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The Gates speech effectively marks the end of the American ambition to turn Nato into the global, military arm of a unified western world. The Americans have flirted with this idea, ever since the onset of the “war on terror’. But, as the Afghan war has worn on, so the military effort has become more and more heavily dependent on the US.
The fact that Europeans called for a campaign in Libya that they are incapable of conducting alone has merely re-enforced the American view that the European arm of Nato is, to varying degrees, feckless and unreliable. Disarray and recriminations within Nato hobble the single most effective potential tool for western military intervention overseas.
Even more significant in the long run is the American anxiety that budgetary constraints, which are leading to defence cuts in Europe, are beginning to be replicated in the US itself. Admiral Michael Mullen, America’s top military officer, has called the budget deficit the single biggest threat to US national security. It is also the single biggest constraint on future bouts of “liberal interventionism”’. Money is not the only problem, however. Over the past 20 years it has become apparent that swiftly agreed-upon military actions can lead to entanglements that last for many years. There is still a Nato mission in Kosovo and an EU military mission in Bosnia, more than a decade after the fighting ended in both places.
As for Afghanistan — that conflict has now lasted almost twice as long as the second world war. Western governments are also only beginning to come to terms with what may soon be required in Libya. Against this background, there are very few takers for yet another military venture — this time in Syria.
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