CIAO DATE: 05/2009
March 2009
As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization celebrates its 60th birthday, there are mounting signs of trouble within the alliance and reasons to doubt the organization's relevance regarding the foreign policy challenges of the 21st century. Several developments contribute to those doubts. Although NATO has added numerous new members during the past decade, most of them possess minuscule military capabilities. Some of them also have murky political systems and contentious relations with neighboring states, including (and most troubling) a nuclear-armed Russia. Thus, NATO's new members are weak, vulnerable, and provocative — an especially dangerous combination for the United States in its role as NATO's leader.
Resource link: NATO at 60: A Hollow Alliance [PDF] - 570K