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NATO 2.0

Reboot or Delete?
by Sarwar A. Kashmeri
NATO 2.0: Reboot or Delete? Potomac. 2011. c.280p. photogs. bibliog. index. ISBN 9781597976640. $29.95. INT AFFAIRS
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The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union left NATO needing to redefine its purpose. Kashmeri (senior fellow, International Security Program, Atlantic Council; America and Europe After 9/11) discusses the challenges that NATO-member states have faced since then, including cyber-attacks, threats to GPS satellites, and military actions against nonmember states. The eastward expansion of NATO membership, incorporating former Soviet satellite states, has created differing interests, with newer members concerned about a possible land invasion by Russia. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU), to which most NATO members belong, has a separate defense policy under which it has sent troops in support of UN peacekeeping missions and in aid of nonmilitary crises. Kashmeri depicts the EU operations as more smoothly run and more successful than similar NATO operations, e.g., in the former Yugoslavia, and believes that NATO can justify its continued existence only if it finds a way to work more closely with the EU.
VERDICT Lengthy descriptions of NATO's bureaucracy and its guiding documents are more than general readers will likely care to know about and leave Kashmeri's arguments incomplete and his policy recommendations inadequate for the quandary he describes. An optional purchase for specialists.
Reviewed by Marcia L. Sprules, Council on Foreign Relations Lib., New York , May 01, 2011
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