"The alliance should agree... to an effective NATO role against the new threats presented by international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction"
About this Quote
The call urges a reimagining of NATO from a Cold War shield against states to a flexible instrument facing diffuse, transnational dangers. By tying international terrorism to weapons of mass destruction, it compresses two anxieties that defined the early 2000s: the fear that non-state actors could leverage catastrophic technologies, and the suspicion that weak or rogue states might enable them. The argument is not only about recognizing new threats; it is about forging alliance consensus on doing something concrete and sustained about them.
Context matters. After 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time and moved, haltingly at first, toward operations outside its traditional area, eventually taking command in Afghanistan. Leaders like Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch transatlanticist shaped by Spain’s long struggle against ETA and aligned with the United States over Iraq, pressed for institutional change: better intelligence fusion, deployable forces, counterproliferation capabilities, and political will to act beyond Europe’s borders. The Prague Summit of 2002 and the creation of the NATO Response Force reflected this shift.
The appeal also points to a persistent tension within the alliance: how to reconcile collective defense with expeditionary counterterrorism and counterproliferation, how to balance legality and legitimacy, and how to share burdens when strategic cultures diverge across the Atlantic. Effective, in this sense, means more than statements; it implies interoperable capabilities, common doctrine, and mechanisms for prevention as much as response, including defenses against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.
Events soon underscored both urgency and controversy. The Madrid bombings in 2004 revealed the domestic costs of global terrorism, even as disputes over Iraq showed the political limits of consensus. Yet NATO’s evolution since then, from CBRN defense units to missile defense and broader partnership networks, traces the trajectory Aznar advocated. The statement captures a pivotal moment when the alliance had to decide whether to remain a static guarantor of borders or become a dynamic platform confronting threats that ignore them.
Context matters. After 9/11, NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time and moved, haltingly at first, toward operations outside its traditional area, eventually taking command in Afghanistan. Leaders like Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch transatlanticist shaped by Spain’s long struggle against ETA and aligned with the United States over Iraq, pressed for institutional change: better intelligence fusion, deployable forces, counterproliferation capabilities, and political will to act beyond Europe’s borders. The Prague Summit of 2002 and the creation of the NATO Response Force reflected this shift.
The appeal also points to a persistent tension within the alliance: how to reconcile collective defense with expeditionary counterterrorism and counterproliferation, how to balance legality and legitimacy, and how to share burdens when strategic cultures diverge across the Atlantic. Effective, in this sense, means more than statements; it implies interoperable capabilities, common doctrine, and mechanisms for prevention as much as response, including defenses against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats.
Events soon underscored both urgency and controversy. The Madrid bombings in 2004 revealed the domestic costs of global terrorism, even as disputes over Iraq showed the political limits of consensus. Yet NATO’s evolution since then, from CBRN defense units to missile defense and broader partnership networks, traces the trajectory Aznar advocated. The statement captures a pivotal moment when the alliance had to decide whether to remain a static guarantor of borders or become a dynamic platform confronting threats that ignore them.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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