Time for a NATO Q&A?

‘It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers,’ said the US writer James Thurber in the middle of the last century. He remains right today.

At its Bucharest Summit, NATO will be looking at the right questions and working towards real answers. These largely concern changing security challenges and how to deal with them. In both cases, there are clear, present day needs - and unknown future ones.

Current day challenges in Afghanistan and Kosovo are well documented. But future and emerging challenges such as climate change security implications and cyber-defence are still evolving. All require close attention.

And this leads on to questions for NATO: about what it is - and what it will become. Several of these questions are tackled in this edition of NATO Review, starting with a piece by NATO’s Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

Other authors look at questions such as: Is it not sooner rather than later that a move towards a new Strategic Concept is necessary? How can Partnerships evolve to suit both NATO and Partner countries? And what is NATO’s role to be in areas such as energy security?

There are two sides to most dilemmas. And helping choose which side is, in a way, what the Bucharest Summit is about. This task will not end at the Summit. But as Romania’s President, Traian Băsescu, says in his article, ‘Bucharest could be a bridge between our past achievements and new tasks.’

Paul King