Global NATO

Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006

Summary:  The advent of a new global politics after the Cold War has led NATO to expand its geographic reach and the range of its operations. Now, NATO must extend its membership to any democratic state that can help it fulfill its new responsibilities. Only a truly global alliance can address the global challenges of the day.

Ivo Daalder is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. James Goldgeier is Professor of Political Science at George Washington University and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

REACHING OUT

With little fanfare -- and even less notice -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has gone global. Created to protect postwar Western Europe from the Soviet Union, the alliance is now seeking to bring stability to other parts of the world. In the process, it is extending both its geographic reach and the range of its operations. In recent years, it has played peacekeeper in Afghanistan, trained security forces in Iraq, and given logistical support to the African Union's mission in Darfur. It assisted the tsunami relief effort in Indonesia and ferried supplies to victims of Hurricane Katrina in the United States and to those of a massive earthquake in Pakistan.

NATO's expanded ambit is a result of the new global politics that emerged after the Cold War. Today, terrorists born in Riyadh and trained in Kandahar hatch deadly plots in Hamburg to fly airplanes into buildings in New York. Such interconnection means that developments in one place affect the security, prosperity, and well-being of citizens everywhere. NATO has recognized that the best (and at times the only) defense against such remote dangers is to tackle them at their source. Such forward defense often requires a global military reach: helicopters to deliver supplies to disaster zones and evacuate the injured; command, control, and reconnaissance capabilities to sustain peacekeeping missions; and experienced military officers to train local security forces. As the world's premier multinational military organization, comprising many prosperous nations with a vested interest in maintaining global stability, NATO is uniquely suited to meeting such demands.

At the same time, with U.S. forces stretched thin in Iraq and European states failing to invest enough to participate significantly in operations far away from home, NATO is struggling to fulfill even its current commitments. And while the alliance has increasingly recognized the necessity of operating far from Europe -- or "out of area," in NATO parlance -- it has been limited by the requirement that its member states be North American or European.

NATO leaders are expected to address this problem at a summit in Riga, Latvia, in November. They will consider a proposal to redefine the alliance's role by deepening relations with countries beyond the transatlantic community, starting with partners such as Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. A key part of this effort is the proposal by the United States and the United Kingdom to forge a "global partnership" between NATO and non-European states that will provide a forum for expanded dialogue with other major democratic countries.

Although this initiative is a good first step, it does not go far enough. NATO's next move must be to open its membership to any democratic state in the world that is willing and able to contribute to the fulfillment of NATO's new responsibilities. Only a truly global alliance can address the global challenges of the day.

FOR EURO EYES ONLY

The central strategic objective of U.S. foreign policy during the twentieth century was to prevent any one power from dominating Europe. That was the reason the United States fought two world wars on the continent and stayed engaged with it throughout the Cold War.

NATO, created in 1949, when communism threatened the security and stability of Europe, was an essential part of that effort. The signing of its founding North Atlantic Treaty represented both a direct commitment by the United States to come to Europe's defense if the Soviet Union ever advanced across the continent and a way to persuade fragile European governments to resist the spread of communist ideology at home. The treaty's European focus was underscored by Article 10, which opened the door to future NATO membership only to European countries, and Article 6, which limited the alliance's geographic reach to being "on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France, on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer," and to "forces, vessels and aircraft" of the member states operating within these geographic perimeters. The treaty produced a strictly transatlantic community; collective defense commitments were not to extend to any colonial possessions or other affiliated territory beyond the immediate North Atlantic area. During the Cold War, the alliance expanded from 12 to 16 members -- with Greece, Turkey, and West Germany joining in the 1950s and Spain in 1982.

Some 40 years after NATO's founding, the Iron Curtain that had divided Europe fell, and the continent began to be reunited. NATO was essential to this consolidation. It incorporated the unified Germany, helped put an end to a brutal war in the Balkans, and opened its doors to former foes from the Warsaw Pact. The alliance's ranks grew to 19 members when the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined in 1999 and to 26 members five years later with the addition of seven new democracies from central and eastern Europe. As it expanded, NATO helped the historically fractious Europe become a peaceful, united, and democratic continent.