Thread: The Future of the NATO Alliance

Geopolitical Diary:
The Future of the NATO Alliance
January 23, 2008
Asummit of NATO heads of state scheduled for April 2-4 in Bucharest, Romania, appears to have gotten its first real jumpstart about 10 days ago with the circulation of a manifesto written by distinguished and well-respected former senior military officers from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands who served at the height of their careers during the early post-Soviet years. The impressive list of names at the end of the paper includes former NATO Supreme Allied Commander in Europe and former U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili, former British Baron Field Marshal and Defense Staff Chief Sir Peter Anthony Inge, and former Inspector General of the German military and NATO Military Committee Chairman Gen. Klaus Naumann.

The EU Observer and the Guardian newspaper released some of the details of the manifesto over the past few days. This document marks the potential culmination of a series of trends that could result in deep structural changes to the alliance.

The manifesto includes:

A more overtly stated nuclear first-strike option than NATO had previously. (The alliance currently has neither a professed nuclear first-strike option nor a no-first-use policy; this is partially dictated by the fact that only individual member states control the nukes.);
[i]A statement of willingness to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively to prevent states from gaining nuclear capabilities;
A shift from unanimous consensus decision-making to majority voting, which effectively ends national vetoes;
The end of national caveats for troops deployed in NATO operations;
The end of decision-making by alliance members that are not participating in the NATO operation in question; and
The ability to use force without the authorization of the U.N. Security Council when “immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings.â€

Revised Roman Empire seems to be coming together .

Russia and China are cuddling up to Iran now too .

I can see hillery riding the beast as bill guides it along at the UN .