At the Prague NATO summit, Slovakia, together with
six other countries, was invited to join an alliance
that is now well on its way to becoming a second-class
organization. This is why Russia did not protest NATO
enlargement this time around, because she increasingly
recognizes that NATO is losing its effectiveness.
There are two principal reasons why NATO is on the
way to becoming a second-class organization. The first
one, one that has already been well explored, concerns
the continuing imbalance of power between America and
Europe and the abysmal "capabilities gap" that
has emerged concerning their respective military
capacities. In a nutshell, America is strong, while,
compared with America, Europe is weak.
A second, and more serious reason, however, is the
growing difference of opinion between America and Europe
on how foreign policy ought to be conducted. America and
Europe see the world and assess the threats present in
it in increasingly different ways. (1) The United States
maintains that in the contemporary world, peace and
security might have to be ensured by means of power,
that is, by deterring potential aggressors or by
eliminating them, pre-emptively if necessary.
Many Europeans, on the other hand, believe that peace
and security can be secured through diplomatic
negotiations, international treaties (for example, on
disarmament) and common supranational institutions.
When one surveys the globe, a realistic appraisal
leads to the conclusion that, in most cases, the
American answer is right. The European approach applies
to those countries only that are liberal democracies and
that subscribe to a common concept of justice and
recognize the same values. In other words, the European
concept functions exclusively within those countries
that might be described as belonging to "the
West."
Here, it is possible to negotiate in good faith and
rely on agreements and institutions. However, not all of
the rulers in the world embrace Western values.
Many despots do not want their serfs—or anyone
else, for that matter—to be free. This means that
agreements alone cannot guarantee peace and security.
This can only occur when agreements are backed by a
credible threat of force.
After all, a despotic ruler would not hesitate to
violate an agreement that he has accepted if he thinks
that it is advantageous for himself—as recent
developments in North Korea have proven. The despot does
not reject aggression as a matter of principle;
aggression is simply a matter of expediency: just one
more tool to achieve his ends. He will violate an
agreement without any twinge of conscience every time he
thinks that this will pay off. He keeps agreements only
when he accepts that the price of violation would be
horrific—the destruction of his regime or his own
personal elimination. Therefore, armed power remains
necessary in order to deter potential aggressors. The
security of the world's liberal democracies, therefore,
is only guaranteed by their military potential-and their
willingness to use force, if necessary.
America, therefore, needs such allies that share its
view on the world and have adequate military potential—the
European strategy for solving conflicts only applies
within the framework of Western civilization. As a
result, many believe that continental Europe is becoming
increasingly irrelevant to America. When one scans
America's likely partners in the future among the major
powers—among them, Great Britain, Turkey, Israel,
India and Russia—one cannot help but notice that some
of America's main European partners during the Cold War
are absent. NATO's importance is declining precisely
because of the imbalance of power between America and
Europe and the difference of opinion on how to deal with
threats in the world.
NATO needs the United States for its existence, but
the reverse is not also true. Therefore, the question of
whether NATO will keep its relevance depends upon, among
other things, whether America will be able to find more
allies able to join "coalitions of the
willing" from within the alliance than simply Great
Britain and Turkey. It seems that the former communist
countries in Central and Eastern Europe will be such
allies—an assumption that was confirmed at the summit
in Prague. The military contribution these new allies
can offer to America will be negligible, but their
diplomatic contribution can be essential. In view of
their unforgotten experience with tyranny, they are
psychologically better situated to understand and
support the American position toward tyrannical regimes
and "rogue states" much better than Western
Europeans. If, within NATO, they become active
supporters of the American view on the world, NATO will
become more relevant to the United States. However, if
the United States cannot have any allies in NATO—whether
this involves diplomatic support for the
American position or the ability to support it
actively in the field, NATO will become not only a
second-class, but also a downright irrelevant alliance.
Afghanistan and Iraq may prove to be the first tests of
whether NATO has a role to play in the 21st century.
(1) See, for example, the two-part essay by David
Rivkin and Lee Casey that appeared in earlier issues of In
the National Interest on this subject.
Roman Joch is a fellow of the Civic Institute, a
conservative think-tank in Prague.
