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Facing a Mid-Life Crisis
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15149 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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4 / 1989 |
2,482 Words |
| Author
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Tom Lantos
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In her best selling book Passages, journalist Gali Sheehy writes:
Turning 40 for a man is a marker event in itself. By
custom, as if he were merchandise on a rack, he will be
looked over by his employers and silently marked up or
down, recategorized by his insurers, labeled by his
competitors.
The North Atlantic alliance (NATO) is about to turn 40. On April 4, 1949, representatives of the countries of Western Europe, and of the United States and Canada, signed the North Atlantic Treaty. Just as an individual's 40th birthday is an occasion for sober reflection and appraisal, the anniversary of NATO provides an appropriate occasion for similar thoughtful reflection. Furthermore, this anniversary comes at a time when U.S. foreign policy is going through a reappraisal as the new president takes over at the White House and new cabinet secretaries assume responsibility at the State Department and the Pentagon.
The 40th birthday is a time to look back at the world at the time the North Atlantic Treaty was signed and to consider what changes have altered the international landscape in those four decades. It is also a time to consider what challenges are likely to face the United States in the years ahead. Is NATO the best vehicle for facing those challenges? Does the treaty or the organization need to be restructured to adjust to changes in the world?
Rebus sic stantibus is the Latin phrase lawyers use to indicate that international agreements are valid only so long as "conditions remain the same." When international conditions change, agreements may no longer be relevant. The North Atlantic Treaty has been in effect for 40 years. What has changed?
First, NATO was established at the height of the Cold War. Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union had deteriorated from cooperation as allies in the struggle against Nazi Germany to principal adversaries in a bipolar world. The Soviet Union had closed its grip on Eastern Europe by early 1948. In 1948-49, the Soviet Union imposed its blockade against Berlin. Furthermore, in 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear weapon, which only served to emphasize to the countries of Western Europe their inferiority and vulnerability vis-à-vis the new behemoth in the east. The possibility of Soviet expansion into Western Europe was considered a serious threat.
Throughout the existence of the Atlantic alliance, perceptions of the Soviet threat have waxed and waned. As NATO turns 40, optimists have proclaimed "the end of the Cold War" and welcomed the INF Treaty and five Reagan-Gorbachev summits as the beginning of a new era in international relations. Under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet priorities have clearly shifted from external expansion to domestic reform, but it may still be too early to proclaim that the millennium is at hand. Whether the transformations of the Gorbachev era prove to be permanent or not, even the most hardened skeptic admits that the Soviet Union appears far less threatening today than it did 40 years ago.
Second, in 1949 the Soviet Union's
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