Setting The Stage
With the resurfacing of talks regarding an imminent invasion of Ukrainian territory by the Putin leadership in Moscow, NATO as a topic of global governance has also become a prominent focus throughout discussions. With reference to the agency as being rendered useless, or on the other hand, the only potential solution to the Russia-Ukraine situation, many things remain unclear. The intention of this article is to examine the role of NATO by discussing its strengths and weaknesses whilst simultaneously placing the focus on the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
As per their official site, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also referred to as the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military agency assigned with the bold duty of upholding democratic values within the global stage among both its members and non-member states since the Cold-War era (NATO 2022). It claims it’s able to do so by promoting peaceful resolutions for domestic and international conflicts, whilst simultaneously brokering cooperation strategies between nation-states (NATO 2022). However, the media offers a somewhat feint description as to what NATO as an organization entails. For media outlets such as CNN and the New York Times, NATO is proposed as a global joint-venture with the opportunity for nation states to loan and borrow each other's resources during times of conflict and humanitarian need (CNN 2022). For the Times however, NATO has offered itself as a leader on the global stage, by joining and promoting defence and peacekeeping throughout many regions of conflict including that of Afghanistan during post 9/11 and Kosovo in 1999 (NYT 2022).
Pro-NATO Case Study:
Established as an outcome of Cold-War escalations, NATO consists of thirty nation-state members spanning from central and Eastern Europe to North America (NATO 2022). Created as a means of pursuing diplomacy and peacekeeping, NATO has strived and to an extent, effectively fulfilled what its creators set out to achieve in the first place–peace. With the greater majority of its missions and operations taking place within Eastern Europe and North Africa, NATO as an entity of Western democracy and diplomacy has created a strong reputation for itself on the global stage. Let’s take a look at the case of Kosovo and Serbia in 1999. With Serbia’s invasion of its Southern counterpart–Kosovo–the latter opted for foreign intervention as a means of de-escalating and deterring Serbian military presence. NATO’s presence was effectively observed within the region during 1999, when deployed NATO forces collaborated into what became one of the leading units of Kosovo’s liberation, the Kosovo Force (KFOR) formed during the same year (NATO International 2022). The intervention consisted of participation from over 35 nation-states, both member and non-members, and took the form of a 78-day air raid campaign, targeting Serbian property, presence and military forces within both Serbia and Kosovo’s borders (Relief Web International).
On June 1999, NATO’s intervention operation received its first and last ceasefire notice, as the mission itself served effectively to guide Serbian authorities into accepting the Kumanovo Treaty–a signed agreement between KFOR, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia, holding all states involved in the conflict to uphold mutual acceptance of Kosovo as a sovereign entity and to uphold peace within the region without the involvement of additional foreign military presence (NATO International). While the justifications behind NATO’s intervention in Kosovo have been revisited numerous times, the legitimacy of its operations in 1999 are not. As all other diplomatic measures had been exhausted at the time, the summoning of NATO and the formation of KFOR was a deliberate attempt at reconciliation and retrieving peace throughout the area. As seen from Kosovo’s previous and current outcome, it’s clear to say NATO is as effective as promoted in most cases.
A Different Perspective:
While many still support NATO, there has been growing criticisms regarding the significance of the organization in the modern era. Much of this criticism extends two central issues at the heart of NATO’s actions: purpose and effectiveness.
The first of these critiques centres around the alliance's struggle to find purpose. Back at its conception, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was originally purposed to protect the Western countries from the threats of invasion by the Soviet Union and integrate its members (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Despite their remaining concerns about the coercive and often aggressive means taken by NATO to achieve their desired goals, many give NATO the benefit of the doubt in acknowledging the necessity of its existence in a time of potential nuclear annihilation.
However, since the collapse of the U.S.S.R on December 25, 1991, NATO has been since faced by a crisis as to its new goals in a post-Soviet world (Daalder, 1999). Many perceive NATO today as a quasi-peace-keeping force, tasked with acting as an enforcer for a free and sovereign world of nations. The issue here is that not only has NATO failed numerous times to protect international sovereignty but has actively violated sovereignty as a supposed means to protecting certain nations and their people. Whether it be Afghanistan, Somalia, or recently in Ukraine, NATO and its member states have ousted and backed numerous governments that hold strong economic and foreign policy ties with NATO members (Chomsky, 1999). As a result, many non-NATO countries have begun to see the organization as less of a humanitarian force and more as an opportunistic regime hell-bent on furthering only the interests of its member states.
The other major concern regarding NATO is its effectiveness and efficacy in its interventions. Since 1991, every operation conducted by NATO has been heavily criticized by the public on a fiscal and political scale. On the domestic side, NATO operations have spent upwards of trillions of dollars, money which many believe should go back to solving issues at home.This criticism has been furthered by looming worries over the influence military lobbyists have in shaping NATO policy. In America, the military industrial complex (i.e. the collection of defense contractors in charge with supplying NATO states with military equipment) has long been a powerful lobbyist in the military actions of the country, with many arguing that there for selling weapons to the U.S and other NATO countries has incentivized the support for direct foreign intervention in foreign conflicts (Charles J. Dunlap, 2011).
On an international scale, the actions of NATO have sparked questions into their efficacy towards their goals. In operations within Kosovo for example, many cite the intervention taken by NATO in Kosovo against the Serbian government as violating the “rights to self-sovereignty” and the process of military intervention as laid out in numerous international law documents in the U.N Charter (Chomsky, 1999).
Case-Study: Afghanistan:
In late 2001 after the events on September 11 th , the U.S and its NATO allies launched an invasion into the region of Afghanistan. By November 13 th of that same year, the country had been largely conquered from the Taliban (Witte, 2021). While their goal was originally to hunt for the perpetrators of 9/11, the mission eventually devolved into a neo-conservative campaign to oust the Taliban and install a liberal-democratic government in the country.
However, despite NATO contributing more than a trillion dollars and 10,000’s of lives sacrificed in this effort, much of that money has gone to waste: major infrastructure Projects like the Ring Road are beyond repair, military equipment has been either discarded or seized by the Taliban, and much of the country has been left in ruin after 20 years of endless conflict (Suroush, 2015). As a culmination in 2021, after little resistance from the U.S and NATO backed Afghan government, the Taliban once again took over the country; right back to where the country started before 2001(Witte, 2021).
Ukraine?
From these critiques and the recent failure in Afghanistan, many see it clear now that NATO should not intervene in Ukraine. Not only has much of the crisis started over the attempt by NATO to drag Ukraine into the organization, but the potential for most wasted money and lives looms over as the probability of intervention seems likely (Masters, 2022). It is through past experiences, however, that many this time will likely see the issue of NATO intervention and begin to question the significance of the organization in the modern era.
Author's Note:
The author’s understand the nature of the topic discussed throughout this article. In no way is either author associated or inherently biased towards any party involved in the conflict. The purpose of this article is limited to educational purposes only.
By: Dui Davidsson, Jordan Salehi
Cited Sources
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