Immediately following the G-20 Summit in London Thursday is the 60th NATO Summit in Strasbourg, France and Kehl and Baden-Baden, Germany, where the 28 member states will meet over two days between April 3rd and 4th. And protesters who have not already taken to the streets in both countries to protest against war, capitalism, globalization and more are preparing for Friday. Much of the organizing behind the protests has occurred online in a viral fashion through a number of groups and movements, according to France 24.
Notably, one such method that some groups have been training and preparing for is to use civil disobedience in an attempt to prevent the NATO summit from happening altogether, namely by blocking participants from reaching any of the summit venues.
After six decades of active involvement in the international community, the organization has attracted both friends and enemies. The 55,000 to 65,000 protesters that are expected, according to the AP, represent the the latter.
Still, others acknowledge NATO's past successes, but now think the organization should be dissolved. One example is John Hopkins Director of the Center on Politics & Foreign Relations Robert Guttman, writing for the Huffington Post:
Maybe we should call NATO a huge success, pat every one on the back and dissolve the military organization and move on. Could the European Union take on the military role? Could a new military organization take the place of NATO?
Instead of planning new missions around the globe for NATO why not ask the basic question: Is NATO still necessary anymore?
NATO did its original job and the peace was kept in Europe and Soviet tanks did not attack during the Cold War--its goals were met and met successfully so why keep coming up with new out of area missions that do not have the full backing of most of the members.
Re-think NATO. It may be time to say happy birthday and goodbye.
And, of course, NATO is not without its supporters. Writing for the Daily Telegraph, John Keegan acknowledges both NATO's successes, as well as its shortcomings, and provides a prescription for improvement. From the Telegraph:
In its 60 years, then, Nato has changed from being a military alliance of mutual assistance for Western Europe to an international peacekeeping organisation. This change - especially the mission to Afghanistan - has been very injurious to its cohesion; many of its supporters may reasonably question why Nato should have spread itself so wide.
The truth is that Nato has become the victim of its own success. To resolve this, it needs to change: not to shrink back to its original role, but to embrace this wider peacekeeping mission. The word "Atlantic" was always an anomaly, and became more so as each new member was added. Perhaps, to recognise this new global role, it would be better to reconstitute the alliance as a permanent sub-organisation of the United Nations; to make it more international and less American; to charge it with peacekeeping rather than regional defence.
Likewise, those within NATO have full faith in the organization's indispensability on the world scene. NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, in a New York Times op-ed Thursday, explains that the 60th summit is not only a meeting, but a celebration as well. And he reinforces the arguments for NATO's continued involvement in world affairs and global security. From the Times:
Security is not a discretionary item, something you can live without when money is tight. It is the foundation on which our prosperity is built. And, like the economy, security can only be built through multinational cooperation. This is why the NATO summit is more than a celebration; it is a meeting where alliance leaders need to get things done.
...
The summit will also be a celebration of NATO's 60th anniversary. It has been said that "when alliances win, they die." But NATO is alive and kicking because it still has a unique job to do: to be the place where Europe and North America stand together, consult together and act together to ensure their common security. That role will be reaffirmed and strengthened at this weekend's summit.