Some zombie.

At a meeting in Brussels Thursday foreign ministers agreed to expand alliance operations in southern Afghanistan and boost the number of troops in the war-torn state from 10,000 to 16,000. They defused an increasingly bitter transatlantic row about alleged C.I.A. camps in Europe after receiving reassurances from U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that suspected terrorists would not be tortured or sent to countries where they would be tortured. And they penciled in two summits of NATO leaders on transforming and enlarging the military bloc in 2006 and 2008.

That is just the tip of the iceberg of the alliance's activities.

Since the terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, NATO ships have been monitoring the waters of the Mediterranean to help prevent rogue strikes against vessels and ports. In just over four years, 60,000 ships have been monitored and almost 500 non-military vessels escorted.

In the mid-1990s there was a torturous debate within the alliance about whether NATO forces could act out of area -- that is, outside the borders of its member states. As leaders argued, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Bosnia and Croatia were killed before NATO planes finally forced Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic to the negotiating table.

The next time violence erupted in the Balkans -- in Kosovo -- NATO had less qualms about leaving its cozy confines. After a robust intervention lasting just 78 days, the bloodletting was ended, although there are still 17,000 alliance troops keeping a fragile peace in the country.

Since Kosovo, the 26-member alliance has not just gone out of area, it has gone out of Europe altogether. It leads the 16,000-strong International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, is training Iraqi officers outside Baghdad and helping the African Union airlift troops and equipment to the Darfur region of Sudan.

NATO, an organization set up to protect Western Europea against the Soviet threat over half a century ago, is also increasingly involved in delivering emergency relief. It airlifted goods to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and it has flown almost 3,000 tons of tents, blankets, stoves and food to Pakistan since the deadly earthquake on Oct. 8.

"I can remember when the Soviet Union was breaking up and the Warsaw Pact went out of existence in 1989-1990, people asked whether NATO had a future," Rice told reporters Thursday. "Some 16 years later, we now know the answer to that question. NATO not only has a future, it has a very bright future. It is fulfilling its historic function of being a place where democracies gather to ensure their security, and in doing so to increase the prospects for a secure world."

For all the alliance's slights, setbacks and self-doubts, it is difficult to argue -- as Aznar does -- that it remains mired in a cold-war mind-set based of tanks facing each other across the Fulda Gap. By the end of next year it will have a 25,000-strong rapid reaction force capable of intervening anywhere in the world within five days.

It is slowly acquiring airlift capacity to transport troops long distances and its primary focus is now fighting terrorism and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, not stopping a land invasion of Europe from the east.

This transformation is set to continue in the run-up to the next leaders' summit in the Latvian capital Riga next November. The very fact that NATO is holding a top-level meeting in a member state that was a Soviet republic less than 15 years ago is testimony to how much the alliance has changed. It also reflects its magnetic pull for neighboring countries.

An organization that started off with 12 members in 1949 now has 26. Three more states -- Croatia, Macedonia and Albania -- are expected to join shortly after the 2008 enlargement summit and Ukraine and the remaining Balkan countries look set to come on board next decade.

NATO may have its problems -- it is under-funded, its mission statement is in need of a rewrite and there is a chronic capabilities mismatch between its European and American members -- but this does not seem to dissuade states applying to join the Brussels-based club. Nor does it seem to put off people calling for the alliance to intervene when there are humanitarian disasters or looming conflicts. If it is a zombie organization, NATO is doing a good impression of looking like an body in rude health.

Related Links
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express