Friday, 27 March 2009NATO, one of the world's most successful multilateral alliances and a vital component of the global security architecture, celebrates its 60th anniversary. Yet, "getting to age 60 may have been a challenge".
NATO, as a military alliance, was established in 1949 by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty. The Organization constitutes a system of collective defence and a mutual defence of its member states in response to attack by any external actor. It has accomplished a lot of tasks from the very beginning of its foundation up to now. The end of the Cold War marked the elimination of NATO's original concerns to some extent, thereby, removed the de facto main adversary of the Alliance. This caused a strategic re-evaluation of NATO's purpose, nature and tasks. However, the post-Cold War period has been the most significant era for the organization in terms of its expansion and its Bosnian and Kosovo operations.
Currently, the Alliance "is keeping the peace in Kosovo, it is engaged in both stabilization tasks and combat operations in Afghanistan, runs an anti-terrorist naval operation in the Mediterranean, assists defence reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, trains Iraqi security forces, and provides support to the African Union.' In this regard, it is possible to say that NATO is at the heart the expanding network of global security. Briefly, at the age of 60, NATO has turned out to be most crucial element of global security environment. However, NATO is expected to overcome with severe challenges in the upcoming years.
According to the Alliance official statement, three major challenges will occur regarding the NATO steps.
The first one is Afghanistan. In order to complete a successful engagement in Afghanistan, all Allies should contribute to the progress. The NATO top-officials emphasize that "as yet NATO recorded considerable success on behalf of training and equipping the Afghan National Army. we must build on that progress. The ability of the Afghan Police to play its role in providing security and stability is essential."
The second challenge is the need for a positive agenda that suits the importance of Russia and NATO. In this regard, Afghanistan can be seen as a key area that includes common interests. In addition, fighting against terrorism and the need to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are the other areas that require to cooperation.
The third challenge is dealing with new threats such as cyber attacks, the interruption of energy supplies, countries' nuclear programs or the piracy. It seems that these threats have turned out to be increasingly critical issues.
It remains to be seen whether NATO would succeed to overcome the new problems of the globalized world.
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Friday, 27 March 2009
By Burcu Basak, JTW.
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