The New Nation - Internet Edition

Claude Salhani

If he hasn't already, as President, Barack Obama will realise soon enough that the troops he withdraws from Iraq will in all likelihood end up redeploying to Afghanistan. And, a President McCain, will likewise be faced with the reality that American forces may well end up staying in the region for the next hundred years.

But, it won't be in Iraq. Whether itís President Barack Obama or President John McCain, the next resident of the White House will be faced with two harsh realities: First, the United States needs to withdraw its armed forces from Iraq sooner rather than later. And secondly, the United States and its Nato allies will be required to step up efforts and troop numbers committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan.

In the months and years ahead, Afghanistan will represent a headache to either Obama, who wants to push for a ëresponsibleí withdrawal from Iraq, or McCain who is ready to keep the troops there for 100 years, if necessary.

Indeed, the operations that Nato has been facing ó in taking over this American war - is proving to be its most serious challenge since the end of the Cold War. In fighting this asymmetrical war, Nato is considerably outside its normal theatre of operations in many respects?

The Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisationís concept was of conventional armies in Europe trained to defend against the conventional armies of its Soviet bloc neighbours - it being a US - established alliance utilised to turn European concerns away from post-World War II German aggression, and focus it on the USSR threat. It's likely that in those days, no one ever imagined Nato would be conducting anti-guerrilla warfare in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan in the early twenty-first century.

This has been a challenging period of transformation, said Richard Prosen, from the U.S. State Department's Office of European Security and Political Affairs, speaking last week at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

In military bureaucratese - yet with a certain level of clarity - Prosen indicated that Nato is transforming itself from what was a static reactive alliance focused on territorial defence, to an expeditionary pro-active global security alliance.

Nato today faces multiple challenges: from increasing Taleban activity in Afghanistan, terrorist threats in other parts of the world - including infiltration into Europe - to the horrifying possibilities inherent in the rise of nuclear proliferation. Nato policy wonks have qualified these as the allianceís significant threats.

The future looks very, very grim, said Yonah Alexander, Director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies. Alexander explains that destroying the terrorist threat will be very difficult, given the fact that Nato is fighting an ideology, not just a military force.

Brussels - or really Washington ó is going to have to convince the silent majority within the group of 26 countries that make up the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation that failure in Afghanistan represents a real danger to Europe and ultimately to North America.

In that regard, when President George W. Bush spoke of Iraq, and warned that the terrorists had to be stopped in the Middle East before they reach the streets of New York, the analysts say he just got the country wrong. Afghanistan is where the terrorists must be stopped.

More recently Nato has come to realise the need of a metamorphosis of its original mission, as there has been a re-emergence of Russia as a power to be reckoned with ó as the conflict in Georgia has shown.

Russia is attempting to draw a new line across Europe, and the United States is strongly opposed to this, said Ian Lesser, a senior Trans-Atlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

And Lesser cautions, the Nato Alliance is going to have to reconsider the whole business of nuclear forces and nuclear strategy.

That being said, Natoís strategic concentration will be focused in two principles, but very different directions.

First, the alliance will have to deal with fighting an unconventional war in Afghanistan in which victory cannot be achieved purely from a military perspective. Yes, more troops are needed to defeat the threat in Afghanistan, but ëvictoryí can only be achieved when a genuine democracy takes hold; when corruption is curbed; and when, finally, drug-trafficking is curtailed and ruthless tribal warlords are replaced by the rule of law, good governance, and a strong central government. That will take several decades, if not more.

Second, as relations with Russia become much more competitive and strategic, Nato will need to revise post-Cold War era plans, retrieving Cold War analyses that have likely been gathering dust on back shelves somewhere at Nato headquarters and adapt them accordingly. In a little over three months the United States will have a new president and, given the current situation, possibly a new Cold War as well.