Riga, November 28-29, 2006 \u2013 The upcoming NATO summit, which chose to take place on former soviet soil in order to symbolize the success of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, is likely to be remembered \u00a0as the Summit where two opposite trends thrust the Alliance into the ongoing global systemic crisis, and as the symbol of \u00ab the end of the western world we have known since 1945 \u00bb.<\/p>\n
The \u00a0economic, \u00a0financial \u00a0or monetary \u00a0aspects \u00a0were \u00a0only \u00a0three \u00a0of the \u00a0seven \u00a0facets \u00a0of the \u00a0crisis described \u00a0by the LEAP\/E2020 \u00a0research team, and announced \u00a0in the February 2006 \u201cGlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin\u201d. A first class strategic and military crisis is also triggered this year, via the Iran nuclear problem plus three other key-factors: the financing and development of the \u201c21st-century air- fighter\u201d, the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF); the divergence between Europeans and Americans in terms of threat \u00a0perception; \u00a0the confidence \u00a0crisis\u00a0 among \u00a0European \u00a0public \u00a0opinion \u00a0and decision \u00a0makers \u00a0as regards US capacity and skill in handling an efficient and responsible leadership of the Alliance.<\/p>\n
The Alliance is ill. This is a commonplace, hardly concealed by official statements knowing that the re- launch of NATO and the redefinition of its missions have become recurrent topics of all transatlantic meetings. \u00a0The illness results from the disappearing \u00a0of the Alliance\u2019s \u00a0main reason-to-be: \u00a0the fight against a lethal enemy, common to Americans and Western Europeans: USSR. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, NATO no longer knows what it stands for. It is called upon to protect the Olympic Games of Athens or Turin, to transport third world aid and to intervene on limited crises (Kosovo, Afghanistan security \u00a0enforcement\u2026); \u00a0but \u00a0on \u00a0the \u00a0two \u00a0major \u00a0military \u00a0operations \u00a0of \u00a0the \u00a0past \u00a0decade, \u00a0it \u00a0was dismissed. The United-States \u00a0rejected it to attack Afghanistan after 9\/11 (despite European offers). The Europeans \u00a0refused \u00a0to activate \u00a0it when \u00a0Iraq was invaded \u00a0in 2003\u00a0 (despite \u00a0US demands). \u00a0A strategic alliance which is inoperative in case of major military events, because either one or the other partner refuses it to be activated, is an alliance with nothing left of strategic. The question now is whether it has anything left of an alliance, or if little by little NATO is turning into something else.<\/p>\n
According to LEAP\/E2020, the transformation \u00ab into something else \u00bb is already on the go. In 2006, because of the Iran crisis – but also due to a whole range of factors out of which three in particular (JSF, threat perception, global distrust) are described in this \u201cGlobalEurope Anticipation Bulletin\u201d -, the Alliance will experience a political expansion of its geographic territory and turn into a \u201cglobal alliance of democracies\u201d; \u00a0while the military \u00a0organisation \u00a0will have to leave the Europeans \u00a0accelerate \u00a0the creation of a common defence independent from the Alliance…<\/p>\n
These trends will be seen as positive ones by a large number of players within NATO itself and in the rest of the world. The geographic enlargement results from Washington\u2019s assertive will; meanwhile the acceleration of an independent common European defence has been expected by a large majority of Europeans for many years already…<\/p>\n