"Sure, the study group might come up with great suggestions, but each country will pick and choose based on their own interests, and perhaps less then 1 in 10 of the suggestions will actually affect policy"
However, the study group is probably still a good idea so long as NATO is not already doing this kind of assessment internally... how successful such a commission is will probably depend largely on its membership, and how much each government in Europe and the US invest into the group and take stock in their nationals. Kyle Atwell
Perhaps one Study Group Recommendation shall be to eliminate all national caveats.
Why do NATO states have these national caveats anyway? Isn't NATO supposed to operate under unity of command? And only the French our outside NATO's military structure?
National caveats and the NATO's principles of unity of command seem to contradict themselves, but I have probably forgotten everything I learned in NATO 101.
I guess, the mistake was made right at the beginning, when NATO decided that every major member country gets a providence in Afghanistan...
This was done on the Balkans as well, and it seemed to work, but isn't it all against the NATO principles?
"when NATO decided that every major member country gets a providence in Afghanistan"
What do you mean by this? You mean the mistake is saying that every major country gets some kind of say at the strategic level in Afghanistan? Kyle Atwell
the study group is probably still a good idea so long as NATO is not already doing this kind of assessment internally
There are already many different study groups, but what I have in mind is a study group that looks beyond military issues (NATO's focus) and is truly international, i.e. including Iran for instance.
We need more than "just" a military strategy.
And: NATO can't do this alone. In autumn 2001, the Bush government thought it could achieve its mission with just the help of the Northern Alliance of Afghan tribes. Then it slowly realized that it can't do it and allowed NATO to play a bigger role. (In the beginning, NATO help was rejected.) Now, we should realize IMHO, that NATO can't achieve success alone either. We need Iran for instance. Iran was pretty cooperative re Afghanistan so far, but the US is afraid of working together with Tehran.
