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Past Event

A CENTER ON THE UNITED STATES AND EUROPE EVENT

Tackling NATO's Challenges

NATO, Foreign Policy, Defense, Afghanistan, Russia


Event Summary

As President Barack Obama and NATO leaders join on April 3 and 4 to celebrate the Alliance’s 60th anniversary, they also must confront the daunting challenges facing NATO today. How should the Alliance proceed in Afghanistan, its largest ever military operation? How can NATO broaden its restored relationship with Russia while continuing to deepen its links with Ukraine and Georgia? As the Alliance begins to devise a new strategic concept, how should it balance its focus between preparing for expeditionary operations and meeting its collective defense obligations? How will France’s full return to NATO’s integrated military structure add to Alliance capabilities?

Multimedia Downloads

Full Event Audio

March 30, 2009 Length: 95:40

Event Information

When

Monday, March 30, 2009
3:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Where

Falk Auditorium
The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC
Map

Event Materials

Contact: Brookings Office of Communications

E-mail: events@brookings.edu

Phone: 202.797.6105

On March 30, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings held a public event to preview President Obama’s first NATO summit. Daniel Hamilton, professor at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and Brookings experts Steven Pifer, Jeremy Shapiro and Justin Vaisse described the challenges facing the president and NATO. Brookings Vice President and Director of Foreign Policy Carlos Pascual gave introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

Transcript

CARLOS PASCUAL: The massive transformation of NATO as a defense Alliance has forced us to ask the question of whether the process that NATO has gone through to transform itself and to adapt itself is enough. And how that question is addressed is really going to affect the relevance and the viability of the institution and perhaps the very future of the Alliance, and these are some of the questions that we want to begin to get at in this discussion today. But in the real world, they're going to play themselves out as the next NATO summit takes place. The 60th anniversary takes place on April 3rd and 4th. There certainly is no question that NATO needs to evolve, and indeed it has evolved. . .

. . .And still we have to answer the question "why NATO?" and "is it effective -- can it be effective?" And part of the answer is going to depend on what's the threat. How do we understand what NATO is organizing itself against or toward or in prevention of? Is that a global set of threats, which are different from the threats that we've understood and thought of before as major international security threats -- things like climate change or nuclear proliferation or transnational terrorism? And if so, where does NATO fit into that equation, and how does it place itself as an organization?

Participants

Panel

Carlos Pascual

Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy

Panel

Daniel Hamilton

Professor, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

Jeremy Shapiro

Director of Research, Center on the United States and Europe

Steven Pifer

Visiting Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe

Justin Vaïsse

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe


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