The Role for NATO in the Modern World Essay -- The North Atlantic Trea

The Possibility of a Role for NATO in International Relations When NATO was founded in 1949, it had a clearly defined role. It was an alliance for collective security against the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, whereby if one member state was attacked, the rest would come to her aid under article 5. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, however, the role of NATO has become a great deal less clearly defined, since its members no longer really have any need for a defensive alliance. Indeed, operations such as those in Bosnia and Kosovo have suggested that for from being a defensive alliance, NATO may have some kind of future as an offensive alliance. There are also now doubts, however, over whether the futures of Europe and the United States are bound together as they were during the Cold War, and many European countries now pursue radically different, more pacifistic foreign policies to that of America. Many people now fell, therefore, that NATO is nothing more than an anachronistic hangover from the Cold War with no real future. Others would say, however, that organisations such as NATO and the UN are still crucial in the modern world to ensure that countries do not act unilaterally, but co-operate with allies. It is first perhaps worth considering in what way NATO's role in the modern world is changing. As has already been said, NATO may no longer really be viewed as a defensive organisation. This is not to say that it no longer has a credible role, however, and many would argue that it can be used as a useful tool in solving international problems. There are several examples of this suggestion in action. For in... ...is an alliance of such different interests will mean that it's future survival is highly dubious. As Nicholas Burns, the US Ambassador to NATO, said recently, 'the EU's push for greater military autonomy [poses] the most significant threat to NATO's future.' Thus there is still a role for NATO in the modern world, although this role has shifted from being defensive to being offensive, as above examples have shown. The question now must be, then, whether NATO can function effectively has an organisation in the coming years. Many would say that the polarising effect of America's aggressive foreign policy under George Bush and the recent expansion or the organisation Eastwards towards Russian borders will mean that NATO will cease to have a role in the future, since it is now a body which such conflicting interests.