Thursday 26 January 2012
- Research Paper 72: "Rearranging Family Life and a Large Circle of Friends: Reforming NATO's Partnership Programmes", by Heidi Reisinger.
The missions in Afghanistan and Libya demonstrate the increasing role of NATO’s partners. In contrast to the historic concept of partnership, seen at least partly as a tool to prepare for membership, those of today have a much broader function. European partners, Middle Eastern partners, global partners – a reform of the Allliance’s partnership policy was long overdue. NATO set out to address this need in the "Berlin Package" of March 2011, which was in practice an attempt to square the circle: don’t upset anybody, don’t provoke endless discussions, but change everything for the better.
Is the Alliance now able “to work on more issues, with more partners, in more ways”?
Taking a look into the engine room of the partnership business of NATO, the latest paper from the NATO Defense College examines the potential and the challenges related to the reform of the Alliance’s partnership policy. In order to deal with the different types and requirements of partnerships, NATO has introduced a "one-size-fits-all” format for cooperation with non-NATO countries. This new approach might ease the management of the variety of partners, but at the same time it leaves more political questions open than it answers.
