Steven E. Meyer

Serbia: Democratization, External Pressure, and NATO

Summary: In this article the author investigates the subject of external circumstances and pressures on Serbia on its journey to fully develop a contemporary model of democracy. A critical evaluation of the Western generated mantra that Sebia must become part of Euro-Atlantic architecture is derived from the arbitrary determinations of democracy, the value judgements of the distinction between liberal and illiberal democracy and the examination of historical „waves“ of democratization. The author further argues that the primary instruments of democratization in the recent past had been American military resources and that it was officaly made clear that the goal of NATO is to to expand into Central and Eastern Europe. The cost for Serbia to join NATO would not be only a risky financial excersise, but is meaningless from the standpoint of security and Serbia's national interests as well.

Key words: Serbia, external pressures, democracy, NATO, democratic peace theory, Euro-Atlantic community, national interests.

Serbia has struggled to build a democratic society, governed by a democratic state, ever since the fall of Milosevic in 2000. Serbia's difficult history, especially the damaging legacy of Milosevic, the still unresolved issue of Kosovo-Metohija, internal political divisions and upheaval, the charge that Serbia is harboring indicted war criminals, and, perhaps most of all, the country's negative image in the West have combined to make the journey to democracy difficult and, at times, even torturous.

There are two fundamental reasons for these problems. First, are the issues internal and specific to Serbia, such as the nature of Serbian political culture, Serbia 's history, and the contemporary domestic issues that Serbia 's politicians and people are facing. These types of problems are not unique to Serbia. Every country that has developed democratic structures and functions, as well as civil societies, has faced similar issues. In most cases, though, it has taken decades of work and development before other countries—especially those Western powers that now sit in judgment of Serbia and others--to become mature democracies. In this realm Serbia needs to deal with fundamental questions of constitutional order, the nature of the economic system, and the contents of the social contract. These and many other critical questions need to be answered and, although this is proving to be an extremely difficult process in Serbia, answers likely will come eventually.

As interesting and important as these issues are, however, it is the second set of issues that concerns us here. Serbia —and other countries in Central and Eastern Europe —are facing external circumstances and pressures that are making the journey to democracy longer and more difficult than it likely needs to be. In short, these external circumstances and pressures constitute a framework imposed by the West, especially the United States , which defines how countries need to proceed if they want to be truly democratic and modern. The Western generated mantra is that Serbia and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe must become part of so-called Euro-Atlantic architecture . But, that term all too often has become little more than a slogan, a catch-all, shallow, feel-good aphorism that has little genuine substance behind it and bears little resemblance to the realities in Serbia or the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Consequently, there is little credibility in the advice—even the demand—that the so-called Euro-Atlantic community provides an appropriate model for new democracies and how to protect them. Arguably, there are six contemporary “variables” or “realities” that need to be considered in attempting to understand the post Cold war drive to democratization. (1)

The External Pressures

First, who defines what democracy is? That is, who determines whether a state is, in fact evolving toward democracy as well as modernization? In today's world the answer is clearly the West, primarily the United States , which determines sanctimoniously whether a society and a state are, indeed, on the road to democracy and whether they have attained enough of a position to be called a modern democracy. Although the Bush administration is fond of saying that each country is free to construct democracy that is consistent with its own culture, it is clear that Washington considers itself the final arbiter of what is and what is not a democratic polity. At times, the Bush administration will arbitrarily set the bar so high that most democratic aspirants find it difficult to meet the test. Even if elections are honest and open, Washington--as well as other Western governments—reserves the right to determine whether they are “genuinely” acceptable as democratic or dismissed as undemocratic. For example, although the West grudgingly accepted the triumph of Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian elections, it has attempted to isolate Hamas, refusing to deal with it in any international forum. Also, ever since the Dayton Accords were signed in 1995, the United States and the Western imposed High Representative have determined whether the election of specific political parties and politicians in Bosnia (especially the Republika Srpska) may hold office. The fact that they won those offices in open, free, and fair elections is of no consequence.

Confident in their own wisdom and experience, Western leaders too often say “do as we say—we know how to construct democratic states and societies and if you follow what we say—but, not necessarily what we have done—surely you will succeed.” Indeed, according to President Bush's cover letter to the 2002 National Security Strategy there is only one model that newly democratizing countries must follow if they truly want to be considered democratic and modern and that is the model prescribed by the United States. (2)

Second, closely aligned with the notion that the United States is the self proclaimed arbiter of what is and what is not democratic, is the distinction between liberal and illiberal democracy. This distinction carries with it two powerful value judgments that play to the benefit of the West, especially the United States. The distinction between liberal and illiberal democracies allows the mature, presumably liberal democracies of the West to distinguish themselves from less developed and, therefore, less deserving democracies. This distinction also provides the West with a mechanism to disqualify those democracies from support and recognition that are deemed illiberal or at least insufficiently developed to join the camp of liberal, true democracies. As the argument goes, liberal democracies are those that have “a political system marked not only by free and fair elections, but also rule of law, a separation of powers, and the protection of basic liberties of speech, assembly, religion, and property.” (3) In addition, liberal democracies almost always are wedded to civil society—the flourishing of many vibrant nongovernmental organizations that exist not only aside from government, but even more importantly as the free expressions of citizens' interest, wants, and needs. Illiberal democracies—usually defined as such by politicians and pundits in “liberal” democracies—are those where elections are held, but the people elected are committed to exactly the opposite attributes that define liberal democracies and do not respect the institution of civil society. The point is not to disparage the attributes of liberal democracy, but to underscore the fact that this distinction can—and is—used as a way to denigrate countries that do not meet the arbitrary standards of development laid down by the most powerful members of the international community to the detriment of some of the weakest members.

Third, states and societies have democratized in waves of development over approximately the past 200 years. According to Samuel Huntington, the democratization of states and societies have gone through three historical “waves.” The first applies broadly to a wave of democratization that engulfed the West for roughly 100 years, from 1826 to 1926. It is during this period that the societies and states of Western Europe and North America were established and, through a process of trial, error, upheaval, and gradual development, established what now are considered “mature” democracies. The second wave, spanning the period 1943 to 1962, saw the spread of democracy to the former Axis powers, to several previously non-democratic states in Latin America, and to many of the colonies of former imperial powers in Western Europe and North America that obtained their independence primarily in the years after World War II. For many of these former imperial holdings, which have retained a plethora of the trappings of their “traditional” settings, democracy has been an imperfect and sometimes thing, especially as defined by the “advanced” West. The third wave saw democracy take hold when the Portuguese dictatorship was overthrown in 1974 and lasted until approximately 1990 when democracy or liberalization spread to several countries in Europe, Asia, Africa , and Latin America. (4)

It may be argued that we now can extend Huntington 's analysis to include a fourth wave of democratization—one that is seeing democracy spread throughout the countries of the former Warsaw Pact. Although this wave comes close on the heels of Huntington 's third wave, it is different and unique since all of the countries are in Europe and have experienced similar patterns of socialism. While it is certainly true that the various countries in Central and Eastern Europe have experienced different levels of Soviet involvement and internal repression, they all regained their independence at approximately the same time and have embarked on the path to democracy and modernization with some of the same political, economic, social, and psychological “baggage.”

As Huntington demonstrates, each of the first three waves was followed within a short period of time by a counter wave during which democratic structures and functions suffered reversals. What Huntington was pointing to, however, was not a permanent, irretrievable reversal, but sort of the birth pangs of a journey to a more complete democracy. Unfortunately, leaders in the West hypocritically overlook their own irregular path to democracy and find any retreat from a prescribed path by newly democratizing countries, such as Serbia , to be unacceptable.

Fourth, despite frequent bouts of hypocrisy, the U.S. driven concept of democratization, under girded by a democratic peace theory, has become the clarion call of the contemporary political age. This is so because advocating the democratization of the entire world has become the rhetorical—if not the only operational--linchpin of American foreign policy. It is featured in glowing terms in virtually every speech and foreign policy pronouncement by Bush administration officials seemingly at every level. Although increasingly hollow, repeated, sanctimonious democratic sloganeering has become one of the litmus tests for the neoconservative movement and, consequently, provides the philosophical foundation for the foreign policy of the administration. The call for democracy is nothing new in American foreign policy, but the current administration became viscerally wedded to the idea only after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 and decided that force of arms was a legitimate—and perhaps the preferred--way to instill democracy in undemocratic countries. As Andrew Bacevich has noted, “Already in the 1990s America 's marriage of a militaristic cast of mind with utopian ends had established itself as the distinguishing element of contemporary U.S. policy.” (5) An administration that began life claiming it would return U.S. foreign policy firmly to a realist foundation (6) after eight years of President Clinton's still born idealism , turned 360 degrees to adopt that exact idealism it had earlier condemned. In fact, the Bush administration has established a crusading, militant Wilsonian idealism that has outdone its originator and name sake, and has repeatedly said that democracy—coupled with market economies—is the only acceptable model for the construction of political community. (7)

Certainly, most people today would agree that democratic government offers genuine, valuable benefits--as Winston Churchill said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” But, basing a foreign policy so strongly on the varying historical vicissitudes of democratization and democratic peace theory is often counterproductive and even dangerous. (8) In their excellent article, “The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” Schwartz and Skinner demonstrate “that neither the historical record nor the theoretical arguments advanced for the purpose provide any support for democratic pacifism. It does not matter how high or low one sets the bar of democracy. Set it high enough to avoid major exceptions and you will find few, if any, democracies until the Cold war era. Then there were no wars between them, of course. But, the fact is better explained by NATO and bipolarity than by any shared form of government. Worse, the peace among high-bar democracies of that era was part of a larger pacific pattern: peace among all nations of the First and Second worlds.” (9)

Fifth, American insistence on democratization, often accompanied by blatant hypocrisy, generates significant “blowback” and opposition. In short, it becomes extremely difficult for the United States to enforce its will across the world on people who are unwilling to accept American judgment about what is best for them or sees the United States back away from its insistence on democracy for the sake of expediency. As history has demonstrated many times over, militant “Wilsonianism” simply does not work. Inevitably, American military resources—the primary instruments of democratization--are stretched so thin and cause so much destruction in the name of democracy that they are overwhelmed and too often discredited by the task. This has led to the almost total collapse of the American democratic project. In Iraq, for example, violent reaction to American designs coupled with the triumph of ethnic separatism have virtually ended any hope that Iraq will be restored within its previous borders as a multiethnic, democratic state. In a more “passive aggressive” rejection of American demands, the democratic agenda has suffered important setbacks in Egypt , Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Bosnia —countries that just two years ago were high on the American democracy agenda. As a result, American credibility, influence, and power have suffered such devastating setbacks it will take at least a generation to recover.

Sixth, almost from the time the Cold war ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, the West has told the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that to be truly democratic and modern (or even post-modern) they must join the so called Euro-Atlantic community. These former Communist countries were told that there are only two vehicles they can take to join the modern, democratic West--they must join the European Union for economic (and increasingly political) integration and NATO for security integration. There is little doubt that the economic and political welfare of those Central and East European states already in the EU is being generally well served by their membership, even though economic growth and political integration are considerably slower than many originally had hoped. This is due to the serious structural deficiencies in the formerly socialist economies of the countries of Central and Eastern European as well as the “expansion exhaustion” and confusion over future directions on the part of the EU as a whole.

Despite the fact that there were several security models that could have been applied to post Cold War Europe, the West, and overwhelmingly the United States , made it clear that NATO would not “close up shop” the way the Warsaw pact had done. Washington and most major European capitals made it clear to the newly independent countries to their east not only that NATO would continue to exist, but that it would expand into Central and Eastern Europe . The democratizing states in Central and Eastern Europe simply had to accept the West's judgment with little or no debate. (10) Once this realization was accepted in the east, all of the countries accepted the logic and, along with applications to join the EU, they applied first to join the Partnership for Peace program (PfP) as a preliminary step to become NATO aspirants under the terms of the Membership Action Plan (MAP). For both the Western powers and the Central and East European states it was irrelevant whether NATO served a legitimate security function. For the West, NATO membership was driven primarily by inertia and a sense of triumphalism and for the East by a desire to be accepted into the West and to assume a place “at the table” with the “great” powers.

If Serbia Joins NATO—What Will Be the Cost?

When Milosevic fell from power in 2000, Serbia was still the pariah of the Balkans. Certainly, the collapse of the Milosevic regime was a step in the right direction, but the perception in the West that Serbia was the author of virtually all the evil associated with the disintegration of Yugoslavia would not dissipate quickly or easily. There is no doubt that Serbia under Milosevic was, indeed, responsible for much of the mayhem associated with the collapse of Yugoslavia . But for many in the West it was irrelevant that considerable devastation legitimately also could be assigned to the Croats, the Muslims (Bosniaks) and even the West. This was—and to some extent, still is—a problem faced by no other Central and East European country. In addition, arguably, Serbia faced deeper constitutional issues than any other country that had emerged from Communism and questions of the structure of its sovereign political community remain unresolved to this day in Kosovo. Consequently, the climb to democracy and modernity was much steeper and more difficult than for most post-Communist countries. Although this climb has been made even more difficult by the Western (U.S.) structured “external pressures,” our concern here is specifically the admonition that to be really modern and democratic, Serbia along with all then other countries of Central and Eastern Europe must become integrated into NATO. But, upon close examination, there are three major reasons why membership in NATO may not only be a dubious honor, but a serious mistake.

First, membership in NATO is presented as one of the two (the EU being the other) critical organizations Serbia and others must join to become part of the Euro-Atlantic community. This concept is presented by NATO-philes as though Europe and the United States were two pillars of a common community of values and interests. There may have been considerable truth to this argument during the Cold War when the threat of the Soviet Union drove the United States and Europe together into one pole of a bipolar world. But, when the Soviet threat collapsed, Communism faded, and the bipolar world disintegrated, there was little to hold the Euro-Atlantic community together.

This does not mean that the relationship between Europe and the United States has fallen into ongoing, bitter antagonism. But, it does mean that today interests and values between the two sometimes coincide and sometimes they do not or that they may coincide between the United States and some European countries but not others. The fact that most European countries and the United States share a dedication to democratic structures and functions is not sufficient to maintain the kind of more tightly knit trans-Atlantic community that existed during the Cold War. Many American and European leaders—perhaps because of nostalgia and inertia—continue to cling to a hoped for reality that has passed into history. Consequently, the concept of a Euro-Atlantic community has become little more than hollow mantra, a slogan, a euphemism, but certainly no longer a political or sociological reality. Above all, what once was a necessary, well established security community anchored by NATO has split into dozens of pieces.

Even a cursory look at the political and security landscape lays bare the fact that history has moved on, that the Euro-Atlantic community lives on only in the minds of a few policymakers who live in the past and perhaps in the minds of leaders in Central and Eastern Europe who accept the stale Euro-Atlantic rhetoric as the anchor of an ideal future. Consider, for example, that despite the declaration of an Article 5 (referring to the North Atlantic Treaty that established NATO), Washington rejected any substantial help from Europe in attacking Afghanistan and routing al-Qaeda and bringing down the Taliban government. The Bush administration did this because it did not want to be “hamstrung” by NATO's arcane, cumbersome machinery. Despite that early rejection by the United States , today NATO leads the International Security Force in Afghanistan . But, the situation is far from sanguine. National “caveats” have ruptured alliance solidarity, NATO has no mandate for counter-terrorism or fighting drug trafficking, and there is such concern that NATO countries will not continue to support the ISAF mission that NATO Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer has warned that Alliance members must find a way to overcome the problem of declining troop levels or risk the entire mission in Afghanistan. (11)

Moreover, only Britain under Prime Minister Blair, strongly backed the American invasion of Iraq; Germany and France strongly opposed it and refused to participate. To this day, most of European NATO keeps Iraq at arms length, only allowing the Alliance to engage in training missions. In addition, despite the announcement of the Strategic Concept in 1999 that NATO would assume anti-terrorism roles in the future, in fact the Alliance today has enacted few effective anti-terrorism programs in the critical areas of intelligence and combat operations. As Renee de Nevers notes in her excellent piece on NATO, “the most important elements of intelligence gathering in Europe take place outside NATO…the United States and its European allies have diverging view on military intelligence…(and) NATO plays, at best a supportive role in U.S. efforts to combat terrorism.” (12)

Similarly, many countries in Europe strongly disagree with the Bush administration's 2002 and 2006 National Security Strategies, especially the doctrine of preemption. This is a far cry from the unanimity shown between the United States and Europe over the publication of NSC-68 in 1950, which announced that the West—with NATO in the forefront—would follow a policy of containing the Soviet Union . Soviet expansion was the defining security threat of that day and Europe and the United States acted with unity of purpose as two pillars in a common community. Although “terrorism” is the seen as the defining security threat today by the United States , it is not understood in the same terms by much of contemporary Europe . Clearly, today there is an absence of the kind of community that was forged after World War II in the face of Soviet expansionism. The growing division between the United States and much of Europe on such issues as climate change, human rights, and the threat of terrorism reinforce not only differences on security policy, but also the broader question of Euro-Atlantic solidarity.

Second, there is a substantial financial and economic cost to joining NATO. This cost is manifest overtly in the requirements to maintain an ‘acceptable” level of defense spending and pressure to buy new equipment—especially fighter aircraft. When new members join NATO, they promise to spend a minimum of 2 percent of GDP on defense. Most members—irrespective of whether they are new or old—are unable to maintain that level of spending and NATO headquarters frequently encourages members to bring their defense spending in line with original promises. Last year, for example, just before the Riga Summit, Secretary General de Hoop Scheffer “urged member countries…to increase their defense budgets.” He noted that only seven of the 26 NATO members reached the alliance's military budget target of 2 percent of gross domestic product. “That is the wrong development for an alliance which is ambitious and which is called upon more and more to participate in operations and missions,” de Hoop Scheffer warned. (13)

In the year since that admonition was made, little progress has been made in increasing members' defense spending. Indeed, some members, such as the Czech Republic, will spend about 1.4 percent of GDP and Hungary at about 1.8 percent of GDP in 2007 and, even Germany, which has the largest economy in Europe, will devote a mere 1.4 percent of GDP to defense spending this year. Among the new members, Romania and Bulgaria have been able to float just above the 2 percent mark for most of the past few years and Poland has fluctuated just above or below the 2 percent requirement. Even the average for all of the founding NATO countries in Western Europe has barely reached 2 percent since 2000. (14) Even these numbers often are inflated—particularly for the new members in Central and Eastern Europe —because they are arrived at by using “smoke and mirrors.” If and when Serbia becomes a member of NATO, the government in Belgrade will be subject to the same pressures and, despite the best of intentions, almost certainly will suffer the same failure to meet the spending requirements.

Moreover, these direct defense costs are only part of the financial story. In addition to the defense budget itself, the cost of joining and supporting NATO is reflected in “lost opportunity costs.” Serbia, as is true with most other post-Communist countries, is in the midst of a substantial transformation from a command to a free market economy. For all these countries, this transformation is requiring not only important changes in management and operating practices, but much more expensive and wrenching structural changes. Unfortunately, the wars of the 1990s have made this an even more difficult and painful process in Serbia than in most Central and East European countries. Despite a healthy growth rate of around six percent over the past three years, approximately one third of Serbia's workers are unemployed, approximately 30 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, public debt is a staggering 53 percent of GDP, the current account balance is almost a minus 14 percent of GDP, and per capita GDP is only about $4,400. (15) In short, the overall economic picture in Serbia is not encouraging.

Consequently, the disposition of scarce funds in Serbia is not just a financial exercise, but, arguably, could be described as an ethical and social issue as well. It is fair to ask whether Serbia—as well as most other Central and East European countries—would be better off, literally, if it were to spend the money that will be designated to be a member of NATO on domestic economic and social projects? In particular, NATO-required expenditures easily could help undermine the new government's National Investment Plan (NIP), which “targets infrastructure, education, health, agriculture, and small and medium-size enterprises and just about everything else.” (16) Although the government hopes to pay for much of the NIP with “inflows of foreign investment,” it is unlikely that external investment sources will be sufficient to meet the financial demands. In addition, many economists argue that “it would be better to use growing privatization receipts to pay back the foreign debt.” (17) If Serbia were to receive substantial security benefits from NATO membership, that is, if the country were to be protected from some dangerous existential threat, then the expenditure might be well worth the price. But, since that is not the case, it is difficult to understand exactly what Serbia will get for the price of membership--not only from the direct financial outlays, but from what will not be accomplished because of the financial obligations of NATO membership.

Third, it is difficult to understand exactly what NATO's security mission is. From 1949 until 1989 NATO played a valuable and necessary role in protecting the west, especially Western Europe, from attack by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. NATO was right for the time. But, history has moved on, the Cold War is over, the bi-polar world is gone. In the emerging world of multi-polarity, globalization, and terrorism what is the role of a security organization constructed for the world that has faded away? Despite the fact that the West, especially the United States , clings rhetorically to the Alliance , it has demonstrated little relevance even for the United States in the new threat environment. Consequently, NATO is sustained more by inertia and habit than by the security requirements. It has become a “theological” construct, a matter of faith, and form for forms' sake. According to a small group of officials in both the Republican and Democratic parties, “the existence and viability of NATO was not to be questioned. It was to remain basically the same successful alliance that it had been since 1949. But a fundamental shift was taking place in the post-Cold War security environment. In 1949, a genuine, measurable security threat justified NATO for all its members. Now, with the end of the Cold War, the inertial attachment to NATO meant that the alliance had to seek or invent reasons to justify its existence and relevance.” (18)

There are several interrelated reasons why NATO has outlived its usefulness as a security alliance and finds it necessary to justify itself. First, the “security gap” between the United States and Europe (and to an extent within Europe ) is growing wider and deeper. As mentioned above, the community of interests and values that existed between Europe and the United States during the Cold War has been shattered. There is now little consensus between the two concerning when and how military force should be used. The lack of NATO's utility was demonstrated initially during Operation Desert Storm, when the need for speed and consensus required the rapid formation of a tight coalition “of the willing” to turn the Iraqi military around once it had entered Kuwait . Consequently, the United States , Britain , France , and Saudi Arabia established a coalition to deal with that specific moment in time. Soon after Iraq was expelled from Kuwait , this coalition ended because it was no longer needed. Then, despite Europe's outpouring of sympathy and support because of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, and its readiness to help, the Bush administration rejected any military help in attacking Afghanistan . Despite the fact that the attacks of 9/11 were the gravest threat to American national security since World War II, the Bush administration was convinced that NATO was irrelevant as a useful military instrument. Finally, if there was any doubt about NATO's irrelevancy, it was dispelled by the rupture between the United States and Britain on one side and France and Germany on the other over of the Iraq war. Although France , Germany and other European countries and the United States have tried to reconcile, the wound caused by Iraq is too deep—especially given the existing schism between Europe and the United States on a range of values and interests. NATO summits and meetings are held every year to attempt to reinvent the alliance, but the rupture caused by Iraq will be virtually impossible to heal.

Second, the technology gap between the United States and its NATO allies in Europe is widening. But, why is this happening? Europe has a large, highly skilled, technically excellent workforce and a GDP equal to that of the United States . Europe also has a long history of military and political sophistication. Consequently, the capability gap is not a function of Europe 's lack of skill or tradition. Rather, the fact that Europe is not competitive with the United States in military technology is because Europe has made a conscious choice not to devote its energies and resources to producing the most cutting edge military equipment. This choice, in turn, is based on the fact that Europe has made the fundamental political decision to devote its resources to other endeavors. In effect, Europe voluntarily has abandoned a centuries-long tradition of military sophistication and reliance on military solutions to international problems.

Whatever the reason, there is little doubt that “the military capability gap between the United States and European states certainly limits Europe's participation in particular types of operations and as a consequence arguably weakens its decision making influence within the alliance and its emerging collective voice on the world stage.” (19) Interestingly, the capabilities gap is having a negative impact on “interoperability,” the Alliances' once much vaunted philosophy that all NATO members must have the same standards on hardware and communications equipment so that they all can act as a unified force in any military operation. While “there is about 80% commonality between NATO and U.S. standards…the remaining disconnects are critical. In addition, the European Union is in the process of setting its own standards for some activities (such as global positioning services).” (20)

Consequently, the stark reality of the growing capabilities gap fatally undermines the dream of the more integrated and equal NATO that was hoped for in the Prague Capabilities Commitment (PCC) announced at the Alliance 's Prague Summit in 2002. The PCC, which promised a vigorous program to close the capabilities gap, has since been affirmed at the 2004 Istanbul Summit and the 2006 Riga Summit. But there has been almost no progress in reaching the goals announced in 2002 and the hope expressed in 2004 and 2006 is little more than illusion based on wishful thinking because progress in meeting the PCC standards would require a complete turn around in the now well established trend of reducing defense expenditures. As a report by the Congressional Research Service shows, “to meet the goals of the PCC, the European allies need to restructure and modernize their militaries and address deficiencies in equipment procurement and in R&D programs. However, this implies increased defense spending, requiring a reversal of the trend of the past decade: between 1992 and 1999 defense expenditures by European NATO countries fell by 22%.” (21)

Third, NATO's institutional and bureaucratic machinery is large, ponderous and cumbersome, subject to conflicting national interests, and too often unresponsive to the demands of members who believe the Alliance should take action. During the Cold War this was not an important issue because no ally would have withheld support in the face of a Warsaw Pact invasion against the West—the response to such an attack would have been automatic and immediate. In short, an attack through the Fulda Gap would have been a signal for every member of NATO to take up arms. Since the end of the bipolar era, however, NATO's institutional and bureaucratic machinery began to become less relevant to the challenges of the 21 st century. Noticeable splits appeared in the Alliance during the Balkan crisis of 1990s, with some members ready to take on the disintegration of Yugoslavia while others were not. The problem became worse during the Kosovo crisis of 1999 when some allies, for example Greece and Italy , were very reluctant to intervene with military action against Serbia . Only Milosevic's ethical and strategic ineptitude in ethnically cleansing Albanians out of Kosovo forced the Alliance into a unified position. Had Milosevic played his hand better he likely could have split NATO.

The issue of NATO's machinery has become increasingly important and debilitating during the past decade. This has happened because there now is far less consensus on the nature of the threat and because of the widening gap between the United States and much of Europe on values and interests. As the United States becomes more convinced of the appropriateness of military action to resolve today's security issues—especially terrorism, many European NATO allies become less convinced that military action is appropriate. Consequently, “NATO's military guidelines are more defensive and reactive than those of the United States…U.S. strategy documents suggest that NATO's deeply institutionalized, consensus-based model is not the United States' preferred approach for multilateral cooperation in the war on terror.” (22) This position has been reinforced by the 2006 National Security Strategy, which points out that “international institutions have a role to play (in combating terrorism), but in many cases a coalition of the willing may be able to respond more quickly and creatively.” (23) And, the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) argues that “dynamic partnerships” are much more effective that “static alliances” in combating terrorism. The implications for NATO could not be more striking.

The loss of faith in “static alliances” to fight what the Bush administration argues is the world's most important contemporary security threat has led the United States directly to a more unilateral policy on security issues. The Bush administration has adopted unilateralism not only because it believes it cannot rely on NATO, but because it can engage more easily and more readily in “preemptive” and “preventive” action without having to engage in lengthy explanations, secure the approval of a large, diverse, cumbersome organization, or alter its military strategy because of the differing views of allies. It is for these reasons that the United States never took advantage of Europe's virtually unanimous outpouring of sympathy and support after that attacks of September 11 and effectively rejected NATO's declaration of the applicability of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty in favor of the United States. (24) The Bush administration believed that it had to have unfettered freedom of action in Afghanistan and only agreed to accept NATO involvement a full two years after the initial attack and agreed to put part of its forces under NATO command only in 2006. For the same reasons the Bush administration refused to be hamstrung by the United Nations or NATO allies in its determination to attack Iraq in 2003. Unless there is a major shift in U.S. thinking, unilateralism and a lack of trust in NATO (or any so called “stagnant” alliance”) will continue to drive American security policy in this more differentiated age.

Fourth, the American attitude aside, NATO has been remarkably incapable of dealing with the threats of terrorism and insurrection, the hallmark security challenges of the current century. Certainly, this is in part due to the attitude and policies of the United States . A more multilateral cast of mind in Washington would lead to a greater role for NATO in combating terrorism. But, the fundamental reasons for the irrelevancy of NATO lie in the very nature of the problem and the very nature of the Alliance . Certainly there are times when standard military action is appropriate, but increasingly terrorism is a multifaceted, asymmetric threat that relies on web-based technology, clandestine financing, and decentralized organization to be effective. In addition, Europe faces mostly “homegrown” terrorist threats, while the perceived threat to the United States is found primarily overseas. Consequently, the response to terrorism is much more multifaceted than NATO is capable of providing. It requires, in addition to military action, sophisticated police and intelligence capabilities, technology “detectives,” and the ability to track shadowy banking operations.

NATO is incapable of performing most of these operations and those that it can perform it does only haltingly and poorly. NATO is a traditional alliance, constructed for “symmetric,” state on state military action and, even in that context, it has proven to be reluctant to engage in the kinds of military activity important to the United States (e.g. Iraq). In short, NATO was built for another kind of war in another age and it cannot escape that reality no matter how hard its owners try to make it relevant to this new age. At best, “NATO plays a largely supportive role in the war on terror. To the degree that NATO countries are engaged in key elements of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism, they do so on the basis of bilateral ties or loose coalitions—not through NATO.” (25) Even NATO's two most prominent anti-terrorist roles are compromised by the Alliance 's inherent ability to deal with the problem.

First, NATO did not take over the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) operation until October 2003, and, at that time, no American forces were included in ISAF. This betrays not only American reluctance, but NATO's lack of preparation and involvement. Since then, NATO forces have scored some important victories in head to head combat operations with Taliban insurgents, but they also have lost some battles and operations continue to be plagued by problems and perhaps ultimately fatally undermined by the national caveats, serious funding problems, equipment shortages, the need for consensus, constant struggle to find replacement troops, and the fact that only four of 26 NATO allies (the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and The Netherlands) engage in combat operations. Consequently, the operation in Afghanistan is a NATO campaign in name only; the real burdens are placed on only a few like minded countries which could have accomplished exactly the same relationship bilaterally. Second, Operation Active Endeavor (OAE) was established initially in response to the declaration of Article 5 protection for the United States . Since then it has continued to patrol the Mediterranean Sea with the mission to protect ships and sea lanes from terrorist attack and to protect generally against any kind of terrorist related activity. But, few terrorists attempt to use the Mediterranean as a transshipment arena. Consequently, OAE primarily patrols the Mediterranean for an enemy that does not exist, but in so doing, fulfills the fantasy that NATO—with minimal involvement and little danger--is actually doing something to contribute to the war on terror.

Conclusion: Where Is Serbia 's National Interest?

Ever since the collapse of its Medieval Kingdom in 1389, Serbia has been subject to external pressure in determining the contours of its political community and its understanding of modernity. Once freed from the Ottoman Turks, Serbs were drawn to the north and west, primarily to the French Revolution to understand what political modernity meant and to Great Britain to understand what it meant to be modern in an economic sense. For much of the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, the Balkans in general and Serbia in particular was the “playground” of the great powers of Europe . Indeed, the Balkans became the “powder keg” of Europe not because of any indigenous reasons, but because the region was the meeting place of mutually antagonistic empires. Even during the Communist period, political community and modernity were defined for Serbia by a philosophy that originated outside the country (even though Tito gave Yugoslav Communism a unique spin). Despite the collapse of Communism and the Yugoslav state, the habit has become so deeply engrained that Serbia's reliance on outside forces to define modernity and political community has diminished somewhat, but remains largely in place. The role of northwestern Europe remains vital, but now the United States too has taken on a critical role in determining how Serbia “must” see its future.

What must change in this scenario is that Serbia , finally, must take charge of its own future. Serbia had this opportunity at the beginning of the 19 th century only to fall victim to the machinations of Europe 's monarchies and empires. Then opportunity presented itself again after World War I and this time Serbia , as part of Yugoslvia, fell victim to the much more powerful forces leading to World War II. And, again in 1945, once the internal struggle between Chetniks and Partisans ended, Yugoslavia tried to become master of its own house—only to end in tragedy a decade after Tito died. Now, once again Serbia has the opportunity to determine its own fate, to decide what is in its national interest. Certainly there will continue to be outside pressures—they are unavoidable—but these pressures are not as all consuming as they once were and the pressures that do exist can be managed. If the government in Belgrade can “get its act together” it will have a very good opportunity not only to secure a better future for Serbs, but to provide leadership throughout the Balkans.

But, to do this, it will be necessary for Belgrade to sort through several major questions about ties, agreements, and associations. Certainly, membership in the EU is one of those questions, but so is the issue of NATO membership. If, as suggested above, NATO is essentially a wasting asset that could provide few if any benefits, this should suggest that NATO membership should be an issue of debate very high on the national agenda. Membership in NATO should not be pursued by Serbia simple because the West expects it. In this debate, serious consideration should be given to whether Serbia's security interest are better served with much greater attention (including resources and leadership) in such organizations as the Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), the Southeast Europe Defense Ministerials (SEDM), the Southeast Europe Brigade (SEEBRIG) and others. Such a reexamination of Serbia 's security interests and policy should, as a matter of course, involve reconsideration of the current Strategic Defense Review (SDR). As currently constructed, the SDR provides only sketchy rationale for troop-level targets, budget levels, and tasks. Consequently, the question of reform to what end becomes even more important and should be considered in light of Serbia 's real security needs, not in an effort to placate NATO, Washington, and the capitals of northwest Europe . However this debate turns out, it should be done to protect Serbia 's budding democracy and the demands of Serbia 's national interests, not because of external pressures.

National Defense University
Washington , D.C. 

Endnotes:

1. These “variables” and “realities” are not intended to represent the ‘attributes” of democracy, such as open, fair, and free elections, the presence of independent legislatures and judiciaries, abiding by the rules of the game, civil liberties, a constitution, etc. Instead, the variables and realities are important contextual considerations that are necessary to understanding the current debate about democratization.
2. See President Bush's cover letter to the 2002 National Security Strategy : http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf .
3. Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs , Nov/Dec 1997, Vol. 76, Iss. 6.
4. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave , University of Oklahoma Press , Norman , OK , 1993, pages 13-26.
5. Andrew Bacevich, The New American Militarism , Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York , 2006, p. 3.
6. Condoleezza Rice, “Promoting the National Interest,” Foreign Affairs , Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2000, Vol. 79, Iss. 1.
7. President Bush's cover letter to the 2002 National Security Strategy .
8. Colin Dueck, Reluctant Crusaders , Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford , 2006, p. 96.
9. Thomas Schwartz and Kiron Skinner, “The Myth of the Democratic Peace,” Orbis , Winter 2002, Vol. 46, Iss. 1.
10. For example, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of Communism and the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact, then Czechoslovak President Vaclav Havel and Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier raised the possibility that NATO should follow the Warsaw Pact's example and Europe should construct its own security architecture.
11. “NATO Secretary General Urges Member Countries to Increase Defense Spending,” International Herald Tribune , 13 November 2006.
12. Renee de Nevers, “NATO's International Security Role in the Terrorist Era,” International Security , Spring 2007, Vol. 31, Iss. 4, pp. 10 and 1.
13. “NATO Secretary General Urges Member Countries to Increase Defense Spending,” International Herald Tribune , 13 November 2006.
14. Figures from the Congressional Budget Office report, “Integrating New Allies into NATO, 2004 and 2006.
15. Figures from the CIA Fact Book, Central Intelligence Agency, at http://www.cia.gov/redirect/factbookredirect.html and the Economist Intelligence Unit for 14 November 2007, at economist.com.
16. Vladimir Gligorov, “ Serbia : Stability at Risk,” wiiw Research Reports, No. 335, February 2007.
17. Ibid.
18. Steven E. Meyer, “The Carcass of Dead Policies: The Irrelevance of NATO,” Parameters , Winter 2003-04, Vol. XXXIII, No. 4, p. 2.
19. Stephen J. Coonen, “The Widening Military Gap between the United States and Europe : Does it Matter?” Parameters , Autumn 2006, p. 69. In this article, Coonen argues that the widening military gap between the United States and Europe really does not matter very much. But, he makes that argument based essentially on the supposition that Europe still wields considerable influence globally and within the Alliance and that, in the final analysis, the United States can make up any difference. But, then he goes on at considerable length through much of the article to point up where the gap does make a difference.
20. Jacqueline Grapin, “Transatlantic Interoperability In Defense Industries: How the U.S. and Europe Better Can Cooperate in Coalition Military Operations,”a report of the European Institute , September 2002.
21. Carl Ek, “NATO's Prague Capabilities Commitment,” Congressional Research Service , Order Code RS21659, Update January 24, 2007.
22. de Nevers, pp. 5-6.
23. See the 2006 National Security Strategy, p. 48 at http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss/2006 .
24. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty says: “The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or parties so attacked by taking forwith, individually and in concert with the other parties, such action as deemed necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”
25. de Nevers, p. 28.