The bell tolls for NATO.

• Author: Bet-El, Ilana
• Position: Future Force - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's participation in Afghan conflict - Critical essay

THE DAY the coalition forces invaded Iraq in March 2003, the conflict in Afghanistan became a sideshow for the United States. By default, it became the main event for NATO. Yet, the operation could be NATO's death knell, unless its members begin to deal with the organization and with each other more realistically. The road to victory in Afghanistan now runs through Brussels. It is time to decide whether this is a political alliance with a military purpose or a military alliance with a political cause. If the current scenario continues, NATO cannot succeed in Afghanistan, and therefore NATO cannot succeed anywhere; this is a clear and present danger.

Victory is thwarted by endemic problems within the alliance, with far deeper roots than the operation in Central Asia. Indeed, the sad situation of the NATO International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan reflects the much harsher reality of NATO's lack of strategic direction, largely due to its fragmented political will. As a result, it has lost its most crucial historical asset, through which it won the Cold War: the power of deterrence. In this most recent adventure, the Taliban, having tested ISAF and finding it pliable, is not afraid, and there is a danger that other potential opponents will follow suit. All of this is a legacy of NATO's Cold War inception.

A Cold Shadow

THERE ARE two major issues, now tightly intertwined, at the heart of NATO's predicament: structural and political. On the structural side, the major problem is the very essence of the alliance as a Cold War creation; a historical moment of such overwhelming magnitude that it dispensed with the need to ever question the difference between military and political objectives. The Soviet nuclear threat provided an absolute reason for the existence of NATO, as an alliance with an absolute strategy of deterrence through a monopoly on overwhelming force. Underpinning this strategy was the unquestioned leadership of the United States, as both a victor of the Second World War and, far more significantly, as the majority owner of the nuclear capabilities that formed the deterrent. This leadership was bolstered by a command and control system of multinational consensus. The existence of a common enemy and the unrivaled power of the United States within the alliance fostered political unity.

The West's victory in the Cold War removed that overwhelming threat, and so nullified the strategy, or at least the need for it, whilst leaving the structure intact. The worry that after the thaw, America and the states of Europe had differing priorities and no overwhelming cause to bind them together was either ignored or suppressed, leading to an unaddressed political disparity on both sides of the Atlantic. This was largely due to the assumption that the Cold War's international architecture would remain intact and be extrapolated onto a world of peace: That the nature of both NATO membership and U.S. political and military leadership would stay relatively frozen, and U.S. and European goals for NATO would be identical. Reality unfolded somewhat differently.

Trouble in Paradise

IN THE wake of the Cold War, NATO and the EU began to expand. Newly independent, poor, politically active states were brought into the fold. NATO provided the security umbrella, and then opened its doors to membership for these former Soviet satellites. But the EU did much of the heavy lifting, as states were forced to conform to frameworks that transformed them economically and politically. It was through this very process that the EU became a massive trading bloc and economic superpower. And in the post-Cold War globalized world, common trade and economic interests are the keys to security--probably even more than...