THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2024 23 NATO on 9/11 By R. Nicholas Burns On Sept. 11, 2001, I was participating in the weekly lunch of NATO ambassadors in Brussels, having arrived only 12 days prior to take up my new position as U.S. ambassador to the Alliance. One of our local Belgian employees came into the meeting through a side door to whisper to me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York. My immediate thought was whether bad weather was involved. Had a small plane crashed into one of the towers in fog or a storm? When we heard a few minutes later that a second plane had hit the Twin Towers, we all knew it couldn’t be weather or an accident but terrorism. NATO’s keystone principle is an attack on one Ally is an attack on all. When founded in 1949, that was the central commitment President Harry S Truman and his successors gave the European Allies during the five decades of the Cold War—the U.S. would come to Europe’s aid just as we had done in the First and Second World Wars if the Soviet Union attacked across the north German plain. That that war mercifully never came was in large part due to NATO’s massive deterrent strength. It is thus a historical irony of 9/11 that when the Allies invoked Article 5 the next day for the first time in NATO’s history, it was Europe and Canada that came to America’s defense, not the other way around. It took us about 18 hours to make that decision once we had heard news of the attack. NATO operates by consensus, meaning every Ally must agree with a resolution to make it official policy. It was not unusual for Allies to debate for weeks or even months before all agreed on a consequential decision. We didn’t have the luxury of time on 9/11. If NATO was to act, it had to do so quickly and resolutely. Any hesitation would have sent exactly the wrong signal to al-Qaida as well as to the American people reeling from one of the most shocking attacks on our homeland in history. That was the key concern as our combined State-Defense Department team huddled in my office that afternoon watching the Twin Towers fall again and again in CNN’s looped, nonstop coverage. We called but couldn’t reach the White House, State, and Defense Departments because all had been evacuated. We worried whether every Ally would agree to, in effect, pledge to go with us to war against the organization most suspected to be behind the attack—Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida. The 19 ambassadors met late that evening under Secretary General Lord Robertson’s chairmanship. He asked me to speak first to report on the carnage in the U.S. I explained the terrible dimensions of the tragedy, lamenting that early estimates of the death toll were so high that Sept. 11, 2001, could turn out to be the bloodiest day in American history since the Civil War Battle of Antietam in September 1862. One by one, each of the Allied ambassadors was asked whether they would agree to invoke Article 5. The majority gave an unequivocal yes. Some had still not received instructions from their capitals and did not expect them until the following morning. One—Denmark—had to consult its parliament. By then, I had reported to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld as well as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. We all agreed that a quick NATO decision backing the U.S. would buoy the American public and send a strong signal to terrorist groups and the world of NATO’s resolve. We also agreed that failure to act would do perhaps irretrievable damage to NATO’s credibility as the world’s strongest alliance. Early on the following morning, Sept. 12, my team and I called each of the Allied missions. They all reported they were with us Ambassador Nicholas Burns (center) confers with NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson (left) and Supreme Allied Commander General Joe Ralston on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, after the attacks in the U.S. COURTESY OF NICHOLAS BURNS
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