NATO has failed to answer serious questions about its future role in enhancing world security, writes Deaglán de Bréadún
There was an air of self-congratulation as the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ended its summit meeting in Prague. Apart from a couple of tomatoes thrown at the Alliance's Secretary General, Lord Robertson, everything appeared to have gone smoothly and even the tomatoes missed their target.
Seven countries from behind the former Iron Curtain were invited to become members; a joint statement was issued on Iraq which papered over the divisions; and commitments were made to intensify the fight against terrorism and to create a NATO Response Force for quick deployment to trouble spots.
These days, the media image is considered at least as important as the political substance and there were more than enough pictures of smiling world leaders to outweigh the footage of poorly-attended demonstrations in the Czech capital. President Bush went on to St Petersburg for a meeting with his new-found friend, President Putin, and from there to a rapturous reception in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, a country that is now on the threshold of NATO membership.
In Romania, another port of call for the US President, citizens were so delighted at the prospect of joining NATO that one of them composed a special song. "NATO and happiness have come over Romania," it went. "I can say without fear that little George is coming here." It would be churlish not to lift a glass to the celebrating Lithuanians, Romanians and others who were oppressed for so many years by Stalin, Brezhnev, Ceausescu and their like. But amid all the euphoria of the east Europeans and the smug satisfaction in a number of summit speeches, there were still some nagging questions and concerns.
NATO is a very large military alliance which is about to become even larger, going from 19 to 26 members. It has access, through its member-states, to the sinews of war in abundance, from nuclear and conventional weapons to massive forces on land, at sea and in the air. Nothing like it has been seen before.
And yet there are question marks over its future and even its current usefulness. The tragic events of September 11th were brought about by a small group of determined zealots wielding nothing more lethal than box-cutters or Stanley knives. What use are nuclear weapons in such a scenario?
The attacks of "9-11" could have been prevented by better intelligence-gathering, sharper police work, proper airport security, a more watchful immigration service and greater vigilance among ordinary citizens. NATO is no more suited to this job than a bear is to catching wasps.
The summit saw a renewal of vows in the war against terrorism. But al-Qaeda was hardly trembling in its shoes. When this terrorist organisation sends out its deadly packages, there is no return address. How can you strike against an enemy when you don't even know where he lives? Happily, the terrorists did not strike at the NATO summit. But NATO's enemies scored a victory of sorts in that they obliged the authorities to close down a whole city.
The picturesque Czech capital was a virtual ghost town. Offices closed, residents took off for the country, traffic was almost non-existent. Apart from military patrols, no planes flew over the city and even the birds in the trees seemed to have fallen silent.
In this way, fear drove a wedge between the ordinary people and their leaders.
What a contrast with the crowded Prague streets during the "Velvet Revolution" of November, 1989, without which the holding of a NATO summit in the Czech capital would not have been possible.
At least the leaders had their meeting in a city and not in a remote mountain eyrie as sometimes happens with major international gatherings. But it was sad to see so many democratically-elected heads of state and government hidden from the people behind walls of police and security forces in black, "Darth Vader" uniforms.
The turnout was very high-powered, except for the Irish representation. Sensitivities about our neutrality meant that when George Bush, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schröder, Silvio Berlusconi and Tony Blair represented their respective countries at a meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), the Irish seat was occupied by a non-Cabinet member, the Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche.
The EAPC is a forum for consultation between NATO countries and those, like Ireland, who are not ready, willing or able to join the Alliance. The non-NATO participants are members of the Partnership for Peace (PfP), which promotes better military relations and co-operation with full NATO members.
Despite the fact that the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson, chaired the EAPC meeting, Mr Roche stoutly insisted it was not a NATO event and that, although he was in Prague, he was not attending the NATO summit. Even his meeting with Irish journalists did not take place in the summit conference centre, but at a nearby hotel.
But the Czech President and former dissident icon, Vaclav Havel, did not let Ireland off the hook. In his opening speech to the summit, he said NATO should "declare permanent accessibility" to neutral countries like Finland, Switzerland and Ireland.
Sooner or later these countries would question the point of neutrality when there were no longer two major opposing power-blocs "and when the common enemy of all consists of organised crime, terror or the advancement of weapons of mass destruction".
Whether the answer to these threats consists in joining NATO is very much an open question. Mr Havel himself described the alliance as "a large, but somewhat empty structure" of commanders without troops and committees without influence, until member-states made their forces available.
Whether NATO is capable of being transformed into the kind of instrument suitable for dealing with future Muhammad Attas and their fanatical followers, is far from clear and open to some serious doubt.
If, as many expect, there is another "9-11", it will come where we least expect it and at our most vulnerable point. In this doomsday scenario, gatherings of smiling politicians remote from the ordinary people and bunkers full of missiles with no target to aim at probably won't be much help.
Deaglán de Bréadún is the Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times