Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Rhodes, Matthew
• Herd, Graeme P.
• Kriendler, John

Titel

U.S. perspectives on NATO

Ist Teil von

• Understanding NATO in the 21st Century, 2013, p.33-49

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• On paper, 2010 marked a highpoint in the United States' valuation of NATO. In May, the Obama administration's National Security Strategy reaffirmed that the "relationship with our European allies remains the cornerstone for U.S. engagement with the world." 2 At Lisbon in November, the Alliance as a whole adopted a Strategic Concept strongly reflective of U.S. positions as well as a summit declaration endorsing the U.S.-crafted counterinsurgency plan for Afghanistan to 2014. Nonetheless, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' mid-2011 warning of NATO's possibly "dim, if not dismal future" laid bare the resurgence of American doubts. Richard Haass, president of the country's most influential foreign policy think-tank, added that Gates "may not have been pessimistic enough." 3 Such currents of skepticism and frustration have existed since NATO's birth, but international trends suggest they will intensify in the decades ahead. Absent a fresh animating mission which is shared and meaningfully supported by the rest of NATO, U.S. views of alliance with Europe will likely drift into 21st century variants of their pre-Cold War norm. Absent robust commitment from its primus inter pares, NATO will likely drift toward irrelevance.