The NATO fantasy

Politico features this call for bypassing the United Nations and working through NATO if violence continues in Libya and if the Security Council can’t act: Should the U.N. process falter due to internal politics, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must assume responsibility and intervene — even without U.N. authorization if necessary. A precedent was set ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

Politico features this call for bypassing the United Nations and working through NATO if violence continues in Libya and if the Security Council can't act:

Politico features this call for bypassing the United Nations and working through NATO if violence continues in Libya and if the Security Council can’t act:

Should the U.N. process falter due to internal politics, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization must assume responsibility and intervene — even without U.N. authorization if necessary. A precedent was set in Kosovo in 1999. In Libya, regional order and international stability could be at stake.

There’s been an air of unreality to most of the recent calls for intervention (including no-fly zones and targeted strikes on Gaddafi and his supporters), and this is no exception. The idea that a NATO alliance exhausted and divided over Afghanistan is going to intervene in Libya is far-fetched. The  notion of it agreeing to do so without UN backing is surreal. Remember: NATO operates by consensus, which means that every member has a veto. 

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the alliance’s secretary-general, appears to be more in touch with reality:

Nato has no plans to intervene in the unrest in Libya and has received no request to do so, Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after talks in Ukraine on Thursday.

"I would like to stress that Nato has no plans to intervene and we have not received any request," Rasmussen said after talks with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

"In any case, any action should be based on a clear United Nations mandate," he added.

Update:  To be clear, my skepticism about intervention here is about NATO either using coercive force or deploying some kind of substantial ground presence. I would not be surprised to see NATO help coordinate the evacuation of NATO nationals and perhaps facilitate the flow of humanitarian aid.

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

Tag: NATO

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