NATO's Ordinary Future
by Randal D. Kaplan
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/natos-ordinary-future-robert-d-kaplan
Reviewed by James L. Abrahamson, contributing editor
In this insightful essay, Robert D. Kaplan, national correspondent for The Atlantic and senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, acknowledges NATO’s many shortcomings but nevertheless judges it helpful to the U.S. in organizing Europe’s defense vis-à-vis Russia and allowing America to “focus on the Middle East and Asia. NATO is not great, but for the time being it is good enough.”
NATO’s shortcomings emerged clearly when its European members, acting alone, failed to overcome Serbia in response to the crisis in Kosovo, and their inability to act to the situation in Libya without extensive U.S. support proved “devastating for the alliance.” The U.S., for example, provided 80% of the intervention’s gasoline and “ran the logistical end of the conflict;” only eight NATO members allowed their war planes to drop bombs; and most of the conflict’s “individual operation orders carried an American address.”
One U.S. general told Kaplan “Europe is dead militarily.” Its “military budgets are plummeting;” Europeans take little pride in their armed forces; and with a few exceptions their publics regard members of their armed forces as “civil servants in funny uniforms” suitable for participating in “humanitarian relief exercises.” Observers might readily conclude that NATO, having lost its core Cold War mission “is finished.”
Even so, Kaplan finds much of value in the alliance:
The alliance remains, he wrote, “a political stabilizing agent within Europe.” It puts a “seal of approval on the former communist states of Eastern Europe and “prevents Russia from undermining them.” NATO also reduces the chances that Germany might one day “pivot toward an alliance with Russia.” In addition to the NATO bureaucracy, Europe’s military forces benefit from “interoperability” and “standard operating procedures” that facilitate military cooperation. Even now new forms of European cooperation emerge. Relying on German tanks, the Dutch emphasize frigate-based ballistic missile defenses that will benefit all of Europe. The revitalized Nordic and Visegard battle groups might continue to remain under the NATO umbrella, and the alliance can also provide diplomatic cover for military intervention when the UN fails to act or to help build European confidence should an assertive Russia or more chaos in North Africa require Europe’s attention. With–out the alliance the United States “would be more lonely in an anarchic world.”
