Reforging the Atlantic alliance.

• Author: Gordon, Philip H.

LESS THAN 24 hours after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, America's allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came together to invoke the Alliance's Article 5 defense guarantee -- this "attack on one" was considered an "attack on all." When it came time to implement that guarantee, however -- in the form of the military campaign in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom -- NATO was not used. The Americans decided not to ask for a NATO operation for military; political and strategic reasons: only the United States had the right sort of equipment to project military force half way around the world, and Washington did not want political interference from 18 allies in the campaign.

In the wake of these developments -- and steadily mounting disagreement and even rancor about a long list of political and strategic issues -- some observers have begun to question whether NATO has any enduring role at all. Charles Krauthammer bluntly asserts that "NATO is dead"; it may still have a marginal role to play as an incubator for Russia's integration into Europe and the West, but as a military alliance it is a "hollow shell." (1) Jeffrey Gedmin, director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, once a bastion of Atlanticism, believes that U.S. and European views of security are now so different that "the old Alliance holds little promise of figuring prominently in U.S. global strategic thinking." (2) Robert Kagan urges his readers "to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world." (3) He does not explicitly envisage, let alone call for, NATO'S demise, but his views on the growing Euro-American divergence about the use of force -- as we ll as the fact that NATO is hardly mentioned in a 25-page journal article about transatlantic security issues -- leaves little doubt about how he sees the future of the Alliance. Even The Economist, a strong proponent of transatlantic security cooperation, wonders whether NATO will survive, concluding "it is harder than it used to be to imagine NATO, as it is, advancing far into the 21St century." (4)

NATO-skeptics make serious points; there are good reasons to be concerned about the future of the Alliance -- especially if nothing is done to revitalize and adapt it to current circumstances. The Afghanistan campaign revealed significant gaps between the war-fighting capabilities of the United States and its allies, most of whom did not have the stealth, all-weather and communications technologies to enable them to take part in the early stages of the operation. The quick success of that operation also reinforced the already strong perception in some quarters in Washington -- especially in the Pentagon -- that it is easier to fight alone than with allies who have little to offer militarily and who might hamper efficient decision-making. Moreover, the U.S. decision in the wake of the terrorist attacks to increase its defense budget by some $48 billion for 2003 -- an increase that is larger than any single European country's entire annual defense budget -- will only widen the capabilities gap. If the war on te rrorism leads the United States to undertake military operations in other distant theaters -- such as Iraq -- and if the Europeans are unwilling or unable to come along, NATO'S centrality will be further reduced. Add to all this the gradually diminishing NATO role in the Balkans (a role that arguably saved NATO from obsolescence in the 1990s), the emergence of a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) whose long-term relationship with NATO is uncertain, and a big enlargement of NATO's membership that risks diluting its coherence, and it is not difficult to see why many wonder whether NATO's first actual military missions -- in Bosnia and Kosovo -- will turn out to have been its last.

Four Reasons to Save NATO

YET TO conclude that NATO no longer has any important roles to play, just because it was not used in a mission for which it was not designed in the first place, would be a mistake. While NATO's roles in the 21st century will be very different from those relevant at the Alliance's founding in 1949, the United States has a strong national interest in preserving and adapting NATO. This is true for four main reasons.

First, NATO remains the primary vehicle for keeping the United States engaged in European security affairs. Perhaps it will turn out to be the case that the wars of the 21St century will be fought without Europeans and far away from Europe. In that case, America's European engagement over the past sixty years could be deemed a job well done and the transatlantic security partnership would no longer be necessary. But after a century that saw two world wars start in Europe and end in horrendous conflict in the Balkans (which, like the world wars, required American intervention to stop), it would seem more prudent for the United States to remain engaged until the continent's future -- including that of Russia, Ukraine and eastern Europe -- is more clear.

A second enduring role for NATO is to contribute to the continent's integration and stabilization process through...