EU member-states under NATO have been paying close attention to Eastern Europe and Eurasia, a point that usually fails to garner much attention in US foreign policy. Recently, the US command in Europe decided to shift its NATO-affiliated personnel from western European countries like Germany to places closer to Eurasia, such as Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania. With the recent expansion of NATO to include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, and Malta, there is a closer emphasis on looking eastward into trouble spots to which NATO previously could not extend. On March 2, 2005, NATO signed an agreement with Georgia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Salome Zourabichvili to allow transit of supplies from Europe to reach war-torn Afghanistan. Collaboration with NATO can also bring countries on Europe’s periphery closer into the international community.

Additionally, there is the frequently ignored humanitarian struggle that fails to garner sufficient attention from geopolitical gurus and pundits. Poverty, malnutrition, and lack of economic development are still problems that lack satisfactory solutions. This is something to which no one country has been paying marked attention. However, they cannot be blamed, as most countries lack the substantial resources needed to meet their geopolitical goals as well as their humanitarian ones. NATO provides a broad base from which substantial soft power can emanate. Recently, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Secretary-General of NATO, told an audience in Spain that spreading democracy “remains the best answer to terror.” This may well intersect with UN initiatives, but de Hoop Scheffer believes that “the most effective way [to fight terrorism] is to have a combination of all the things in our inventory, and that goes from nation-building to intelligence to diplomacy, political talks, and if necessary, military power.” It is here that NATO has been focusing its attention, and it is in this direction that NATO should focus more of its energies in the future.

Even given these goals, no one onlooker can provide a comprehensive checklist for what NATO needs to accomplish. The international representatives who arrived in Washington in 1949 to sign the North Atlantic Treaty were probably well aware of this. Articles 10 to 14 in the Treaty open the possibility for changes that member countries may later enact. The revisions may concern not only “the North Atlantic area,” but also “regional arrangements…for the maintenance of international peace and security.” Too often, critics concern themselves with only the concrete aspects of the North Atlantic Treaty. However, they miss the crux of the relationship: there is an undeniable similarity in ideals between NATO’s member countries that needs to be affirmed. To say that NATO is obsolete because its function as a military alliance is obsolete confuses means with ends. In this respect, it is very clear why early proponents of NATO shied away from referring to it only as an alliance.

Renewed commitment is key; the fundamental problem is that arguing can render liberal democracy ineffective. As Kagan wrote in Paradise and Power, France thinks of the United States as “the American Leviathan unbound,” while US cartoonists see Europeans as stuffed shirts. However, the petty differences must be thrown out. What we now think of as “the West” needs to gain greater coherency not only for its own sake, but for the world’s benefit. Their role in a great multilateral framework like NATO demands that they also have a measure of responsibility to work together to help maintain the stability of the world order.