Text copied from / source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6178-2002Jan31.html
Friday, February 1, 2002
For nearly five months the United States has been at war. Americans have been told to consider this a global conflict, and much has been made of our need for allies and coalition partners. But there has been scant mention of NATO, our most important alliance. Are we missing a bet here?
This weekend will see defense ministers, diplomats, generals and strategists from across the world gathering in Munich for the annual Wehrkunde Conference. Begun during the Cold War to strengthen NATO's common resolve, it has now broadened to include participants from Russia, India, Pakistan and China, as well as many other countries. Much of the talk will be about the war on terror. But NATO remains at the core of the discussion, its resolve and future at issue -- questions underscored by NATO's obvious absence from the ongoing war effort.
Our NATO allies, more than any other nations, share America's values, help bear the burdens of our security needs and can contribute enormous heft to our diplomatic efforts. And the administration is quite right about the need for allies in the war on terrorism. Our European allies have responded, contributing political legitimacy, intelligence, law enforcement at home and forces abroad. Many NATO members have made a huge leap, engaging with peacekeeping and patrol assets in the U.S. Afghanistan campaign.
The American-led response to the events of Sept. 11 has been remarkably successful thus far, despite the frustrating search for Osama bin Laden. But there are deeper problems ahead: helping provide stability to Afghanistan; taking down al Qaeda in dozens of other countries; confronting the highly divisive issue of Iraq and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Longer term, the United States and its allies will have to deal with the failed states and other conditions that have spawned terrorism and fed its growth.
Why hasn't NATO been integral to this effort? Some have claimed that NATO can't fight a modern war, and cite the Kosovo campaign as evidence, saying "no war by committee." Others suggest that the European militaries have fundamentally nothing to offer the United States, and speak of intelligence leaks and obsolescent, incapable forces.
But wait a minute -- the Kosovo campaign was a success! It not only stopped the fighting and returned the refugees, it also enabled the international community to bring to justice the man most responsible for a decade of strife and destruction in the Balkans. The machinery of NATO served as a powerful "consensus engine" that enabled us to do what no single nation, not even the United States, could have done alone. The problems in the campaign were less a function of war by committee than a result of divisions within the U.S. government. And even then, NATO brought an entire family of 50-odd nations with us, ultimately leveraging our U.S.-led military efforts with so much political "throw-weight" that we succeeded decisively. The real lesson of Kosovo is the importance of allies and the political clout they bring.
Of course NATO has military problems. But why not fix them? Help NATO create a military-political decision-making architecture that can cope more easily with the stresses of target development and operational planning in modern warfare, that can handle sensitive information and that can field and command the kinds of high-tech elite forces that will win the campaigns of the 21st century. Full and active participation in our campaigns under the aegis of NATO will spur European military transformation more effectively than any number of studies, committees or harangues. At the same time, build on our common values to harvest the commitment of our closest allies in addressing the threat of al Qaeda wherever it may be, in healing the immediate post-operation trauma of failed states exploited by terrorist organizations and in providing the foundations for the development or restoration of governments effective in meeting their citizens' needs. The conflicts of the past decade have shown NATO's remarkable capacity to provide effective political direction in the difficulties and challenges of U.N.-mandated peace enforcement operations.
As U.S. leaders have repeatedly stressed, the war against terror cannot be won by bombs and bullets alone. Much of the action will take place out of sight, as information is gathered and exchanged. In many countries law enforcement agencies will be far more relevant than military forces. And these factors underscore the need for the strongest possible political and diplomatic cooperation. We vitally need NATO's "consensus engine" if we are to align domestic policies, share information closely and coordinate information collection, dissemination and enforcement actions across numerous nations.
If we proceed correctly, we can achieve a huge ancillary benefit: locking Europe into stability and peace. NATO's relevance in current operations is precisely what is required to forge the new relationships with Russia that are sought -- and, while we're at it, enlarge the alliance to bring in those states in eastern and central Europe that desperately seek NATO's protection from the strategic competitions and conflicts by which they have been repeatedly victimized. Some of the applicant nations are ready now for full participation in NATO; others need additional time to transform further their armed forces and align their policies to NATO procedures. But we should select them all now, stagger their admission dates and move ahead.
It's time to stop the sterile theoretical debate over NATO's future and put our full efforts to shaping the institution to deal with the urgent tasks at hand. The war on terror, more than any 20th century conflict, requires strong allies for success. We have the mechanism at hand in NATO.
The writer, a retired Army general, was supreme Allied commander in Europe during the Kosovo campaign.