Dedicated to Gambit:
This was a speech from Dr. Mazari:
Pakistans Perceptions of the End of the Cold War and NATOs Role
Dr Shireen Mazari
Honourable ladies and gentlemen, I am going to talk within a slightly different frameworkthis is basically a perception of the end of the cold war. Then I am going to discuss how I see NATOs role from the Pakistani perspective. Lets begin with the new operational milieu, which began with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which cam be seen as the end of bipolarity. People talk about the end of the cold war; I think this is a mixed moment because the cold war ended much before the end of bipolarity. When you say the period of the end of the cold war, what is meant is that this is the era of peace and so on. As we saw, the disintegration of the Soviet Union did not provide an era of peace. Now, we have wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq; we have instability around our region as well; so I think it makes more sense if we talk about the end of bipolarity rather than the end of cold war. The end of bipolarity, of course, destroyed any semblance of balance in the international community. The US emerged as the unipolar superpower and it determined the global strategic structure to facilitate its policy goals. In such a scenario, there was very little room for hostility to the designs of the US.
The tools for implementing policies also altered much before 9/11. For instance, deterrence, which reflected the maintenance of the status quo, has gradually been put in the background with the advent of the notion of missile defence. The notion of collective security fast degenerated into a collective defence system in the pursuit primarily of the US strategic agenda. This was, for example, reflected very clearly in the UN sanctions which were used in the case of Iraq and against the Taliban in Afghanistan. I am talking about the pre-9/11 period. What I am trying to say is that 9/11 extenuated the trends that were coming into place with the end of bipolarity. Of course, we also saw a new trend after 9/11 of collective action coming into being. That was the notion of a coalition of the willing. This, of course, was a direct challenge to the UN collective security system. The idea is that, if the UN Security Council does not sanction a collective military action, powerful states can then form a coalition of the willing and effectively defy the UN systemif not defy, certainly circumvent the UN Charter and the UN collective security system.
Let me identify some of the major trends that have come to the fore with the end of bipolarity, and which have become more pronounced in the wake of 9/11. First, of course, was that, with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the map of the world, especially of Asia, was actually physically altered with the creation of a whole new set of states in the Caucasus and Central Asia. These states, with heavy structural and economic dependencies on Russia, created a region of strategic vulnerability, especially since many of them had old historical cleavages within them and these come to the fore when they became independent. The war on terrorism brought external military forces into the region and added to the instability of the Central Asian region. For the states in the region, security concerns continue to predominate, especially since 9/11, and with the introduction of foreign coalition troops in at least three of the Central Asian states.
The second trend was that, along with the post-bipolar geo-political change, the dividing regional lines, at least in Asia, began to melt away. In other words, you could not really talk about South Asia as distinct from West Asia or from South East Asia. The reason for this was the introduction of medium range missiles in the arsenals of some of the states in the region and the nuclearization of South Asia. The distinctive strategic sub-regions were challenged again. Now, states like India especially refer to the post-9/11 strategic milieu as being South Asia, defining it as the region stretching from the Middle East to East Asia. Post-9/11, the parameters dividing these sub-regions were further weakened, because Pakistan and, to some extent, India became part of the international coalitions war on terrorism. We now have the presence of external forces not only in the Central and West Asian regions, but also in the Indian Ocean. Effectively, Pakistan and states like Iran are sandwiched between the coalition forces, external forces, and military forces on land and on the seas. This presents a whole new range of security issues for countries like Pakistan. Besides, drawing the Central and West Asian regions more directly into the South Asian strategic milieu has resulted in the sounding out of various themes and proposals for oil and gas pipelines.
The third major trend which added to the regional changes was the shift in US strategic policy, with the end of bipolarity. For instance, the US is now talking about missile defence and about those regional allies which will be the part of the theatre of the missile defence system. In fact, even before 9/11, the US had begun to legitimize state intervention within the financial sphere of external actors, in terms of freezing financial assets and so on. Post 9/11, we saw the emergence of the doctrine of pre-emption, focusing on military, economic, and political pre-emption. Economic pre-emption, of course, means freezing of assets;
political pre-emption takes the form of regime change; and military pre-emption is what we have seen in Iraq. What one is beginning to see is a new kind of alignment, based on the idea of core states, which will then ally with semi-core states, and so on.
A major global theme that began to evolve before 9/11, which has, post 9/11, become mainstream, is the notion of the coalition of the willing, which, as mentioned before, is a direct challenge to the UN system.
The military reflection of the core-state alliances, in my view, is going to be based on BMD. Political tools will be sanctioned, as will anti-terrorism of a particular kind because all the international post-9/11 debates and discussions on terrorism, deliberately or otherwise, leave out the notion of state terrorism; the focus is primarily on international non-state terrorism. If we talk about the core states, we have seen various coalitions: the core states nest around the Anglo-Saxon framework, with a few regional powers like Israel, India, and Japan brought in. The final picture that evolves will depend upon further linkages between these states and other regional and global players. It is clear that the pronouncements made when the Soviet Union disintegrated, that this would be an era of peace, with the predominance of economic issues, with politics and military no longer primary issues has not proven to be the case. In fact, economic issues have also become highly politicized. Whether it is the WTO agenda or sanctions or the use of IMF or World Bank, politics is determining economic trends globally at the moment. If we are to talk of an era of peace, the only peace that one can talk about is an imposed peace as you can see in the events unfolding in Iraq. It is in this framework that NATO acquired international legitimacy under the UN charter, chapter 7, article 51 relating directly to collective defence.
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context of NATO was regional, both in terms of membership and operational milieu. With the disintegration of the Soviet Union and dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, questions were beginning to be raised about the continuing rationale for NATO. NATO began to seek new validity almost immediately with the setting up of the North Atlantic Co-operation Council as a forum for consultation between the NATO states, East European, and former Soviet republics. Since then, NATO has begun to focus, as Ambassador Simmons also pointed out, more on bringing into its fold the Eastern European states, initially through its partnership for peace initiative in 1994 as well as providing a certain limited access to Russia, through the NATO-Russia permanent joint council, which was set up in 1997. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland were the first East European states to join NATO in 1999, which meant that since then NATOs border extended 400 miles towards Russia.
Despite all these developments and efforts by NATO to find a new relevancy, the debate about its continued validity had not intensified by the time NATO reached its fiftieth year in 1999.
There is a bureaucratic organizational momentum that sustains big organizations, and this has been the case, at least in part, with NATO. One of the reasons that it is very difficult to end such an organization is the sheer size of its bureaucracy and organizational structures. So it survives. It is difficult for large organizations, as one writer put it, to fade away, unlike all soldiers who do fade away. That is why NATO has been looking for political rationalizations for its existence. In the process, it is undergoing a transformation from its original shape and purpose into a wider politico-military institution that seeks to encompass a wide range of agenda, from peace-keeping to anti-proliferation of WMD, even to disaster relief.
NATO may well prove to be very effective in complying with these new multi-tasking agenda, but there is a shift in its basic collective defence identity, which raises some very serious issues, in terms of basic international law, international relations, international norms, and the principles that govern international relations. Firstly, while the NATO agenda has expanded, its membership remains confined to Europe and the US and Canada. It is a sort of bridge between the North Atlantic states and Europe. If it represents collective interests, these are primarily the interests of its member states, belonging to these two geographical entities. It may have partnerships with non-European states, but they are not members and they do not have a say in NATOs agenda. Yet, NATOs theatre of operations has become increasingly Asian, a region that has little say in NATOs agenda or its functioning. Unless NATO alters its very identity through Asian membership, by definition it will be pursuing European and American agendas in Asia.
NATOs presence in Afghanistan also raises a number of questions, including whether this presence is going to be a permanent one. If the answer is yes, then it will raise security concerns in countries like Pakistan, Iran, and China. Our national interests may not always coincide with the US; they definitely do not coincide in the case of China and Iran. NATO interests will be more coincidental with the US in the region. Even more troublesome at the basic conceptual level is the idea that NATO is being transformed from a collective defence organization, relating to collective defence of its member states: that is the rationalization of NATO offering assistance to the US after 9/11, that it is within the concept of collective defence since the US is a member of NATO. But its transformation from that limited entity to a collective security organization, to serve the interest of future coalitions of the willing arouses my concern. There is no legitimacy for any collective security organization, other than the UN with its universal membership. Therefore,
unless the UN charter is altered, and international laws are altered, the expansion of NATOs agendano matter how they may be implementing itis going to be in conflict with basic international law. Will NATO push itself as a collective security organization, as some have suggested it should do, promoting the values of the Atlantic-European community? Well, internationally, there is no legitimization for such a community, because article 5, chapter 7 of the
UN charter provides a very clear and limited framework for regional defence organizations. More important still, chapter 8 of the UN charter, article 52, which talks about regional arrangements for the maintenance of peace and security states: as are appropriate for the regional action. The clear understanding is that the
regional organization with regional membership operates within the memberships region. This does not mean that
NATO goes hopping into Afghanistan and anywhere else for military peace and security action. That is not permitted under the UN charter. Even more interesting is article 53 of the UN charter, which says that, even in case of regional actions for peace and security, no action can be taken without the authorization of the UN Security Council, except against an enemy as defined in article 53 (2) and if that enemy state is an enemy against one of the major parties during the Second World War. My question simply is: Is NATO going to be a part of a new security arrangement, which is going to bolster the notion of coalitions of the willing? If so, it means that they will work as a counter or an alternative to the UN collective security system and to the UN universal membership. If that is the case, then we have some very serious issues with the new role of NATO, because
NATO would then function in a legal and moral void, especially given its continuing limitations in terms of membership, as the membership defines its agenda and functioning.
