The terrorist attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001 augured a new era in international warfare. Since then, the United States has played a prominent role in taking aim at international terrorism, as opposed to concentrating simply on protecting itself and its allies from conventional and nuclear attack. As NATO has just invited seven new states to join the alliance, this is a good opportunity to look back on the past year to see what role, if any, NATO has played so far in the war on terrorism and how that role could develop in the future.

NATO's response to the 11 September attacks was swift, as the heads of state of members of the alliance vowed support to U.S. President George W. Bush; the next day, NATO invoked for the first time in its history Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which says that an attack against any one member will be considered an attack on the entire alliance. This landmark decision, as the "NATO Review" called it, was soon followed by a number of practical steps aimed at helping the United States in its counterattack against terrorism.

First, in response to a request by the United States, NATO on 4 October agreed to take certain measures to expand the alliance's ability to combat terrorism, including enhanced intelligence sharing. Second, by 26 October, sections of NATO's Standing Naval Forces had begun patrolling the eastern Mediterranean to monitor shipping in the area. Third, from mid-October 2001 through mid-May 2002, NATO AWACS (airborne warning and control system) aircraft flew more than 360 sorties protecting the United States. Finally, a new, closer relationship also emerged with Russia in order to bolster the effectiveness of the long-term struggle against the common enemy of terrorism. These new relations resulted in the formation of the NATO-Russia Council in May of this year.

These were important measures, but nevertheless, the alliance has not played a major role in the ensuing U.S.-led fight against terrorism. While 14 NATO allies did take part in Operation Enduring Freedom, aimed at toppling the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan and rooting out Al-Qaeda operatives embedded in that country, it should not be forgotten that this was indeed a U.S. operation in which NATO did not have an official role. After all, Washington, aiming to strike quickly, did not care to deal with political interference from its 18 allies. In bypassing NATO and leading this operation itself, the invocation of Article 5 was relegated to more of a symbolic gesture. As for those allies that did send troops to Afghanistan, they surely did so with a measure of confidence in an ultimate U.S. victory and few casualties.

The U.S.-led coalition drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan and, according to "Jane's Intelligence Report," of 14 October, up to one-third of Al-Qaeda operatives in that country may have been killed. Nonetheless, subsequent events have shown that the war against terrorism is far from over. The recent attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen and the bombing of a nightclub in Bali have shown that terrorist organizations -- Al-Qaeda or others -- still have the ability to go on the offensive and strike a blow at their enemies.

In a similar vain, CIA Director George Tenet told a congressional committee on 17 October that, "When you see the multiple attacks that you've seen occur around the world, from Bali to Kuwait; the number of failed attacks that have been attempted; [and] the various messages that have been issued by senior Al-Qaeda leaders, you must make the assumption that Al-Qaeda is in an execution phase and intends to strike us both here and overseas. That's unambiguous, as far as I am concerned."

Since the war against terrorism is clearly not over, the question becomes: Is a new, improved, and expanded NATO prepared for this type of warfare?

Traditionally, the European members of NATO have been reluctant to give the alliance a "global" role in conflict resolution. It was, and should remain, in the eyes of many members, a North Atlantic alliance. Given this perception, NATO can still play a role in the changing world of security. There is no evidence to suggest that terrorists have abandoned European targets. Targeting will shift according to the political goals of the Al-Qaeda affiliate cells around the world. One week it could be a French oil tanker off the coast of Yemen, the next a nightclub in Bali, while the third could be anywhere, for example, the metro in Paris or London or a theater in Moscow, as the recent hostage taking by Chechen rebels has shown is a very real possibility.

In such instances, the role of NATO could be to complement law-enforcement and intelligence agencies whose mission is more geared to fighting this type of underground war with terrorism. By implementing greater intelligence sharing with law-enforcement agencies such as Interpol, Europol, the FBI, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (provided these agencies are ready to use this information wisely and not engage in "turf" fights among one other), NATO could play a key role in the new international order of security.

By being flexible in their approach to counterterrorism, and by avoiding the mistakes made by the United States that created "walls" between police and intelligence services, U.S. allies in NATO can develop a program for counterterrorist warfare. Writing in the Summer 2002 "Washington Quarterly," Senator Richard Lugar proposed that the Prague summit "ought to focus on developing a comprehensive plan for restructuring European military capabilities, a task which could extend to rethinking completely the current Defense Capabilities Initiative (DCI).... More important now is the redirection of the capabilities initiative so as to create and harmonize counterterrorism and counterproliferation to serve both U.S. and European interests."

Following up on Lugar's views, NATO Secretary-General Lord George Robertson told a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels on 7 June that the Prague meeting "will see the emergence of a modernized, updated North Atlantic Treaty Organization equipped to face new and daunting challenges."

His words were put in perspective by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who declared that same day that: "This threat [terrorism] is not theoretical. It's real. It's dangerous. If we do not prepare completely to counter it, we could well experience attacks in our countries that could make the events of 11 September seem modest by comparison."

As a military alliance, NATO should first and foremost remain such to fight local conflicts. As Philip H. Gordon, a former director for European affairs at the National Security Council, writes in the Summer 2002 "Brookings Review": "Even with all the right reforms, NATO will not again become the central defensive organization it was during the Cold War or even during the Balkan wars of the 1990's.... It remains an essential tool with which the United States and its key allies can coordinate their militaries...and quite possibly fight major military operations anywhere in the world."

An expanded version of NATO can, however, only be as good as its component parts. This has been one of the major problems facing NATO up until the Prague summit, where alliance leaders today invited Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria to join. It is no secret that the armed forces of these countries are not up to par with NATO standards. At best, many of the new members are seen as allies only in the political sphere with little if anything to offer in terms of military might or useful intelligence-gathering capabilities. Yet, they too may be needed as NATO's mission undergoes changes commensurate with the needs of regional security.

One factor often mentioned in the development of NATO's antiterrorism mission will be the role played by Russia in the near future. Writing in the "International Herald Tribune" of 21 November 2001, a group of respected foreign-policy analysts from Russia, Britain, and Germany came to the conclusion that: "For these 21st-century challenges, NATO is inadequate, since it is by definition European-centered. A further enlargement of NATO to include Russia represents a serious option to enhance stability and would be far superior to an alliance of Russia with NATO, building on the present NATO-Russia Council. Such an arrangement leaves Russia in a no-man's-land as a semi-partner and semi-adversary."

Russia did contribute certain intelligence information to the United States and provided real help during the campaign in Afghanistan. Yet, many foreign-policy watchers fear that the price for this help, a free hand to put down the Chechen rebellion, may be too great for the United States to pay. In any case, neither the operation in Afghanistan nor U.S. silence over Russia's behavior in Chechnya solved any of the problems they were intended to solve: namely the elimination of Al-Qaeda or the end of the Chechen separatist movement.

The experience gained by U.S. law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in combating such terrorist groups as Al-Qaeda indicates that massive military retaliation is not enough to destroy these groups. Some terrorists may be wiped out, but enough will survive to fight another day. And so, it still remains to be seen how NATO will "update" itself to counter the threat of terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction, but most analysts agree this will not be a simple task. It is also difficult to predict if the North Atlantic alliance, even in its expanded and reformed version, will be capable of conducting the ruthless, and at times illegal, sub-rosa warfare many believe is the only way to root out terrorism.