Wither Nato?

Wither Nato? http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030224&s=editorial022403 by the Editors Post date: 02.13.03 Issue date: 02.24.03

Tout se complique. The strident obstructionism of France and Germany, and their attempt to lead an insurrection within NATO against the use of Western force against Saddam Hussein, even to the point of violating the treaty commitments of the alliance to the security of its own members (in this case, Turkey)--this is a genuinely momentous turn of events that should not be understood merely as a comedy of national character.

The petulance of these European states seems farcical, but in fact it is the expression of a profound historical transformation. It is not clear that the Europeans are entirely cognizant of this transformation, but it is essential, if the United States is to manage its global responsibilities effectively, that Americans be cognizant of it. For it is not the strategic impertinence of Europe that we are beholding, it is the strategic obsolescence of Europe.

Dissolve now to the mists of time, that is, to 1945. World War II, which left the fate of Europe in the hands of the United States and the Soviet Union, seemed to have pushed Europe away from the world-historical center to the world-historical periphery. For the next four decades, however, the marginality of Europe, its decline into relative powerlessness and ardent nostalgia, was obscured by the harsh suspense of the cold war. The division of Europe kept the continent at the front lines of the most significant global fact of the age: the contest, philosophical and political, between the United States and the Soviet Union. And so the Western European countries retained their importance as the countries of NATO, just as the Eastern European countries retained their importance (but so, so unhappily) as the countries of the Warsaw Pact. Throughout the cold war, the European sensation of being smack in the middle of the most dangerous and decisive conflict on earth was not at all illusion.

When that conflict ended, the self-importance of Europe finally became an illusion, a psycho-strategic disorder. The kicking and screaming of France and Germany in recent weeks is the direct consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the termination of the cold war. In these new circumstances, Europe is rather lacking in strategic ontology. Indeed, Europe has gladly acquiesced in its withdrawal from grand historical action, exchanging the burdens of military power for the blandishments of a continent-wide embourgeoisement, for what Robert Kagan has rightly called a "post-historical paradise." A European way of life was preferred to a European presence in the world. In this sense, the European Union represents the antithesis of NATO, and the retort to it. Meanwhile, new powers and new threats, new allies and new enemies, were emerging in regions very far away from the Louvre.

There was one place, though, where time stood still. That place was Turtle Bay. The United Nations continued for half a century to confer special authority upon the states that possessed special authority at its founding. The "permanent membership" status of France on the Security Council is not so much an outrage as an anachronism. Maintaining the diplomacy of the 1940s in perpetuity is rather like maintaining the technology of the 1940s in perpetuity; but the United Nations does not still use rotary telephones. The protest of Jacques Chirac against the contemporary world order is the protest of a rotary telephone. (The notion that his protest is based on principle is too ridiculous to consider.) He is teaching his country and his continent to deny reality, which is never a wise teaching.

No, not his entire continent. There are some European states, some NATO members, who understand the justice of the American campaign and the necessity of American leadership. If Americans are from Mars, some Europeans are from Vilnius. And Spain and Italy have demonstrated that even old Europeans know how to exist in the present. But then there is Belgium, which roars that the weapons inspectors in Iraq must be given more time. There was once a great French poet whose cherished term for mediocrity was l'esprit Belge. This week l'esprit Belge is running wild in geopolitics. Never mind. The bruised ego of Europe is less dangerous to the world than the hidden arsenal of Saddam Hussein. And our cultural affinity for Europe has outlived our strategic affinity for Europe. The American sense of the world is right and clear: nation-building in Kabul and Baghdad, vacation-building in Paris and Berlin. The world really has changed.

It's the UN that is irrelevant.

NATO is a military alliance between relatively free nations, whereas the UN is better described as a dictator's protection society.

Rumsfled has it right -- we should work through the occasional "bumps" we have within NATO.

Nato won its war, and it is finished. There is a new alliance growing up as we move forward into the new world. It bears some resemblance to NATO, as it shares some members and assets with the old NATO, but it is not NATO. It does not have the same strategic purpose, and consequently does not have the same personality. Some countries who were mainstays in the old alliance will not be members, and indeed will not be needed. Some that were enemies of the old alliance are going to be at the heart of the new one.

The guiding principle of any alliance is that it is rooted in a common purpose, a common moral view, and a willingness to run risks. In any fight there are well-wishers, whose moral support is important and appreciated. But on the battlefield it is men with guns that matter, so the members whose opinions will have sway are the ones willing to commit the lives of its soldiers to the battle. Of lesser importance, but still important, are the ones whose intel services are aligned with ours, and are fully committed to the fight.

It is humorous to see some countries fighting for control of NATO, or perhaps fighting to cleave it in two, not realizing that history has already moved on.

exchanging the burdens of military power for the blandishments of a continent-wide embourgeoisement

Now, there's the exact word we've all been looking for.

Embourgeoisement.

Take that, you haughty Socialists!

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