troops under a UN
Resolution, and the first integration of French units into the NATO command
structure since 1966. Bosnia was, despite substantial friction among the member
states, the answer to the declaration made by US Senator Richard Lugar in the
early 90s that NATO would either go "out of area or out of business." After
Bosnia the next test for the Alliance awaited in Kosovo. Above all, NATO's
credibility was on the line, after the Alliance had allowed Slobodan Milosevic
to push it around in the East for years. And despite several daunting
controversies confronting Operation Allied Force (OAF), the members were able
to avoid the worst of all possible results: ending OAF without fulfilling its
various political obligations. In Kosovo the Alliance demonstrated a collective
resolve which had not existed during the Bosnia crisis. All member states,
including the US, could point to positive results of the engagement. Thus,
Kosovo became a hallmark operation in the history of NATO: some members
recognized a crisis and a subsequent need for action; others helped provide an
optimal solution. The legacy in Kosovo further expedited the process of change.
Parallels with the NATO deployment in Afghanistan
are highly visible, whose success is more open to speculation now than
previously. However, that a failure of the Afghan mission will bring about the
collapse of NATO seems to be everything but compelling. While critics of the
unequal "burden sharing" in Afghanistan are not without substance, assertions
concerning a growing transatlantic rift are clear exaggerations. The
Afghanistan case makes clear how unequal commitments and interests among NATO
members can be shared (and sometimes must be shared). Furthermore, the
advantages of NATO-led missions are also apparent in the case of Afghanistan at
long last: "War by Committee," as the Americans say, does not create the most
efficient variant of military engagements, but it makes all participants
"stakeholders" in the mission and thereby raises the probability that all
members bare a reasonable share of the burden.
This summary was prepared by the Atlantic Community editorial team from "NATO: from Kosovo to Kabul" published here by Chatham House
