In its latest edition, September/October issue, Foreign Policy Romania has published a major dossier dedicated to the future of NATO. Does the Alliance really need a new social contract? Is NATO still relevant in the current security environment? How can we fix the solidarity gap inside the Alliance? These questions are highly relevant especially today, two months away from a New NATO’s Strategic Concept. On all these topics FP Romania discussed with Brigadier General (ret.) Dr. Klaus Wittmann.

FP Romania: The previous Strategic Concepts of the Alliance were forged in some very different security environments. In that sense some of their elements are outdated. Does the Alliance need a new social contract, a new consensus? On what elements?

Klaus Wittmann: A new consensus is indeed required in two regards: Firstly, while in the Cold War era NATO would have fought an existential “war of necessity”, with a monolithic threat unifying Allies, in the new and ever-evolving security environment it engages in “wars of choice”, “discretionary operations”. There consensus is much more difficult to muster, because different threat assessments, historic experiences and national interests come to the fore. Honesty is required about the fact that there are ever more marked regional groupings within the Alliance such as: those advocating a global orientation (US, UK, partly Canada); others emphasizing NATO’s regional character and advocating cooperative security (“old Europe”, but far from being united); several new members who, particularly after the Georgia war, insist on the priority of article 5 and collective defense; and the Southern members emphasizing the dangers in the Mediterranean region. This makes the need for re-establishing strategic consensus very obvious.

Secondly, there is great disunity within the Alliance about several central themes, such as NA