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August
20, 2003
NATO IN AFGHANISTAN
by Srdja Trifkovic
To the founders of NATO the spectacle of its deployment in Afghanistan
would appear surreal. Created specifically to counter the Soviet threat
in Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is now being deployed
outside Europe, in a distant Central Asian country, in a peacekeeping
mission of indefinite duration (the UN mandate is bound to be extended
in June 2004) and with a vague political purpose.
On August 11 NATO officers formally took charge of the 5,000-strong
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul, which is responsible
for security in the country's capital and its immediate environs. This
may be only the beginning: there have been demands for extending the
force's mandate beyond Kabul, and they will be renewed as the rest of
Afghanistan descends into lawlessness and violence. Aid agencies in
the field report daily cases of murder, extortion, kidnapping and robbery
committed by Afghan warlords who have nominally pledged loyalty to the
central government. The US-sponsored Provincial Reconstruction Teams
(PRTs), composed of soldiers and aid workers, have failed to challenge
the control of local warlords over the country. At the same time attacks
by the suddenly resurgent Taliban on government officials and policemen
occur almost daily. The magnitude of the problem is evident not only
in the frequency of such attacks but also in the size of Taliban units
in the field. Whereas a typical skirmish previously involved small units
of a dozen fighters, last month a battalion-size unit of over two hundred
Talibans attacked a government checkpoint at Spin Boldak. The cost in
lives is also rising: 65 people were killed in such attacks last week
alone, and earlier this week a provincial police chief and his entourage
were killed in an ambush.
On the face of it, the deployment of NATO in Afghanistan is a resounding
success for Washington. Retired General Montgomery Meigs, a former commander
of the U.S. Army in Europe, stated frankly what senior Administration
figures undoubtedly think when he said that the Afghan operation "shows
the increasing relevance of NATO as adjunct of U.S. policy and strategic
interests for the future." Having the Alliance at its disposal for tricky
and dangerous missions, and retaining the overall political and military
control, appears as a win-win situation for the U.S. It can now lead
"the willing" into a war whenever it considers this necessary and right,
and then leave it to the Alliance to clean up.
Some Europeans have a different scenario in mind. They see NATO's deployment
beyond its traditional zone of operations-unthinkable a few years ago-as
an opportunity to repair transatlantic relations and at the same time
to increase their leverage by putting their money, and men, in the field.
"Old Europe's" editorial commentary is indicative of the politicians'
objectives. Influential French papers say that Afghanistan should not
be the only mission outside of Europe for the Atlantic Alliance, and-remarkably-advocate
its active involvement in Iraq. In Germany a Frankfurter Rundschau commentator
sees in the deployment an opportunity to overcome "the misguided separation"
between anti-terror war and "nation-building." A Belgian editorialist
went so far to declare "the time when the Bush administration could
push through its assertive international agenda is over." A British
commentator says that some Europeans have concluded that the only way
they can make an impact on what they see as blatantly unilateralist
U.S. policy is to share the burden on the ground at first, and to demand
a role the decision-making later: "What they want is to turn NATO into
a sort of Eurocorps."
Either as an auxiliary tool of U.S. policy, or as a means of European
impact on that policy, an alliance that has outlived its reason for
existence has been revived. On both sides of the Atlantic NATO will
be declared to have a new tangible purpose, although that purpose will
be viewed differently by different actors and although its transformation
represents a tacit admission that the Alliance did not know what to
do with itself. If peacekeeping missions in Central Asia are its response
to the challenge of finding a new role, then its revised brief may as
well include disaster relief and social work all over the Third World.
NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, however apparently useful to Washington
in the short term, may prove detrimental to U.S. interests simply by
virtue of perpetuating an unnecessary and obsolete organization. Its
very existence perpetrates the sense of Russia's continued status as
an adversary of the United States. The process of transformation of
NATO's military structure and the political decisions on the alliance's
expansion and on its new role are being pushed forward, neither with
Russia's equal participation. In longer-term strategy a wider paradigm
shift in the U.S. foreign policy is needed, based on the creation of
a genuine Northern Alliance-that of Russia, Europe, and North America-that
would be able to face the many threats (most notably that from militant
Islam) our common civilization will experience in this century. This
shift should be coupled with either the abolition of NATO or Russia's
inclusion in it as an equal and welcome partner.
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