In Prague this week, NATO leaders are trying to work out how to face new security challenges, defined by the Americans primarily as counteracting global terrorism, though it may be wondered what good a full-blown military alliance, however efficient, will actually be against terrorists. The relatively well-oiled military machine of 14 countries, which used to train together regularly, is pretty much a thing of the past. When Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined in 1999, a major issue was equipment incompatibility. This problem is the greater, because NATO governments, except the United States, have proven reluctant to up their defense spending.
Washington says it wants NATO to have a rapid reaction force of a minimum of 20,000 troops, with compatible weaponry, a single command structure and the ability to deliver and support itself logistically wherever it is needed. Only the Americans currently have the muscle to deliver large units to a distant battle front, as well as the overwhelming air superiority to protect and support those formations.
NATO has had its limited successes. It has been involved in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, but in the first two cases, the interventions would probably have been impossible without US firepower and logistical support. Because other NATO members cannot or will not spend out to enhance the numbers and capability of their armed forces, the United States, as the single superpower, will continue to call the shots.
It seems clear that Washington long ago gave up on NATO as anything more than a strategic band-aid for local conflicts, such as in the Balkans. When President George W. Bush arrived in Prague yesterday still looking for NATO to fall in behind his desire to attack Iraq, he can only have been going through the motions. It has been abundantly clear to the White House that any such help was most unlikely. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder won his election on a promise to keep out of an Iraq attack and the French remain opposed to any assault that does not have a specific UN mandate.
Only the faithful British are committed to support Bush. However, embarrassingly for Prime Minister Tony Blair, when the US yesterday asked formally for London’s support, a top British Army officer warned that since 19,000 military personnel are currently manning fire engines, because of an unresolved UK firefighters’ strike, he was not sure that the armed forces had sufficient manpower. And even without having to fight fires, the British could not put a divisional-size force into an assault on Iraq before next February or March.
Nevertheless, NATO has its uses for Washington. It has been used to engage the Russians via the NATO-Russia Council agreed in Reykjavik last May. A similar concordat on "general security issues and counterterrorism" could be in the offing with China. As a talking shop NATO has a great future. As a military alliance, capable of anything more than a policing role, it has none. Maybe after all, that is the way that Washington likes it. NATO’s military weakness underlines America’s military strengths. With no allies, singly or severally, anywhere near matching US defense spending, American dominance is total and it has to listen to no one.
