NATO's Southern Exposure

It is hard to take seriously the argument that NATO will end up doing too much in the Middle East and will crowd out others. The threat is the opposite—NATO is doing far too little, and in an area where there is far more left to do and where NATO is primed to do it. All of NATO's major post-Cold War operations, whether in the Balkans or Afghanistan, were geared toward the state-building and counterterrorism challenges now facing the Mediterranean and the Levant. Politics in the Balkans may be messy today, but the region is far better off after the violence of the 1990s thanks to NATO's efforts. NATO's experience in Afghanistan should, at a minimum, serve as a reminder of the risks of waiting too long after a conflict to begin stabilization and reconstruction efforts.