Nato: globalization or redundancy?

Abstract

After its remarkable transformation from Cold War defence alliance to pan-European security organization in the 1990s, NATO in the post-11 September world once again faces an existential crisis. The combination of new global security challenges, the achievement of much of NATO's historic mission in Europe and increasing unilateralism in US foreign policy calls the alliance's future into doubt. Some analysts suggest that NATO must either respond to the new security challenges by developing a global role or face redundancy. NATOhas begun tomove down the former road by taking over the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and offering a new partnership to the countries of the Middle East, but there are likely to be significant constraints on the alliance's ability to develop new global roles. While NATO will continue to serve a number of functions, it is now simply one security institution among many rather than the pre-eminent security institution and symbol of the West that it once was.

Notes

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Such arguments are not new but have intensified, particularly in the US, since 11 September 2001. See Ronald Asmus, Robert Blackwill and F. Stephen Larrabee, ‘Can NATO Survive?’, Washington Quarterly, Vol.19, No.2 (1996), pp.79–101 and Richard Lugar, ‘NATO After 9/11: Crisis or Opportunity?’, at < http://www.senate.gov/-lugar/030402.html >.

As William Park has observed NATO ‘had to survive since birth against the background of an almost permanent death-knell’. William Park, Defending the West: A History of NATO (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1986), p.vii.

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The preamble to the 1949 treaty on which NATO is based, states that the alliance's members ‘are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilisation of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.’ Article Two of the treaty states that NATO's members ‘will contribute toward the further development of peaceful and friendly international relations by strengthening their free institutions, by bringing about a better understanding of the principles upon which these institutions are founded, and by promoting conditions of stability and well-being’. The North Atlantic Treaty, Washington DC, 4 April, 1949, at < http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/treaty.htm >.

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The influential US Senator Richard Lugar, currently (2004) chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, advanced the ‘out of area or out of business’ argument in the early 1990s and since 11 September has been a leading advocate of the argument that NATO must take on a global role in tackling terrorism and proliferation. See Lugar's speech, ‘New Strategic Challenges for the Atlantic Community: Think Globally, Act Globally’, 25 June 2004, at < http://lugar.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id = 223161 >.

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