This year’s Nato summit protrudes past its formal timeline. Restricted by high-profile fringe events at both ends, the official April 2-4 gathering in Bucharest, Romania, leaves little room for equivocation: world powers are busy re-inventing the meaning of the North Atlantic alliance, the common ground that could make their relations operational, the way they split - and share - zones of influence and the actions used to exert influence.
Leaders of Nato states will be discussing eastward expansion, the US missile shield and war-torn Afghanistan, and will be airing differences that have long been undermining the very “foundation of the alliance”, according to Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
Differences span almost all issues on the summit’s agenda. Mirroring the Russia-US schism, Nato members are divided over eastward expansion with Ukraine and Georgia deploying the US missile shield in Europe and Afghanistan.
Much of the strain stems from Europe, due to geographical boundaries. While “old” Europe has become disenchanted with the Bush administration and is increasingly interested in playing its own game, “new” Europe - namely Eastern Europe - has been staunchly supportive of the US viewing the country as the architect of its democratic changes.
Europeans are in a wait-and-see mood, according to US think-tank Rand Corporation. To an extent, old Europe often sees the prospect of a hand-shake agreement with Russia as the acceptable option.
Hence the US’ need to extend the summit past its formal schedule.
In a prelude and conclusion to the summit, George Bush is making his last European tour as president of the US - the country historically seen as the orchestrator of all actions of the North Atlantic alliance.
Bush will stop in Ukraine, Romania, Croatia and Russia. The tour highlights the importance of the Eastern European region from the security point of view and the divide between Nato and Russian zones of influence, as remembered during Cold War times.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, for his part, will be attending the Bucharest summit and subsequently, on April 6, receive Bush in his Black Sea residence in Sochi.
The two outgoing presidents, according to international media, are set to prepare the ground for their successors on defence and security issues.
Bush and Putin are said to bring up disparate viewpoints on most issues: the anti-missile shield that the US is set to build in the Czech Republic and Poland, which Russia opposes as a threat to its territorial integrity; the expected hand-in of Nato membership action plans to Ukraine and Georgia whom Russia has long dubbed as its unwieldy neighbours; the need - or lack thereof, as Russia says - to expand the Nato military troops (Nato Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is intent on proposing a 10 per cent increase of troops in Bucharest); Kosovo and other hotspots, such as Iran and Afghanistan.
As a best-case scenario of the talks, US and Russia might sign a strategic framework agreement, prepared by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice during her recent visit. The US also hopes to persuade Russia to allow the use of its airspace for airlifting supplies to Afghanistan, a country where Nato has hardly made peacemaking headway.
A negative outcome would mean nothing alongside a final pull-out from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty and potentially the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range nuclear missiles, as well as focusing Russian troops in the European part of the country.
Last but not least, Russia is expected to re-state that the North Atlantic alliance, coalescing since inception on the Cold War - i.e. against the threat of the Russian foe - has already been stripped off meaning and, therefore, has grown dysfunctional.
The talks come in a complicated environment when old European states are moulding strategies. A key player on the European scene, France, for example, will be seeking full membership in Nato, nearly four decades after then-president Charles de Gaulle pulled his country out.
And again France, together with some Nato members such as Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, has firmly sided with Russia. It played the membership no-go card for Ukraine and Georgia on the grounds that neither country was ready. Analysts interpreted it as general reluctance to antagonise Russia, which has established itself as Europe’s key supplier of energy resources, but also as an attempt to pile pressure on the US.
Nato’s summit appears to be the place where two outgoing presidents, from two key world powers, would begin a showdown that is hoped to be resolved in Sochi. If that happens, the decisions are set to trigger a chain effect across Europe and pave the way for the renewal of Nato. The importance attached to the starting days of Bush and Putin’s final get-together shows from the guest list. Suffice to say, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon features among the thousands of guests.
Smaller players, on the other hand, would be attending in faint hopes to scoop last-minute support from bigger powers to resolve long-standing conflicts. One such example is the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. It hopes Nato members would persuade Greece against vetoing its Nato invitation because of a dispute over the country’s name.
The Nato summit, though, will hardly give any ultimate resolution to this conflict. Despite that, the former Yugoslav republic held numerous rounds of talks with Greece under the supervision of UN special envoy Matthew Nimetz, and carried a paid publication campaign on the name issue in reputable print publications. Nato members, however, would hardly interfere in bilateral relations and a conflict that dates back a century, according to international analysts.
Hence, the international community sees Croatia and Albania as sure Nato invitees and remains doubtful on Macedonia.
Whether the summit pushes beyond talk to reformist decisions remains to be seen.
