Tuesday, May 14, 2002
NATO expands into irrelevance
By C. Raja Mohan
GENEVA May 13. As the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the most powerful military alliance the world has ever seen, prepares to expand its membership and build bridges to its former adversary, it has become increasingly marginal in the management of international security. For NATO, what should have been a moment of greatest triumph, the creation of a Europe that is united and peaceful for the first time in centuries, is also an occasion to reflect on a bleak future that beckons it. Lord Ismay, the first Secretary-General of NATO, summed up its objectives at the end of the Second World War in Europe: "keep America in, Russia out and Germany down''. NATO successfully pursed these objectives during the Cold War that lasted more than four decades. But today, America does not seem to care much for NATO, Germany is united and Russia is about to be integrated into NATO. After September 11, the U.S. made it clear that it has the military capabilities and the political will to act alone in handling the new security threats. The long-standing allies of the United States in Europe were welcome to join the American war on terrorism; but it did not really matter if they did not. ``It is the mission that will define the coalition and not the other way around'', the Americans suggested as they launched an expansive war against international terrorism. Europeans now can neither influence American policy nor undermine it. Until recently the United States insisted on the expansion of NATO, and Russia opposed it. That controversial debate has ended in a whimper as NATO loses political coherence. This week Russia will join a new arrangement with NATO in which it will get a vote and not just a voice in the formulation of some of the policies of the military alliance. *** The growing irrelevance of NATO is rooted in the transformation of U.S.,Russian relationship from an uneasy friendship since the end of the Cold War into a near alliance. As the American strategic attention moves from Europe to Asia, Russia is likely to become a more valuable political partner to the United States in dealing with the conflicts in the southern and eastern parts of the Eurasian landmass. A distinguished scholar recently summed up the changing American perceptions of Europe as follows: "What is Europe? There is Britain in the West, Russia in the East and Turkey in the South. The rest is a marshland!'' Great Britain is of course a fellow Anglo-Saxon power that is willing to back the U.S. on key issues in contrast to the whining Europeans. The secular and moderate Turkey is an important ally of the new American project in the Islamic world and West Asia. Russia can contribute to the American efforts to stabilise the volatile Central Asia and the Caucasus and is a potential partner in containing the rising power in the East — China. The summit meeting later this month between the U.S. President, George W. Bush, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is likely to give the final touches to the contours of a new relationship between Washington and Moscow. The two leaders are said to be close to clinching an understanding on nuclear reductions and missile defence and a joint document proclaiming an alliance-like relationship between the U.S. and Russia is apparently being drafted. While there is deep scepticism rooted in the inertia of the past, in both Moscow and Washington on the prospects for a new relationship between the two, Messrs. Bush and Putin appear determined since September 11 to push forward in a new direction that will have a big impact on India's strategic environment. *** The attempt by the Europeans to carve out an independent role in West Asia has suffered a setback amid accusations in the American media that ``anti-Semitism'' was at the root of the European criticism of Israel. The European Union had been sharply critical of unconditional American support to Israel during its recent military offensive. A leading American columnist wrote that Europe, having run a genocide against the Jews in the 1930s and 1940s was now practising "anti-Semitism without Jews'' and playing its part in the "Second and final phase of the struggle for a final solution to the Jewish Question''. To accuse the Europeans of anti-Semitism for supporting Arabs and Palestinians at the moment is indeed unacceptable. But it demonstrated the ability of a handful of American columnists to put the European leaders on the defensive. The American tirade against European policy in West Asia has brought the top foreign policy handlers of the EU — Chris Patten and Javier Solana — scurrying into denials of the charge of anti-Semitism in European newspapers. More fundamentally, the European support to the Arabs has not in anyway increased their leverage in West Asia. The Arabs will continue to turn towards the United States to restrain Ariel Sharon and persuade Israel to accept a reasonable settlement of its disputes with them.
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