The Miscalculation of NATO's Death

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) continues to be the subject of considerable academic scrutiny and criticism. Starting with the Soviet Union's collapse and continuing through the bitter transatlantic dispute over Operation Iraqi Freedom, analysts in and the States have confidently predicted NATO's destiny of irrelevancy, if not total collapse. The view that the United States is from Mars and is from Venus permeated much of the discussion surrounding NATO's future and its alleged trend toward insignificance. (1) American unilateralism under President George W. Bush and the views expressed by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld--that the future of multilateral security centers around coalitions of the willing rather than NATO, and that old Europe was out of step with modern security necessities--did much to lend credence to this view. (2) The acrid debate over Iraq between former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder and President George W. Bush, whose immediate predecessors arguably built the foundation for NATO's post-Cold War survival, provided some observers with bona fide evidence of NATO's downfall. (3) These perspectives capture part of NATO's evolution in one of its more difficult periods. NATO has not been without trials and tribulations in its post-Cold War life. Such views, however, often focus heavily on recent conflict-ridden aspects of the transatlantic relationship and fail to recognize why NATO continues to exist and play an instrumental role in fostering transatlantic security interests. This article provides a more balanced assessment of the alliance. Through a brief examination of NATO's history and ability to overcome previous crises, coupled with an analysis of the ongoing impact of NATO's expansion, its institutional flexibility to reshape itself after 9/11, and the renewed interest from NATO's great powers, this analysis helps explain why NATO's skeptics have inaccurately portrayed the alliance's current condition. While it is clear that the transatlantic marriage remains rocky at times, such gloom and doom scenarios of NATO that are so popular today misrepresent the alliance's previous achievements and ongoing security functions. The article begins with a brief survey of recent literature on NATO, follows with a short summary of NATO's ability to overcome previous crises, and continues with an analysis of NATO's ongoing security functions and transformation. The article concludes with a discussion of how the major powers continue to utilize NATO within their larger national security policies, all of which gives reason to be skeptical about NATO's current critics and doomsayers. NATO Skeptics In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, with the NATO allies sorely divided over whether to provide defensive measures to protect Turkey in the event that Iraq decided to attack, then US Ambassador to NATO, Nicholas Burns, referred to the political differences at NATO as a crisis of credibility. (4) The debate over how to address Saddam Hussein, coupled with the States' decision to act without NATO in its 2001 strikes on the Taliban after 9/11, led a number of observers to argue that by 2003, NATO's place in transatlantic security had been badly, if not irreparably damaged. To many analysts it appeared that the States, under President George W. Bush, had moved in a completely different direction from the European public and many European governments. In contrast to the Clinton administration, President Bush was viewed in as far more unilateral and nationalistic in pursuing his administration's foreign policy ambitions, which had provoked a visceral political backlash from many in Europe, especially Belgium, France, and Germany. (5) Analysts also point to NATO's war in Kosovo, noting that the military differences between the States and Europe, and the absence of interoperable weaponry among the allies, made for an unequal partnership at best. …