NATO faces a ‘dim and dismal future’, says Gates

NATO faces a “dim, if not dismal” future, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned.

In his final policy speech as Pentagon chief, Gates questioned the viability of NATO — the cornerstone of US security policy for six decades — saying its members’ penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of US support.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation was formed in 1949 as a US-led bulwark against Soviet aggression, but in the post-Cold War era it has struggled to find a purpose.

“Future US political leaders — those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me — may not consider the return on America’s investment in Nato worth the cost,” he said in Brussels.

He said both of NATO’s main military operations — Afghanistan and Libya — point up its weaknesses and failures. “The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the US Congress... to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defence.”

Gates blasted allies who are “willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defence budgets.”

He said the reluctance of some European nations to also take on direct combat could spell the demise of NATO. “What I’ve sketched out is the real possibility for a dim, if not dismal future for the trans-Atlantic alliance,” he said. “Such a future is possible, but not inevitable. ”