The Foreign Service Journal, April 2019

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2019 9 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR NATO: An Enduring Alliance BY SHAWN DORMAN O n April 4, 1949, in the wake of WorldWar II, the leaders of 12 European and North American countries met inWashington, D.C., to establish and sign the North Atlan- tic Treaty. This newmilitary alliance guar- anteed that any member country would protect any other in the event of aggression from an outside country. In 1955, the Soviet Union and affiliated communist countries in Eastern Europe created the Warsaw Pact in response. Today NATO has 29 member countries, including 10 former Warsaw Pact mem- bers and three from the former Yugoslavia. On its 70th anniversary, experts are asking: How has the alliance changed, and what might its future hold? Is NATO in crisis? Are NATO’s days numbered? As more than one of this month’s authors point out, the survival of NATO has regularly been pondered. Yet it remains in force and relevant. In this issue of the Journal , we take a look at the evolution of the alliance. Lord Robertson, secretary general of NATO from 1999 to 2003 and British defense secretary from 1997 to 1999, offers an alliance to-do list in “Reinforcing NATO for the Future.” Steven Keil from the GermanMarshall Fund writes about “Global Shifts and American Political Will as NATO Turns 70.” And NATO expert Chris Kremidas Courtney looks at new alliance initiatives in “Working with NATO to Address Hybrid Threats.” We also shar e a selection of excerpts Shawn Dorman is the editor of The Foreign Service Journal. from FSJ articles about NATO from 1949 to the present. This month’s feature is timely. In “The Tragedy of Venezuela” retired FSOOliver Griffith presents a cautionary tale of how a nation that was once one of Latin Amer- ica’s most prosperous and promising has devolved into dysfunction and crisis. And the Speaking Out is a blunt but useful take on bidding. If you’ve ever won- dered how the “deciders” determine who gets those plumposts overseas, look no further. In “Straight Talk on Bidding,” FSO Paul Poletes lifts the curtain on the process and gives you insider advice on whether and when to bid on that popular post. In her President’s Views column, Ambassador Barbara Stephenson suggests that it’s time to get a refund on the Iraq tax. Rather than abolish the positions that were created to staff up Iraq and Afghanistan during the height of the wars, those posi- tions should be moved back to the posts that lost them—and still need them. Thank you to those of you who joined us for the FSJ centennial exhibit at the U.S. Diplomacy Center last month. The exhibit will be on display through Foreign Service Day onMay 3, so do stop by. Hopefully it will inspire you to dig deeper into the his- tory of diplomacy and the Foreign Service. Please visit the FSJ digital archive at www.afsa.org/fsj-archive. And consider submitting your own Foreign Service story. Author guidelines are at http://www. afsa.org/fsj-author-guidelines. Dropm e a line to pitch an article, share something interesting you find in the archive or let us knowwhat you think of this issue. n