In a historical sense, the process just described has become so success-ful that it has prompted other international organisations that can serve as platforms to mount military operations to follow suit. With a view to realising the full potential of the wider international community, this is a welcome development. Yet, when adopting a comparative perspective, it becomes clear that NATO retains a leading edge in this regard.17 The func-tional specialisation in military affairs and the institufunc-tional architecture geared towards rapid response ensure that the Alliance for the foreseeable future, in spite of other shortcomings, offers a qualitative advantage over other organisations and sets the proverbial gold standard for international military cooperation.
Within the UN system, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations has undergone significant reorganisation and professionalisation. As suc-cessive reports of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations (the
“C34” in peacekeeping jargon) make clear, the UN struggles with similar
16 The “flags to post” plot refers to the allocation of available staff posts in the command structure to differ-ent Allies on the basis of their relative weight in the Alliance.
17 For an elaborate comparison as far as operation planning processes are concerned, see: A. Mattelaer, The Politico-Military Dynamics of European Crisis Response Operations: Planning, Friction, Strategy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
issues when drawing lessons from recent operations (for example, with re-gard to command architecture and operational concepts). But the UN can-not acquire the institutions and procedures required to manage complex military operations without simultaneously abandoning its promise to be
“the world’s most accepted honest broker.”18 Impartiality and military ef-fectiveness are essentially mutually exclusive concepts. In the past decade, the European Union (EU) has also built up the institutional machinery for launching crisis management missions under the flag of the Common Secu-rity and Defence Policy (CSDP). In terms of both organisational structures and operating processes, the CSDP displays striking similarities to NATO.
The Military Committees of both organisations are largely composed of the same general officers and the EU freely copies from NATO doctrine to en-able its military headquarters to function effectively. The European officer corps is socialised to such an extent by NATO procedures that the CSDP cannot be seen as fully autonomous from the Alliance. The African Union, in turn, is engaged in building up the African Peace and Security Architec-ture. This process is heavily influenced by the model European integration provided and is to a large extent financed by European development assis-tance. Through maintaining a NATO Senior Military Liaison Officer team in Addis Ababa, the Alliance also contributes to African capacity building efforts. Ever more regional international organisations seem to be embark-ing on similar paths, includembark-ing the Union of South American Nations and its South American Defence Council. Even if the latter does not constitute a military alliance and has no operational purposes, it is clear that interest in cooperative security efforts is still on the rise.
Given this proliferation of cooperative security arrangements, what can NATO offer? The short answer is that its assets described above are nowhere replicated to the same level of professionalism. Firstly, NATO is the only organisation that has given birth to a well-developed body of multinational military doctrine covering the full spectrum of military affairs. As a
con-18 See: J. Hillen, Blue Helmets: The Strategy of UN Military Operations, 2nd ed., Washington DC, Brassey’s, 2000, p. 250.
sequence, this is what officers get taught at military academies across the Alliance (and frequently beyond). It effectively sets the doctrinal standards that other organisations may choose to adopt or elaborate on. Secondly, NATO is the only international organisation with a permanent command chain instead of ad hoc, mission-specific command arrangements. This per-manence is invaluable for enabling genuine rapid response and strategic planning efforts. Whereas other international organisations require a po-litical decision to start planning and need ample time to get headquarters up and running (typically measured in months), the NATO Command Structure can deliver planning output quasi-immediately. Thirdly, it needs to be remembered that NATO has confronted the most challenging opera-tions. Its structures and procedures are correspondingly the most robust and battle-hardened available.
It is possible to argue that these qualities are the mere by-product of the Alliance’s membership in general, and of the dominant role of the United States in particular. Does this not mean that NATO represents a vehicle for exporting American military doctrine and political preferences? It is of course a fact of life that international organisations inevitably reflect their membership, in the sense that members attempt to upload their policy preferences. But one needs to acknowledge that the outcome of the policy process in NATO always reflects a search for consensus, with input being generated on both sides of the Atlantic. Thinking about the “Comprehen-sive Approach,” to take a popular example, is heavily influence by Euro-pean and Canadian ideas. The German concept of “Vernetzte Sicherheit”
played a particularly prominent role in this regard.19 The so-called “3D-ap-proach” (defence, diplomacy and development) was promoted by Canada and the United Kingdom early on. Similarly, NATO’s counterinsurgency doctrine was not just a model copy of the counterinsurgency field manual the US adopted five years before, but incorporated the lessons learned in
19 Cf. e.g. A. Wittkowsky and J.P. Meierjohann, “Das Konzept der Vernetzten Sicherheit: Dimensionen, Herausforderungen, Grenzen,” ZIF Policy Briefing, 2011; and C. Major and E. Schöndorf, “Umfassende An-sätze, vernetzte Sicherheit,” SWP Aktuell, No. 22, 2011.
Afghanistan. In other words, NATO doctrine may be inspired by national doctrines, but is itself the product of a deliberative process involving all the Allies and their respective sensitivities. NATO effectively pursues an open door policy not only towards membership questions, but also towards ideas.
The fact that all proposals need to be agreed to by every individual Ally always stirs debate. In the aftermath of the Kosovo campaign, many lament-ed the frustration ensuing from what was calllament-ed “warfare by committee.”20 Yet this constitutes the very essence of working through multilateral chan-nels. When all the Allies pool their resources, political strings get attached and difficult discussions are part of the game. For example, when NATO agreed to augment Turkey’s air-defence capabilities in the context of the Syrian crisis, it was clearly stipulated that this deployment only served a defensive purpose.21 NATO is not different from other international or-ganisations in this regard: it constitutes a forum where inevitable trade-offs are made. The only aspect that sets NATO apart from the UN, the EU and others is its functional specialisation in military affairs. Naturally this has advantages and shortcomings: it will deliver military professionalism but will correspondingly be perceived as a purely military organisation.