The Next Steps for NATO

http://carnegieeurope.eu/publications/?fa=48318&lang=en

Commentary

The Next Steps for NATO

Gábor Iklódy Commentary, June 5, 2012

 

Leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) just wrapped up a summit in Chicago, where withdrawal from Afghanistan, the implications of the Arab Spring, and responses to the financial crisis were high on the agenda—a far cry from the superpower arms races of the past. Well depicting that global strategic shift, German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung confronted its readers with several short articles on what the editors called “the next crisis scenarios”—a host of developments that could go wrong over the course of 2012. Not one of these scenarios dealt with traditional military threats. Instead, they dealt with monetary challenges, separatism, territorial disputes, failing states, the Arab Spring, energy shortages, and climate change.
For NATO, the message could hardly be clearer. In the years ahead, the security of the transatlantic community will be affected much less by military conflict than by the effects of climate change, nuclear proliferation, or the disruption of energy supplies. And future attacks are more likely to come from terrorists or through cyberspace than from hostile armies.