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Analysis: NATO's Fateful Afghan Wager

Council on Foreign Relations

November 20, 2006
Prepared by: Michael Moran

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), writes a former U.S. envoy to the alliance, may not survive as a useful entity if it cannot stabilize Afghanistan. NATO has “bet the alliance” on Afghanistan (Project Syndicate), writes Robert Hunter, U.S. ambassador to NATO from 1993 to 1998 and now a senior adviser at the RAND Corporation. “No amount of ‘transformation’ or ‘partnerships’ or anything else will matter much if NATO fails for the first time in its history.” The agenda of next week’s NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, includes the usual mix of questions about expansion (MSNBC), ties with Moscow (FT), and how best to operate a multinational army in the field (VOA). Yet Afghanistan hovers over it all. As Afghan expert Barnett R. Rubin told CFR.org’s Bernard Gwertzman last month, the country risks falling back toward anarchy.

Just months after taking command of most of the Afghanistan mission from the United States, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) peacekeepers have their hands full. A visit by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday to British forces battling Taliban remnants in the southern provinces focused largely on things already accomplished. But Blair also recognizes NATO’s forces risk being irrelevant if they cannot beat back the resurgent Taliban (FT), and the International Crisis Group, in a new report, backs his call for more troops. There is an important non-military side to the struggle as well—the need for Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government to bring reconstruction to rural areas of the country where his writ doesn’t mean much. As Gen. James L. Jones, NATO’s Supreme Commander, told a CFR audience last month, the real challenge in Afghanistan is how well the international aid mission is focused, calling this “the exit strategy for Afghanistan.”

NATO member states appear to understand what’s at stake.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.