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NATO
NATO's Last Dance
By Robert Bullock, BASIC Research Associate
The NATO Pep Rally is coming to town, and cheerleading
schools abound, from the Pentagon to Pennsylvania Avenue.
The United States will be coordinating the applause, and gratefully
accepting the thanks of Europe for fifty years' worth of a
job well done. Among the guests will be the three new expansion
teams of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, along with
many others that seek the blessing of American leadership.
However, their excitement may well be premature.
The countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
need only look to the troubled southeast corner of the continent
to see an example of the Alliance in inaction. With the passing
of the Cold War, NATO was allegedly free to solve the smaller
conflicts that might break out. After years of dithering and
thousands of deaths, finally some kind of peace was established
in Bosnia, although the conflict nearly claimed NATO itself
as a casualty. Now, the Alliance is demonstrating its inability
to address the situation in Kosova, a conflict with the potential
to do more damage to European security than Bosnia ever could.
Bungled and fractured diplomacy have severely weakened attempts
to arrive at a peaceful settlement, while positive action,
military or otherwise, becomes less likely by the day as indecision
and a lack of any long-term political strategy leave Slobodan
Milosevic laughing. American leadership, which will be such
a prominent theme come the April Summit, is conspicuous by
its ineffectiveness, if not its absence. As one Pentagon official
recently commented, "NATO has pulled out the 'we're ready
to act' card way too many times." In addition, should airstrikes
or troop deployments ever occur, the chances are that at the
first hint of casualties the US will get cold feet anyway
and seriously reconsider its position in the province. This
is the lesson that bad guys abroad have been taught by history:
withstand the initial bluster, take a few American lives,
and the last "super power" can probably then be ignored.
If NATO is having such difficulties in Kosova,
what confidence can exist about its ability to effectively
act elsewhere? Ethnic and religious tensions are not limited
to the former Yugoslavia. Even the cherished new members have
the potential to create problems that would dwarf the Kosova
situation. For example, a significant German minority exists
in Poland. One might ask, what could possibly go wrong in
this bastion of post-communist democracy? Bloodshed blamed
on ethnic differences is generally rooted in other factors,
notably economic ones. Should Poland encounter a significant
downturn in its economy, then the gap between the haves and
the have-nots will become more apparent, and if that split
happens to be on ethnic lines, then previous assumptions about
peace and stability in that country can be swiftly discarded.
The Alliance has no capability to address such a situation,
yet its very future would be threatened by any widening of
an internal conflict within its own borders.
NATO's lack of a long-term strategy and mechanism
for dealing with issues such as Kosova does not bode well
for the future. Without a comprehensive plan for conflict
prevention, the Alliance will see its credibility and unity
steadily disappear as military action is taken sporadically
and without any underlying political reasoning. Without a
UN or OSCE mandate for acting out-of-area, it will lose its
legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the international community.
Without a clear attempt at reducing risks across the continent,
it will be condemned to a role of constant reaction and thus
miss opportunities to resolve conflicts before they escalate
unnecessarily. Without the consideration and adoption of these
measures, the April Summit will only be remembered as NATO's
last dance, rather than the cheerleading session it is intended
to be. Game over?
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