NATO after Afghanistan

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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.