ANALYSIS: NATO in the wake of September 11 (10/14/01)

ANALYSIS

NATO in the wake of September 11

by Christopher Walker
RFE/RL Newsline

The watershed of September 11 - as the coordinated terrorist attack against the United States unquestionably was - has altered virtually all previous assumptions and calculations in international politics.

The shifting global landscape is having an especially important impact on the NATO alliance. In the days since the attacks, NATO invoked for the first time in its history Article 5 of the NATO Charter, declaring the attacks on the United States to be an attack on the alliance.

On October 3, Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, presented a formal request to the North Atlantic Council, NATO's decision-making body, asking for use of military bases, seaports and airspace. Ambassador Burns also requested use of the alliance's fleet of 17 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft, among other items.

NATO has been working to arrive at a viable, unified response to terrorism, while managing a full range of other important issues on its agenda, including further enlargement of the alliance. The NATO enlargement discussion is being altered considerably due to the sheer magnitude of the terrorism issue, on the one side, and the apparent need to accommodate Russia, on the other.

Two NATO-related meetings reflect new currents in international politics since September 11.

In Sofia, Bulgaria, heads of state from NATO candidate countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) gathered on October 5 for a summit originally intended to put the enlargement cause on the front burner. However, the issue of NATO's place in the international coalition against terrorism took center stage. In Ottawa, the four-day meeting of NATO's Parliamentary Assembly that began on October 6 focused on the issue of global terrorism.

Just over a year from now, at NATO's Prague summit planned for November 2002, a decision will be taken on how many new members will be invited to join the alliance. Earlier this year NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson removed doubt about enlargement moving forward next year when he took the so-called "zero option" off the table, indicating that at least one candidate country will be invited at the Prague summit to join the alliance.

The possible enlargement permutations range from a strategy of maximum caution - extending an invitation only to tiny Slovenia and, perhaps, Slovakia (the "Slo-Slo" formulation) - to the other end of the enlargement continuum, the so-called "Big Bang," which would take an entire group of candidate countries into the alliance in one stroke.

It is the menu of options beyond Slovenia and Slovakia, in particular those that include the Baltic states, that would under any circumstances require skillful diplomatic bargaining to overcome Russian opposition. But the recent change in relations among major powers as a response to recent events, in particular between Moscow and Washington, raises the question of whether the balance has already shifted toward the less ambitious end of the continuum. Washington is the recognized center of gravity in determining how energetic an effort will be made in pushing anything beyond the "Slo-Slo" enlargement route.

One must also consider whether Russia would be receptive to more than the "Slo-Slo" candidates in 2002, on the condition that the second round of enlargement not include the Baltic states and that, in view of the situation in Chechnya, Georgia would not be considered in future rounds.

Perhaps in a bid to pre-empt such a tradeoff, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze argued in a speech at Harvard University on October 3 that "NATO needs further strengthening, because it is the cornerstone of establishing humanistic values and stability in the Eurasian region. Therefore, seeking NATO membership is an inalienable right of each and every democratic state in Europe. Thus, to draw any red lines on the continent is completely unacceptable in present circumstances."

Of course, all of these calculations are contingent upon a very dynamic and unresolved set of assumptions; indeed, Moscow's own role vis-à-vis NATO is being re-examined in light of the Russian contribution to the counterterrorism effort. Indicative of the significant shifts occurring below the surface of the political and diplomatic landscape were the meetings between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov and President Vladimir Putin with NATO officials in Brussels on September 26 and October 3 respectively. During his visit to Brussels President Putin said Moscow could reconsider its opposition to NATO enlargement if NATO were to become a political organization and if Russia were involved more in the consultations of the alliance.

Here, too, the American response is pivotal. To a larger degree than any other single country, the United States will decide both how Moscow's role with NATO will evolve and how extensive future rounds of alliance enlargement will be.

The immediate showing of solidarity and offering of assistance from tried and true friends, sometime friends, and even some erstwhile foes have been encouraging for the United States thus far. What President George W. Bush has described as the "first war of the 21st century" surely requires an intensive effort to line up previously untapped sources of cooperation. But in the scramble to stamp out the diabolical groups that threaten the civilized world, the West will need to consider just how high a price it is willing to pay over the long term to win this global war.

Christopher Walker is head of policy and communication in the president's office at the EastWest Institute in New York.

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