What Does NATO Try to Accomplish in the post-Cold War Era?

NATO will forge its new strategic concept for the upcoming era after a decade-long period. Looking at the new concept one can easily grasp the desire of becoming a balancing power on a global scale. However, there is a tradeoff then for the new era: What will happen to the United Nations and to the role of the Security Council? Secondly, is there room for NATO to transform its system of values and functions for the new period? Looking at the existing structure, the priority of NATO seems to be the need for legitimization and a clear definition of “the other” to keep the bonds within the organization salient.

When NATO was established in the post-World War II period there were mainly three goals. These can be summarized as “Soviets out, Germans down and the U.S. in.” In this sense, a militarist institution like NATO was necessary to balance a power like Soviet Union. Moreover, it would serve U.S. aims to create strong bonds with NATO member countries. Under the Cold War dynamics, NATO fulfilled all these given targets and served as a transformative mechanism in Eastern Europe during the 1990s. However, the targets indicated above have lost their power of influence in time and the role of NATO cannot be legitimized easily for the new period. In this sense, the clues given for the new framework of the strategic concept seem to be functional to overcome this problem. Primarily, it underlines the need for international cooperation against threats like cyber terror, the need for sustaining security and stability in the routes of supplies – which are under the threat of pirates, like in Somalia – and the need for coordination and cooperation against terrorism and radicalism.

These new targets show a good reading of global challenges in the 21st century. Yet, there is still a problem of finding “the other” to keep the alliance as strong as in the Cold War period. The integration of the Eastern bloc to the West postponed this necessity up until now and the attempts of substituting the communist threat with an abstract definition of radical terrorism failed. One of the main reasons of this is the fact that the actors composed of states need foes in an institutional framework and non-state actors neither helping international organizations to keep their dynamism up nor serving to shape the public opinion smoothly. In this context, there is an endeavor to define Iran and, up to a certain extent, North Korea as “the other,” which threat the values of the West and global security. Even though these new threats lack a challenging ideological basis as in the Cold War period, it would certainly help NATO to fill the missing part for a while. But one thing is for sure that these attempts of finding “the other” are so artificial that they do not emerge as a common perceived threat, as in the case of USSR, among the members of the alliance. Surely, this does not mean that these countries and the threats posed them can be underestimated.

However, looking at the big picture it is hard to claim that Iran or North Korea play the role of “glue” as successful as Soviet Union, which has been looked for a long time at the NATO headquarters. Apart from these factors, it should be underlined here that these efforts are challenged by several other factors. These can be summarized as “the problem posed by the new member states,” “the situation in Afghanistan” and “Russia.” These are all interrelated with each other one way or another.

In the post-Cold War period, NATO has pursued a policy of enlargement and the states of Eastern Europe have become members of the alliance. The main motivation for these countries was becoming a part of the Western bloc and balancing a possible Russian threat in the future. Particularly, Obama’s policies helped the U.S. to pass a certain threshold in its relations with Moscow. Yet it is hard to claim that Eastern Europe countries’ threat perception turned into a relationship based on trust and security with Russia. They still push for a prudential stance in NATO’s relation with Kremlin. This is one of the main cracks in terms of unity among the alliance members.

Nevertheless, countries which have become members of the Euro-Atlantic alliance in the last two decade are comparatively smaller in terms of economic and military power. In this sense, the responsibility of NATO has increased, but not in balanced terms. The older members still carry the bigger portion of the main burden, but they have to consider the sensitivities of the other states because of the consensus-based decision mechanism. This causes inefficiency in the policy making process and the lack of a unified stance in certain conditions like in the Georgia war in 2008.

On the other hand, Afghanistan continues to represent a failure story for the alliance. The situation in the country requires strong cooperation with Russia and the support of member states. However, the situation in the country worsens as time passes. Thinking of the current identity crisis of NATO, it is for sure that NATO needs success stories but no failures to be able to preserve the strong image of the organization. In this sense, the redefinition of relations with Russia is so crucial not only in terms of European security, but also for sustaining stability and for finding a safe exit from Afghanistan. The existence of skeptics both in the West and Russia are hardly helping to find a solution for this issue.

Moreover, Russia-NATO relations are elaborated from a civilizational prism. It is hard to say that the relations of Russia and the West are mainly identified through NATO. Considering the problematic characteristics of Russia-EU relations, which has a greater potential than NATO in terms of creating dynamism based on interdependency and transformation, it is hardly logical to expect miracles from these efforts for future of the West and Russia in the long run.

To conclude, NATO is on the right path by pursuing a proactive policy in terms of adopting a new strategic concept. This would surely help NATO to avoid turning into an organization like the OSCE, which has become a low-profile institution because of its loose structure starting from the late 1990s, in the new period. In this context, efforts of creating new common interests and enemies have utmost importance for NATO’s future. It seems that these efforts are not based on natural consequences like in the Cold War period, rather gives the feeling of being based on artificial dynamics. Moreover, there are some structural problems that NATO must face in the new term, which would crucially undermine these efforts. Lastly but not least, it is hard to claim that an organization like NATO can keep the bonds among the member states strong enough by being based on high politics. The reality of the 21st century is based on economics and a militarist organization like NATO has its own limitations. Without being able to create interdependent relations based on economic cooperation, it is also hard for the U.S. to sustain its leadership through NATO-like organizations in the wide geography that the alliance comprises after its enlargement policies. On the other hand, the new global concept of NATO, if successfully created, will give Washington a maneuvering space in the international arena in militaristic terms while undermining the functional power of the UN Security Council.