23 March 2009
NATO Faces Growing Challenges as 60th Anniversary Approaches
Afghanistan, Russia are main substantive focus of anniversary summit
Washington — Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will gather in France and Germany in April to celebrate the alliance’s 60th birthday.
The adjacent French and German cities of Strasbourg and Kehl on either side of the Rhine River will host the April 3–4 summit. Officials will welcome France back into the alliance as a full member, select a new secretary-general and forge a way ahead in Afghanistan.
President Obama will have his alliance debut at the gathering. In his initial communication with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Obama said alliance members share a common security commitment as well as a set of democratic values.
The alliance plans to endorse a brief document at the summit that will emphasize its role as a strong trans-Atlantic community. The document, called the Declaration on Alliance Security, will underline NATO’s security bonds.
This summit comes at a time when France is returning to the alliance’s integrated military structure. Obama welcomed France’s decision March 23 and said its full participation will strengthen both the alliance and Europe. Obama has said he wants to see European defense capabilities strengthened. (See “Obama Welcomes France’s Full Return to NATO.”)
America.gov recently asked national security analyst Anthony Cordesman to comment on the ramifications of France’s return to NATO. He said France’s integration is important because it is “a key producer of military equipment and technology.” France has one of the largest military forces in the alliance at a time when the need for deployments far from Europe is running high, he said.
Furthermore, France’s return to NATO will enable it to assume senior leadership positions within the command structure and to participate in force-structure planning and intelligence and counterterrorism efforts, according to Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for International and Strategic Studies in Washington.
A decade ago, after the end of the Cold War, the alliance admitted three new members: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia joined in 2004. And now, after being invited at the 2008 summit, Albania and Croatia are ready to join, an action that will bring the number of members to 28.
A larger alliance faces what Obama described in January as “an extraordinary set of challenges.”
CHALLENGES AT 60
At 60, NATO faces a host of challenges that must be met collectively. Afghanistan tops the list. Cordesman said the jihadist threat to the Middle East, Europe and the United States will be greatly increased if al-Qaida and the Taliban are able to dominate Afghanistan or create viable, unchallenged sanctuaries in Pakistan.
During a March 16 America.gov webchat, Cordesman said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan has been slow to recognize its limitations and to demand more government cooperation from Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said NATO, Afghanistan and Pakistan have to come to grips with the growing number of high-risk areas outside Kabul, Afghanistan, as well as increasing numbers of convoy attacks and suicide and roadside bombings. (See transcript of webchat.)
De Hoop Scheffer emphasized the importance of a coherent, stabilizing strategy for Afghanistan in his March 22 remarks in Belgium. He said that any agreement reached at the International Conference on Afghanistan in The Hague, Netherlands, on March 31, followed by the April alliance summit, must acknowledge the need for both carefully coordinated action and additional resources.
The alliance also must reconcile views about its relationship with Russia, Cordesman said. On the one hand, NATO cannot ignore the concerns of countries bordering Russia. But at the same time, he said, the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia “illustrates the very severe limits to what NATO can and cannot do if Russia chooses to use military force in an area where NATO has limited operational military capability.”
Cordesman said the issue is whether Russia wants better relations with NATO and the United States or is more interested in asserting itself strategically in areas near its borders.
There are a number of topics, including counterpiracy and combating weapons proliferation, with which the alliance can constructively engage Russia, according to NATO officials. De Hoop Scheffer said the temporary freeze in NATO-Russia relations is already thawing, as evidenced by the scheduled resumption of NATO-Russia Council meetings soon after the summit.
Beyond ironing out differences with and about Russia, the alliance must also grapple with the twin nuclear threats of Iran and the Democratic Republic of Korea.
Other alliance business will include selecting a new secretary-general to replace de Hoop Scheffer in July. The alliance must nominate a new leader by consensus. Denmark’s prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, is a leading candidate.
The nomination will come at a time of additional leadership change. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates recently nominated Admiral James Stavridis, now heading the U.S. Pacific Command, to replace Army General John Craddock as the commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Europe. Stavridis’ nomination must be approved by the alliance.
For more information about U.S. policy, see Europe and Eurasia.
