The future of NATO

Sand

I was just thinking about NATO today, after reading this story, and where its going. Its primary purpose was formalising the United States protecting European democracies from the Soviet empire. The communists imploded and since then NATO has been searching for a cause or an enemy to justify itself. Several of the EU nations have been attempting to undermine it, and thus the US influence in Europe, by militarising the EU - their efforts so far have been a failure with the ERF still not operational or anywhere near it last I heard.

It found a brief moment of glory in the Kosovo crisis where the EU and the US spat in the face of international law and opinion and ignored the UN security council by breaching Serbias sovereignty and invading Kosovo to prevent war crimes that were occuring there.

Seeing as many of the NATO members have since flip flopped entirely on their positions regarding international law and the sacredness of national sovereignty it is clear that NATO will not be acting as the great liberator again any time soon. It activated itself to defend the US in the aftermath of September 11th but Bush and Co viewed this as European nations trying to constrain the US strategy by keeping it in the NATO council and NATO has been marginalised to garrisoning Afghanistan ( still a major departure from its original role ) with the US bypassing it most of the time otherwise to focus on its coalition of the willing.

The rejection of NATO by one of its greatest proponents - in the face of EU hostility towards the organisation - is not as terrible as it sounds. NATO was hopelessly divided on its strategy for Kosovo and despite the fact Kosovo was in the European sphere of influence the European effort was miniscule - the UK only provided 4% of the sorties depite being one of the most military capable EU states. From the US perspective, they were doing all the work and the other members were simply a distraction to winning the war. The alliance survived the kosovo crisis but its understandable why the US administration didnt want backseat drivers in times of major conflict.

In the meantime its expanding eastward towards Russia, in moves they find threatening and its causing tension between Russia and the Baltic states as described above. Can anyone see NATO lasting too much longer?

It was useful when Europe was a central strategic arena at the height of the cold war, but the cold war and Europes importance has passed and declined respectively. Eurocrats dont want it because it gives the US a role in European affairs, a role they feel the EU should be taking care of even if only symbolically. The Americans are more in favour of it, but seemingly only as window dressing - when **** hits the fan they dont want to be restricted by the votes of nations which cannot make any serious military contribution to this military alliance. And the Russians definitly dont want it, and I can see the EU drifting more to Russia as part of a rather dangerous strategy of hamstringing and opposing the US to try and form some sort of balance to their power ( best of luck - the figures dont make pretty reading ). All in all, it looks grim.

And if NATO does breakup what will happen? I can see the EU trying to militarise but more on paper than anything else - the gaps in military spending between the US and the EU are frankly scary, and it has to be remembered the US is spending a relatively low level of their GDP on the military. The EU has too many budget limits and social contracts to be able to just up spending to match the US, and the last power bloc to try that - the USSR - collapsed from the attempt.

The UK and perhaps other Eastern European states will probably draw up some sort of coalition of the willing with the US, the UK from habit, the East Europeans from suspicion of Moscow ( and with Chechnya who can blame them ).

halkar

EU has enjoyed spending less on military and getting richer while Nato was taking care of most of military needs but I am only guessing that those days are gone and EU has a lot to catch up with. Unlike US, EU is made of different nations and countries and looking back to history most of those had conflicts between each other and conflicts can arise again. EU should be ready to deal with its internal security as well as external threat. It takes one man to change the history and it happened before and can happen again.
I see in the coming years that EU re-structuring its spendings and start investing on its military while cutting on other things. It has to happen, without security there is no point being rich. Not sure if we Europeans will like the idea of loosing some of our benefits though. In the long run I don't even see EU I think EU is going too far and taking more risks than it can carry. But that is probably another thread.

Cork

The EU will probably merge with the WEU. Common Defence policys are on the horizon.

The madrid bombs will hasten moves to common EU defence policies.

Structured Co-operation is on the way.

The rapid reaction force is coming together and with the EU constition an EU Minister for Foriegn Affairs is on the agenda.

thejollyrodger

Its should be pointed out that the threat has changed a lot from the cold war days. There isnt a requirement for any given E.U military to have hundreds of tanks, destroyers and hundreds of fighter jets. The days of the E.U facing a large armoured tank threat from the east are long gone.

It is more task force/rapid reaction forces which are required. There still is a requirement for all of the above but on a smaller scale. The force has to be easily deployed quickly. If a military force can be deployed quickly then the prospect of hostilities breaking out is greatly diminished.

It looks increasingly likely that the future threat for the foreseeable future is from low intensity warfare. But the E.U. has to start to put the structure in place so that the E.U can act quickly in the future.

Personally I think NATO's days are numbered.

Sand

EU has enjoyed spending less on military and getting richer while Nato was taking care of most of military needs but I am only guessing that those days are gone and EU has a lot to catch up with.

A lot doesnt even begin to say how bad the gap is... the US spends just over 3% of GDP on its military whilst the EU averages less than 2%. Whats scary is that even though that 3% is enough to outspend most if not all of the rest of the world put together, the US spent up to 7% of its GDP during the cold war. And to actually catch up over time with the US in terms of technology and the ability to project force abroad ( which is the main problem ) the EU would have to spend *more* than whatever the US spends. Thats up to 8% GDP, which would cut a swathe through European budgets and monetary policy. I dont know if the average EU citizen has that much of an interest in developing a common military able to match the US that they would sacrifice so much they have become used to when the US guaranteed their security for them.

The EU also needs to work on the political aspect of things to match the US ability to project force quickly. That would require a major shift in emphasis from the EU government having all the power, to the representitives of EU citizens having all the power.

I see in the coming years that EU re-structuring its spendings and start investing on its military while cutting on other things. It has to happen, without security there is no point being rich.

Id agree, but theres a substansial view that there is no threat to the EU with the collapse of the soviet union, and that the money could be spent on social programs or whatever that have a near immediate impact on quality of life instead of on nukes we may never need. And thats before you reach the even more controversial aspect of force projection which implies intervention abroad - As I said above it was rather embarrassing and indeed frightening for EU states to realise how little power they could project into a European theatre right on their door step like the Balkans compared to the US military.

The madrid bombs will hasten moves to common EU defence policies.

To an anti-terrorism policy maybe, but not to common defence I think.

The rapid reaction force is coming together and with the EU constition an EU Minister for Foriegn Affairs is on the agenda.

How much power will he have though? Solano and Prodi were clearly not speaking for the EU on the Iraq when there was such division on the issue. These symobolic ministries will not be strong until they actually have representitive bodies behind them, with governments of each states in formats unrecognisable to today.

Personally I think NATO's days are numbered.

I agree, but I think its a real pity. NATO formalised the alliance between the "western world" during the cold war, when the west was defined as being free, liberal, democratic and so on - a counterpoint to "the east". In a real way the alliance helped guarantee those ideals when they were most under threat - if NATO breaks up and is replaced by a EU common policy which will take decades to be as effective, and a smaller US led "coalition of the willing" which the EU will spend a lot of time trying to "de-legitimise" then the "the west" will be weaker and more divided than at any time since before WW2. Thats dangerous when Russia could still go any way, when China is trying to strike a balance between reforms and military modernisation and when North Korea - well nobody quite knows what the hell will happen with North Korea.

DadaKopf

The EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy is where it's at now.

It's quite scary because an increasing link is being made between military strength and overseas development. Analysts are worrying that the EU's foreign and security policy may turn into a little brother of the US's. By welding security strategy to overseas development, some argue it justifies further intervention in sovereign countries' internal affairs.

The links between military strength, economic strength, development and terrorism are being forged. It's possible that the EU's institutions, such as the EU's development cooperation and trade policies will all become mechanisms of bribery and control in the same way USAID is used as a supplement (usually in the form of 'education credits' [read 'bribes']) to the US's other domestic/foreign policy tools that fall under things like mechanisms that fall under their trade policies, the National Energy Strategy and National Security Strategy.

So, as far as Nato goes, it was a Cold War institution that's fighting for its survival. There's little reason for it to exist since it's unlikely to be compatible with the newly developing, integrative security strategies.

Sand

It's quite scary because an increasing link is being made between military strength and overseas development. Analysts are worrying that the EU's foreign and security policy may turn into a little brother of the US's. By welding security strategy to overseas development, some argue it justifies further intervention in sovereign countries' internal affairs.

Whats crazy about that? When youre giving your money to someone you have an interest in how its being spent. The US is bankrolling the IDF. Do they have no responsibility or right to criticise the IDF for using their money to colonise the occupied territories, when the anger of arabs over the Palestinian situation is a real part of their security problems?

arcadegame2004

I don't think that Ireland will ever join NATO. I support our neutrality. But that doesn't mean I support us being militarily weaker than countries of similar size and wealth to us. We don't even have an air-intercept capability to protect EU meetings/international meetings from a September 11th style attack. I recall a few years ago that Italy foiled a planned helicopter attack on Bush a few years ago by Al-Qaida. We are powerless to do the same. Switzerland and Sweden are neutral yet hughly militarised. We need to lose the idea that neutrality has to come with impotence. We will never be a great power but we should at least have some defensive capability against 911-style events. I read today in a newspaper that there was a planned Al-Qaida attack in this country foiled by the Gardai. But next time we might not be so lucky. Better to be safe than sorry I saw.

I think the UK's drift towards holding EU referendum(s) in future will prevent the treaty changes required to immesh the whole EU into NATO. While the Brits are very pro-NATO, they view ANY changes in the EU's structures as an inevitable step towards a superatet and this view does not depend one ounce on the proposals' contents. It's an emotional thing for them, having been a great empire and thus landed with the former attitudes of smug self-reliance and a belief in their own superior intelligence as a nation, regarding anything emerging from the mainland of Europe as bonkers.

Moriarty

NATO's days certainly seem to be numbered. NATO needs a rock-solid, large 'opposing force' that it can point to for reason of its existance. With the fall of the soviet union NATO lost the most important reason for its existance. The only reason NATO would once again become important is if a new large power came around - take a 'federation' of militarised middle-east or north-african states as an example, however unlikely.

All of this isn't necessarly a bad thing though. If NATO was to be dismantled, it wouldn't signify a sudden change in western ideals, only the recognition that there are quite often large differences in how countries act on the international stage. The non-existance of NATO would not be a major impediment to western powers working together if they agreed on their approaches to international affairs for certain situations in the first place.

It's quite likely that there will be more and more people thinking semi-seriously about an EU army in the coming years. In principal I'd agree with it. A common army would be a large step towards giving the EU a much stronger role in international affairs. On the other hand, I can't realisticly see an EU army for at least the next few decades. It's really a necessity that the EU grows much closer before a common army is a reasonable prospect - the European institutions will all have to be improved upon largely, with a fair amount of reform also necessarly. For instance, I can't see people going down the road of a common army and the like without much more power given to EU citizens - the right to elect all representitives up to and including an EU president, for instance. Given time I believe that these principles will be dealt with at the appropriate time. Trying to create all of this too quickly simply won't work though, and with all of this probably being a necessity before an EU army is formed, it could (rightly) take a while.

There are also the practical problems of creating a common EU army. The single biggest obsticle may be the numerous languages spoken across the EU. Having a common army will be of little use if the individual troops can't even talk to each other. There is also the matter of defence spending, which seems to fly in the face of current EU politics of cutting defence spending for the benefit of various social programs, along with a seeming indifference by a large proportion of the population to having a military in the first place.

All in all, I see (and hope, to a greater extent) the EU eventually becoming a federalised state somewhere down the road, with a common army and everything else that goes along with that idea. Just don't expect to see it any time soon.