NATO in the Era of Global Complexity

With international institutions being questioned—ironically, by the very nations that created them—NATO’s next seventy years will be a rougher ride than the first seventy.

NATO’s seventieth anniversary has attracted a good deal of attention. Many observers have marveled at the fact that the alliance is still here. Four factors explain NATO’s past resilience.

The first is the nature of the alliance’s initial principal adversary, the Soviet Union. Moscow posed a threat, but when this was countered, the Soviet Union was prepared to negotiate and submit to arms control and transparency arrangements. It was also fragile domestically, particularly in the economic area, and had too many expensive overseas commitments. The Soviet Union could realistically compete only in the military sphere, and NATO was ready to meet this challenge through deterrence, avoiding the need for, and the unacceptable cost of, conflict.

The second factor is that NATO had to deal with only one major challenge at a time. After the Soviet Union, it was the fall of the Berlin Wall, then former Yugoslavia, and then Afghanistan. This gave the allies ample time to build consensus, try various strategies, and learn and adapt as they progressed. NATO could concentrate its resources and political and military solidarity on this single purpose.

The third factor is the former relative stability of the international system. Despite a number of conflicts and crises, the last seventy years marked the heyday of the liberal international order. Multilateral institutions increased their roles and memberships. New sets of rules began to crimp the sovereignty of states and authorize interventions to uphold universal norms. It was easy for NATO to thrive in such an environment and rebrand itself from an alliance focused on preserving the status quo to an agent of change and a pillar of a new, more peaceful, and more cooperative international order.

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Πηγή: carnegieeurope.eu