NATO: The End of the Permanent Alliance

In his Farewell Address, Pres George Washington advised the American people to avoid the creation of permanent alliances. Unfortunately, flush with their triumph in the Cold War, the leaders of the US and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) chose to ignore his advice. Indeed, during her confirmation hearings in January 1997 for secretary of state, Madeleine Albright described NATO as a permanent alliance. The 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict provides a test of these competing approaches, and illustrates why America's first president was so worried about making alliances permanent and why Americans should have paid closer attention. NATO's problem has been the enunciation of strategy and the assumption of commitments without any reference to capability. And just as companies that cannot meet their commitments go out of business, so NATO may have been set on course for that fate by those who, just a few years ago, proclaimed the alliance's permanence.