Does the 63-year-old Alliance still matter today? In advance of the NATO summit in Chicago, The Atlantic Council and Foreign Policy asked politicians, scholars, and other observers from both sides of the Atlantic to weigh in.
Heads of state, ministers of defense and foreign affairs, intelligence officers, and current and former members of Congress were among the respondents who answered our call. While none of them thought NATO should cease to exist or that the United States would be better off leaving the Alliance, they were less certain about whether NATO can adapt to a changing geopolitical and military landscape — and just who will foot the bill for future operation.
They rated Greece, currently struggling to repay its crushing debt load, the top candidate to be kicked out of the Alliance, exhibited deep divides on how to handle a troubled relationship with Russia, predicted that NATO would be unable to pull off another Libya-style intervention three years from now, and overwhelmingly viewed the Afghan mission as a failure.
Participants (59): David Aaron, David Abrahams, Rafael Bardaji, Hans Binnendijk, Dirk Brengelmann, Yves Brodeur, Ian Brzezinski, Frances Burwell, Christopher Chivvis, W. Eugene Cobble, Heather Conley, Marios Efthymiopoulos, Charles Freeman, Karsten Friis, Jeremy Ghez, Ana Maria Gomes, James Goldgeier, Ulrike Guerot, Jason Healey, P. Terrence Hopmann, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, James Joyner, Rasa Jukneviciene, Karl Kaiser, Lawrence Kaplan, Sarwar Kashmeri, Sean Kay, Daniel Keohane, Jim Kolbe, Aleksander Kwasniewśki, Iurie Leanca, Henrik Liljegren, Julian Lindley-French, Richard Lugar, Jüri Luik, George Maior, Tomas Malmlöf, Sally McNamara, Alessandro Minuto Rizzo, Clara Marina O’Donnell, Ioan Mircea Pascu, Shuja Nawaz, Boyko Noev, Barry Pavel, J. Peter Pham, Tomas Ries, Matthew Rojansky, Stephen Saideman, Kori Schake, Daniel Serwer, Stanley R. Sloan, John Tanner, Jan Techau, Kenneth Weisbrode, Damon Wilson, Boguslaw Winid, Jörg Wolf, Dov Zakheim, Michael Zilmer-Johns.
Produced by Jorge Benitez and Margaret Slattery.
Unless otherwise noted, figures indicate number of responses.
MEDIA MENTIONS
- Mad Libs: NATO – Foreign Policy
- The Future of NATO – Foreign Policy
- NATO: Death by a thousand little spending cuts? – Macleans
- Accepting Our Limits Makes for a Stronger Alliance – atlantic-community.org
- Greece top candidate to be kicked out of the alliance – DefenseGreece.com
- NATO Survey – Steven Saideman, Saideman’s Semi-Spew
- New Survey shows Greece ‘most likely to get kicked out of NATO’ – Macedonian International News Agency
- Atlantic Council/Foreign Policy Survey: The Future of NATO – Balkan Story
- Greece is the NATO member-state most likely to be kicked out of the Alliance – EMG
- Transatlantic Must-Reads – SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations
- Foreign policy experts are unanimous on the need for NATO – Estonian TV ERR
- Ohio Wesleyan Expert Weighs In on NATO’s Future – Connect2OWU
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