Today's NATO meeting in Prague is being billed as one of the mostimportant since the end of the second World War. Deaglán deBréadún looks at the evolution of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganisation
The American statesman Dean Acheson famously said in 1962 that Britain had lost an empire but still not found a role. It might be said of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that it has lost a role and is still defining a new one.
Our enemies often define us and this was certainly the case with NATO, which was set up as a bulwark of the Free World against the encroachments of communism. As long as the Cold War continued, NATO was "hot".
Now the Cold War is over and the "evil empire", as Ronald Reagan described the Soviet bloc, has been transformed into a set of free-market democracies of varying quality. The Russian bear may not be quite cuddly just yet, but its claws look distinctly less threatening.
After the Berlin Wall came down, it looked as if there was nobody to fight any more and some said NATO should be wound up, leaving a newly united Europe to look after its own security, both internal and external.
But the wars in the Balkans gave NATO a new lease of life. Europe dithered and wrung its hands, the United Nations stood by while thousands were slaughtered at Srebrenica and it was left to the US-driven Atlantic alliance to pick up the pieces. Not everyone is happy with the way NATO went about the job, or with the final result, for that matter, but the Balkans are more or less stable and quiescent for the moment.
The European Union is developing a military capability through its Rapid Reaction Force but it remains open to question whether the EU has sufficient internal cohesion or commitment to provide a convincing long-term replacement for NATO, the leaders of which are meeting today and tomorrow in Prague.
Meanwhile, the events of September 11th have thrown the whole field of international security into confusion. The many-headed monster of apocalyptic terrorism, very difficult to anticipate and apparently impossible to appease, stalks the world scene. Traditionally confined to the European stage, NATO has been playing second fiddle to the unilateral US action in the "war against terrorism" but those who wish the alliance to remain alive will want it to play a bigger role in this new and highly complicated conflict.
Ostensibly, the main item on the agenda for the NATO summit in Prague today and tomorrow is to issue a formal invitation to seven new countries to join the alliance. They are: the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, plus Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania.
But the issue of NATO expansion will be overshadowed by the possibility, if not probability, of war with Iraq. President Bush has come to town with a substantial entourage and regime change on his mind. It looks likely that NATO will rally behind the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq but Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Dr Condoleezza Rice, has said she expects that the US will hear, from its NATO partners, what they are willing and able to do on Iraq.
IRELAND is not a member of NATO but it has a walk-on part as a member of the Partnership for Peace (PfP), consisting of countries which want a formal relationship with the alliance but are either unwilling or ineligible to join NATO proper.
It was initially expected that the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, would attend and later it seemed the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, might go in his place, although no decision had been taken.
In the event, the Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, will be there. One political wag quipped that it would be "30 Prime Ministers and Dick Roche" and the decision to dispatch a non-Cabinet member to Prague suggests a lack of political enthusiasm for full-blooded involvement with NATO. The recent referendum debate on Nice Treaty indicated this was the public view also.
Mr Roche will attend tomorrow's meeting of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (replacing the more narrowly-based North Atlantic Co-operation Council, which was tied in more closely with NATO). This is essentially a forum for co-operation and consultation between NATO and the PfP. Ireland joined PfP in 1999 but without holding the referendum promised by Fianna Fáil in the previous general election. At the time of joining, the government stated: "Ireland pursues a policy of military neutrality, and does not intend to become a member of NATO."
The EAPC meeting will be chaired by NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson, although a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman stressed that it was "quite separate" from today's NATO meeting. Other neutral or non-aligned countries, such as Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, would be represented.
The Department spokesman said there was "not a lot of substance" to the agenda, which includes consideration of two documents. The first document reviews the state of the PfP. The second is an action-plan against terrorism, which seeks to reinforce the work of other international organisations in this respect.
Participation in PfP allows members decide for themselves how much they want to get involved. Whether Mr Roche will get, or indeed take, the opportunity to speak at the meeting remains to be seen.
THERE will be no Irish military personnel at the NATO summit, although members of our Defence Forces are working alongside NATO soldiers in UN-mandated peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. A Defence Forces spokesman said Irish soldiers had taken part in unarmed PfP military exercises for the purpose of ensuring technical compatibility, e.g., with radio equipment. The Department of Foreign Affairs said the "relevance" of taking part in PfP was that it enhanced Ireland's capacity to take part in UN-mandated operations. Ireland is also committed to taking part in the EU's Rapid Reaction Force but the spokesman said there was no institutional link.
This week, a senior Czech opposition politician told me, with a playful smile, that he did not believe the summit had any great significance apart from showing pretty pictures of Prague on world television. The Czechs are already members of NATO, of course: they may no longer be seriously worried about Russian aggression but some of them see the Atlantic link as a useful counterbalance to German and French political and economic influence.
Senior Czech politicians said NATO would never be superseded because EU countries could not increase military spending to match the capacity of the US. Cutting the welfare budget to buy more tanks would not wash with European voters.
Deaglán de Bréadún is Foreign Affairs Correspondent of The Irish Times