NATO: Current Challenges, Research Paper Example

Background

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an intergovernmental military alliance formed following the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949. The alliance was created as a result of the threat posed by the URSS and Germany, and it comprised several European states, namely Britain, Iceland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and United States of America. According to Peter Duignan (2000), by 1954, Greece, Turkey and the Federal German Republic had also joined NATO, as ‘hostile allies’. Members of the alliance agreed to offer each other protection, in the event of an attack, in the form of military assistance and other types of necessary interventions.

From the beginning of the alliance, it was suggested that the United States may have a hidden agenda for joining the alliance, such as gaining control over the European continent. As Duignan (2000) argued, America remained superior to its allies in both military and economic strength, as it undertook the supreme command of the alliance in the beginning years. However, America proved its willingness for supporting its allies and upholding its part of the agreement. In addition, as compared to the Warsaw Pact, NATO was based on the principle of voluntary participation, and none of its members felt obligated to join or remain in the alliance once they were allowed to choose (Duignan, 2000).

As a consequence of being constituted with a specific purpose, it was assumed that NATO would dissolve in the aftermath of the Cold War, since it achieved its purpose of protecting Western Europe from the Soviet threat (Moore, 2007). In a 1990 article, John J. Mearsheimer explained, “the Soviet Union is the glue that holds NATO together. Take away that offensive threat and the United States is likely to abandon the Continent, whereupon the defensive alliance it has headed for forty years may disintegrate” (Moore, 2007, p. 9). However, Mearsheimer’s predictions were proven far from true. Instead of breaking down, the alliance transformed into a global organization and became involved in new missions.

Over the years, NATO received more allies, and the types of threats it stood against diversified and changed. Initially constituted as a military alliance, NATO became an organization with a primary goal of maintaining peace, and this was accomplished primarily through political means. The first military mission, carried out by NATO, was in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995; thus, 45 years after its creation. This was only one of the missions NATO undertook in “failed and fragile states”, as Christopher Chivvis, (2009, p. 13) labelled them. He explains that, in these cases, the alliance either became involved as a result of humanitarian considerations or due to security concerns and its participation as an organization was more desirable than the participation of one state alone.

Current Missions and Purpose

The question, ‘is NATO useful?’ remained on critics’ lips from the end of the Warsaw Pact and continues to represent an issue of interest, despite many years of activation. After the end of the Cold War, when NATO was at the point of dissolution, G.W. Bush declared NATO’s new mission was that of safeguarding Europe’s safety and freedom (Moore, 2007).

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, NATO’s focus began shifting toward the threat represented by terrorist organizations. This date represents the moment when Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty was used for the first time. The article stands at the basis of the alliance and represents the countries’ agreement that if one of them is attacked from abroad, then all of the other countries in the alliance will respond. This also represented the moment when NATO transformed, once again, and turned attention to ‘non-state threats’ which are growing in importance (Chivvis 2009). As a direct result of the attacks, Afghanistan became NATO’s most important mission, with allies sending more than 30,000 troops in support for America’s war effort (The Nation, 2012). Also, the author points out that, “defense against non-state threats requires international cooperation, and NATO, as the world’s leading international security organization, is well-suited to the task” (p. 17). In addition to being the most suited to the task of fighting against terrorist organizations, NATO is also very much interested in doing so, since the global nature and action range of these criminal organizations require an equally widespread alliance to defeat it.

In the introduction to their book, Frances Edwards & Friedrich Steinhausler (2007) explain terrorism represents a completely new challenge for NATO, due to the fact that terrorists do not negotiate, are unpredictable, and are able and willing to use weapons of mass destruction to harm civilians. Therefore, as compared with the Cold War, the war on terrorism places NATO countries in a vulnerable position because of the surprise nature of the attacks and the loss of civilian lives. While NATO’s involvement in homeland security may prove beneficial, in the case of international organized crime, there are multiple difficulties associated with this type of action. These difficulties include establishing a military strategy against an ever-evolving enemy and establishing effective communications between members of the alliance (Chivvis 2009).

Organization

The complex nature of the organization and the size of its membership made operations efforts rather difficult, in NATO’s case. Within the organization, English became the language of communication and various jurisdiction modifications were made for allowing communication and military equipment to cross the borders with ease (Duignan 2000). Moreover, “the allies had to coordinate policies and strategies through a supranational organization” (Duignan, 2000, p. 12). However, the North Atlantic Treaty does little to clarify the exact structure of the organization.

The treaty specifies there should be a council that must regulate the manner in which the treaty is applied, all members are allowed to participate in the council, and the council should be able to assemble quickly when needed (Collins, 2011). As a result, the North Atlantic Council was formed to serve as the most important organization of NATO (Duignan 2000). As Brian Collins (2011) explained, the Council initially met at a ministerial level and had a rotating chairmanship. However, this proved unpractical and, therefore, a permanent structure was established with permanent representatives who assembled on a weekly basis. The Council elected a Secretary General to serve as the Chairman of the Council. The headquarters of the organization was first established in London, then in Paris, and after France’s withdrawal from NATO, the headquarters was relocated to Brussels. Initially, NATO also established a Defense Committee and a Defense Planning Committee, which was comprised of each country’s defense minister and served the purpose of advising the Council on matters regarding Articles 3 and 5 (Collins, 2011). However, as of 2010, the Defense Planning Committee was dissolved and the Council undertook its functions. Apart from the Defense Committee, a series of additional organizations assisted the Council with its tasks. The Military Committee was comprised of each country’s Chief of Staff and other smaller organizations were subordinate to it.

Resources

The changing role and structure of NATO has initiated a change in its resource management and demands. Acting on multiple scenes and involving multiple strategies and actors, NATO’s budget represents a constant challenge and a matter of concern. NATO’s budget is established according to a five-year plan. As William Thomas explained, the amounts of contributions for each state (in Euros) are expressed as national percentage shares. The author further named four types of budgets: (1) the military commonly founded budget; (2) the NSIP budget facilities, communication and technology; (3) the civil budget, which is meant for organizational aspects, and finally; (4) the NATO multinational headquarters budget (Thomas, 2006), meant for voluntary participants. As compared to the past, NATO’s budget is less stable and supplemental funding requests are common (Thomas, 2006). The extended operations in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, the transportation cost, and the humanitarian aid, also resulted in additional cost to the allies.

Challenges and the Future

Given the major expenses it imposes and the ambiguity of its role in both the contemporary political and military contexts, it is no wonder that the utility of the alliance has been questioned by many critics. Even though it may seem that NATO plays an important role in the world’s peace equilibrium, the global expansion of the organization in years past has cast doubt upon its efficiency (The Nation, 2012). According to an article in The Nation (2012), even though the alliance attempted adapting to the new challenges of the 21^st century, NATO’s purpose remains unclear, because its challenges in Europe are non-military and the war outside of Europe’s boundaries are more harmful than beneficial. Finally, the 2012 economic recession left analysts wondering whether spending so much money on the maintenance of an ideal military force is actually the best option.

The lack of a clear objective and purpose was also reflected on the allies’ difficulty to reach a consensus regarding the actions it undertook in Afghanistan and the Balkans. Also, the perceived lack of equality between the U.S. and the other allies is not one that can be ignored, with the U.S. providing the protection of its nuclear arsenal, while Europe provides the manpower (Duignan, 2000). However, as Duignan (2000) showed, NATO’s major accomplishments signify the necessity of NATO. NATO’s impressive army for forward defense, and the amount of equipment and men ready to fight, established NATO as a great force, able to stop the Soviet Union and the Civil War itself (Duignan, 2000).

Conclusion

The purpose of this paper was presenting the main characteristics of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and showing how the role and the purpose of the alliance changed in order to adapt to emerging contemporary threats. Consequently, NATO remained relevant and important as a peace maintenance force and as a defensive organization. Although the organization transformed to adapt, and although critics believed its utility low as compared to its costs, the truth is NATO is as relevant today as it was almost 50 years ago, and it still represents a major force and an important peace-maintaining organization throughout the world.

References

Chivvis, C. (2009). Recasting Nato’s strategic concept: possible directions for the United States. Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. Retrieved from: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/occasional_papers/2009/RAND_OP280.pdf.

Collins, B. (2011). NATO: A guide to the issues. Westport, CT: ABC-CLIO.

Duignan, P. (2000). NATO: Its past, present and future. Hoover Institution.

Edwards, F. & Steinhauser, F. (2007). NATO Science for peace and security reasons. Springer.

Moore, R. (2007). Nato’s new mission: projecting stability in a post-cold war world. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Thomas, W. (2006). NATO: Resource perspective. The Armed Forces Comptroller, 51.1, p. 51. “Why NATO?” Nation, 294.22, p.2-4.