NATO Suffering From Identity Crisis; The Iraq war was the latest source of hard feelings between NATO members, hinting at the alliance's struggle to define its identity and remain relevant

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 16, 2003 | by Jamie Dettmer

Byline: Jamie Dettmer, INSIGHT

To hear Lord George Robertson, the ebullient Scot who is secretary-general of NATO, the Atlantic alliance never has been in better shape. The acrimony of the winter when the 54-year-old military alliance was roiled by bitter splits over Iraq and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was warning grimly that the organization was in danger of breaking up is all forgotten and healed now. In place of dispute, Robertson claims, there is harmony, with a "new NATO" emerging through the diplomatic wreckage.

The fruit of this rapid recovery already is to be seen, the optimistic Scot claimed last month, with NATO taking over the international stabilization force in Afghanistan the first time the alliance has operated formally outside Europe and Polish-led peacekeepers arriving in Iraq to assist in a zone of central-southern Iraq wedged between the British-run area in the south and the U.S.-controlled zone in the north.

Certainly the rhetoric is different now than before the Iraq war when France, Germany and Belgium prompted rage in Washington by blocking for weeks the sending of air-defense units to Turkey to emphasize their opposition to the planned U.S.-led invasion. But has NATO really recovered so quickly from its winter of discontent, or were the disputes over Iraq a sign of things to come? Are expressions of fundamental disagreements destined to re-emerge when new challenges come to test the alliance again?

For all of Robertson's optimism that NATO has weathered the storm and is set for smooth sailing ahead, the bad blood over Iraq between France and Germany on the one hand and Washington on the other hasn't disappeared. While the doleful forecasts by pessimists of the corrosive effect the split over Iraq would have on the functioning of the whole alliance have not come true, distrust lingers just below the surface and is ready to flare again.

In Washington there is frustration at the refusal of European members of NATO to endorse a greater role for the alliance in Iraq [see political notebook, Aug. 19-Sept. 1]. And in some European capitals there is irritation at Washington for pressing NATO to assist following an invasion that many European leaders opposed.

Some diplomats say they fear a protracted fight in Iraq not only will put a strain on U.S. forces there but likely will add to trans-Atlantic strains as Washington seeks to reduce the U.S. burden by putting pressure on its NATO allies to provide assistance in the form of European troops. Signs indicate there is not going to be a speedy shift in opinion at NATO headquarters, and it is unlikely that reluctant Europeans suddenly will effect a major U-turn and expand their limited role in Iraq. In July during a trip to Washington, Robertson told U.S. lawmakers that NATO would not go beyond providing logistical support for the Polish-led force in Iraq. "After that it may well be that some of the nations would want to do more, but I think we should focus on making a success of what we're doing at the moment," he added.

Up until the devastating Aug. 19 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that left 19 dead, including the widely respected special U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello, Washington hadn't pushed the request for military assistance, fearing that to do so would only trigger the kind of ugly rows that marked the run-up to the Iraq war. Senior Bush administration officials hoped a new U.N. resolution they offered in August authorizing an official U.N. mission in Iraq slowly but surely would persuade the Europeans to share the security burden there.

But the Aug. 20 blast and the shaky security situation in Iraq have added urgency to the choices facing the Bush administration, say White House sources. There now is a consensus in Washington that more troops are needed on the ground in Iraq and that the administration either will have to deploy more GIs or secure greater military assistance from other countries. The White House is reluctant to send more troops, fearful of public disapproval, but is concerned that without granting the United Nations a much-expanded oversight role in Iraq both NATO and non-NATO allies will continue to prove resistant to requests for military aid.

And a worsening security situation is likely further to deter other nations from involvement, say military insiders in Washington. The danger they see is that if a fight within NATO about Iraq erupts again it will ensnare itself in the ongoing debates about reorganization of the alliance in the light of the expansion of its membership eastward and southward. Earlier this year Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined the alliance; Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia come formally on board next May.

Iraq strikes at the heart of the deeper debate that has been going on since the end of the Cold War about what the proper role and identity of NATO should be in the future, say Pentagon sources. There are three basic views. One is that Russia remains a potential threat and that NATO should continue to be a defensive pact designed to counter any possible menace from the east. Some of the new Eastern European members harbor that view.