Equal Alliance, Unequal Roles

Following on the Kissinger post of last week, Kaplan has an Op-Ed in the New York Times on the Nato alliance and the unequal nature of the alliance—but unlike Kissinger, he defends it.

Predictions of NATO’s decline hold it to an impossible cold war standard. Then, a direct mortal threat to Central Europe in the form of Red Army divisions led to an all-for-one and one-for-all mentality. Now that the threat is more subtle and diverse, NATO’s mandate, structure and personality need to change accordingly. NATO, two-tiers or not, potentially holds as much value to the United States in the multipolar future as it did in the cold war past. Indeed, as we look at the possibility of a “Pacific Century” featuring the rise of China as a great power, combined with a resurgent Russia across Eurasia, we should see that an American-European alliance is imperative.

Let’s face it, the threat of a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan is not of the same order as the threat Germany faced from the Soviet Union, so is it any wonder that Germany’s attitude has changed? Rather than bully the Germans into doing what they’re not very good at — counterinsurgency — in the violent south of Afghanistan, we should be grateful that they’re doing something they are good at — nation-building — in the relatively peaceful north. The same holds for countries like Italy and Spain, whose troops are also restricted to northern Afghanistan. In the post-cold-war world, individual NATO members can’t be expected to automatically take part in missions outside the alliance’s traditional European sphere. Participation will be contingent on specific circumstances. And that will lead to an increasingly stratified alliance.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO’s mandate has been a work in progress: from a sole focus on the defense of the European homeland to a three-dimensional engagement in global issues like terrorism, human rights abuses, military partnerships with fledgling democracies, energy security, nuclear proliferation and outbreaks of chaos…

In fact, a two-tiered NATO has certain advantages for the United States. Eastward expansion acts as a bulwark against a neo-czarist Russia. Countries close to Russia like Poland and Romania feel NATO is every bit as vital as it was to Western Europe during the cold war, which is the real reason they’ve helped us in Iraq and Afghanistan. NATO membership represents a seal of good-product approval for former east bloc states seeking investment and stabilization.

NATO is never going to be a rubber stamp for American proposals like in the darkest days of the cold war. By getting bogged down in Iraq and consequently neglecting Afghanistan, the Bush administration has forced NATO members to bear a military responsibility that many in their heart of hearts do not feel is vital to their interests…

The United States will have to forge plenty of other military alliances in the 21st century: area-specific ones for the Pacific and Indian oceans; and culturally specific ones, namely the core group of Anglo-Saxon nations that have borne the brunt of responsibility in Iraq and Afghanistan. But simply because NATO cannot be an alliance of equals does not mean that it won’t play a significant role in our grand strategy: to create a web of global arrangements and liberal institutions that will allow America to gradually retreat from its costly and risky position of overbearing dominance.