NATO ... going beyond

I am rather concerned by the statement yesterday that NATO is to take control of the military operation in Libya.

Statement by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Libya

     

NATO Allies have decided to take on the whole military operation in Libya under the United Nations Security Council Resolution. Our goal is to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas under threat of attack from the Gaddafi regime. NATO will implement all aspects of the UN Resolution. Nothing more, nothing less.

This is a very significant step, which proves NATO's capability to take decisive action.

In the past week, we have put together a complete package of operations in support of the United Nations Resolution by sea and by air. We are already enforcing the arms embargo and the No Fly Zone, and with today's decision we are going beyond. We will be acting in close coordination with our international and regional partners to protect the people of Libya.

We have directed NATO's top operational Commander to begin executing this operation with immediate effect.

NATO, 27 March 2011

In my view, it is probably possible to justify the United Nations' resolution to take military action in Libya. However I think we need to ask very serious questions about why the UN should permit such military action in one country while not taking the same position in other countries where attempts have been made to overthrow its leader. But a change in the general policy of not intervening in the internal affairs of countries is in itself not a bad thing.

I also think that Western governments have made a mistake in thinking that the population of Libya detests Gadaffi to the same extent as they do. Gadaffi seems to have considerable support among sections of the population of Libya, so we are taking sides in a civil war, but without any real idea of what elements we are fighting to bring to power instead. For there is a big difference between a popular uprising that involves only civil protest and therefore offers the possibility of a democratic solution in an undivided country, and a military solution by which an alternative faction will take control and perhaps make things no better.

In a very real sense the governments of the attacking countries are following the pattern of shooting first and leaving the questions until later. They are doing little more than trusting to luck.

     

However, those are different issues. The issue I want to focus on is why NATO as an organization should become involved. I don't think anyone could read the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 as anything other than setting up an alliance for mutual defence in response to an attack on any of its members. Yet NATO seems to be inexorably changing into a force that is openly being used for offensive purposes.

Perhaps, but only perhaps, one could claim that the security of some of NATO's member countries was threatened by Afghanistan. I would call it an indirect and at best a very tenuous link. Yet NATO is there, halfway across the world from the legitimate sphere of concern set out in its founding Treaty. However in the case of Libya, there is absolutely no threat to the security of any other country, let alone one that is a member of NATO. It is a purely internal matter.

So it is perhaps legitimate for countries such as the USA, France and the UK ... plus others such as Belgium, Canada and Qatar to conduct attacks in Libya in their own right, as an "alliance of the willing". But it cannot be legitimate for a defensive organization to conduct such attacks, even if all 28 members were to agree that they want to be involved in the operation.

NATO has served us well over the past 60 years, and all organizations need to adapt over time; but to my mind these fundamental changes are now taking NATO way beyond its intended purpose and can only weaken it. In Afghanistan we have already seen the reluctance of some members to contribute their own forces to operations they aren't keen on. Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Iceland and Luxembourg have not contributed to the NATO led forces in Afghanistan, other members only contributed limited logistic support and others seem only to have made a nominal contribution on condition that their armed forces were as far out of harm's way as possible. In this new operation in Libya even fewer will take part. This is quite understandable, but by setting the precedent of only taking part if you want to, NATO runs the risk of countries taking the same attitude if any member were actually to be attacked ... and that's what it's really there for.