NATO’s triple challenge STUART CROFT, JOLYON HOWORTH, TERRY TERRIFF AND MARK WEBBER* NATO seems to be the pre-eminent security organization for twenty-first- century Europe. It is moving to reorganize itself to meet the challenges of the post-Cold War world. Arguably, it has fought a war successfully, and played a role in peace-building in south-eastern Europe. And it is the recipient of demands for entry from an increasing number of states. But NATO’s pre- eminence is extraordinarily fragile. Relations with Moscow have been at best strained; questions arise over the military implications of the alliance’s restructuring; and ‘ten years after the Berlin Wall came down, the spectre of decoupling is once again haunting trans-Atlantic relations’.1 The rise of NATO to its current pre-eminence throughout the 1990s is a remarkable tale of survival and development in adverse conditions. Briefly, this pattern can be illustrated by looking at snapshots of the situations faced by senior policy-makers at each of NATO’s fully post-Cold War summits. In November 1991, the Rome summit endorsed a New Strategic Concept and a political direction for NATO which, although conservative, seemed to meet the changed needs of Europe. The Concept was, however, immediately swept away by the Soviet collapse. NATO also appeared increasingly inadequate in *light of a policy of non-differentiation in which it formally sought to treat states such as Poland and Kyrgyzstan on equal terms. By January 1994 the Brussels sum- mit was casting around for a role for NATO, and was unable to form a consensus around immediate enlargement/projection of stability, a substantive role in former Yugoslavia, or a NATO-endorsed policy of counterproliferation.2 By the 1997 Madrid summit the alliance was divided over whom to admit to NATO, and when, and was beginning to recognize the urgency of safeguarding cordial * The authors acknowledge research support provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the project on ‘Security governance in Europe’ (Project Grant L213252008), part of the ESRC ‘One Europe or several?’ programme. The authors also acknowledge financial support from the Universities of Bath, Birmingham and Loughborough. This article is based in part on two visits to NATO and the EU at the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000. Thanks are owed to those who gave of their time during this field work. 1 Ivo H. Daalder, ‘Europe and America aren’t divorcing’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 10 Dec. 1999. 2 Despite the problems in 1994, the summit was still significant in that it launched both ESDI and PfP. On the sense of crisis at the time, see Bruce George and John Borawski, ‘Sympathy for the devil: European security in a revolutionary age’, European Security 2: 4, Winter 1993. International Affairs 76, () ‒ 76_3_05_Croft 495 9/6/00, 1:34 pm Stuart Croft, Jolyon Howorth, Terry Terriff and Mark Webber relations with Moscow. And the fiftieth anniversary summit in Washington was dominated by ill-concealed divisions over the Kosovo war and an apparent reluctance by the political leadership to accept the military argument that a ground war had to be considered and planned, if not executed. The development of NATO as an institution throughout the 1990s was therefore a tale of evolution against trying external and internal circumstances. It is not possible to tell a story of a clear strategic purpose being identified for the alliance which was then implemented over successive years. The alliance has been rocked by the storms of European politics and security; but, despite that, to date it has avoided being wrecked on the rocks. This seafaring metaphor can be pushed a little further. The reason why the alliance’s pre-eminence is so fragile is that the good ship NATO has not yet been able to sail sufficiently far out to sea to find deep water in which to ride out storms. Trouble, once it inevitably comes, thus always threatens to run the ship on to the rocky shoreline. In other words, each crisis seems to have within it the seeds of NATO’s demise. The key characteristic of NATO as a political organi- zation continues to seem to be, not robustness, but on the contrary, political fragility. This is apparent in the three fundamental challenges facing the alliance at the beginning of the twenty-first century. First, increasingly, NATO is playing a role in developing a zone of security in Europe; but, however unwillingly, the alliance is facing the problem of inclusion (whom, how and when to admit) and, even more problematically, of exclusion. How can Serbia and, of course, more significantly Russia, be engaged fully in the new security politics of Europe? If such states are to be excluded, then NATO will inevitably play a key role in dividing the continent, despite all the pledges by key Western policy- makers to the contrary. Second, while many Europeans might agree, as Kupchan and Zoellick have persuasively argued, that ‘a stronger Europe and a more balanced Atlantic partnership, far from threatening the western alliance, will ensure its integrity and viability’,3 the Europeanization of the alliance is seen by many in Washington as the harbinger of transatlantic decoupling. This is a particular problem for non-EU members of NATO. As Omur Orhun of the Turkish foreign ministry put it, ‘from a Turkish perspective, the preservation of the transatlantic link is of vital importance’.4 Despite Europe’s woeful contri- bution to the Kosovo war in military terms, and despite decades of American badgering over burden-sharing, this is the context of a debate over increasing the military potential of the alliance’s members. Third, how can the alliance appropriately adapt itself in military terms to the new challenges? If the policy of military intensification is unpersuasive, then NATO will be a less effective military instrument in the future. These three challenges faced by NATO at the beginning of the twenty-first 3 Charles A. Kupchan and Robert B. Zoellick, ‘It can be lonely at the top’, Financial Times, 13 Dec. 1999. 4 Cited in Peter Finn, ‘Six in NATO upset over EU corps plan’, Washington Post, 9 April 2000, p. A16. Orhun is director general of international security affairs in the Turkish ministry of foreign affairs. 496 76_3_05_Croft 496 9/6/00, 1:34 pm NATO’s triple challenge century are profound, and are framed by the political fragility of the alliance, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. In short, the stakes are high. Apparent failure in any of these three areas will undermine the alliance’s political credibility, a scenario that senior policy-makers have sought to avoid for over fifty years. The good ship NATO is still navigating through the rocks; but if there is apparent success in these three areas, there is every prospect that the ship will be able to steer into those deeper, calmer, although not necessarily safer, waters.5 This article examines the triple challenges that sit on NATO’s agenda. It seeks to identify the parameters of each challenge; the nature of the alliance’s response; and possible ways forward. Alliance membership: inclusion and exclusion NATO’s impact on the ordering of security relations throughout the wider Europe has, in the post-Cold War period, been truly historic. This has brought with it, however, a dual challenge, that of exclusion and inclusion. Two issues are central in this respect: NATO’s relationship with Russia; and a possible further enlargement of the alliance. In the wake of the Kosovo crisis and the ‘first wave’ of enlargement into central Europe, NATO has embraced—at least for the short to medium term—an incremental and consolidationist approach. The management of relations with Russia is among the most difficult of NATO’s current political tasks. Relations have, in fact, been troubled for some time. The circumstances surrounding Russia’s delayed entry into the Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme in 1994–5, contradictory interpretations of the significance of the 1997 NATO–Russia Founding Act, and Russia’s condemnation of NATO enlargement created an atmosphere of increasing suspicion and distance even before the 1999 Kosovo crisis. Throughout these difficulties the two sides did manage to maintain some semblance of meaningful interaction. Russia was a real (albeit self-limiting) participant in PfP; it had also undertaken a generally well-regarded role in SFOR in Bosnia; and, although not entirely happy with the operational limitations of the Permanent Joint Council (PJC), it was, through this body, a willing interlocutor with NATO on issues ranging from peacekeeping to international terrorism. The launch of Operation Allied Force in March 1999, however, stalled these efforts as Moscow, in protest, withdrew from both the PJC and PfP. The decisiveness of this Russian response reflected, arguably, a wider dissatisfaction at the state of its relations with the NATO powers more generally over issues as diverse as Caspian basin energy exploitation, the ABM Treaty and sanctions against Iraq. Yet Moscow also, of course, had a number of more specific causes for complaint. These are worth noting here, because they illustrate some of the 5 There are many ways in which NATO could reach such stability, ranging from a consensus behind continued American leadership to accepting a stronger role for the EU, or even the OSCE, and hence an end to NATO predominance in European security structures. 497 76_3_05_Croft 497 9/6/00, 1:34 pm Stuart Croft, Jolyon Howorth, Terry Terriff and Mark Webber weaknesses of NATO’s efforts to establish a meaningful institutional basis for its relations with Russia. Foremost in this respect is the perception that NATO’s action meant a marginalization of Russia’s role in European security.