The Future of NATO

Abstract

AUTHOR: Lieutenant Colonel Kim Schmidt TITLE: The Future of NATO FORMAT: Strategy Research Project DATE: 15 March 2012 WORD COUNT: 5,710 PAGES: 26 KEY TERMS: New Strategic Concept, Smarter Defense, Burden-sharing CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified For more than 60 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has united the West, kept Europe secure and seen the end of the cold war due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. At the strategic level, the greatest evolution in NATO since the end of the Cold War is the transition of NATO from a static defense force to an expeditionary force. NATO has deployed forces to remote and vast areas of the world for a decade. At the same time European national defense, budgets have fallen consistently. American public opinion toward Europe has fallen similarly and the majority of Americans think that the U.S. spends too much on the security of Europe. The alliance has restructured the number of NATO members have expanded and a new strategic concept is under implementation. This research paper analyzes NATO’s transatlantic cohesion. It discusses the future of NATO in the light of the new strategic concept and the obvious disagreement between Europe and America on how to set priorities and allocate resources.