SANA

BRUSSELS (SANA): On its 60th birthday, Nato faces a crisis and if Europe does not invest in the war efforts in Afghanistan, the transatlantic alliance will cease to matter.

As Afghanistan goes, so goes Nato. Interviews across the US foreign policy establishment reveal a unified belief that the authority of the transatlantic alliance will be won or lost in the Afghan war.

Military issues rarely transcend ideological divisions within the US diplomatic class. Yet stateside, it’s now more than rhetoric to define Afghanistan as Nato’s existential test. There is an emerging US consensus that if Europe does not reverse itself and significantly reinvest in the war effort, the transatlantic military treaty will cease to matter.

“Nato’s credibility is on the line,” said Sandy Berger, who served as national security adviser during the Clinton administration. “Nato needs to succeed in Afghanistan,” Berger added in an interview. “If it doesn’t, it really does undermine the vitality of the alliance.”

Or as John Bolton put it: “Ironically, the risk here is that Afghanistan looked like the future of Nato. It could become its graveyard.” A former US ambassador to the United Nations for George Bush, Bolton added that, “It’s in our interest to keep Nato viable. But it’s not in our interest to keep Nato viable at any cost.”

President Obama closes his first week abroad at the Nato summit on Friday and Saturday, marking the 60th anniversary of the alliance. But behind the celebrations are deep divisions between member-states over Nato’s war in Afghanistan and the role of the alliance itself.

Last Friday, Obama pledged still more US boots on the ground in Afghanistan. The president also committed thousands of US civilians over the long term to Afghani infrastructure, and by consequence the US to nation building.

Obama’s actions come as Nato allies rebuff requests to increase their troop commitment in the region. The exception may be Britain which is reportedly considering adding 2,000 troops, still a tenth the size of the US escalation. Nations like France may commit new civilian resources for police training or improving the Afghan bureaucracy. But the allies are generally present in the safer northern and western regions of the country. Germany requires its troops to be stationed in the north, effectively offering a force that will not fight. Meanwhile, US troops are increasingly facing the brunt of front-line warfare.

The asymmetric allied actions have forced Nato to face a crucial question: is the military alliance soon to be little more than a diplomatic pact?

After the United States was attacked on 11 September 2001, Nato invoked Article 5, its mutual defense declaration, for the first time. But now the endurance of Article 5 is being tested and as the fulcrum of the alliance, so is Nato.

Afghanistan amounts to Nato’s first war abroad, its first land war and its first trial in the post-September 11 era – an era where threats are less from states than from rogue actors.