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BRUSSELS: After the September 11 attacks, Washington bypassed Nato and took its military response to Afghanistan with a coalition of the willing: “Nato? keep the myth alive,” joked one Pentagon official at the time.
And yet on Friday, just two years later, the US ambassador to Nato penned a glowing tribute to the alliance and spoke of Washington’s interest in using it for “the most vital security operations of the day”.
What has brought the United States from neglect of the 54-year-old alliance to cheerleading in such short shrift?
And now, by pressing Nato to take on robust roles in post-war Afghanistan and Iraq — when many European allies have neither the stomach nor the right military forces for such hard security missions — is it setting the alliance up for a fall?
“The US is laying down the gauntlet, challenging the alliance to prove its worth,” said one Nato diplomat. “But there has also been a change in the United States. In the wake of September 11 they were a bit self-obsessed...then they came to realize they cannot be so cavalier with their friends.”
Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay of the Brookings Institution argue in a recent study that US reliance on the unilateral exercise of its power rather than on international law and institutions to get its way had brought a heavy price.
“American troops in Iraq found themselves embroiled in what had all the makings of guerrilla war,” they wrote in “America Unbound: the Bush Revolution in foreign policy”. “Anger had swelled overseas at what was seen as an arrogant and hypocritical America. Several close allies spoke openly about how to constrain America rather than how best to work with it.”
RECOILED FROM ABYSS: George Robertson, who stepped down as secretary-general of Nato this week, told reporters he had witnessed a “big shift in attitude, especially to organizations like Nato” in Washington.
The shift has been gradual but it was sealed by Iraq.
Many in Washington had come to see after the post-September 11 wobble of faith in Nato that the Cold War alliance could be transformed to tackle new security threats such as terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
Even before the Iraq war, the United States was one of the most ardent supporters of Nato’s enlargement into eastern Europe, it came up with the idea of cutting-edge response force for hot spots far beyond the Euro Atlantic area and, unlike other allies, it was ready to spend more on the organisation.
Many also put the rebirth of US faith in Nato down to its anxiety about the emergence of a credible European Union defence policy, and point to its recent fury over EU plans to set up an independent military headquarters as evidence.
“They need to show that Nato remains the main pillar of defence and security in Europe,” said one senior diplomat.
Before the US-led invasion of Iraq this year Nato was plunged into one of the deepest crises in its history by a row pitting anti-war allies France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg against the rest of the 19 over reinforcing Turkey’s defences.
It is remarkable that just months later the alliance calmly agreed to provide behind-the-scenes support to a multinational force in post-war Iraq and take command of the 5,700-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.
“I think...nations peered into the abyss of a world without the transatlantic alliance, and recoiled,” Robertson said.
AFGHANISTAN FIRST: Writing in the International Herald Tribune on Friday, US ambassador Nicholas Burns reiterated Washington’s view that Nato should now consider merging ISAF with the US-led force of 11,600 troops tracking Taliban and al Qaeda die-hards in Afghanistan and making “a similarly decisive...effort in Iraq”.
“There is a risk we get too much on our plate. And if we fail Nato’s credibility will crumble,” said one senior diplomat.
In his last months as secretary-general, Robertson bemoaned the fact that European and Canadian allies have — with reserves — 2.25 million land force troops, and yet with only 55,000 on foreign missions they all say they can spare no more.—Reuters
