The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation came into being with the signing of the treaty in Washington on 4 April 1949. At the end of April 1999, 50 years later, NATO is holding a summit again in Washington. For the first four decades there was little difficulty in defining the purpose of NATO as a defensive alliance of western democracies clubbing together to provide collective security against a real and urgent threat from an ideologically distinct adversary armed with nuclear weapons. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact, which had been set up to counter NATO, left the Alliance with a more diffuse set of aims. To the surprise of many, NATO has thrived in the post Cold War world. It is a club which has a clamouring crowd of prospective new members. It has been redefining its rationale, streamlining its internal organisation, carrying out complex politico-military tasks, and setting up a range of relationships with former opponent states.
The summit in Washington from 23 to 25 April is designed to celebrate the most successful military alliance of all time. It is also an occasion for looking to the future and defining its new role. There are a number of difficulties with this agenda. The centrepiece for the summit should be the formulation of a new strategic concept. NATO last produced a strategic concept in 1991 to adjust to the end of the Cold War. Yet the world has changed greatly since then, and that concept looks very dated already. In the 1990's NATO has found itself involved in the Balkans, in various roles. The Gulf War has shown how coalitions of the willing are still required to act on behalf of the United Nations to restore international order. While the raison d'etre of NATO remains the collective defence of member nations (an attack on one is an attack on all), this is an ever more remote possibility. Yet voters in each of the states expect their armies to be able to something about the horrors that they see on their television screens. The only effective military alliance in the world is NATO, and it provides the essential infrastructure, procedures and training to allow multinational forces to act together on operations. The new strategic concept must recognise this new mission.
There are however a number of elements of the future vision for NATO on which its members take rather different views. The United States is the dominant partner both as the remaining superpower and also as the provider of the most advanced military capabilities. The US view of its responsibilities for international order find echoes with UK policy, but less so with other European allies. Some of these would wish to spell out the mechanism by which any NATO operation would be legitimised through the UN or OSCE. The US would prefer to leave open the prospect of NATO self-authorising some missions. Indeed, many would argue that the current NATO threats to bomb Serbian targets over Kosovo are an indication of a new approach by NATO. There is also a debate to be conducted over the geographical area of NATO's interest. In the Cold War there was no problem. NATO was defined by the boundaries of its member states. Now as it moves into undertaking operations to promote peace and security, the boundaries are less well defined. The Balkans are seen as important for European security and intervention is justified on those grounds. The Middle East and North Africa could certainly be included in such a wider definition. The Russians, already uncomfortable over the increase in NATO membership, worry about the potential for future NATO interest in their own troubled areas. The US, taking a global view, would wish to have NATO take a broader view of its security interests. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and international terrorism will be high on the agenda. Again the US, feeling newly threatened, will look to pre-emptive solutions with or without the help of NATO. The Europeans, who are more used to the problems of terrorists and nuclear threats, will be less comfortable with NATO taking on this role.
Many had thought that the NATO summit would be both a chance to welcome the three new members, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, and also to announce the next tranche of prospective members. It is clear that there is little enthusiasm for an announcement about further enlargement. This will cause disappointment in Slovenia and Romania in particular. While there will be pleasant words about the door remaining open to more members, it will signal a change of pace to the development of NATO. Doubtless, there will be much work in hand to provide added benefits through Partnership for Peace, but it may not be enough to satisfy the disappointed applicants. An added complication comes from the moves that are afoot to absorb the WEU into the EU. While this has much to commend it from both a bureaucratic and a European Defence aspect, it raises some particular problems for a number of states. Turkey, Norway and Iceland ( plus the 3 new NATO member states) worry that the EU is looking to be one half of NATO to match the US as the other half. They fear that their influence will be diminished by being outside of the EU. In this respect Turkey is a particular problem given its current poor relations with the EU.
Over the years, worries about the viability of NATO have always centred on the long term commitment of the United States. The Washington Summit has fallen at an unfortunate time. Relationships between Europe and the US are beset by a range of difficulties. On the trade front, the WTO dispute over bananas is the precursor to even worse disputes over genetically modified food and growth hormone beef imports. The outcome of the court martial of the US Marine Corps pilot who hit the cable car in Italy has outraged Italian opinion. In Germany, the government is deeply angered by the refusal of the CIA to give up Stasi files removed from Berlin, and has also taken the execution of a German national in the US badly. The UK and France are likely to find themselves in dispute with the US government over prospective bans on Concorde flights into US airports. Although these, and other disputes, are not directly relevant to sorting out the future role for NATO, they will undoubtedly colour the approaches that ministers take.
NATO is a consensus organisation and the lateness of the negotiations on the new strategic concept suggest that the final document is unlikely to be radical, but may exacerbate transatlantic tensions. We can expect a bland document which reflects on NATO's past triumphs and generalises about its future purpose. I shall review what is actually decided, and the implications, in my next article at the end of April after the Summit.
16 March 1999