A hollow alliance: NATO once was a serious and capable military association with an important purpose. That no longer is the case, and there is little prospect that the process of decay can be reversed.

• Author: Carpenter, Ted Galen
• Position: Worldview

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NATO CELEBRATED its 60th birthday this past April. The prevailing view that the alliance is healthy and an essential political and security player in the 21st century is reinforced by the apparent attitude of the new government of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's leading power, the U.S. The Administration of George W. Bush often seemed to prefer a unilateral approach to foreign affairs. Pres. Barack Obama's foreign policy team repeatedly has emphasized its commitment to multilateralism in general and NATO in particular--which helped Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize (albeit in dubious fashion) less than a year into his presidency. Moreover, during her confirmation hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stressed that Washington's policy should be one of "smart power," the meaning of which includes "strengthening the alliances that have stood the test of time, especially with our NATO partners and our allies in East Asia."

However, the professed optimism on both sides of the Atlantic cannot conceal growing doubts about NATO's relevance to the policy challenges of the 21st century, and its ability to be an effective security mechanism. There are unmistakable signs of trouble in several areas: the weakness and vulnerability of new members and prospective new members; clumsy alliance policies that have created serious tensions with Russia; growing divisions within the burgeoning alliance over policy toward Russia; NATO's anemic performance in Afghanistan; and the alarming decline in the military capabilities of the alliance's core European members.

At the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, alliance leaders gave a green light for eventual membership to two more nations: Croatia and Albania. The proposed additions represent the third round of enlargement for the alliance--and highlights NATO's waning security relevance and increasingly questionable attributes in the post-Cold War era. The addition of small countries with murky political characteristics, trivial military capabilities, and dicey relations with neighboring states does nothing to augment the vast military power of the U.S. or enhance the security of the American people. All enlargement does is create another set of potential headaches for Washington.

At one time, NATO was a serious alliance with a serious purpose. Throughout the Cold War, it prevented the Soviet Union from intimidating or (less likely) attacking democratic Western Europe--a region of considerable strategic and economic importance. True, the U.S. always was the dominant player in the alliance, but Washington could count on credible secondary military powers, most notably Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. That no longer is the case.

The new members the alliance has admitted since the end of the Cold War are weak client states that expect the U.S. to defend them--both the midsized countries of Poland, the Czech...