From Prague to Baghdad: NATO at Risk

Strobe Talbott

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2002

Summary:  In Afghanistan, the Bush administration seemed determined at first to keep NATO on the sidelines. Now, as war with Iraq looms and the alliance ponders its own future, the president needs to reaffirm his commitment to the organization by including NATO in any new operation from the beginning. If not, its future relevance may come into question.

Strobe Talbott is President of the Brookings Institution and former Deputy Secretary of State.

REPAIR WORK REQUIRED

The concrete is crumbling in the foundations of the labyrinth of drab low-rise buildings that house the main offices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization just off Boulevard Leopold III in the outskirts of Brussels. Fresh paint can no longer hide cracks in the plaster along the winding corridors. Captains, majors, and colonels in a variety of uniforms share cubbies with diplomats and civil servants.

When the complex was hurriedly assembled 35 years ago, it was intended to be the temporary command center of a permanent alliance squared off against a robust and implacable enemy. Leonid Brezhnev was in the Kremlin, the Cold War was at its height, and Charles de Gaulle had pulled France out of NATO's unified military command, forcing the other allies to move from Paris to Brussels. But before they got around to putting up a more durable and dignified set of buildings, the Soviet monolith came tumbling down and escapees from its wreckage were knocking on NATO's door. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined three years ago, bringing the membership up from 16 to 19. There may soon be as many as 26 if, at their summit in Prague in November, the leaders of NATO have the foresight to accept the applications of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. That move would, in one stroke, increase stability from the Baltics to the Balkans.

In addition to admitting new allies, NATO has established a network of so-called partnerships with 27 states. They include five neutrals (Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden, and Switzerland), all 15 former Soviet republics, four other members of the defunct Warsaw Pact, and three remnants of Yugoslavia. On the second day of the Prague summit, presidents, premiers, ministers, and other officials from all these countries will join the allies around a giant table for a session of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). For the past 11 years, this body, created and administered by NATO, has sponsored joint defense, peacekeeping, and civil emergency operations. It has also encouraged its members to respect minorities, resolve disputes peacefully, and ensure civilian control of their military establishments.

To cope with this boom in activities and associations, NATO has acquired from the Belgian air force a huge tract across the highway from its present location. Three renowned architects are bidding for the contract on a new headquarters to be completed by 2008. When the winner is announced at the summit in Prague, there will probably be a burst of rhetoric about how the plan demonstrates NATO's determination to be a sturdy and capacious fixture on the landscape of the twenty-first century.

But Prague will also highlight a paradox: NATO's long-term potential is virtually limitless, but its cohesion is at imminent risk. That is largely due to another paradox. The strength of the alliance has always derived from American power, which has never been greater, and from American leadership, which has never been more assertive. Yet these days many allies are feeling not so much led by the United States as bossed around; for them, the exercise of American power has become less a source of protection and more a cause of resentment and a problem to be managed.

The United States has been accused of high-handedness and unilateralism before, but the complaints have grown in volume and intensity during the nearly two years of George W. Bush's presidency. He has persistently taken the position that the United States knows best what is in the interests of the rest of the world, and his administration has sometimes seemed not just willing but eager to act alone, in defiance of treaties and over the objections of other nations. As a result, the United States has rarely been so at odds with so many of its traditional friends on so many issues, from trade and arms control to climate change and the International Criminal Court. This general dispute has naturally taken its toll on NATO, an organization that is itself based on a treaty, on the notion of America as first among equals, and on the principles of common interest, shared responsibility, concerted resolve, collective action, and decision by consensus.

The Prague summit will dramatize the specific issue of Iraq as a moment of truth for NATO. For starters, Bush has some repair work to do. The U.S. administration's success after September 11 in crushing the Taliban stoked the president's confidence in the ability of the American armed forces, acting largely on their own, to bring down enemy regimes. In planning and executing the campaign in Afghanistan, the administration gave NATO short shrift. Many in Canada and Europe, and some in the United States, worry that if the administration is similarly dismissive of NATO when push comes to shove in Iraq, the alliance might never recover, since NATO must be taken seriously by its strongest member if it is to be taken seriously by anyone.

During the summer, apprehension mounted that the fight Bush was spoiling for with Saddam Hussein was one that he would just as soon wage alone. Thus his speech in New York City on September 12 was greeted with widespread relief. He used the podium of the United Nations to assert his preference for working through that body. He did not alter either the objective to which he is committed (regime change in Baghdad) or the timetable he has in mind (soon). Nor did he back away from his explicit, often-repeated willingness to act outside the UN if he deems it necessary. Nor, finally, did he rule out the possibility of preemption, which he and others in his administration have elevated from an option of last resort to something close to a new doctrine for American defense.

By making his "or else" so clear, the president seemed, at first, to have increased the likelihood of what would be the best denouement of the world's 12-year showdown with Iraq: a un-authorized military action that removes Saddam from power. By convincing the other members of the Security Council that he will not settle for any result that leaves Saddam in place, Bush gave them an incentive to close the gap between their positions and that of the United States, if only to preserve what the president pointedly called the "relevance" of the UN itself. Bush based his argument on Saddam's record of repeatedly attacking his neighbors, using weapons of mass destruction, and flouting past attempts to carry out inspections and enforce existing UN resolutions.