NATO Behind the Trigger

This week, the United States Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, denounced his NATO allies’ attitude towards war. He claimed they do not invest in defense because they have assumed a pacifist mentality. They don’t want to perceive threats, and when they do, the means to cancel them are always considered outlandish or dangerous.

And he is correct: Europeans don’t spend on defense, and, save notable exceptions, it does not even cross their minds to have to fight. One needs only to see the continuous attempts by the government to view the situation of their troops in Afghanistan through rose colored glasses.

Robert Gates depicts a grave problem for NATO; if the post-Bush Americans don’t see any use in NATO, the organization is doomed to starvation and progressive marginality. But NATO also has another grave problem among its citizens: a large majority does not know what the purpose of the organization is now that the Cold War is a thing of the past.

Yet we must recognize the endurance of public opinion: the deaths and injuries in Afghanistan are approaching 2,000 and 50,000 respectively, but they accept this with resignation, along with the civilian casualties. It is surprising, for example, that in the past week the NATO troops have killed almost 50 innocent civilians, including a dozen children, and no one objected.

The true strategic problem of NATO is that it continues without wanting to adapt to what war is, right now, in the 21st century. It is a dirty, confusing, insipid war where nothing is what it seems, where civilians are combatants and combatants shield themselves with children, women, hospitals and places of worship. A war without codes and where there is no room for a soldier’s honor. Like it or not.