NATO at 60
| Published date | 01 June 2009 |
| Author | Ellen Hallams |
| Date | 01 June 2009 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200906400207 |
| Subject Matter | NATO at 60 |
Ellen Hallams
NATO at 60
Going global?
| International Journal | Spring 2009 | 423 |
In the fall of 2006, Ivo Daalder and James Goldgeier published an article in
Foreign Affairs
in which they set out the case for NATO to expand its
membership on a global level. The authors advance the argument that NATO
should expand to include other democratic countries that share NATO’s
values and core interests, including Australia, Brazil, Japan, India, New
Zealand, South Africa, and South Korea. The case for expanding NATO’s
membership is one that builds on the idea that, since 9/11, NATO has evolved
into a global alliance. No l onger concerned solely with European security,
NATO is now an alliance with an increasingly global reach, evidence of which
can be seen in its operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Darfur and its role in
providing humanitarian assistance in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in
the US and the Pakistani earthquake. While NATO has certainly shifted away
from its focus on European security and towards a global agenda, the extent
to which NATO is becoming a truly global alliance remains less clear.
Although NATO has expanded since the end of the Cold War into central
Ellen Hallams is a lecturer in defence studies at the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham,
Oxfordshire. Her book, entitled
The Transatlantic Alliance Renewed: The US and NATO
Since 9/11,
is forthcoming from Routledge.
| Ellen Hallams |
| 424 | Spring 2009 | International Journal |
and eastern Europe, the alliance remains one centred on the Euro-Atlantic
area. However, for Daalder and Goldgeier, there is a compelling argument
that as NATO adopts a more global agenda, so it must also open its doors to
countries o utside the Euro-Atlantic zone: “NATO’s next move must be to
open its membership to any democratic state in the world that is willing and
able to contribute to the fulfilment of NATO’s new responsibilities. Only a
truly global alliance can address the global challenges of the day.”1At present,
NATO has a series of global partnerships with countries such as Australia,
New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. In 2004, NATO’s Secretary-General
Jaap de Hoop Scheffer justified such partnerships on the basis that “[s]ince
NATO is having its operations over a strategic distance, long distance, it
means that there is also the need for a dialogue with other interested
nations.” However, where Daalder and Goldgeier call on NATO to embrace
the concept of a truly global alliance, de Hoop Scheffer has struck a more
cautious note, stating that NATO should remain “an Alliance with global
partners
,”
rather than becoming a fully-fledged global alliance, with a global
membership.2
There is little doubt that NATO’s partnerships with countries like
Australia add greatly to its ability to conduct a broad range of missions on a
global scale; however, they also raise important and challenging questions
for the alliance as it reaches its 60th anniversary in 2009. The question of
NATO evolving into a global alliance strikes at the very heart of existential
questions about NATO’s role and identity. Is NATO a transatlantic alliance
bound together by uniquely transatlantic values and ideals? Does it remain
a military alliance committed to the collective defence of member-states’
territory in a particular geographical region? Or is it a collective security
organization committed to combating global threats? For Daalder and
Goldgeier, “[i]f the point of the alliance is no longer territorial defense but
bringing together countries with similar values and interests to combat
global problems, then NATO no longer needs to have an exclusively
transatlantic character.”3In other w ords, NATO must be understood as a
“democratic security community” that brings together likeminded nations
on the basis of their shared democratic values, and not just their shared
1 Ivo Daalder and James Go ldgeier, “Global NATO,”
Foreign Affairs
85 (September-
October 2006): 106.
2 “NATO looks to global partnerships,” 27 April 2006, www.nato.int.
3 Daalder and Goldgeier, “Global NATO,” 109.
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