NATO after Afghanistan

NATO has in the post Cold War period confronted a series of internal crises generated by external events (in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) which have raised questions over its purpose, effectiveness and even its very survival. These questions have become more insistent as NATO has set a deadline of 2014 to terminate its combat mission in Afghanistan. This is already being regarded as a significant watershed - not simply for Afghanistan, which with NATO assistance is rapidly constructing a national army and police force, but for the Alliance itself, which at that point may well face the prospect of mission failure (Chaudhuri and Farrell, 2011). Whatever the outcome, the ISAF mission by 2014 will have been the longest and costliest in NATO's history and will have exacted a severe human, political and financial cost upon its lead nations (including the UK). Such a state of affairs, will (and arguably, already has had) far-reaching implications for NATO's strategic predilection for expeditionary, out-of-area missions. Thus, the Libya mission has eschewed counter-insurgency and nation-building, and has been premised on a narrowly-defined political and normative justification. It thus stands as an example of the type of operation NATO may favour. That mission nonetheless has also given rise to adverse comment - on the absconding of American leadership, capability deficiencies and unequal burden-sharing (Clarke, 2011).

The paradox of NATO's susceptibility to crisis is that the Alliance has demonstrated an ongoing versatility in the face of a rapidly evolving security environment. NATO has reformed its command structures and strategic concept, enlarged its membership, undertaken a variety of out-of-area operations and established partnerships with key state actors and international organisations. It has also developed a wide range of security tasks - missile defence, anti-piracy missions, cyber defence and security-sector reform among others. Yet NATO continues to attract criticism from NGOs, academics, journalists and even its own member governments for being slow to adapt, directionless and ill-equipped to meet its stated objectives. In this light, a number of fundamental questions arise of both academic and policy significance:

1. What explains the seeming disjuncture between NATO's ongoing activism and the narrative of crisis which it attracts?
2. What are the underlying structures of power, norms and governance which inhere in NATO and, more broadly, within which the organisation is 'nested'? How do these structures explain the persistence of the organisation?
3. How effective has NATO been in developing and discharging its post-Cold War missions?
4. Is the Afghan crisis a qualitatively new one for the Alliance? And will it prove of lasting consequence in shaping NATO purpose?

In addressing these questions, the proposed seminar series begins from a premise that theoretical attention to NATO is currently underdeveloped. Considerable benefit is thus to be had from sustaining academic dialogue on the Alliance. Not only does this help fashion NATO theory, it also contributes to broader debates on institutional adaptation in international relations, organisational learning and the structures of international order. The seminars will draw upon an international group of scholars informed both by mainstream theory and approaches which have only recently been applied to NATO. This academic network on NATO is a work in progress and so the seminar series is geared toward developing and taking forward an innovative research agenda.

Academic reflection, however, requires validation in practice. Propositions on the Alliance will thus be submitted to the test of empirical and policy-relevant case studies as well as the opinion of policy makers and interested civil society groups. Each seminar will be devoted to a specific set of issues that are of theoretical, normative and policy concern.

The benefits to the academic and policy community lie in the development of a group of NATO scholars connected, in turn, to the broader community of scholarship in International Relations (and its disciplinary sub-sets: Security Studies, Peace Studies, Strategic Studies etc.). This will result in a range of joint activities and outputs (detailed in Pathways to Impact).

Practitioners will be drawn from UK government agencies, NATO member-country embassies and permanent delegations, NATO officials (based at NATO HQ, Brussels and Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe [SHAPE], Mons) and officials from a number of other relevant international organisations (these are detailed in the Case for Support). This practitioner network is diverse and scattered across a range of agencies. Access will be facilitated by the formal links enjoyed by co-applicants Smith and Hallams to UK defence and security bodies given their training roles at Sandhurst and Shrivenham. Both have considerable experience of engagement with users in presenting and organising policy and academic related materials. For practitioners, the benefits lie in their exposure to policy-relevant empirical, critical and theoretical materials provided by academics, and their direct involvement in dialogue with both academic and NGO participants. Practitioners, further, will be involved directly in the seminars as presenters and, where possible, will contribute to dissemination (through contributions to blogs and short on-line commentaries).

NGO and civil society actors will also be beneficiaries. This will include a number of London and Brussels-based think tanks (the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Egmont - the Royal Institute for International Relations etc.) as well as bodies of policy advocacy such as the NATO Watch, the British-American Security Information Council and the Brussels-based ISIS-Europe. Each maintains dedicated web-spaces which will be utilised to disseminate seminar materials. These groups will also participate directly in seminar activities and will benefit from the dialogue with practitioners and academics - a three-way dialogue rare in this policy area.

The seminar series will contribute to the broad public and policy dialogue currently in train on the lessons learnt from the Afghan and Libyan campaigns. By engaging directly with NATO and national officials as well as opinion formers, the seminars provide an opportunity for critical and open dialogue on an issue of central concern to UK foreign policy. The seminars' aim, therefore, is to enhance evidence-based policy making and specifically to:

- connect academic, practitioner and civil society networks;
- generate recommendations on UK-NATO relations and UK security and defence policy;
- reach informed judgements on the operational and organisational development of NATO and transatlantic relations;
- consider the normative implications if NATO action (and thus contribute to policy-relevant debates on humanitarian intervention and Responsibility to Protect).

Dissemination of seminar discussion and findings is essential to furthering these objectives. In addition to the activities outlined in Pathways to Impact, the PI will ensure a prominent media profile for each seminar utilising the marketing facilities at the University of Birmingham. Local media partners will also be utilised. This will entail invitations to security correspondents of national newspapers for the London-based seminar and international correspondents (Financial Times, International Herald Tribune) for the meeting in Brussels.