March 26, 2008

NATO’s Needs

Sean Kay

“When President Bush travels to meet with his NATO counterparts in Bucharest in April, he will confront an unfinished mission relative to the promise of uniting Europe and reorganizing the alliance to address new threats in the 21st century,” says Kay, author of Global Security in the Twenty-First Century and NATO and the Future of European Security.

“More importantly,” Kay continues, “he will confront an alliance with an ambitious agenda—all of which is overshadowed by the growing crisis confronting NATO in Afghanistan. NATO now confronts a crossroads that likely will have to be resolved by a new American presidential administration.

“But in the immediate future,” Kay says, “President Bush and the allies have an obligation to refocus NATO’s mission toward success in Afghanistan, and especially toward completing the unfinished process of creating a Europe that is whole and free, while balancing the immediate needs to increase security in the Balkans and tackle the long-term strategic relationship involving Ukraine and Russia.”

Kay, who also serves as chair of Ohio Wesleyan’s International Studies Program, is an associate at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University and a non-resident fellow at the Eisenhower Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the editorial board of Contemporary Security Policy and a former fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies within the U.S. Department of Defense.

He will share more insights into NATO, Afghanistan, and issues regarding U.S. foreign policy in a time of conflict when he appears as a guest on WOSU’s “Open Line” with Fred Anderle at 10 a.m. on April 15. The program may be heard by tuning into 820 AM on the radio dial or by logging onto www.wosu.org/news/openline.

– Cole Hatcher