The future of NATO. A time to rebuild

Its mission has changed. But the transatlantic military alliance is worth saving

IF ONLY D-Day commemorations came around more often: that is what the leaders of Europe and America may be murmuring as they head off to a NATO summit in Istanbul next week. Since its last summit, in Prague two years ago, the Atlantic alliance has displayed little of the solidarity recently celebrated on Normandy's sands. NATO has assumed peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan, but failed to find enough troops. It has formed a NATO Response Force (NRF), a pool of elite, mostly European soldiers - but for what eventuality, no one seems sure. It has accepted seven new members - but most of their troops are of little use to the alliance. So there is much to discuss. But rancour over Iraq, darkening the summit like a cloud, may prevent it from agreeing anything useful.

That would be a pity. Despite many claims to the contrary, NATO has yet to define its place in a post-Soviet world. Over the past decade, it has assumed some new roles: peacekeeping in the Balkans and Afghanistan, partnership with Russia, endless diplomatic dialogue. The old concern of defending its members' territory has faded into the background - leaving a question mark as to why the alliance need exist at all.

At first look, America's recent wars seem to have pushed the alliance further off stage. Spurning NATO's offers, the Pentagon shouldered the hardest part of the Afghan war alone. Ahead of the Iraq war, the alliance was at first unable, thanks to France, to play even a bit part, by providing air-defences to Turkey. But somewhere in these messy debates, the principle was accepted that NATO members could hardly shore up their own security without sending troops far afield.

That much was positive. So too is the broad acceptance on both sides of the Atlantic that even in a post-communist world neither America nor Europe is ever likely to face a security threat that does not imperil the other in some degree. But agreeing in theory that America and Europe still need to help each other is only part of the battle: the harder part is making sure that they are physically capable of doing so.

Lost an enemy, not yet found a role

If America has seemed reluctant to fight its recent wars through NATO, that is unsurprising. European forces are so inferior to its own that they are sometimes a burden, useful only for peacekeeping after the shooting stops. But America has not yet reconciled itself to casting its allies in such a modest role. At the last NATO summit, George Bush challenged the Europeans to turn the new response force into a tough, high-tech force. His message was that if Europe got serious about boosting its defences, America would get serious about helping.

That challenge is still on the table. Recently, some European armies have seen quite a lot of action, in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process, they have improved, with the Italians, for example, commended for counter-insurgency work in Iraq. More typically, though, the Europeans' efforts have justified America's reluctance to use NATO. After ten months of peacekeeping in Afghanistan, the alliance has still deployed only 250 soldiers outside Kabul. A lack of decent troops and aircraft is only part of the problem: more serious is the lack of will among European governments.

For want of better news, NATO's new secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, will make bold claims in Istanbul for his Afghan mission. In the run-up to the summit, he has begged a few hundred more troops from Spain and a few helicopters from Turkey, allowing a minimal expansion outside Kabul. He may announce that the NRF will be deployed to Afghanistan in September to help secure its elections.

But this will not change NATO's underlying malaise. If the Europeans want to save NATO, they must spend more money on defence and transform their bloated armies into smaller fighting forces, easily inter-operable with America's. NATO's mission in Afghanistan needs urgent expansion.

Nor should this exclude doing more in Iraq, where NATO'S current role consists of giving limited help to Poland's contingent. Once Iraq has its own government, after June 30th, this aid could be increased. The alliance might, for example, provide communications and planning for the 16 NATO members that already keep troops in Iraq individually. France is resisting this, on grounds that NATO involvement in that country would bless an American-led war which defied international law. But that was yesterday's quarrel; the whole Security Council has now blessed Iraq's new government. If the allies cannot stand together in Iraq and Afghanistan, where all see elements of a common threat, what indeed is NATO for?

Editorial feature says that NATO's mission has changed, However the transatlantic military alliance is worth saving. Preview of the NATO: Istanbul Summit, 28-29 June 2004.

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