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Bucharest, NATO’s Grand Anti-cliamax |
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Although the spokesmen will undoubtedly be selling any meager measure agreed upon at the upcoming NATO summit as a great leap forward in the progress of the Alliance, this years summit in Bucharest is unlikely to be anything more than a great disappointment. Its a shame because with the many problems facing Europe and America the West could really do with some cohesion and unity. However the fact remains that there lies within the large powers, not even the political will to solve even the smallest problems.
But lets start with a big one - Afghanistan. Whilst presiding over the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on the NATO Summit, Senator Joeseph Biden recalled the answer a British soldier gave to him at the beginning of the Afghanistan war when he asked him how long the Brits would be willing to stay. “we have a saying in Britain” the soldier told him, “the small dogs stay in the ring until the big dog leaves”. Biden then remarked that in his view, the big dog had left the ring to pursue other fights in Iraq.
Although it has become a favorite pass-time of American political commentators to berate the Europeans for not pulling their weight in Afghanistan,we should remember that NATO invoked article 5 for the first time in its history after 9/11 and were politely and not so politely told by then Secretary Donnald Rumsfeld that their help was not required. Once spurned already, why should Europeans accept the argument that it is they that have been weak, particularly when the conflict is viewed in an American war not even being taken seriously by the Americans. In Afghanistan, if America leads NATO will follow, but with US troops already stressed and an administration that clearly priorities Iraq over Afghanistan, we are unlikely to see any great increase in the commitment to Afghanistan from NATO next week.
MAP to Georgia and Ukraine? Russia made it a precondition of attending the summit that this issue would not be on the agenda. Russia is attending the summit, and so dont expect it to be discussed. Even if they were to discuss it, Germany and France would veto it and so why discuss it.
Energy Security? As Phil Gordon commented to Richard Lugar, the Europeans cant even form their own energy policy. I think we can forget about the possibility of NATO doing it before Europe.
Expansion? Even expansion to the Adriatic three is now under threat, due to one of those smallest of problems mentioned above. With the Greeks threatening to veto the entry of the Republic of Macedonia or FYROM over the issue of the name of the country; Macedonia’s membership of NATO is now very doubtful. With Macedonia out this makes extending membership to Albania tricky as it might risk aggravating the Albanian population of Macedonia and we are left with the Adriatic one.
And thats it, the entry of Croatia is likely to be the only concrete outcome of this summit and despite being born in Zagreb and being incredibly proud of my Croatian heritage, reality forbids me from saying that this will be NATO’s defining moment.
George Turner will be blogging from the NATO summit in Bucharest next week.
Looking forward to the Buchrest blogging!