The following article is from our May 2008 issue.

Quo Vadis, NATO? The Atlantic Alliance is lacking direction and everyone knows it - By Ulrich Weisser

The NATO summit in Bucharest on April 2-4 demonstrated that the Atlantic Alliance has no common vision. It lacks an agreed definition of its political and strategic goals and a clear view of its priorities.

Today, NATO is defined by three different schools of thought that contradict and therefore block each other. The United States is increasingly using the alliance in order to expand its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and Central Asia by encircling Russia in much the same way it did during the Cold War. Washington wants to transform NATO into an instrument of global intervention it can deploy whenever Western interests are at stake, anywhere in the world.

For historical reasons, the new NATO members from Eastern Europe define their security needs in terms of opposition to Russia, and seek American support as a result. In contrast, the Western European NATO states are aiming for a balanced relationship and real strategic partnership with Russia, based on the idea that peace and stability in Europe can be obtained only with Russia, not against it.

In Bucharest, these differences were most apparent concerning the question of if, when and how Ukraine and Georgia could become NATO members. The U.S. tried to pry the door to the alliance open with a crowbar. Yet Germany, France, Spain, Italy and the Benelux countries postponed the enlargement, citing the absence of any current recognizable majority among the Ukrainian population for joining NATO. Although the western, more Europe-oriented part of the country tends towards integration with the EU and NATO, the east still looks overwhelmingly to Russia. At worst, this could lead to the country's breakup if it were forcefully steered toward joining NATO.

If Georgia were to become a NATO member, the alliance would be burdened with unsettled territorial questions with regard to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. In case of a military conflict, NATO would then be obligated to come in on Georgia's side - thereby confronting Russia. Furthermore, Georgia - like Ukraine - does not have solidly democratic structures.

Although they do not openly say so, the Western European NATO states, in particular, consider it a matter of prudence not to provoke Russia even further in this respect. It was the crucial element in their rejection of the U.S. proposal. The communiqués issued by NATO repeatedly stressed the purely formal argument that Moscow does not have the power of veto concerning questions of expanding the alliance. Each country meeting NATO's criteria can aspire to become a member of the alliance, the statement said.

However, this does not take into account that Russia views the alliance's continuous eastward expansion as a planned encirclement. Those who understand that this perception is a political fact and at the same time know that the West needs Russia's cooperation to deal with Afghanistan, Iran, the anti-missile shield, arms control and energy security will not pursue a policy of systematic provocation.

The statement issued in Bucharest also unimaginatively reiterates the demand that the UN resolutions on Iran must be complied with, yet it does not extend a substantial offer of talks to Tehran. By now, it is widely known that the sanctions are ineffective and that Washington demands unacceptable conditions for dialog with Iran that effectively block the way to serious talks.

There is no independent NATO policy on how to approach Iran's nuclear program and how to enter into a constructive dialog with Iran. Why shouldn't the concept of détente and deterrence, effective even against the Soviet Union, also work vis-a-vis Iran in a modified form?

NATO must know how difficult such a diplomatic offensive would make life for the Iranian government. But what does the alliance do? It backs the U.S. project of a national missile defense system even though the actual threat Iran supposedly poses is more than disputable and the question of Russian involvement remains unanswered.

Furthermore, the deployment of the missile defense system in Europe anticipates the complete failure of talks with Iran and therefore sets the wrong signal. At the same time, NATO did not shy away, in its Bucharest communiqué, from appealing to Russia to return to the suspended regime of conventional arms control, however, itself not showing any inclination to ratify the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE).

Neither does the alliance have a clear concept for its relations with Central Asia. In 2001, through Moscow's initiative, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) comprising Russia, China and the Central Asian states was founded. The organization was meant to serve as a framework for synchronizing approaches toward energy policy and fighting transnational terrorism.

Unlike NATO, Russian President Vladimir Putin correctly recognized that opium cultivation is Afghanistan's main problem - not only threatening the country's stabilization process but also its neighbors. The SCO does not want to let troubled Afghanistan, with its rampant narcotics production, jeopardize its efforts at economic and military cooperation.

Although China is also part of the initiative, it mainly sees Central Asia as an important energy provider. Russia, however, once again wants to forge as close a relationship with the states in the post-Soviet region as possible. India has already been given observer status in the SCO, along with Pakistan, Iran and Mongolia.

The participation of Iran in the last Shanghai summit upgraded the Tehran regime and added a new dimension to the conflict over the U.S. missile defense system explicitly directed against a potential threat from Iran. If Iran soon becomes a member of the SCO, finding common ground in the UN for a joint approach to the Iranian nuclear program would become almost impossible. The front against Iran would presumably split into Western and Eastern camps.

The SCO offers Russia an alternative to its increasingly dysfunctional strategic partnership with NATO. The goal of adding a military dimension to the group by introducing a consolidated chain of command and joint military exercises speaks for itself.

In view of these developments, Bucharest should have been used as a platform for extensive discourse about NATO's interests in Central Asia and the possibilities of deepening its cooperation with Russia to prevent the country from being ripped from its European moorings and pushed towards exploring its Asian options. Other issues should have been subordinated to this point at the summit.

Yet the 50 articles of the Bucharest summit communiqué do not send a "signal from Bucharest." They are merely a random listing of the alliance's positions concerning this and that - a declaration of bankruptcy.

The Atlantic Alliance and its members must feel uneasy at the thought how NATO can continue to perform its tasks while lacking a basic consensus on its overall mission, a new definition of its raison d'ètre. The only agreements reached in Bucharest were on individual issues such as the moderate increase of force levels in Afghanistan and the invitation of Croatia and Albania to join the alliance.

Yet neither military intervention in Afghanistan nor additional enlargements of NATO - and the EU - are likely to enthrall the European public. Europeans were not even given a plausible explanation of why the alliance is acting the way it is.

Among the many controversial topics discussed in Bucharest, one almost went unnoticed: France's definite return to the military structures of NATO means that Germany will have to vacate high-ranking positions. France will once again play a leading role in the alliance with its influence increasing at the same rate as German influence wanes.

- Vice Admiral (Ret.) Ulrich Weisser is a former director of planning and policy in Germany's Ministry of Defense.