NATO's Mid-Life Crisis

Michael Evans, the defense editor of "The Times," writes on the existential dilemmas inside NATO.

It has become so multi-tasked, so desperate to get involved in everything from cyber warfare to anti-piracy and missile defence, let alone a hugely draining and complex campaign in Afghanistan, that it has lost its way.

It has never settled into the new security era that followed the fall of the Iron Curtain and has ceased to be a cohesive and united alliance.

-- Luke Allnutt