Bulletin n. 1/2012
June 2012
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Karsten Jung
    Willing or Waning? NATO’s Role in an Age of Coalitions
    in World Affairs , Vol. 16, n. 2, March / April ,  2012
    Twenty years after the great debate over NATO’s future at the end of the Cold War, we appear to have come full circle—“back to the future,” in John Mearsheimer’s words. Its instrumental role in pacifying the Balkans, its major commitment in Afghanistan, and its recent operation in Libya notwithstanding, the role and relevance of the alliance appear no more certain today than they were when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. At the same time, so-called coalitions of the willing seem to be emerging as an increasingly serious competitor to the Atlantic alliance and its traditional role as the primary conduit for Western security policy. Particularly in post-9/11 Washington, such informal and flexible arrangements are enjoying considerable popularity as a means for projecting power and stability out of area. At least since the French push for employing a similar model in the fight against Qaddafi, this preference for ad hoc coalitions over permanent alliances is no longer unique to the superpower. It is therefore high time to stop and ponder what role and relevance a Cold War alliance can still aspire to in (what appears to be) an age of coalition warfare: that is, to inquire into the post–Cold War trends that explain NATO’s troubles of the past two decades, to examine how their (superior) ability to cope with these trends can account for the rise of coalitions over the same period, and to delineate from this a potential future role for the alliance based not on competition, but on cooperation with the coalitions.
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