The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

A P R I L 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 29 aligned — to declare an official end to the ideological di- vision that defined the ColdWar. The Charter of Paris for a New Europe (November 1990) proclaimed nothing less than “a new era of democracy, peace and unity.” Many well-informed observers on both sides of the At- lantic predicted that NATOwould quickly be supplanted by commercial relations, the rise of “soft power” and a rein- vigorated United Nations Security Council. Yet throughout the 1990s, two persistent realities would sustain, indeed in- crease, the need for the Alliance: the demand for an effec- tive international structure to plan and execute multi- national military operations (and the inability of other or- ganizations to play this role); and the aspiration of the emerging democratic states to the east to join the Alliance, even as some on the inside were questioning its relevance. Understanding of the continued operational need for NATO would come at a frightful cost. In the former Yu- goslavia, long-suppressed ethnic tensions boiled over into violence, and the international community would see much blood spilled before turning to NATO as the only structure capable of restoring order and putting the region on the road to recovery. The Balkan experience would in- troduce NATO for the first time to “out of area” opera- tions, and transform the Alliance from a static territorial defense pact to a much more flexible instrument of peace- building and crisis management. Meanwhile, the Alliance’s strategic decision to maintain an “open door” to membership for its neighbors, while linking NATO accession to demonstrable progress in mil- itary, economic and political reform, played a key role in managing a potentially dangerous period of transition and building a solid foundation for the peaceful, democratic development of Eastern Europe. For those not yet ready to join the Alliance, new forms of structured dialogue and practical cooperation were launched. An Elusive Partnership So far, so good. But what of those who were not inter- ested in joining NATO, and were unwilling to subject themselves to its political and military “standards”? What of those who were uncomfortable with NATO’s new “ex- peditionary” role? What, in a word, of Russia? In the early days of the post–Cold War period, NATO saw enlargement and NATO-Russia partnership as mutu- ally reinforcing, equally important objectives. The Allies firmly rejected the notion of a Russian veto over mem- bership decisions, but were willing to work withMoscow to address specific Russian concerns over the impact of NATO enlargement, including through providing assurances with regard to the Alliance’s nuclear and conventional force pos- ture. The 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act established a standing forum for NATO-Russia consultation, as well as an ambitious common agenda and a number of specific commitments to military restraint. This political rap- prochement was matched by impressive cooperation on the ground, in the form of Russian troops serving in the NATO- led peace support mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, until 2003, Russia was the largest non-NATO troop contributor to NATO-led operations. Yet the NATO-Russia relationship remained fragile. In 1999, the Kosovo crisis introduced the Alliance, just three years into its new peacebuilding role, to actual combat op- erations. As NATO crossed this Rubicon on the basis of a simple consensus of the North Atlantic Council rather than an explicit U.N. mandate, Moscow saw another important symbol of its great-power status — its Security Council veto — degraded. Russian representatives walked out of the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, and mean- ingful partnership seemed a distant prospect. It was in this context that my own career on the NATO International Staff began. I did not know it then, but my first day of work at NATO headquarters — Sept. 10, 2001 — would be remembered by many as the last day of the “post–Cold War period.” NATO responded to the 9/11 terrorist attacks by in- voking — for the first time ever — the collective defense provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty (Article 5). Within a year, NATO had launched its most ambitious military op- eration yet — the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Long-neglected elements of NATO’s F O C U S Paul Fritch is director of the Office of the Secretary Gen- eral of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. From 2001 to 2007, he served on the NATO In- ternational Secretariat, where he headed the Russia and Ukraine Relations Section of the Political Affairs and Se- curity Policy Division. Prior to these international posi- tions, his Foreign Service career included assignments in India, Germany, Russia and the Bureau of European Af- fairs, where he worked on the adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. The views expressed in the article are his own, and do not represent the official policy of the U.S. government, NATO or the OSCE.