DOES NATO HAVE A FUTURE? - For Better or For Worse

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,557914,00.html

By Karl Kaiser and Peter van Ham

The Atlantic alliance is in limbo: There is no consensus among its members on a range of key issues. No one wants to pay the bills or contribute more troops. Is NATO a Cold War relic that has lost its relevance? Or does today’s array of security challenges make it more important than ever?

Pro: NATO is Indispensable as a Successful Multilateral Security Forum

Since the Soviet Union’s demise, NATO has often been written off as superfluous. However, NATO remains critical to world order. The Atlantic alliance is a forum for forging solutions to contemporary security issues. Many of its functions have become even more important in the 21st century.


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This redefinition and legitimatization must be accomplished by jointly developing a new strategic concept.2 Launching such an undertaking for the occasion of NATO’s 60th anniversary in 2009 will be made easier by the imminent return of France to NATO and a new American administration. The project should fulfill three tasks. First, strategy, self-definition, consultation procedures, operative implementation, the contributions of individual members, and institutional rules must be redefined. Second, the process of redefining strategy should trigger a debate within the member nations and help clarify security issues in order to strengthen and solidify domestic support and generate domestic legitimacy. Third and finally, this should become a “unifying endeavor”3 helping to move, wherever possible, beyond today’s differences of opinion within the alliance toward a consensus on its transformed security role.

The success of this undertaking hinges on NATO’s ability to overcome attempts to reduce it to a “coalition of the willing,” which could be fatal to the alliance. The process must, furthermore, clarify the connection between civilian and military approaches and reassess cooperation with other institutions -- first and foremost the European Union -- and partners outside of NATO.

Karl Kaiser is a guest professor at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs/ John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.



Part 2: Contra: NATO's Day is Over

As a popular British World War I song has it: “Old soldiers never die; they only fade away.” Most likely, this will also be the fate of NATO, long an important fighter in the West’s campaign for democracy. After serving Western interests well during the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, NATO is slowly losing its significance as a central platform for the transatlantic security debate. The alliance’s strategic relevance is declining because it has failed to keep its institutional structure up to date with new administrative and strategic challenges.

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Conclusion Lest we forget, the infamous Western European Union still officially exists, and even has a small office in the center of Brussels. NATO will not suddenly disappear from Europe’s security radar, but will slowly fade away. In its new shiny headquarters, NATO will have to reinvent itself in order to remain relevant. Article V has to go, and global partnerships should be formalized. The end result will be the OSCE-ization of the alliance, proving that it may be necessary to destroy an international organization in order to save it. We may still call this organization “NATO,” but it would be disingenuous.

Peter Van Ham is director of global governance research at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations in The Hague and a professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium.