Infighting between the U.S. and EU will be fatal for Nato

The meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, at the beginning of June was another occasion for the alliance's defence ministers and partner countries to reaffirm their commitment to the implementation of the reforms endorsed at the Prague Summit last year.

The reorganisation of Nato was on top of the agenda. The ministers adopted a new military command structure to better comply with the new mission and challenges facing the alliance. The meeting also paved the way for the creation of a rapid reaction force to be deployed quickly in the world's conflict areas.

Nato members concluded that if the organisation does not have new capabilities for rapid deployment, it will be reduced to a political forum where members with more modern military armaments will act outside the alliance and in their national interests.

Apart from its importance as a guarantee to counter today's security threat of say international terrorism, Nato's reform reflects a real identity crisis in the organisation. However, this has been going on for years.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Nato preoccupation has been the search for a new role for the post-Cold War era. Today, more than ever, it seems the alliance members are determined to prove their organisation is still relevant and a key player in international politics.

While some observers consider Nato reforms as the last recourse to safeguard the organisation, others argue the alliance has outlived its original mission and is now a relic of the past. Moreover, they affirm the alliance, in its current form, is no longer suitable for post-Cold War security.

Nato was created to counter what was seen as the Soviet threat. Five Western European countries - Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Holland and Britain - were the driving force. They first signed the Brussels Treaty in 1948 for a common defence system to resist ideological, political and military threats.

Nato itself was created in 1949 after the signing of the Washington Treaty between these states and the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway and Portugal.

In 1952, the Nato Treaty was extended to Greece and Turkey, with Germany joining in 1955.
In response, the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies created the Warsaw Pact in 1955. It extended the Cold War, characterised by rivalry between the two blocs, something that continued until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

But for many, Nato has a broader significance and cannot be reduced to a military front against Russia. Western leaders prefer to see it as providing military, political and economic components to guarantee the security and stability of Europe and North America.

Such an approach explains why Nato has survived. To justify its existence more than a decade after its main enemy collapsed, Nato launched a huge transformation process to make the organisation adapt to international changes.

It started with a reform of the military structure, introducing new military command and force structures and a reduction of its armed forces in favour of modernising and improving its efficiency.

The alliance initiated a process of dialogue and partnership with the states of Central and Eastern Europe and other countries in the Organisation on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In 1991, Nato adopted a new strategic concept, providing new missions for the alliance in conflict resolution and regional security.

The culmination of this new strategy was the gradual integration of former Warsaw Pact countries into Western structures, first through the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991; and then through the military cooperation and training initiative launched under Partnership for Peace in 1994.

However, the first real test for the reformed Nato was the conflict in former Yugoslavia and Bosnia. The organisation had to prove it was able to resolve one of its major non-Cold War missions. To do so, it mounted its own peace Implementation Force in 1995 followed by a Stabilisation Force in 1996 to enforce peace.

These constituted the first initiatives for cooperation with non-Nato countries. This new type of mission marked a radical change in Nato's traditional task. Instead of conducting military operations against a determined enemy, the organisation turned to crisis management and risk assessment.

The alliance pursued its ambitious process by creating a cooperation body in 1997 with its former adversary, Russia. Thus, the Nato-Russia Permanent Joint Council was formed. The new council was intended to reinforce cooperation between Russia and Nato and pave the way for a new era of peace and mutual understanding.

The culmination of reform of the alliance was the policy of expansion of the Atlantic security zone to north and south-east Europe. In 1999, 50 years after the creation of the Warsaw Pact, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland were admitted to Nato.

And this was the first round of the enlargement process, with a long list of countries wanting to join. Among others are Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia, in addition to three former Soviet republics, to be admitted by 2007.

Notwithstanding the current reform, the alliance can be undermined by a series of factors inherent in the Nato organisation including the present division among its members demonstrated lately by the discord over the recent U.S.-led war on Iraq between the anti-war countries of France, Germany and Belgium and others who backed the U.S. such as Spain and the UK. This clearly shows the existing rivalry in Nato.

The most alarming factor is the increasing tension between the U.S. and the EU in light of the latter's determination to implement the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) adopted by the European Council in Nice in December, 2000. This is in addition to the Rapid Reaction Force of 60,000 troops capable of rapid deployment and remaining in place for up to one year starting this year.

The Americans see ESDP as an attempt to build European military capabilities outside Nato that could harm the alliance and lead to its disintegration. The USA considers such a move dangerous and a threat to its leadership of the alliance. A militarily independent Europe will not accept American hegemony over the continent's security and decision-making.

To avoid its dislocation, the U.S. has proposed the three donts to the EU, implying that the EDSP must not diminish Nato's role, nor duplicate Nato's capabilities and, finally, not discriminate against Nato members who are not part of the EU.

Although the EU aims to achieve its own security independently through the ESDP, this seems to be hard to fulfil without accommodating Nato. For at least the coming decade, the forces of EU member-states will have to depend on Nato for certain assets and capabilities which they cannot provide by themselves.

In fact, the U.S. has a virtual monopoly on Nato's military capabilities in areas such as advanced surveillance, intelligence, and precision-guided munitions, apart from the great disparity in military spending between the U.S. and its allies. In 2001, Washington spent 85 per cent more than the rest of the NATO members.