NATO Brotherhood? Not so Much

Following the Pentagon announcement earlier this week that President Bush had authorized an "'extraordinary, one-time' deployment of about 3,200 Marines to Afghanistan for seven months starting this spring," tensions between the US and its NATO allies ratcheted up after critical remarks by Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
He told the LA Times that "we're deploying [military advisors] that are not properly trained and I'm worried we have some military forces that don't know how to do counterinsurgency operations." Although he didn't cite particular countries, according to the paper Gates "compared the troubled experience of the NATO forces in the south -- primarily troops from the closest U.S. allies, Britain and Canada, as well as the Netherlands -- with progress made by American troops in the eastern part of Afghanistan."
A British Ministry of Defence spokesman said the MOD "was told that the British would certainly be last on the list if indeed he was criticising Nato countries. But it is self-evident that Nato does not have a history of counter-insurgency." Gates spoke with Canada's Defence Minister Peter MacKay who said he was "taken aback" by Gates' comments in the LATimes article. He said Gates had expressed "regret and embarrassment" over the article's reported comments. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said "officials from the United States at all levels have always conveyed their appreciation and confidence in Canadian Forces and I've heard that from both military and non-military sources and I believe Secretary Gates conveyed that to Minister MacKay yesterday. So there should be no misinterpretation of those comments vis a vis Canada."
As for the Dutch, Labour MP Martijn van Dam said "an apology would not be out of place." According to RadioNetherlands, the LA Times insisted that "the defence secretary had been quoted correctly and that his comments were on tape ... [and that] the interview could not have been published without permission from the Pentagon.
More broadly, however, Gates' comments reveal the lack of a unified NATO approach to Afghanistan. This isn't a new dilemma; NATO countries such as Germany have long criticized the mission focus from the outset. German parliamentarian Hans Reidel, who's also a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, said in 2007 "if we'd had the same approach in the South as in the North there would now be fewer problems with the population because they would see that apart from just military action things are also being done for the population. To put it crudely: I cannot tell someone 'You are my friend but first I'll throw a bomb on your head ... Or first I'll destroy your main source of income without giving you a replacement."
(Of course, it's not in the north where the Taliban are engaged with western troops but the south)
A German official also cited domestic opposition to using German troops in combat as "not an excuse; it's simply reality -- coalition reality and domestic reality."
The core of problem regarding the lack of coordination afflicting the NATO approach can be seen in comments made by Britain's Air Chief Marshall Sir Jock Stirrup: "There is a common misperception that the issues in Afghanistan, and indeed elsewhere around the world, can be dealt with by military means. That's a false perception. The military is a key, an essential element in dealing with those problems, but by and large these problems can only be resolved politically."
To that end Britain entered secret negotiations with Taliban members in an effort to create a wedge and thus split its various factions. But, reported the UK Guardian, "the policy has been resisted by the US military, which is suspicious of attempts to negotiate with "terrorists" and which instead relies heavily on military force. 'The Americans have a way of painting this black and white,' said one European official. 'For them it's like a cowboy film - you're either a good guy or a bad guy. But anyone with any experience in this country knows it's not that simple.'"
No, indeed. As former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN) observed, "NATO's internecine fractures are symptomatic of a lack of coordination at the highest levels. NATO allies differ over eradicating Afghanistan's constantly expanding poppy fields. Britain gives its aid to the Afghan government, but the U.S. prefers to entrust its aid to American private contractors."
He concluded, "the American commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul has said that NATO's fate is tied to Afghanistan's. He is right. If NATO cannot summon the will to eradicate the Taliban and give Afghans an opportunity to achieve peace and stability, the alliance's value to the United States, Canada and Europe -- not to mention the rest of the world -- will be in doubt, and it will prove once again the old adage that Afghanistan is easy to invade, but difficult to pacify."