The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union's Common Security and Defense Policy: Intersecting Trajectories
Abstract
In this study, Mr. Kashmeri argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has evolved from a confident, mission driven Alliance with a clear objective, to an organization that appears to be in disarray, still looking for a unifying mission 20 years after its reason for creation -- the Soviet Union -- ceased to exist. Mr. Kashmeri maintains that the action to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1073 against Libya is the latest in a series of demonstrations that highlight the disarray of the Alliance. He states that after weeks of preparation and increasingly optimistic statements about its readiness to enforce the UNSCR, Britain, France, and the United States chose to intervene in Libya alone. Mr. Kashmeri believes that NATO was once again sidelined as it had been after September 11, 2001 (9/11), when the United States unilaterally decided to go to war in Afghanistan. He argues that Afghanistan continues to demonstrate that, even in a deployment, NATO is far from a monolithic, efficient fighting force, since many of the allies have refused to participate in that war and, even before the end of the campaign, some are going home. The primary question that Mr. Kashmeri attempts to answer is as follows: What next for the once fabled alliance? In doing so, Mr. Kashmeri points out that during NATO's deterioration the European Union's (EU) Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) has deployed 27 successful military/civil missions from Africa to Asia. These include the EU Naval force off Somalia -- that is twice the size of NATO's -- and the EU mission to Chad that successfully deployed and sustained a mobile fighting force of 3,800 troops thousands of kilometers from Brussels, Belgium. Mr. Kashmeri contends that through CSDP, Europeans are increasingly taking charge of managing their own foreign and security policy. NATO is no longer the sole and preeminent Euro-Atlantic security actor.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jul 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA547490
Entities
People
- Sarwar A. Kashmeri
Organizations
- United States Army War College