NATO's Policy Gap

By Cernig

The Guardian's Ian Traynor argues that NATO has a perception problem. With the crisis in Georgia and stress in Afghanistan, NATO is looking "over-stretched, under-resourced, and hobbled by bureaucratic infighting among its 26 member states". So what's the value of NATO to its members now?

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato's secretary general, found himself having to explain the alliance's value. "It is worth what it has been worth since 1949. That's my short answer," he said.

But there are plenty of policy makers in Brussels, from Nato and the EU, who increasingly wonder whether that statement of purpose is warranted.

"Terrorism, radicalisation, climate change, energy - these are the biggest security threats nowadays and they are not something Nato can do much about. It doesn't have an answer," said an EU official, who wished not to be named.

NATO has been trying to do something about terrorism - the mission in Afghanistan - and it hasn't been having much success. The Taliban have pulled a comback and Afghanistan is now more dangerous than Iraq ever was for deployed troops. There are a variety of interrelating reasons for that: German reluctance to fully commit; divisions over strategy, tactics and what to do about the opium cash-crop; lack of resources siphoned off by Iraq and American reluctance to admit what other member nations had been saying for years about Pakistan's meddling. But the biggest reason is simply that a NATO-like military push is simply the wrong kind of response to put all your bets on. Eric Martin gets to grips with this in a great post, which although aimed at the US in Iraq is just as applicable to NATO in Afghanistan. True security in these nations flows from employment, infrastructure and a sense of self-determination. There's only so much security that can be enforced at gunpoint and that those guns are held by foreigner occupiers doesn't help at all. Instead, it only fuels a "sense of moral outrage" and creates new insurgents.

There's also a massive tension within NATO now between that failing counter-terrorism mission and the older mission to contain Russia, which is also failing. Different members have different perceptions of priorities, different reasons to want to belong. Back to Traynor:

The new Nato states in the Baltics and central Europe are not, unlike the US or Britain, preoccupied with terrorism, Afghanistan, or Iran's nuclear potential. Their bugbear is the Kremlin. The Czechs and the Poles have agreed to host the Pentagon's missile defence system not because they worry about Iranian missiles, but because they feel more secure by having US troops permanently on their soil for the first time.

"If we said no to the Americans, there's a danger the transatlantic alliance could unravel and the Americans could leave Europe. We think that would be a disaster," said a Czech official.

For small west European countries, too, Nato's value includes keeping the US committed to Europe's defence and engaged in its politics.

"For the Czechs, Nato is existential," said a Dutch EU official. "But for the Dutch or the Portuguese Nato is also about looking to the Americans to keep the big European powers in check."

... In a report on the Georgia crisis to be released on Monday, the European Council on Foreign Relations says: "Moscow is well aware that few Nato members want to extend a mutual security guarantee to a country at war with Europe's biggest neighbour."

This cuts to Nato's policy flaw. "The main question is, are you willing to go to war for Tbilisi? I think the answer is no," said the EU official.

Bush isn't prepared to go to war for Tblisi any more than Europe is - nor yet is McCain. The American right has cynically used the Eastern European states to pressure Russia by strategic encirclement as part of a plan to perpetuate America's status as the sole remaining superpower. Eastern Europe has in turn cynically used America and NATO as a hedge against their bigger neighbour. Both have hidden their intentions under a veneer of talk about "loving democracy". Unfortunately, Russia's oil wealth and the profligate spending of American resources on Iraq has enabled the Bear to stymie everyone's plans and leave NATO reeling under often unstated internal divisions of policy.