NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was born out of the need to strengthen the capacity of a war-devastated Europe in order to defend itself against and deter a Soviet Union which was rapidly consolidating itself under communism and strengthening its military power. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, NATO's primary objective was accomplished without having recourse to any military operation. Today, with no easily defined enemy, NATO is facing an identity crisis. Indeed, since the end of the cold war, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the increasing military imbalance between the United States forces and those of the European members have reduced NATO's cohesiveness as a defense Alliance. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and the unprecedented invocation of Article 5 which states: "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and collective self-defense shall be taken" have merely accentuated this trend. In this new era, NATO has to reinterpret its general aim of safeguarding the freedom, common heritage and civilization of its members by promoting stability and well-being in the North Atlantic Area.
After the September 11 events and the unprecedented invocation of Article V, NATO's practical role has been minimal, although NATO did dispatch radar-carrying aircraft to the United States to assist in air defense and NATO troops have detained alleged Islamic militants in the Balkans. Nonetheless, Washington simply ignored NATO command structures in its war with Afghanistan, so that NATO found itself largely sidelined in that war. The United States did not want to fight a war by committee, as in Kosovo. In fact, in the war against Afghanistan, Washington demonstrated that the United States could rely solely on its own hi-tech capabilities to undertake future military operations, which will certainly disappoint its European partners. Recently, at a security conference in Munich, NATO Secretary General, George Robertson, issued an urgent call for the Alliance's European members to significantly improve their defense capabilities. He stressed that if no such measures were taken, European forces would not be able to operate alongside the United States military forces, thus limiting the influence of European governments on US policy. As Lord Robertson said, "If we are to ensure that United States moves neither towards unilateralism, or isolationism, all the known US allies, Europeans and Canadian, must show a new willingness to develop effective crisis management capabilities." A growing military gap between the United States and its allies could lead to a growing political division. Since the mid-1990's, NATO has perform military, peace-keeping and disarmament actions in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, and in Macedonia. In 1995, NATO was to bring an end to hostilities, to separate the armed forces of the warring parties, to reshape the internal boundaries and to move the warring parties' heavy weapons into approved storage sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina. These goals were achieved by June 1996. Now, NATO leads a 20,000-strong peacekeeping mission, or Stabilisation Force (SFOR), in Bosnia and Herzegovina that maintains the necessary peaceful environment to enable the country to rebuild itself after years of devastation caused by war. Russian leaders have complained about NATO's eastward expansion. One such comment came from Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. He said that Russia could not understand why, as he put it, this military bloc is continuing to enlarge now that the Cold War is over. The United States is also deeply aware of the disastrous consequences that would result from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in this area. Ballistic missiles launched from the Middle East and the threat of possible nuclear missiles pose a new dilemma to the World. Indeed, if there is better co-ordination between the United States and the Europeans, NATO will be able to intervene more efficiently in the Middle East. This will benefit NATO members in general and will ensure that peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians will carry on and reach a definitive end. This means that "NATO should conceptually broaden its Strategic Concept to deal with threats to shared Western interests beyond Europe, especially in the Middle East: to protect Gulf oil, to slow down the entry of weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery systems into the region and to undertake the long-term joint military planning necessary to prepare for these contingencies."
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2387
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page double spaced)
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