NATO at 50

▪ 2000

by Douglas L. Clarke

      Since the end of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) has revamped its military structure, strategy, and membership while seeking to define its new role in a changed Europe. A festive summit was planned for April 1999 in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the 50th anniversary of NATO's founding. In the event, the gathering actually resembled a council of war because of the ongoing conflict in the Balkans and NATO's extraordinary involvement in it. Still, the summit was declared a success; three new alliance members were welcomed, and a new basic agenda, NATO's Strategic Concept, which will guide a transformed alliance into the next century, was laid out. None of these developments was free of controversy.

      While some likened NATO's expansion into Eastern Europe to the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, warning that the seeds of a future European or world war were being sown, the admission of the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were popular actions that were easily ratified by all NATO members. The respected historian and former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan, who called NATO's expansion a “fateful error,” was clearly among a minority when he argued that European security in the long run depended on a stable, democratic, and friendly Russia and warned that NATO's eastward expansion would turn Russia onto another course. Most others believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union had created a security vacuum in Eastern Europe and that NATO had a golden opportunity—indeed, an obligation—to fill that vacuum as an insurance policy against a resurgent, belligerent Russia. With Pres. Bill Clinton championing NATO's expansion, the outcome of the debate was never in doubt.

      At the Washington festivities the NATO leaders affirmed that the doors remained open for other qualified European democracies, but they also opted for a two-year waiting period before handing out any more invitations. They laid out a Membership Action Plan and agreed to work closely with the aspirants. Nine nations are already in the queue, including the three Baltic republics—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—which were once part of the Soviet Union. The next phase of NATO's expansion is likely to be more contentious, as members of the alliance worry about giving security guarantees to countries that would be able to contribute little to their own defense.

      The leaders of the 25 countries that participated in the alliance's Partnership for Peace—a heterogeneous mix of applicants for membership such as Romania, former neutrals such as Switzerland, and successor states of the Soviet Union such as Russia—were also invited to the Washington gala. Most accepted, the notable exception being Russian Pres. Boris Yeltsin.

      The turnout highlighted one of the successes and one of the failures of NATO's post–Cold War transition. Perhaps conceived as a sop to Eastern European nations in lieu of full membership, the Partnership for Peace evolved into a surprising winner. Focusing on training and education, it exposed the armed forces from a wide range of countries to NATO principles, practices, and procedures and paved the way for many of these countries to participate alongside NATO forces in the several Balkan peacekeeping operations. At the April meeting the NATO leaders endorsed a plan to deepen military cooperation with partnership nations and to give them a larger political voice in the oversight and planning of future operations. On the negative side, NATO's efforts to build a convincing and positive partnership with Russia had failed. Yeltsin boycotted the Washington summit to underline Russia's unhappiness with the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. Despite the high-sounding Founding Act between NATO and Russia and the joint consultative council that it begat, the Russians knew they were helpless to influence NATO behaviour.

      NATO's new Strategic Concept represented a significant expansion of the alliance's mission. NATO retained the traditional security task of collective self-defense, its original raison d'être, but advanced its role in crisis management throughout the “Euro-Atlantic” area. It described ethnic conflict and human rights abuses as two of the threats to the stability of this region and reaffirmed NATO's readiness to intervene militarily to counter them—as it had in Kosovo and in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In NATO jargon, both of the Balkan operations were “out of area”—that is, not on NATO soil. As NATO sought to define its role in this new era, many had argued that the alliance had to get “out of area or out of business.” Some went so far as to project a global role for NATO, suggesting involvement in such crisis spots as Rwanda or Algeria. The Washington summit's communiqué however, made it clear that for now the alliance's efforts would be restricted to the Euro-Atlantic area.

      The bombing campaign against Serbia was a watershed event for NATO. It had brushed aside traditional regard for national sovereignty by, in effect, declaring war on Serbia for actions it was taking against its own citizens within its own borders. NATO went to war for humanitarian and moral rather than security reasons. Because both Russia and China had threatened to veto any enabling resolution, NATO acted against Serbia without a mandate from the United Nations Security Council. This troubled many people. Writing in NATO's own magazine, former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt warned that neither the U.S. government nor any other member of the alliance should think that the Kosovo intervention, conducted without specific UN authorization, set a precedent.

      The NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia once again highlighted the imbalance between the American and European pillars of the alliance. While many nations participated in the effort, the bulk of the strike sorties were flown by American aircraft. The U.S. had a clear and growing lead over Europe in such important military capabilities as stealth technology, precision-guided munitions, airlift, electronic warfare, and intelligence. The NATO leaders who gathered in Washington pledged anew to strengthen the European pillar, but similar past declarations had had few practical consequences. The decision of the European Union to implement a common foreign and security policy and the choice of NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana to supervise the effort suggested that the Europeans were determined to right the balance.

      What will NATO learn from its “victory” in Kosovo? Political cohesion within the alliance and the region during the crisis was remarkable. The three new NATO members were eager to show their loyalty, and the aspirants to membership were keen to demonstrate their worthiness. Had NATO had to use ground forces against Serbia, however, the fabric of unity might have worn thin. The long-term commitment that NATO has taken upon itself in the Balkans could last for decades and severely strain alliance solidarity. Sadly, there is no shortage of other conflicts in southeastern Europe and the Caucasus, where some might urge NATO to exercise its new self-proclaimed crisis-management mandate. Any new intervention in these areas, however, almost certainly would further damage NATO's relationship with Russia. If George Kennan is proved correct and NATO undermines European security by alienating Russia, the cause may turn out to have been not the broadening of the organization's membership but rather the latest expansion of NATO's mission.

Douglas L. Clarke, a retired captain in the U.S. Navy, is a military analyst and author of The Missing Man: Politics and the MIA.

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