The Realist

A piece in The New York Times on NATO reads:

In many cases, European capitals have placed severe restrictions on their forces assigned to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, or I.S.A.F. That has been such a hindrance to the war effort, in the view of some American commanders, that they ruefully say the alliance mission’s initials now stand for “I Saw America Fight.”

To be sure, a number of NATO and other partner nations have sent troops to Afghanistan who have fought and died in percentages larger than those of the American military. Australian, British, Canadian, Dutch and French conventional forces have shed much blood, and commando units from some of the smaller, newer NATO allies in the Baltics have punched far above their weight, according to American Special Operations commanders.

But even in allied countries whose soldiers have fought so well, public opinion does not support an increase of troops sent to what seems to be an endless war far away in a country that has always ejected foreign occupiers.

Although on the face of it this is the reason why NATO countries won’t send more troops to Afghanistan, this is only a very shallow level of interpretation.  Beyond the task of defending Europe from Russia, it is hard to imagine any mission for the alliance more vital than Afghanistan.  The enemy whom first provoked us to invoke Article 5 (mutual self-defence) of the NATO charter – the Taliban and al-Qaeda – are not defeated, and are growing bolder.  They threaten not only the United States, but also Britain, France and Germany.  Staving off Pakistan’s collapse is the most important security challenge on the globe right now for almost everyone from China to Russia to the United States, but especially for NATO countries.

The mission may be tough and might now seem impossible, but western nations do not have the luxury of walking away from it.  This is the basic difference between the U.S. and Europe, and the reason that the U.S. is the indispensible nation: it has always been guided by an understanding that if it doesn’t address problems of systemic importance to the international system, then it is likely that no-one else will.  And this is just the latest example of the unwillingness of European nations to step up to the plate.  This unwillingness stems from the attitudes and priorities that have developed in European nations during the Cold War and in its aftermath.

European governments don’t really have many options in Afghanistan right now because of very nature of their polities – this is why Obama hasn’t really pressured other NATO countries to provide significant help.  He just knows it isn’t going to happen, because the European countries can’t afford it and domestic public opinion makes it unpalatable.  So this problem isn’t so much about the choices of current leaders – because choice isn’t really something they have – but about the myriad choices over the decades which led us to this point where we are completely helpless in the face of a systemic threat to international security.

It’s not because our armed forces are not heroic or capable, but because we are so touchy about their use.  While Americans have come to see armed intervention as a regular feature of their political life, most NATO countries have not – nor do they have the experience of having changed the world for the better with military force which the U.S. has had such frequent experience with.  True, we have not made the mistakes or suffered the disasters that the U.S. has either, but public opinion remains deeply sceptical about the military enterprise.  It is also the case that it was the U.S. and not Europe that was hit on 9/11 (and Britain in 2005) – it may well be that it will take al-Qaeda attacks that can be linked to Pakistan against France and Germany to get the other European powers moving.

It’s very easy to criticize the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or to say the situation is hopeless, but it seems pretty clear that doing nothing is not the answer.  Obama could have significantly undercut the arguments made on the surface in NATO countries against providing more troops if he had stressed that the Afghan battle was generational, crucial, and that he was throwing everything he had at it: it is not especially auspicious to see that General McKiernan thinks he needs an extra 10,000 troops which the White House hasn’t yet decided on.  Obama has created the impression of incrementalism and caution which might play over well with domestic constituencies who loathed Bush the Cowboy, but creates the impression of irresolution and of forfeiting the chance for strategic audacity among both the enemy and allies.  This makes it harder to sell troop increases to the populations of other NATO countries.

It’s also interesting to note that the departure of Bush hasn’t led to significant new offers of military aid to the effort in Afghanistan, as pundits said it might – hatred of Bush was always more of an excuse than a reason for NATO countries not helping.  Bush’s presence certainly made it harder to sell troop increases to NATO electorates, but this was by no means the primary reason why forces could not be sent – the wider problem is the general rejection of the need to use military force among NATO countries, for which Bush became a symbol.  But, even with Bush gone, international security waits for no country: as America turns more insular, we would be wise to remember this.