NATO’s Identity – NATO as a Political and Military Organisation

Having often been overshadowed by its military activities, NATO’s political dimension has taken on greater significance in the face of new security threats and the rise of other global powers.

Key Questions:

  • 1. Where can NATO be a political forum rather than solely a military contributor to, or a guarantor of, security?
  • 2. How can NATO contend with acts of political intimidation, such of energy dependency or cyber attacks?
  • 3. Can NATO’s future objectives be harmonized with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy?
  • 4. Is the EU’s CFSP a potential obstacle or an inversion of the Berlin-plus arrangement?
  • 5. How is NATO and NATO’s transformation perceived in the eyes of the public?

Background

From its very inception in 1949, NATO was conceived as a two-dimensional structure, reflecting its dual roles as both a defensive military alliance and a pro-active political organisation. Over the course of time, NATO’s political dimension has remained somewhat overshadowed by its military actions, which have culminated with NATO’s engagement in Kosovo and Afghanistan. However, since adoption of its present Strategic Concept in 1999, the strategic landscape has altered significantly, leading to demands that the Alliance change in response.

Since taking the position of NATO’s Secretary General on 1st August 2009, Anders Fogh Rasmussen has reiterated the importance of transforming NATO’s military agenda into a broader political one, with the focus on strengthening existing partnerships, particularly those with the Western Balkans, the Mediterranean and Eastern European countries, and on enhancing partnerships with global powers such as Russia, China, Japan and India. Rasmussen has repeatedly encouraged a revision of NATO’s relationship with the EU and the UN in order to shape the international security environment more in-line with shared strategic interests and values. The need to strengthen NATO’s political role and intensify its political engagement is even more pertinent in the light of a global economic crisis, with ever more intensive calls for rationalising the cost of involvement in military operations and general contributions to the Alliance. This call for a transformational political strategy is to a large extent a response to the external developments that underpin NATO’s search for a new Strategic Concept.

Further Reading:

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The ‘Facilitating Serbia’s Contribution to NATO’s New Strategic Concept’ project has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.