The Foreign Service Journal, April 2009

30 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 9 “transformation agenda” received new life, as the Allies worked to revamp command structures and political de- cisionmaking processes, and to de- velop greater and more relevant capabilities. The rivalry with Moscow was suddenly overshadowed by com- mon cause in the struggle against ter- rorism, and a far-reaching effort was launched to transform and intensify the NATO-Russia partnership (an ef- fort that would keep me busy throughout my time in Brussels). The 2002 launch of the NATO-Russia Council led to the de- velopment of an impressive range of joint counterterror- ism projects, as well as work toward longer-term goals such as joint NATO-Russia operations, and even joint work on missile defense. Sadly, this spirit of transformation and renewal would not last. In the first months of 2003, the run-up to the war in Iraq opened deep divisions within the Alliance. Absent a consensus, NATO found itself on the sidelines, watching the crisis unfold. When the storm had passed, NATO needed desperately to demonstrate its ability to reach meaningful consensus internally. It needed to prove its operational viability as an alternative to the ad hoc U.S.- led “coalitions of the willing” that had conducted the op- eration in Iraq, and borne the brunt of the fighting in Afghanistan. Ambitious efforts to transform NATO’s ca- pabilities and partnerships (including the partnership with Russia) necessarily took a back seat. And while the at- mosphere of the trans-Atlantic relationship has improved substantially since those days, the challenge of developing a coherent partnership strategy tailored to NATO’s 21st- century needs remains largely unmet. Recent efforts to reformNATO’s external relationships —notably the “Istanbul Cooperation Initiative” and more recent upgrades to NATO’s partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia—have been limited in scope and met with mixed results. What’s more, they have often run at cross-pur- poses. Closer relations with some partners have come at the expense of relations with others, with no overall sense of priorities. Existing partnerships like the NATO-Russia Council, stripped of strong, sustained political will, have turned downright frosty. Unlike Kosovo in 1999, the Iraq War did not trigger a crisis between NATO and Russia. But it did severely weaken the Alliance’s ability to invest energy and creativity in its partnership with Russia, while Washington’s near- exclusive focus on Iraq and Afghani- stan over the past several years al- lowed difficult issues (such as the un- resolved conflicts in Georgia, Trans- nistria and Nagorno-Karabakh) to fes- ter. If the 1999 break in relations with Russia was the result of a Kosovo-inspired explosion, the 2008 variety capped a period of prolonged neglect. A New Hope What does this mean as President Barack Obama pre- pares to make his debut on the NATO stage? Of course, NATO must take decisive steps to ensure success in Afghanistan. It must ensure that intensification of U.S. engagement is not accompanied by a quiet draw- down of Allied forces that have thus far helped to shoulder this heavy burden. It should seek greater cohesiveness among its forces by reducing — ideally eliminating — caveats on the use of national contingents. And it should insist on concrete, measurable steps by the Afghan au- thorities themselves to move toward more transparent, more effective governance. But if these efforts are to bear fruit over the long term, the 60th-anniversary summit must also seek to put NATO’s part- nerships — and particularly its relationship with Russia — on a more sustainable footing. To succeed in Afghani- stan, NATO will need the active support of the country’s neighbors in Central Asia. To maintain that support, the Alliance will need to keep its relations with Russia, which remains a dominant presence in the region and can itself offer substantial assistance to ISAF, on a positive track. More broadly, NATO needs to muster the political courage to pose honest (if difficult) questions about the basic assumptions that underpin its partnership efforts. The past eight months have brought two sobering re- minders of the limits of NATO’s power — the August 2008 Russo-Georgian war in the Caucasus and the January 2009 Russo-Ukrainian gas dispute. Both crises posed serious challenges to the security of Europe, and in both cases, the Alliance’s “hard power” toolbox was useless. NATO could not stop the shooting in South Ossetia, or return displaced Georgians to their homes. It could not ensure that homes in Slovakia would remain warm through the winter, or F O C U S Following 9/11, NATO’s rivalry with Moscow was suddenly overshadowed by common cause in the struggle against terrorism.