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Is the U.S. ready for the NATO summit?

March 27th, 2008 by Staff · No Comments

The Council on Foreign Relations held a conference call for journalists on the outlook for the upcoming NATO summit in Bucharest. James Goldgeier Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations and Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall Senior Fellow for Alliance Relations both gave their input.

Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall spoke first and said that never before has NATO been doing so much or so little all at the same time. She explained this comment to mean that since NATO is involved in so many missions; Afghanistan, training missions in Iraq, exercises in supporting the African Union in Somalia and Sudan, and ongoing operations in the Balkans, that there has been too little focus on the strategic vision for NATO’s future. She said that the strategic problems that affect all NATO counties are not limited to Afghanistan or Kosovo but countering nuclear proliferation, managing Russia, containing China, dealing with climate change and dealing with Islamic extremism.

A major point that came up is the difficulty of NATO allies to help in Afghanistan when there is very little support domestically for the Allies to send more troops for combat. Germany in particular has been a point of contention as the German public support for participation in the war in Afghanistan is very low. The caveats attached to NATO and non-NATO allies in Afghanistan have been frustrating to the Pentagon as it limits the usefulness of NATO alliance participation and puts American combat troops at greater risk. Sherwood-Randall also emphasized the need for more non-military support in a statement of strategic vision. She said that while our troops are doing great work they need more non-military support, particularly in the Afghanistan mission.

Goldgeier focused more on the other large agenda item of the NATO summit, which is the consideration of NATO action plans for admitting Albania, Macedonia, Ukraine and Georgia into the NATO alliance. Russia has been outspoken in their opposition of Ukraine and Georgia’s membership and there has also been concern on the U.S. side whether or not these countries will act more as consumers of NATO security and less as contributors. Goldgeier said that United States is just not prepared for this summit and to talk about what is necessary for expansion of the alliance because the current summit will feature a lame duck administration and next year’s summit will feature a brand new administration which won’t have much time to prepare for the 60th anniversary summit.

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