The Streit Council

NATO and Terrorism

NATO has come under intense scrutiny since the end of the cold war. After an initial skepticism about its current relevance, however, NATO has found its way toward institutional and strategic evolution. NATO now debates about extending its membership to other liberal democracies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea. The Alliance has also developed new tasks, successfully accomplishing peacekeeping and disaster relief operations.

Nevertheless, NATO needs to prove effective against the new security challenge of the 21 st century, which is terrorism. In this respect, NATO does have the potential and prestige to act as a successful security tool. After 9/11 and the bombings in Madrid and London , the perception of terrorism as a common threat strengthened the North Atlantic Alliance, instead of undermining it. Those events, for all their horrible civilian consequences, once more cemented transatlantic ties by building a commanding support for antiterrorism. Polls show consistently that Europeans and Americans, despite occasional strategic splits, converge in considering terrorism a top priority.

Allies should take advantage of this broad popular consensus to promote NATO in the fight against terror. Indeed, if disagreements across the Atlantic occur in this field, they have often to do with the US going alone, not with the antiterrorism effort itself. This is another, powerful motive to conduct the fight against terror under the framework of a common, trusted institution like NATO. The Alliance , under the current structure, already provides indispensable logistical and operational support for dismantling terror organizations. This was obvious during the campaign in Afghanistan , which followed the application of Article V in terms of traditional collective defense. In his influential report, NATO: an Alliance for Freedom, Spain’s former Prime Minister Aznar points out how terrorism provides the occasion for transforming and emboldening NATO’s concept of common defense. “The idea of collective defense has witnessed a significant transformation over the last decade. The concept of traditional territorial defense –theoretically still in force within the Atlantic Alliance–, of defense against military aggression aimed at any of its members, must be transformed into a new concept of multifunctional collective defense. This is because, first of all, it is no longer simply a question of defending the members from threats from other States, but from terrorist attacks perpetrated in many cases by individuals who reside in our own countries.”

Furthermore, as careful scholars noted, a “new rationale for Article 5 was found in the Strategic Concept statement released during NATO’s 50th Anniversary Washington Summit in April 1999. […] Article 24 of the Strategic Concept declared: Articles 5 and 6 of the Washington Treaty would cover any armed attack on the territory of the allies, from whatever direction. However, alliance security must also take account of the global context. Alliance security interests can be affected by other risks of a wider nature, including acts of terrorism”.

Admittedly, the effort against terrorism also needs a rethinking of NATO’s institutional structure. Understanding terrorism’s peculiarity is important to tackle NATO’s adjustment appropriately. As duly noted, “terrorism is a strategy, not an enemy”. The enemy deploying terrorism is not state-based, as it used to be during the cold war. Terrorism does not necessarily use the conventional weapons that a state would. 9/11 was not carried out through a weapon of mass destruction and yet resulted in 3,000 civilian casualties. Of course, the new threat of biological and chemical terrorism must be added to the picture. As a consequence, it seems inevitable to envision new, specialized operational units within NATO. The Alliance has already successfully undertaken important initiatives in this regard. After Istanbul ’s Summit of June 2004, a multinational defense battalion against chemical and biological threats was established, and can be made available to any NATO country asking for it.

Coordination of national forces is also crucial to the antiterrorism effort. NATO should provide an institutional framework for the exchange of information among concerned national agencies. Permanent NATO units may set up a large database for the collection of sensitive files about terror activities. Top security and intelligence officials of NATO’s member states ought to meet on a regular basis to make sure that coordination is successful. Representatives of the rising Transatlantic Homeland Security should be a constant presence too. In the words of NATO: an Alliance for Freedom, “it is urgent for the Atlantic Alliance to organize a series of top-level meetings, not only among foreign and defense ministers, but also among the home affairs ministers of the member nations. This is the only means by which NATO can truly enter the political field of homeland security. […] The advantages of home affairs minister meetings are many. First of all, they can provide an initial multilateral forum at which European home affairs ministers can sit down alongside their American and Canadian counterparts. This would not mean reducing the contact levels and cooperation that exist bilaterally between Washington and many European countries. It would simply be a question of promoting a new framework for multilateral agreement. What is more, the European members of the EU already stage meetings of this kind amongst themselves, without diminishing other forms of closer cooperation at a lower level. Their experience would be extremely valuable to NATO.”

Terrorism has brought about challenges as well as opportunities for the revival of the Alliance . NATO has proven capable of outstanding dynamism since the end of the cold war. The extraordinary outbreak of transatlantic solidarity following 9/11 and the attacks in Europe will ultimately make NATO the successful institution in the war on terror.

Useful resources:

Maximizing NATO for the War on Terror: Presidential Leadership can Strengthen the Transatlantic Relationship by Defining and Pursuing Shared Homeland Security Interests. Center for the Study of the Presidency, 2005

NATO's Role in Confronting International Terrorism, Richard A. Clarke & Barry R. McCaffrey, C Richard Nelson, The Atlantic Council of the United States, Policy Paper, June 2004

Security Cooperation and Non-State Threats: A Call for an Integrated Strategy, Colonel Albert Zaccor, The Atlantic Council of the United States, Occasional Paper, August 2005

Terrorism: a reference tool, Jolita Zabarauskaite, Streit Council Fellow, 2006

The Struggle with Terrorists: Recent Developments, Jolita Zabarauskaite, Streit Council Fellow, 2006