Nato is going beyond its own mandate

Nato is in danger of becoming an alliance without a clear purpose. It has to choose between either being a roaming international enforcer or guaranteeing the security of the Atlantic democracies. It cannot do both since a mutual defence treaty is neutral on world affairs, while an enforcer is highly interventionist.

Nato was set up to provide mutual protection for the democracies of Europe and North America. After the collapse of communism, the organisation lacked purpose until its treaty was re-written in 1999 at its 50th anniversary celebrations, to allow its troops to operate "out of region". This gave the United States and its Nato allies a force which answered to them politically, and allowed them to avoid going to the United Nations to find troops. Nato troops were then used in the former Yugoslavia, and now they are the major force in Afghanistan.

But this new role obscured Nato's original purpose of mutual defence. So when the new Nato incorporated the emerging democracies of Central Europe, it alarmed Russia. This, since although Russia accepts Western and Central Europe's right to mutual defence, it does not accept US-led intervention in assorted trouble spots.

When US President George W. Bush committed this year to eventual Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, he alarmed many. The Russians saw Nato forcing its way deep into the countries of the former Soviet Bloc, and many leading Europeans saw Nato's mutual defence condition being twisted to further the Bush Administration's ambitions in the Caucasus and Black Sea area. It seems that Nato's traditional purpose was being made to fit a new purpose of containing Russia.

While it may suit Georgia and Ukraine to have powerful allies, Nato was not designed to attack Russia, but to secure the democracies of Europe and America.