Running head: THE FUTURE OF NATO: BEYOND 2010 1The Future of NATO: Beyond 2010Mark D. DerhamAmerican Military University
THE FUTURE OF NATO: BEYOND 2010 2At the end of World War II, the world quickly became divided between the West and theEast. On the West, the United States and Great Britain were strong advocates for democracy. Onthe East, the communist Soviet Union was fearful of the democratic policies that the U.S. was pushing for. This divide created a strong tension leading Winston Churchill to deliver a powerfulspeech in 1946 where he stated an “iron curtain” had descended upon the European continent(Halsall, 1997, para. 7). Churchill’s speech marked the beginning of the Cold War and the needfor a strong and united Western Europe against the communist Soviet Union and its satellitestates. This backdrop became the breeding ground of the highly celebrated North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO), commonly referred to as the Atlantic Alliance. Since its inception, NATOhas steadily grown in power and international respect to become one of the most successfulalliances in history. At the end of the Cold War, many called into question the necessity of adefense pact that was originally designed to combat a conventional war. NATO’s strategicconcept has evolved considerably over time and continues to evolve to this day through review boards. The current issues that affect NATO today and will ultimately shape NATO in the futureare the war in Afghanistan; NATO enlargement, with specific concerns regarding Georgia andUkraine accession; NATO-Russia relations; and the European Union’s encroachment on NATO’s roles and responsibilities.
Strategic Concept
According to Hillary Clinton (2010), the current U.S. Secretary of State, NATO wascharged at inception with three goals that could easily be adapted to new challenges: defendEuro-Atlantic Alliance nations, strengthen transatlantic relations, and facilitate Europeanintegration (para. 4). NATO’s founders understood that the world is a constantly changing placewhere one day, the Soviet Union would no longer be the sole concern of the Atlantic Alliance.
THE FUTURE OF NATO: BEYOND 2010 3 NATO proved to be up to the challenge that was set before it. With a common enemy beforethem, western European states quickly integrated and established an order that had never before been present. At the same time, throughout the Cold War, not a single NATO member ever faceda military conflict with a member of the Warsaw Pact, and transatlantic relations rose to a levelnever before seen. The original strategic concept that NATO’s founders envisioned at the start of the Cold War had proven to be a demanding challenge that NATO members were able to fulfill.The end of the Cold War created a void for NATO members, and it quickly become clear NATO’s strategic vision needed to be revised to face new challenges in an evolving securityenvironment. The new security environment consisted of the potential for political unrest andsmall scale wars that required intervention. There was no longer the fear of a conventional war.In 1999, the strategic concept of NATO was revised, and it remains in place to this day,although, it is currently being reviewed and revised. The 1999 Strategic Concept changed NATO’s entire role in the international community. Gone was the fear of conventional war.Gone was the fear of communist expansion. The new challenges that arose consisted of economic, social, and political difficulties; conflicts in the Middle East and Mediterranean;Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferation; and terrorism (NATO, 1999, para. 7-14).These security concerns were highlighted by NATO’s new Strategic Concept, however, theimportance of the Atlantic Alliance was also reaffirmed. These new challenges would also becombated by a strong NATO military power coupled with political dialogue (NATO, 1999, para.14, 19).There is no question that NATO has been able to successfully adapt their visionthroughout the last couple decades to a changing security environment. The last few years has proven a difficult challenge for NATO. The rise of global terrorism and the failure of NATO to
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NATO: 2010 and Beyond - written March 2010
An Analysis of the future of NATO from the Afghanistan war to continued expansion.
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