Does NATO still have a role to play?

Regarding many of the historical facts and also the current events concerning NATO and its member countries, we can though ask ourselves on the positive role of NATO, most of all in the recent period. This is not only an observation on all the situations NATO has been and is confronted to, but also a leg to stand on to say that the new context emerging at the beginning of the 21^st century still conveys an important role to the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The persistence of risks

 

The fact that the cold war is over doesn't mean that there is no risks anymore for our societies. The only differences is that today, those risks are evolving and more numerous. During the cold war, as we said, there were two big entities, though a context relatively easier to understand, but nowadays it's much more complicated to identify enemy (or enemies).

Since the fall down of the Berlin wall, the world is not peaceful as we could have expected. Many local conflicts have emerged, sometimes situated in territories far away from us. Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, Somalia, Lebanon and some other are relevant examples of this context. Those conflicts are not threatening us directly but the risk is a spread of instability, a kind of spillovering effect. That's why NATO or/and the UNO had to intervene to restore security and stability, at least doing their best for it. It's very important to understand that those conflicts are really dangerous for our safety here in France, and by extension in Europe. Often, those areas in crisis, controlled by non-democratic governments, like in Somalia or Afghanistan before NATO intervention, are a nice opportunity for terrorism and the development of illegal activities like drugs or weapons trafficking.

Another kind of risk is indeed terrorism. In 2001, worldwide terrorism has emerged at the face of the world. Of course it was existing, at a local scale, nevertheless it has become a major key of security issues. In that case, the common enemy aren't states anymore but internationally-organized networks, overwhelming the mere dimension of nation-states. Thus, with a modern regard on this situation NATO has a role to play.

Finally, we can identify a third kind of risk, consisting in the persistence of classics actors in the international scene: Russia is remaining a sleeping danger. We can't look at the situation objectively yet but the eighteen last years might be nothing more than an improvement in relations between the two blocks. In this case NATO would not become so old. The potential accession of Georgia to NATO was one the explanation of the last war in Georgia, due to the Russian feeling of being surrounded by the Alliance. We could also think about China. The Chinese will of building an alternative cooperation area within the Shanghai's Cooperation Organization (SCO) is also to be observed, mainly whether it is a replica of NATO in Asia.

There are always a lot of reasons for NATO to be a powerful actor of the international scene. Its structure, which had been developed as an institutional weapon in the hands of states, is maybe not becoming unuseful in this new century, mainly because states are still the principal actors of the security issues (as the realist theory on international relations says), and also because other different non-state actors trying to compete and to spread their potential influence on the international scale.

The changes within the Alliance

 

The changes inside the missions: the foreign operations against terrorism or/and the peace recovering

The missions of NATO forces today are increasingly moving toward new objectives that are directly linked to the new emerging situations throughout the world, and not only the euratlantic area.

The turning point has been the 2001 hijacking terrorist attacks on the USA, with the identification of a new threat, specifically for the western countries, which is the worldwide terrorism. This issue has first being exploited by the nation-states, and most of all the USA, because terrorism has been perceived as a specific attack on national interests (such as the finance world in the World Trade Centre), that was directly dealing with national defence issues.

Nevertheless, western countries which has feared the terrorist threats (that is to say a big majority of them), and many other countries, have so realized that in fact terrorism is to be fight on a collective and international scale. So NATO has so been considered as the best mean for western countries in general and associated countries to tackle the problem of terrorism.

That is why NATO is now the place of a new strategy to deal with one of the major security problems for states, which is more and more the problem of terrorism.

But there is another issue: if terrorism is to be fought with a collective solution for security, there is also a duty underneath to ensure a global stabilisation of the areas where terrorism is active. This is precisely what NATO is trying to do, by thinking beyond terrorism a peacekeeping process, which is necessary to ensure stability on the political, social and economic fields, and to tackle on the basis the problem of the terrorism emergence.

NATO and the security field with the « Security sector reform »: the Afghan case

According to the new NATO objectives, security is not only an issue to be dealt with on the global field, but also on the local one.

In fact, NATO can't be everywhere that a new problem is emerging. If NATO forces intervene in any country or any region, it is first in order to tackle the main problems of insecurity and instability. Then comes what is called in NATO the "security sector reform".

The security sector reform is a process of training at a local scale in the police and army sectors. For instance, since the beginning of the war against terrorism in Afghanistan (even if the conflict is not finished), some member armies from the Atlantic Alliance such as the French or the German ones have a role in the building process of stability by training the new Afghan army and the police forces of the country.

This is a very important part of the NATO forces' job in Afghanistan, because first it is a mean on a certain term to restablish the authority of the Afghan state on its territory (role of police forces), and also to let the local forces tackling their own problem on their own, such as the problem of drug trafficking for instance.

NATO and Eastern Europe

NATO has known different periods of enlargement throughout Europe since 1949, but in the recent period it is to be noticed that NATO is trendier and trendier in Eastern Europe.

A large part of the former socialist countries under the influence of USSR have chosen NATO as a basis of their own defence policies in order to ensure an new building of their military forces.

Since the early nineties and the fall down of USSR, the process of membership has been moving till the eastern part of Europe, and it is even continuing today, as we are talking about the Ukrainian and the Georgian potential memberships.

Though, the enlargement of the NATO's area of influence toward east is worrying the Russian giant, which is complaining about a western plan to make a circle of buffer states at all its western borders.

Thus the enlargement of NATO till Eastern Europe could be leading, if not controlled in the future, to the emergence of a new problem: a confrontation of interests with Russia. We are not yet at this point, but probably the diplomatic negotiations about this case will increase in the future.

 

A weakened Alliance exposed to competition

 

The foreign operations issue: the feeling of occupation and the western world interferences (Afghanistan)

There is actually a very relevant example of foreign operations issues, which is the involvement of the NATO coalition in Afghanistan since 2001. Never a military operation abroad of the NATO member countries has been so tough to implement and to maintain.

At the beginning of the Afghan conflict, there has been no particular difficulty to take position for the military forces, leaded by the US Army, first because the Coalition has been accounting for the military help of the Northern Alliance of General Massoud, and also because the main enemy (the Taliban regime), was not so organized to oppose resistance. This has permitted the creation of a large Coalition of countries (western countries) within the frame of NATO in 2001, and the beginning of a process of peacekeeping (operation "enduring freedom").

But as we know things happened differently with the maintaining of the NATO Coalition forces in the afghan territory.

Normally NATO and more generally any military forces in operation in any country abroad, have to bring stability back and first through the local population, in order to give the message that these operations are made in good intention and made for their well-being.

That was maybe the first feeling in the afghan population when the Taliban regime fell down in 2001, the feeling to be freed from a tyrant.

But maybe this feeling disappeared as quickly as the Taliban power has been defeated in Kabul, or maybe this feeling has never been existing.

It is to be noted that whether the Taliban power has been erased from the political power, the most part of the population in the Afghanistan, except in the big cities, was supporting the Taliban regime, most of all in the afghan countryside.

The NATO Coalition forces have probably ignored this detail, and that is why the feeling of freedom has been rapidly replaced by a local feeling of rejection of the foreign forces operating on the country.

This forgotten detail has been though a conclusive mean for the Talibans to recover their lost legitimacy, and to organize an internal resistance force against the western countries engaged in the Coalition.

Talibans and other pachtouns groups have exploited the feeling of being occupied and interference in the home affairs from a part of the population in order to build an armed resistance against NATO forces.

As we can see this situation is still continuing today, but it makes us asking for the consequences of NATO foreign operations on the populations concerned about the conflicts.

The main aims of NATO in Afghanistan are primarily to bring security and assistance (International Security Assistance Force), that is to say making sure that troubles are decreasing in the country (it is still very arguable when we see the results today), and training local army and police forces to ensure security on their own.

Maybe this strict role of the NATO Coalition in Afghanistan is too restricted, but we can consider also that NATO is acting in Afghanistan within a legal frame, which forces the countries engaged there to act collectively with specific divided missions, which are not necessarily taking care of the local populations. The mission of the NATO's member countries has to be differentiated from the antiterrorism operations (the International Antiterrorism Coalition), which is leaded by the US command, because these missions are not exactly the same as we consider that respectively one exists in order to fight directly the afghan local terrorism with radical means, and one exists in order to prevent terrorism, ensure security in different defined areas, act closer to the civilians, and train the future local forces of law and order.

But regarding the current situation in Afghanistan, the local resistance doesn't make such a difference between the military forces and their missions whatever they are, as we see the number of casualties growing not only within the US troops but also in NATO conscripts.

As a result, whether the involvement of NATO member countries in Afghanistan has not yet produced all the results expected, we can't ignore the fact that the NATO operations wherever they are can easily generate hostility inside the local populations as the western world right of interference is not considered anywhere as justifiable.

 

A risk of cohesion loss in the conflict: the principles of solidarity and involvement within the Alliance

The existence of NATO today is actually very different from what it has been during the Cold War, because there is no common enemy to fight or isolate (as USSR was till 1991) that can bring global unity in the actions of the Northern Atlantic countries.

In fact what we identify as an international threat today is not centralized in one area or one country in particular but anywhere, and sometimes in several places at the same moment. The international relations after the fall down of USSR has been becoming more and more confrontational just like the war in Balkans was beginning in 1991.

Thus NATO member countries have had to build, as we said before a new strategy in order to respond with efficiency to the new kind of threats appearing with the September 2001 events. And the reaction has been instantaneous as we know, because first USA has intervened in Afghanistan, then the ISAF from 2001 till today.

It is the first time that NATO is launching an operation out of the euratlantic space, but the need for a recovering of peaceful international relations demanded an operation against the terrorist threat where it is based, partly in Afghanistan.

The affirmation of a worldwide terrorist movement such as Al Qaeda has been also contributing to the definition of a new common enemy by the northern Atlantic countries, and this is precisely their need to fight this threat in order to ensure their national security that made unity at the NATO Council for an operation in Afghanistan, with the help of other allied countries as well.

Whether NATO countries such as France, UK or Germany intervened in Afghanistan because of the involvement rules of assistance to their American ally, they did engaged in the conflict as well because of a common position on terrorism, which is to prevent terrorist actions in Afghanistan and ensure an enduring security in the country, but maybe above all to nip terrorism in the bud.

As we see never in its history NATO has been confronted to such a tough situation as in Afghanistan currently, and this is showing that NATO has effectively a strategy against the terrorist threats or other new kinds of international threats, but it remains a perfectible strategy.

That is why all the interest of NATO member countries engaged in a current conflict, and mainly the one in Afghanistan, have actually to stick together and claim solidarity in action, because the least failure in the NATO involvement system or the mere withdrawal of one or several countries in this tricky situation could rush a global withdrawal of the military forces and thus a failure of the US strategy as well as the NATO's one.

Fortunately this is not a current point, but NATO has to be aware all the time about its cohesion within any operation.

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

As a result we could say that in consideration of the new international context, of the terrorism, the possible return of Russia or China, the Atlantic Alliance has still a future but the way of acting is and will be undoubtedly different than the one that we have known during the past century. The Alliance has changed and will change again as the nature of conflicts on the planet will evolve.

 

The construction of a European system of defence and the reject on this basis of NATO is an illusion. Europe still needs NATO and behind NATO Europe needs the American support in order to contribute to its defence. The fact is that the Atlantic Alliance is still powerful whereas the ESDP doesn't find the way to take off. The European countries are not ready to spend mounts of money as the USA do for their defence. And on top of that, there is no common political will in Europe for the ESDP. Actually the European countries want to keep their sovereignty in the Defence sector, which is not a discovery.