Читать книгу What's Wrong with NATO and How to Fix it - Mark Webber - Страница 19

NATO’s first major ‘ill’ – doing too much – is arguably a problem of success. Three of NATO’s seven decades have fallen within the post-Cold War period, and it has accumulated a wide range of functions in consequence. Such adaptation and repurposing is clearly preferable to stasis and irrelevance. But accumulating more and more functions, with multiple institutions, policies and new members and partners to match, has also stored up problems. Taking on an extra commitment may seem logical in isolation, but when these multiply it can result in a dissipation of energy and a lowering of effectiveness. The magnitude of NATO’s problem is, therefore, not to be underestimated. Here we outline its various aspects. In Chapter 5, we offer some routes by which the problem can be addressed.