NATO's 21st-century task: going from 'Europe' to 'global'

As fraught with dangers as it may be, NATO's role in Afghanistan is still putting the alliance on the world stage.

"The international community recognizes that NATO has unique assets among international institutions," says Mr. Apathurai. "It's still the best organizer of large multinational military operations. In terms of robust peacekeeping," he adds, "it's still the only game in town."

This fall, the alliance is also planning for a summit to be held in Riga, Latvia. NATO officials hope the summit, in November, will inaugurate a fully operational NATO Reaction Force. It's also expected to push ahead with plans to endow the alliance with "strategic lift" – the means of getting rapid-reaction forces where they need to be. The US is proposing that a consortium of NATO countries purchase eight C-17 transport planes.

But such an expensive proposition raises the touchy topic of spending – and the concerns of NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and some members, such as the US, that many NATO countries simply aren't spending enough on defense.

"Low European defense budgets are a brake on our transformation," says Apathurai. Germany, under Chancellor Angela Merkel, is one country that has expressed a desire to spend more on defense. That willingness, however, is being held back by slow economic growth.

This year's summit will take up an expansion of cooperation to "global partners," including Japan and Australia, but it is also expected to mark a pause in the 26-country alliance's expansion.

Mr. De Hoop Scheffer has spoken of the summit offering an encouraging "signal" on membership to several countries including Albania and Macedonia, and a less direct signal to Georgia and Ukraine – countries whose potential membership worries Russia.

"Maybe the bumper sticker for this year's summit is, 'Building a NATO that has global partners and a wider reach,' " says Apathurai.

Yet NATO officials acknowledge an in-house resistance to an alliance that is too broad in its membership and aims. France expresses concerns about a "weakened core," while others fret NATO could become a "mini UN" – with all the inefficiencies and lethargies that comparison entails.

Still, in an era of growing pessimism about the utility of international institutions, NATO has won respect among the doubters. "NATO is one of the few international institutions that has proved its relevance and not fallen into the traps of bureaucracy and grandstanding," says Joshua Muravchik, an analyst of international institutions at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

The Bush administration has tended to favor ad hoc efforts or "coalitions of the willing" to spearhead its international efforts – whether in Iraq or in "soft" diplomatic initiatives such as on global warming.

But it has also bucked that trend with its growing reliance on NATO – as in Afghanistan. How NATO stacks up against the growing expectations of its capabilities will be tested over coming months as its engagements grow outside its traditional European arena.

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