December 3, 2001	Monday	Ramazan 17, 1422

BRUSSELS: When the Soviet Union collapsed it was fashionable for columnists to sound the death knell of NATO. Now, as Europe sits on the sidelines of an unquestionably US-driven war on terrorism, they are at it again. Few would argue that the 19-nation alliance is on its last legs, but many are asking what role can be left for NATO when its military machinery has not even been cranked up for the first big war of the 21st century.

Is the alliance becoming more of an umbrella organization for political consultation, one which sets military standards and ensures interoperability among allies but fights no war under its own name? It is against this backdrop of doubt about NATO’s primacy as the organizing focus for Western security efforts that allied foreign ministers will meet in Brussels next week.

Conventional wisdom in the immediate aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks on New York and Washington was that the world had changed, that nations would be drawn together in a powerful coalition against terrorism. There was plenty to suggest that this was happening. NATO allies quickly invoked Article V, their organisation’s founding mutual defence clause, under which an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all.

Never in NATO’s 52-year history had they taken such a step, not even during the long Cold War with Moscow whose might the alliance was set up to contain. And Russia’s help in the offensive against Afghanistan’s Taliban, which has been sheltering the prime suspect behind the attacks, Osama bin Laden, suddenly quickened the pace of a rapprochement between the transatlantic alliance and its old foe. Tension over NATO’s plans for enlargement into Russia’s back yard subsided.

But many believe such solidarity will not last. They see NATO being undermined by the United States’ unilateral impulses. “As to NATO, it is almost completely worthless as far as the war against terrorism is concerned,” Anatol Lieven, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in a provocative article for Prospect magazine.

“This campaign and all future such campaigns will be “coalitions of the willing”, completely dominated by the United States, and with contributions on a bilateral basis.” Julian Lindley-French of the Western European Union Institute for Security Studies said it became clear after Sept 11 that Washington does not view NATO as a vehicle for effective military organisation of the West.

“Article V ain’t what it used to be,” he wrote in a paper for a conference on “Transatlantic Relations and the New World Disorder”. “No longer a pseudo-automatic armed assistance clause, it seems to have become merely a way of corralling the allies into supporting US policy and disciplining them thereafter, and preventing them from airing any criticisms that might emerge.”

Before Sept 11, the Bush administration had demonstrated its distaste for political multilateralism, walking out of the Kyoto climate change accord, challenging the global nuclear order with its plans for missile defence and disengaging from efforts to resolve the Middle East problem. Many believe the attacks brought no great conversion. Perhaps drawing on the messy experience of NATO’s war-by-committee in Kosovo, Washington chose to send its own troops and warplanes to Afghanistan with just a sprinkling of help from individual allies, chiefly Britain.

“The United States has clearly demonstrated how they consider any kind of multilateral coalition as very cumbersome. Allies want to ask questions and control what targets are hit,” a senior French defence official said. “I don’t believe the Americans are converted to multilateralism. On the contrary, they are more unilateral than ever.” That is a view echoed by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, who says Washington’s new focus on homeland defence and on its military capability for campaigns like Afghanistan will bring pressure for a reduction of US forces in Europe.

NATO still provides a structure and a planning tool for an array of operations — humanitarian and rescue missions, separation of warring parties and all-out war — that could be needed in future hot spots from North Africa to the Caucasus. It ensures US control, or at least a veto, over European security at the price of a loose US guarantee of help if the Europeans get into trouble.—Reuters