Contenu du sommaire : L'Alliance atlantique

The Alliance was created for defense against the Soviet Union and reinvented at the end of the Cold War. Today, it takes action wherever the allies' interests are threatened and no credible alternative option exists for its members' security. But the Alliance must know how to change, adapt itself to new political and economic challenges, and adjust its methods of operation as its members increase.

The history of the Alliance may be divided into three phases. The first spans the four decades of the Cold War. Next, the Alliance took on a role as a midwife to political change in Europe. Following 9/11, the role of the Alliance has been part of a wider debate about the challenges to international security. This debate is still open, and includes, among other things, the redefinition of NATO's missions and their corresponding means.

The historical success of the Alliance lies in having unified the West in the face of the Soviet threat, and in having successfully enlarged the West since the end of the Cold War. Today, however, the Alliance needs to adapt itself to a new world characterized by the growing threat of violent political chaos stemming from humanity's recent political awakening. Its credibility depends on negotiating a political exit from Afghanistan. In the longer term, NATO must view itself as being at the center of a network of organizations of world security.

The debate on ‘globalization' is at the heart of discussions on the new Strategic Concept. It is taking place within the dynamic enlargement process that began in 1994, bringing in new members and giving rise to new missions. The debate also touches on the different possible readings of today's geopolitical reality: global threats, or residual threats in Europe? Lastly, it raises a moral question: Why and under what circumstances should the Alliance legitimately use its military force?

The future direction of the Alliance depends on the answers to two questions. First, what are today's security challenges for member states? Second, which challenges can the Alliance tackle? This article examines four hypotheses which may structure the debate on the future Strategic Concept: i) the focus on the Greater Middle East; ii) the fundamental attention given to weak states; iii) the focus on non-governmental threats; and iv) a re-focusing on Europe.

Poland has a full place in an Alliance seeking to meet new challenges. Warsaw naturally supports everything that strengthens the links between the United States and Europe, but also favors the development of the capacities of the European Union (EU), which complement those of the Alliance. Furthermore, while Poland favors the enlargement of the Alliance to include Ukraine and Georgia, it also seeks a deepening of cooperation with Moscow.

Relations between NATO and the ESDP work well on the ground. However, political and functional confusion dominates the relationship between the Alliance and the European Union. This goes back to the origins, different logic and policies of both institutions. In the immediate future it will surely be preferable to establish ad hoc arrangements, sector by sector, rather than a general agreement, which is likely to be hard to achieve, given the rapidly changing nature of the Alliance and the EU.

NATO's eastward enlargement stirs Russia's deep, historical fears about ‘Western' attempts to destroy or marginalize it. However, the dialogue opened up by the new US administration, along with the declarations and propositions by President Medvedev, suggests that a new era of cooperation, relating to Afghanistan, anti-missile defense systems, disarmament and even NATO's next strategic concept, may now emerge.

The Russia-NATO relationship has inherited a complicated set of mutual perceptions from the successive enlargements of the Alliance and the campaign in Kosovo. But it can no longer be thought of simply in terms of European security: Russia's renewed potential and ambitions have raised the issue to a higher level. The US/Europe/Russia triangle will play a role in global security from now on, and it is in this framework that the future of NATO-Russia relations should be understood.

France was a co-founder of the Alliance, but in 1966 adopted a position that reflected its failure to reform NATO from within and guaranteed its independence. The recent decisions to reintegrate NATO's command structure followed from three factors: the geopolitical upheavals that have redefined the role of the Alliance; increased rapprochement in managing crises since the 1990s; and the wish to construct a common European defense policy, which can only be complementary to NATO.

The French decision to re-enter NATO's integrated military structure is merely the confirmation of a series of shifts that started a long time ago. But it is no less questionable a decision. It is a symbolic decision that affects France's image internationally. It by no means guarantees that the Alliance will evolve in a way that corresponds to France's national interests; nor does it shed light on France's ambiguous future. It does, however, in a very real way, risk diminishing France's will to defend itself.

The Alliance's deterrence systems left over from the Cold War cannot but evolve in the current environment. Aspects of NATO's nuclear strategy need therefore to be reviewed. What role should NATO weapons play from now on? How should decisions be taken in moments of crisis, and how will NATO weapons be used? Are the sharing agreements still appropriate? And how is an agreement to be reached with Moscow about the scrapping of short-range nuclear weapons?

NATO's history, during and after the Cold War, has been marked by nearly uninterrupted organizational reform, grafted on to a lightly defined institutional blueprint. Such reform is being pursued today in the context of the formulation of a new Strategic Concept that would set out the core purposes and tasks of the Alliance and provide essential guidance for NATO's further transformation. In the end, the aim is to make NATO more agile and relevant.

The text reprinted below is that of the 24 October 1964 conference at the Centre d'études de politique étrangère (Center for Foreign Policy Studies) in Paris. It was published for the first time in Politique étrangère vol. 29. No. 4, 1964.