New NATO in a New World
Author: Gao Hua
Publisher: World Affairs Press
Two decades after the end of Cold War, NATO’s changes since the early 1990s and its course in the future remain heated topics in Chinese and international academic circles.
The day after 9-11, I met Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor during the Carter administration, at a conference in Beijing. We talked about NATO’s changes and its future strategy. Brzezinski believed that in the 21st century NATO (and also the U.S.) would shift its strategic focus to Asia, and that more generally the focus of international struggle would change from the Middle East to Asia. We invited Brzezinski to Shanghai to discuss these issues further, an exchange that made us well aware of the need for further research. The material we had was clearly not enough to grasp the new appearance of NATO and its strategic thought and behavior since the end of the Cold War. Chinese scholars need to study NATO against the backdrop and in light of the constantly changing international security situation; they especially need to consider NATO’s motivations and considerations acting from the global high ground. This research is all the more germane, if not urgent, given China’s development of multilateral diplomacy. Gao Hua’s New NATO in a New World, rich in content and penetrating in observation, has done much to fill this gap.
Approaching NATO through the lens of international strategy, Gao Hua considers NATO’s revamped strategic outlook, which he breaks down into three adjustments, and the ideology underpinning its involvement in Kosovo in the 1990s and Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya in the 21st century. Gao summarizes NATO’s new strategic thought and efforts to radiate its influence outward as the “three-ring strategy”: first, retaining the U.S.’s dominant role and the U.S.’s Western European allies as its pillars, NATO expanded its membership to include the former Eastern European members of the Warsaw Pact, enlarging its domain by 800 km eastward; second, with its inclusion of nearly all the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the creation of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) enabled NATO to stabilize and maintain relations with Russia; and third, NATO has extended its range of influence to South Africa and countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and the area around China’s Great Wall.
In spite of this focus on global strategy, by no means does New NATO in a New World shirk analysis of NATO’s internal dynamics. Gao also analyzes U.S.-European relations—both how their partnership has been mutually beneficial and at times mutually contentious—as well as the shared interests, tempered by shared vigilance, between old and new NATO member states. Along these lines, Gao also addresses NATO and Russia’s mutual need for each other and their simultaneous rivalry and points of conflict, and NATO and the EU’s competition and cooperation on security issues. In summary, the complex balance of strategic relations between various forces is a theme running through the major chapters of the book.
On the whole, Gao paid due attention both to ongoing issues in the study of NATO and NATO’s changes since the end of the Cold War, offering a vivid description of contemporary geopolitical reality. After the close of the Cold War, NATO has seen all-round changes in its strategic thought, goals, methods, mechanisms and membership. At present, NATO is still in constant change, and its future is filled with uncertainties. Well published in the field, Gao has examined NATO’s evolution very closely. More importantly, she has boldly expressed her views on the difficulties and sensitive issues in NATO’s transformation.
At points, Gao has diverged from some of the ideas I expressed in a much earlier book, NATO: Strategies and the Situation (1989). I appreciate her careful study, and think that these discrepancies open the door for further discussion.
Overall, New NATO in a New World provides a Chinese scholar’s perspective of NATO. Chapter Ten specially discusses China-NATO relations, elaborating on the history and current situation, their mutual interests and points of conflict, and their future. In addition, Gao has proposed some suggestions to curb NATO’s eastward expansion and interference in East Asian affairs and further develop China-NATO relations. Whatever discrepancies Chinese scholars may have in the schools of theory they subscribe to, the research approaches they employ or even the basic understandings they take as given, they share a common framework (and obligation) in scholarship: a familiarity with Chinese history and culture and China’s diplomatic policies past and present. National interests are the point of departure and ultimate goal for studying NATO, and the book has well demonstrated the author’s such efforts.
Translated by Jiang Hong
Revised by Charles Horne
Chinese link:
http://www.csstoday.net/xueshuzixun/jishizixun/78805.html