NATO's Bucharest summit: implications for Afghanistan

The NATO Summit in Bucharest last month saw many hints of progress, but largely fell short on the most pressing question for the alliance: Afghanistan.  On the upside, Croatia and Albania were invited to join.  France announced its probable return to the NATO fold and efforts continued to convince members to take a more active role in Afghanistan.  

However, it is unlikely that the Afghan “Vision Statement” issued by the summit will bring much comfort to President Karzai or the Afghan populace.  The summit failed to seriously debate, let alone resolve, the pressing issues of the strategic fragmentation of the NATO mission in Afghanistan and the national caveats which make the Alliance a two (or even three) tier organisation.  Admitting new members to an organisation that still needs to resolve what it actually should be may not be a wise approach.

With the personal attendance of President Karzai, Afghanistan was expected to dominate the summit.   A document entitled “Progress in Afghanistan” was published to coincide with the summit and in the Vision statement the alliance reaffirmed its “long-term commitment” to the country.  In actuality, however, old issues including expansion, Russian influence, missile defence, and French membership took a significant share of the debate.   

But the situation in Afghanistan verges on the existential for NATO.  A raft of international assessments over the last six months have highlighted the lack of progress being made in Afghanistan - with specific criticism levelled at NATO's performance.  The Manley Report referenced: “...serious failures of strategic direction, and persistent fragmentation in the efforts of ISAF and NATO...”, and the Atlantic Council gloomily reported: “Make no mistake, NATO is not winning in Afghanistan”.  Perhaps bleakest of all was the European Council on Foreign Relations: “Failure in Afghanistan is now a realistic prospect.”  

Strong concerns continued to be voiced within the alliance by some member nations claiming that other alliance partners were not doing enough to share the burden of fighting in the country.  The US continued to lobby for extra troops – some US military commanders wanting around 10,000 more.  

In the end, it was France that saved part of the day – certainly in public relations terms.  While offers of small quantities of troops were received from Romania, Croatia and Portugal, the crucial “big battalions” offer came from France, pledging what NATO spokesman James Appathurai described as “...a substantial military contribution to Afghanistan”.  In practise this will probably amount to a battalion of perhaps only 700 new soldiers.  

Furthermore, in a decision that appeared to reverse de Gaulle's 1966 decision to withdraw from NATO's military command, President Sarkozy announced: “At the end of the French presidency of the European Union the moment will have come to conclude this process and to take the necessary decisions for France to take its full place in NATO's structures”, suggesting that France is likely to rejoin the Alliance's integrated command structure next year.

Nonetheless, the Bucharest summit is unlikely to be remembered as a significant milestone in Afghanistan's development.  Many issues equally as important as troop numbers could have been addressed (the performance and future of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), NATO's potential for involvement in counter narcotics, national caveats...), but were either glossed over or ignored completely.  The likely French reintegration in the NATO command restructure and additional contribution to the Afghanistan mission will be some grounds for encouragement within NATO.  However, although the Americans will now be able to re-shuffle forces to prop up the Canadians, the total falls well short of their demands, almost certainly compelling the US to carry any additional load.  

The sight of a NATO summit scrabbling to raise a few hundred  soldiers (against a total of 47,000 already in the country) and a handful of helicopters will not play well to the Afghan or global audience and probably encourages the insurgency.  Recall too that many tens of thousands of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers in the country are unable to take a significant part in operations against the Taleban either because they are not trained and resourced for counter-insurgency operations or the rules imposed by their home governments prevent them from doing so.

One thing is clear: Afghanistan remains vital for the credibility of the alliance.  However, “failure is not an option” is a bold declaration that may return to haunt.  Issues such as caveats on military deployments continue to undermine – perhaps critically – NATO's  ability to perform.  This is something of which the Afghan population, its government and the Taleban are becoming equally aware.  A couple of Afghan editorial headlines from April may be suggestive of wider feelings - “Bucharest, a summit without achievement" (Rah-e Nejat), and "NATO summit in Bucharest: Support the presence or the start of a withdrawal?" (Arman-e Melli).  Demonstrating growing understanding of the wider world and what makes the West tick, the Taleban, gradually moving away from purely body-count based statements, have made their own comments on the value of Bucharest.  The gap between what NATO thinks it has achieved on the one hand and perceptions within key quarters of the Afghan population on the other is growing wider than ever.