Introduction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Law, Security and Power: A German/American Dialogue on NATO’s 60th Anniversary

Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been mired in existential crisis. This is not to say that it has become irrelevant: it experienced a dramatic expansion of membership in the 1990s that continues today. In addition, events following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, including the first-ever invocation of NATO’s article 5 collective security mechanism, signaled at least the possibility of meaningful accord. The end of the Bush Administration too carried some promise for NATO’s trans-atlanticism, especially with Barack Obama making hope and dialogue centerpieces of the foreign policy platform that launched his presidency.

Yet NATO continues to struggle to justify itself, as the 60th anniversary summit of last spring demonstrated so clearly. The run-up to that summit revealed some major fault lines. Many American policymakers view NATO as a bureaucratic bog from which Europeans extract their security without having to get their own feet wet. Europeans, on the other hand, are likelier to view NATO as the last vestige of America’s Cold War primacy. Disagreement exists also on the fundamental question of how best to advance geopolitical interests today—as reflected in the observation of one editorialist that “NATO and the United States do hard power, the European Union does soft power.” 1

The run-up to the summit also revealed consensus that Afghanistan is emerging as the test of NATO’s staying power.