NATO beyond Afghanistan

Abstract

As the alliance begins to draw down in Afghanistan and end its decade-long combat mission by the end of 2014, the transatlantic community has an opportunity to assess the political, societal, strategic, operational, and tactical implications of NATO’s experience in ISAF. Although the alliance will remain involved in training, advising, and assisting Afghan security forces well beyond 2014, the end of the ISAF operation marks a watershed in NATO’s history. This panel will seek to assess the ‘lessons learned’ from the operation. These, in some senses, are practical (witness the development of Allied Joint Doctrine on counter-insurgency and civil-military cooperation) but also strategic (should NATO again involve itself in a protracted exercise in coercive nation-building?). The drawdown also has short-term consequences for how NATO orients itself after 2014. It will at that point become an organisation without a large operation, for the first time in over a decade. Will this release it to undertake operations elsewhere or simply converge with a trend toward retrenchment consequent upon the politics of austerity?

Title	Details
NATO Global Missions in Perspective: The Case of Afghanistan	View Paper Details
Global Crisis Manager or Modest Partner?	View Paper Details
Divided we Stand Together? New Prospects of US and European Defence Cooperation after Libya and Mali	View Paper Details