First NATO impressions

After the few remaining passengers got off the local bus, the driver shut off his engine. The sign on the bus indicated its final destination: NATO. A local Brussels bus that goes to the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the same organisation that was founded during the Cold War and which celebrated its 60th anniversary this past April. It made sense for local transportation to exist there, but I still found it quite interesting for some reason.

Barbed wire surrounded what to me seemed to look like a boring building. The colour was grey, a few floors high, cement walls, and many average-sized windows separated by only a few centimetres. I thought such an important organization would want to show its prestige through a more interesting design, like I had previously seen with EU institutions. But then I realized it made perfect sense for it to look like this. Why would they want to draw too much attention upon themselves, considering the type of information and security issues that flow through those offices? Of course, the inside met my expectations.

My colleagues and I had the pleasure of meeting James Appathurai, NATO spokesman, and, I must say, quite a well-known one. We talked about many issues NATO is presently dealing with, from the impact of the Obama administration on the organization to enlargement issues and relations with Russia. Of course Afghanistan also came up.

Although Appathurai said he does not consider the Afghanistan mission as a litmus test for this alliance, some military experts I had previously spoken to do. NATO is leading the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. The countries contributing the highest number of troops and fighting in the southern and more dangerous part of Afghanistan are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands. Germany, Spain, Poland and other countries are also there with various tasks, from development work to training the Afghan National Army or police. 

Afghanistan was the alliance’s first out-of-the-area mission, and also the most serious combat role it has taken until now. The results of the mission are very important because they would address NATO’s true relevancy in the post-Cold War era. Many of the NATO states participating in ISAF have national caveats, meaning they can choose the extent of their involvement and the type of work they want to do there. As much as this is a well-known fact, it also makes NATO seem it is not “speaking” with one voice - that of the alliance - but rather with multiple national ones. 

“The success is ours, the problems are NATO’s,” Appathurai remarks, describing the attitudes that can be found in the capitals of some of these NATO countries. In other words, progress in Afghanistan tends to be presented at a national perspective - officials trying to credit success to their own country’s efforts, whereas - for example - a lack of troops is an issue for the alliance to deal with as a whole. Of course this rule does not apply in every case from what I have noticed in the Canadian media. However, the media does play a very important role here.

Canadian journalists can sign the Military Embed Program agreement, travel to Afghanistan for a few weeks, travel with the troops (if they choose to go out of the wire) and see how things are really developing. Every journalist there must wear a vest that says “PRESS” on the chest area. Appathurai told us, laughingly, that there is a habit to actually go and press on the journalist’s chest (it does say, press, doesn’t it?). I imagine this would become more complicated for female journalists.

Now returning to the more serious things - As it makes sense, the Canadian journalist will report on the work of the Canadian soldiers. The problem is that readers or viewers do not find out much about the work of British or Polish soldiers, for example. Of course the stories about the Canadian military will appeal to the public at home, but in order for the public to be fully informed and get the bigger picture, they also need to learn about the work of other countries there.

“For Canadians to see Danes and Estonians also in the south, could show this is a multinational organisation, that they are not alone and that other countries are also losing soldiers,” Appathurai pointed out. 

Makes a lot of sense to me.

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