Role NATO in the World - Essay Example

The word "NATO" as Lester B. Pearson has pointed out, sounds like the of a new brand of breakfast food. Even among those who know that the initials stand for "North Atlantic Treaty Organization," there is often more than a little confusion over its basic purpose and its geographical extent. Political leaders and commentators commonly refer to it as the "North Atlantic alliance" or the "North Atlantic community," and sometimes describe it as a collective security organization. Before examining the problems which it faces today we must first attempt to define and to clarify its scope. A "North Atlantic" area which includes both Point Barrow, far above the Arctic Circle, and Mount Ararat, deep in the Turkish Caucasus, is, indeed, an anomaly. The term "North Atlantic area" appears several times in the text of the treaty but is nowhere defined explicitly. However, the treaty does contain a definition of the area within which an armed attack from without will bring its guarantees into operation.( James Kurth, 36) These guarantees extend to the territories of all member states in Europe and North America, to the Mediterranean and North Sea, and to the Atlantic Ocean north of the Tropic of Cancer. They also cover the Algerian Departments of France as well as all of Turkey's territories in Asia, plus two segments of Africa and Asia, and all of North America north of the Rio Grande, together with the seas and ocean lying between them.The success of the NATO Alliance over the past four decades has been extraordinary. The mere survival of the Alliance for forty years is noteworthy; that those forty years have been unbroken by war among the major powers is unprecedented in the modern era. To be sure, factors other than NATO have contributed to the absence of war in Europe-the most important being the advent of the "nuclear revolution" in warfare. Nonetheless, NATO has made an important contribution to the maintenance of peace among the major powers. Indeed, though Alliance members have often disagreed over a vast array of NATO issues, the overriding interest in peace with freedom has kept them together and helped prevent war on the continent. Beyond that broad desire for peace, NATO's durability may be traced to three major sources: agreement on the nature of the threats to the fundamental interests of the Alliance members; the evolution of a collective response to those threats that meets the political, economic, and military requirements of the allies; and the absence of any politically acceptable alternatives to the current structure of the Alliance. The central question facing NATO forty years after its creation, however, is whether the Alliance, as currently structured, equipped, and funded, will continue to play an effective role in meeting the vital security needs of its members. Despite the attention given to disputes among Alliance members, it is unlikely that NATO will collapse with a bang sparked by internal friction, but it could fade with a whimper of irrelevance in the face of shifting economic, political, technological, and military realities. NATO will almost certainly be alive on the eve of the twenty-first century to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. However, unless the Alliance has the resilience to respond to emerging challenges, by the turn of the century it may be less relevant to the central security concerns of its members. Our Alliance has come far on its way to transformation. Its relevance today does not derive from its original and immediate purpose but from what it has become over time. It has evolved into a community of values and destiny, and a forum of political consultation on vital issues of foreign policy and security. It has evolved into an agent of change. It will become the core security organization of a future Euro-Atlantic architecture in which all states, irrespective of their size or geographical location, must enjoy the same freedom, cooperation and security. We must not be satisfied with having won the Cold War. We have to win the future. - NATO Secretary General Manfred Wmer October 21, 1991 (Gerald B. Solomon, 139) This inquiry has highlighted in some detail the political and defense issues decision-makers were repeatedly compelled to address regarding the role of the Atlantic Alliance in an era of rapid change. NATO governments, legislatures, and policy elites were challenged, not without difficulty, with adapting NATO to the emerging security environment and rediscovering the original, broad purpose of the Atlantic Community to encourage habits of cooperative security among nations--"a just and lasting peaceful order in Europe accompanied by security guarantees.". In the changing nature of the modern world it is obvious to question role of such international organizations as NATO. I claim that NATO still plays an important role in the modern European society and will try to prove this. For the deeper understanding of the NATO's role we will take particulat country member of NATO as an example, Great Britain. Still the main role of NATO is defense. Defense planning affirms a commitment by NATO members to a credible capability for collective self-defense, which remains the core mission of NATO All NATO members are contributing to this core mission. Britain's major defense alliance is with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This comprises Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Portugal, Britain, the USA, Greece, Turkey, Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and France (the latter is outside NATO's military wing). The original justification for NATO is that it provides its members with greater security than any could achieve individually. All the major British political parties are in favour of retaining the NATO link and, according to opinion polls, the public would not support any party which tried to take Britain out of the alliance. Membership of NATO also allows Britain to operate militarily on the international stage. Its defence policy is based on NATO strategies and it assigns most of its armed forces and defence budget to the organization. Despite changes in Eastern Europe since 1991 and moves to transform NATO into a more flexible military association, the British government has taken such developments cautiously and is concerned to maintain its own military defence with both conventional and nuclear forces. It fears global instability and the risk to its own security if it were to reduce its and NATO's armed defences substantially. It also supports in principle the USA's missile shield defence programme and will probably contribute early-warning facilities in Britain. The next aim of NATO is capacity to respond to common threats. NATO's continued success requires a credible military capability to deter and respond to common threats. Building on its core capabilities for collective self-defense of its members, NATO will ensure that its military force structure, defense planning, command structures, and force goals promote NATO's capacity to project power when the security of a NATO member is threatened, and provide a basis for ad hoc coalitions of willing partners among NATO members. This will require that NATO members possess national military capabilities to rapidly deploy forces over long distances, sustain operations for extended periods of time, and operate jointly with the United States in high intensity conflicts. However, in 1998 Britain argued that the EU must have a credible military and security capability to support its political role. The EU is now working towards the creation of its own 'rapid deployment force'. The problem is whether this should be seen as an independent force outside NATO or whether it should operate within NATO frameworks. It would respond to international crises, but without prejudice to NATO (which would continue to be the foundation of collective security). Some critics argue that this development will weaken the NATO structure and could lead to American withdrawal from Europe. NATO is and shall be an integrated military structure.The Integrated Military Structure of NATO underpins NATO's effectiveness as a military alliance by embedding NATO members in a process of cooperative defense planning and ensuring unity of command. The British government has progressively cut its defense expenditure (6 per cent of government spending in 2000-01) by reducing the number of armed forces personnel, ships, aircraft and equipment. It aims to depend on leaner, more flexible forces, although there have been strenuous objections to these policies from the military. The primary objectives of defence policy are to ensure the country's security and the NATO commitment and to allow British forces to engage in high-intensity war as well as in peace-keeping roles. However, defence spending is still higher than in other European countries and it is asked whether the money could be better spent in other areas of national life. On the other hand, the armed forces are understaffed for their global commitments and military equipment is often out-of-date and in short supply. One of the most modern functions of NATO is nuclear coercion. Nuclear weapons will continue to make an essential contribution to deterring aggression, especially aggression by potential adversaries armed with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. A credible NATO nuclear deterrent posture requires the stationing of United States nuclear forces in Europe, which provides an essential political and military link between Europe and North America, and the widespread participation of NATO members in nuclear roles. In addition, the NATO deterrent posture will continue to ensure uncertainty in the mind of any potential aggressor about the nature of the response by NATO members to military aggression. Nuclear weapons, which account for a large part of the defence budget, continue to be fiercely debated. Britain's independent nuclear deterrent consists mainly of long-range American-built Trident missiles carried by a fleet of four submarines (although only one is on patrol at any given time). Governments have committed themselves to upgrading nuclear weapons while critics want cheaper alternatives, or the cancellation of the nuclear system. But it seems that the British nuclear stategy will continue. All the major political parties are multilateralist (keeping nuclear weapons until they can be abolished on a global basis). ((John Oakland, 97-106)) And the last fuction for modern NATO is burdensharing. The responsibility and financial and military burden of defending the democracies of Europe will be more equitably shared in a manner in which specific obligations and force goals are met by NATO members. Nowadays Great Britain can operate militarily outside the NATO and European area, although this capacity is becoming increasingly expensive and limited. Military garrisons are stationed in Brunei, Cyprus, the Far and Middle East, the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar. The 1982 Falklands War, the 1991 Gulf War and Afghanistan in 2001 showed that Britain was able to respond to challenges outside the NATO area, although the operations did draw attention to defects and problems in such commitments. The total strength of the professional armed forces, which are now all volunteer following the abolition of conscription in 1960, was 207,600 in 2000. This was made up of 42,800 in the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, 110,100 in the Army and 54,700 in the Royal Air Force. Women personnel in the Army, Navy and Air Force are integral parts of the armed services. They were previously confined to support roles, but may now be employed in some front-line military activities. Reserve and volunteer forces, such as the Territorial Army (TA), support the regular forces, rein-force NATO ground troops and help to maintain security in Britain. (John Oakland, 97-106) NATO is a vitally important organization, as we consider the future of transatlantic and European security, that none of these functions could be fulfilled without active and persistent participation of all NATO members. Just as EU proved the key to ensuring that security for all of Europe would best be served by Germany within the integrative NATO community rather than adrift in an undefined grey zone in the middle of Europe.( John Borawski, 53-55) A continued bipartisan approach will remain instrumental as the process of NATO's transformation and opening proceeds, just as it did when the United States decided in 1949 to engage in this "entangling alliance" that proved one of the greatest of foreign policy success stories. As a result, the path toward righting a historical wrong has been opened. Yet, NATO has further ways for development and improvement of its inner processes. There can be defined five priorities: 1. The alliance must have an agreed basis for contributing to the financing of a wider NATO; 2. Second, if a wider alliance is to provide a broader basis for responsibility-sharing, the U.S. administration must regularly report on the progress new members and those to follow are making toward meeting criteria, what specific and coordinated assistance will be required, and how all allies are contributing to resourcing enlargement and adapting their forces for power projection and in meeting the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction - a challenge in which Russia should be encouraged to join as an early test of the NATO-Russia Act; 3. Third, and although this issue is divorced from enlargement, the recurring debates regarding NATO's role must be better managed. Clearly, NATO's decisions in 1992 to offer its assets in support of peace operations under UN mandate or OSCE authority are not settled, and the debate about the post-SFOR situation will coincide with that on ratification of enlargement. 4. Fourth, it is self-evident that there can be no security in Europe and NATO as a whole without Russia. Although there must be clear that enlargement of the alliance is NATO business, and proper work must be done to make the NATO-Russia act a living document. The goal must be to prevent inertia and a psychology of "doomed to coexistence" from taking the place of real. 5. Finally, an invigorated alliance can only go forward with the support of public opinion. Legislators from present and future members must intensify their dialogue, with the NAA being the natural forum, and NATO itself must become more transparent. In the final analysis, a wider alliance is but a means to the end of building confidence and security toward which all of NATO's directions are aimed. In an era of profound transformation in transatlantic and European security, there can be no guarantees that the values and strategic outlook of the alliance can form the foundation for all of Europe. Nevertheless, we do know that the NATO experience has much to offer as we return to the original broad ambition of NATO and embrace a wider community of free peoples. In a time of uncertainty about the future of NATO, this international organization shall keep its old principle - from keeping the peace to shaping it. If NATO acts fully in line with this dictum it will stay very heart of Euro-Atlantic security. Bibliography 1. Gerald B. Solomon, The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990-1997: The Blessings of Liberty; Praeger, 1998, pp. 139, 140-145 2. John Oakland, British Civilization: An Introduction; Routledge, 2002, pp. 97-106. 3. John Borawski, Thomas-Durell Young, NATO after 2000: The Future of the Euro-Atlantic Alliance; Praeger, 2001, pp. 53-55 4. Ben T. Moore, NATO and the Future of Europe Book by; Harper, 1998, pp. 105-107. 5. James Kurth, The Next NATO; The National Interest, Fall 2001, pp. 36. Read More