A NEW NATO?

May 5, 1999
		The leaders of the 19 NATO nations gathered in Washington, DC to mark the alliance's 50th anniversary and discuss the the war in Kosovo. But even as the Alliance celebrated that milestone, some foreign policy experts wonder if NATO will survive to see another 50 years. Ivo Daalder, former director for European Affairs on the National Security Council staff, and Doug Bandow, former special assistant to President Reagan, answer your questions

Return to the NATO Forum Index Is NATO obsolete? Is NATO's future dependent on US policy? Can the new Alliance stay united? Will the war spell the end of NATO? Will NATO get involved in more internal matters like Chechnya?   NATO at 50 coverage Strikes in Yugoslavia Coverage NATO Documents: Strategic Concept The Alliance for the 21st Century The Washington Declaration Kosovo Communiqué     The Official NATO 50th Web Site NATO US State Department Serbian Ministry of Information	Sean Carlson of Nashville, TN asks: Can the 19 NATO nations really stay united if the alliance chooses to shift from a purely defensive organization to one that acts outside its own borders? Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution responds: Although it is undoubtedly true that members of an alliance are more likely to remain united when faced with a common threat, once that threat disappears the presumed unity is likely to go the same way. Given that NATO, today, does not face a threat to its common territory, why assume that maintaining a purely defensive stance will assume Alliance cohesion and unity? Better to find a new mission on which all can agree and unite around. And that is exactly what NATO has, albeit slowly, been doing since the end of the cold war. This search culminated in the Alliance's involvement in the Balkans and was codified in NATO's new strategic concept adopted by the 19 heads of state and government just last month during the Alliance's Washington summit. The allies are now united in a new mission -- which is to extend the security and stability they have long enjoyed to other parts of Europe. NATO's involvement in Bosnia during the past 3-plus years has been motivated by that purpose. The decision to launch the air campaign is similarly inspired by the belief that the kind of atrocities and brutality inflicted by Milosevic's forces not only has no place in late 20th-century Europe but also poses a threat to security and stability in the region as a whole. For 7 weeks, now, NATO has remained remarkably united in this effort -- thereby underscoring that Alliance unity is possible, indeed, sustainable, if NATO acts outside its borders. Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute responds: Maintaining unity will be much more difficult. The countries closest to the conflict -- Greece, Italy, Hungary, and the Czech Republic -- are already quite uncomfortable with NATO's militaristic policy in Kosovo. France regularly rails against U.S. arrogance. And American lawmakers worry (for good reason) about Europe manipulating Washington to promote Europe's interests. It is much easier to agree on policies necessary to defend against a common threat (not that even that is always simple) than to agree on which brutal civil wars in what foreign lands warrant intervention (why Kosovo and not Kurdistan or the Krajina region of Croatia, for instance?).