NATO's Mid-Life Crisis

Richard K. Betts

From Foreign Affairs, Spring 1989

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Summary:  Soviet reformism has presented an unexpected challenge to NATO, to adapt itself reasonably to changes without compromising its military position. In particular, the logic of INF should not be allowed to encourage the removal of short-range tactical nuclear weapons.

Richard K. Betts is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and has taught at Harvard, Columbia and the Johns Hopkins universities. Among his books are Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (1977), Surprise Attack (1982) and Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (1987). This article is adapted from a paper prepared for a joint seminar of Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of Maryland.

Is NATO stumbling toward impotence, sliding back to business as usual or being dragged to the brink of peace? A gambler would be hard-pressed to call the odds. In the wake of the signing of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and President Mikhail Gorbachev's announced unilateral plan to withdraw Soviet forces from Eastern Europe, various observers argue the first and the last of these alternatives. The middle one, the more prosaic of the possibilities, has been underestimated. Far more than is admitted by many breathless commentators worried about the implications of the INF treaty, there are powerful reasons to expect no essential change in the constitution or operation of the alliance.

Continuity remains the best bet for the alliance's future course, although the odds of things remaining constant are the lowest in several decades. As it approaches middle age, the alliance finds itself near a turning point, confronting forces that could alter its basic terms of reference. Surprisingly, the most significant of these divisive forces are not changes in the balance of military power or collapse of NATO's internal consensus-the problems that excited the most worry among traditional Western elites and strategists after the INF agreement was announced. Rather they are political initiatives from Moscow that raise unprecedented possibilities for negotiated change in the East-West military confrontation. The INF treaty is more significant for how it reflects Moscow's new stance than for how it changes the quality of NATO's deterrent. The Soviets continue to confound us by giving "yes" for an answer.

For the foreseeable future it is virtually inevitable that the West will remain the reactive side. None of the leaders in the principal countries of the alliance are as politically radical, visionary or adventurous as Gorbachev. NATO is also a genuine coalition of fractious democracies, with all the attendant obstacles to rapid decisions and major changes of course.

The challenge for NATO now is how to keep itself in shape while reacting sensibly to Soviet initiatives. Keeping in shape means avoiding damage to the organization's military position, which could be squeezed between zealous hawks forcing too much attention on controversial strategic problems and enthusiastic doves arguing that excessive devotion to deterrence or defense will block peace rather than guard it.

II

What is most remarkable about the Atlantic alliance is its durability and success. NATO has lasted 40 years with no failure in its mission of deterring Soviet aggression and negligible change in the number and commitment of its members. Episodic controversies about strategic doctrine have agitated the organization but have done no mortal damage. Professional strategists or diplomats often wring their hands about events or trends that suggest disarray, but considering the difficulties that history would lead us to expect in a collaboration of so many states over so long a time on so momentous a matter, these problems have been surprisingly well managed.

The alliance is also quite institutionalized. Its structure and consultative process have been thoroughly bureaucratized, and declarations of shared interests, objectives and ...

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