From: B
Afghan success will reveal if NATO can expand its global role
By Richard Weitz
Commentary by
Monday, March 08, 2010
Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as other institutions have been struggling to redefine their roles in strengthening international security. Now the top civilian leader of NATO, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, wants to expand the organization's mandate in keeping with these changing circumstances.
"In an age of globalized insecurity," Rasmussen recently told the influential Munich Security Conference, "our territorial defense must begin beyond our borders." Realization of such a project, however, would depend on overcoming resistance from both China and Russia and, most importantly, by achieving success in NATO's current mission in Afghanistan.
Rasmussen and other NATO leaders have cited several new global threats as requiring the implementation of additional missions by the alliance, beyond its traditional focus on collective self-defense. These include dealing with the existence of terrorists having worldwide reach, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction through new international trafficking networks, cyber attacks that can travel with lightening speed through the internet, and threats to the economic security of NATO allies from energy supply disruptions, global climate change, and maritime piracy.
The Global NATO idea is not new. Even before Rasmussen became NATO's chief civilian last August, leaders of the countries in the alliance had called on NATO to expand its geographic horizons. The current United States ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, co-authored a prominent article in 2006 in the journal Foreign Affairs that argued in this direction. In the article, Daalder called for the alliance to allow any democratic country, regardless of its location, to enter NATO if it desired to join and could contribute to securing the organization's security goals. This proposal, however, could not overcome opposition from France and other members of the alliance who seek to constrain NATO's global reach.
Addressing new worldwide threats became prominent in NATO thinking when the alliance began updating its Strategic Concept last year. This document defines the alliance's purpose, nature, and fundamental security tasks. The current draft dates back to 1999 – therefore before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the subsequent protracted insurgencies in both countries, as well as the transformation of transnational communications, transportation, and other global networks. The authors of the new draft, which is due out later this year, are now considering how the NATO alliance can best manage to address these novel circumstances that emerged during the last decade.
Rasmussen also told the Munich conference that he wanted NATO to collaborate with other countries and institutions "much more actively and systematically." Such collaboration is not new, although it has been conducted in an intermittent way and on an ad hoc basis. Usually, the institutions involved have struggled to define their respective roles and responsibilities for each case, sometimes through formal compacts, sometimes through informal understandings reached.
In some cases, as in the collective maritime operation against Somali pirates, the inefficient coordination among NATO, the European Union, and the other maritime security bodies involved wasted valuable resources. In addition, interoperability problems, like the inability to communicate or coordinate tactics and techniques, impeded a joint response by the different parties. In other instances, as in the Afghanistan conflict, inadequate integration imperiled the mission's ultimate success. For example, NATO, European Union, and United Nations officials repeatedly under-resourced important missions, such as training of the Afghan police force.
Matters would improve if NATO could collaborate with other international security institutions in the same way that the NATO governments cooperate with one another inside the alliance. The militaries of the 28 NATO members, as well as many of the alliance's formal partners, frequently meet, plan, and train together, which has helped to increase their effectiveness. Convening regular meetings and holding periodic exercises involving the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union and other global security institutions would help the NATO members conduct joint operations more efficiently and more effectively.
Rasmussen also envisions NATO becoming "the hub of a network of security partnerships and a center for consultation on international security issues – even issues on which the alliance might never take action." In this role, NATO could function as something of a global think tank, convening international seminars on international security challenges that would include representatives of other security institutions.
The NATO alliance could also serve as a repository of lessons learned from past multi-institutional security operations. For example, NATO, the United Nations, and other international organizations have been engaged together in several peace operations in the former Yugoslavia. Problems arose during these operations due to the different tactics, techniques, and procedures employed by each organization. Resolving these difficulties required years of learning how to work with one another on such important issues as communicating effectively, implementing a coherent strategy, and achieving a unity of command. NATO would serve a valuable service if it could compile these lessons and then place them in a database that could be made accessible in preparing for future operations.
Some non-member countries depict Rasmussen's dream of a global NATO as something of a global nightmare. China's state-run media, for example, has tended to portray the alliance's non-European operations in an unfavorable light. A September 2006 editorial in the semi-official People's Daily newspaper attacked alleged plans by the United States to create a "Global NATO." The editorial observed that the NATO alliance's "interference in the affairs of major 'hot spot' regions" – such as Kosovo and Afghanistan – "has drawn extensive concern of people worldwide."
Russian defense strategists have expressed similar unease. They have characterized the alliance's alleged efforts to acquire "global functions in contravention of international law" as a major danger to Russia.
In their joint statements, Russian and Chinese policymakers regularly stress the unique legitimacy of the United Nations – specifically, that of the UN Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow can veto proposed resolutions – to authorize collective military actions around the world. What they seem to most fear is that NATO would again seek to circumvent the United Nations if the two institutions disagreed on how to respond to a global security crisis. After Moscow and Beijing blocked a United Nations resolution authorizing the use of force in Kosovo in 1999, NATO governments, citing urgent humanitarian considerations, acted on their own authority and launched a massive air campaign against Serbia.
In a recent interview, Rasmussen told me that he envisaged something different than the earlier Global NATO proposal. First, the secretary general sought a geographically broad but functionally limited consultative role for the NATO alliance. Second, he emphasized that NATO aimed to strengthen the United Nations and other international institutions rather than displace them; and it sought to partner with non-member countries rather than assimilate them. Finally, Rasmussen underscored that managing the conflict in Afghanistan, rather than using NATO to solve countless other global security problems, was what was driving his thinking.
Afghanistan does represent the best case for NATO to assume an international security coordination role. Already, alliance commanders are partnering with 16 non-NATO members – including Australia, Sweden and South Korea – in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). At the same time, poor coordination is impairing the contributions of the large number of international actors currently engaged in Afghanistan. NATO would make a real contribution if it could better harmonize their diverse civilian and military activities.
In addition, the great powers that remain outside NATO and ISAF – namely Russia, China, and India – have all suffered mass casualty attacks from the Islamist groups that are now fighting against NATO. These three governments might not welcome an enduring NATO presence in Central Asia. They also likely suspect that alliance leaders are trying to drag them into the Afghan imbroglio on behalf of NATO. Nonetheless, they do not want a Taliban-Al Qaeda terrorist network to reemerge in Afghanistan, which in some way might affect stability in their countries.
If NATO improves coordination among the dozens of countries and international institutions engaged in Afghanistan, then the alliance might profitably consider performing the same role in other global hotspots. On the other hand if it fails in Afghanistan, then NATO should properly concentrate on getting its own house in order before venturing out of its traditional area of operations any time soon.
Richard Weitz is a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Eurasia, and East Asia. He also is a non-resident senior fellow at the Project on National Security Reform and the Center for a New American Security.
No comments:
Post a Comment