Editor's Note: In 2004, several commentators analyzed the future of NATO in the pages of The National Interest. Click here to see what they had to say in "Can NATO Survive Europe?"
IN ITS nearly sixty years of existence, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has often found itself in jeopardy. That is the case today. And Afghanistan is not the only cause célèbre.
NATO, of course, is one of history's great survivors. From Suez in 1956 to the Euromissile crisis 25 years later, and through the Vietnam and (so far) Iraq debacles, the alliance has persevered and often thrived. Following the September 11 attacks, NATO invoked-for the first time-Article 5, considering an attack on one an attack on all. NATO went to war against global terror, and in 2006 it assumed full responsibility for the un International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.
Imagine what NATO's founding fathers would think if they awakened today. NATO's first prolonged ground-combat operations did not take place along the inner-German border against Soviet forces, but in faraway Afghanistan. So, much has changed for the better. However, NATO's future very much hangs in the balance over Afghanistan and other critical and unresolved issues that linger from the Cold War.
