In this town of 1 million souls, there is a higher than usual concentration of policy wonks and political activists. That's often so in capital cities, but in Brussels' case this is much compounded by its hosting of multilateral organizations like the European Union and NATO. Today it's Hillary Clinton and her counterparts from NATO's 25 other member states, tomorrow it could be an EU ministerial, which - unless the topic is controversial - usually are lower profile affairs.
The Brussels police have a fleet of sinisterly dark trucks equipped with powerful water cannons, and I expect them to be out in force on March 21, when a coalition of pacifist groups (deploying "civil disobedience" tactics) will stage "NATO Game Over."
One of the advantages of living here is exposure to a wide range of opinion, and the opportunity to hear it first hand at numerous conferences organized by groups representing all colors of the spectrum. Last week it was pink verging on red, with tinges of Green, at the "Defense Without Borders?" conference, organized by several leftist peace organizations, including the CNAPD.
Although there were what I would call professional activists present, the conference included several academic experts from Brussels universities and think tanks, as well as elected officials from the left. Though often critical of NATO and of things military in general, these were reasonable realists in the sense of admitting that collective defense (preferably, in their eyes, through the EU or even better, the United Nations) is a fact of life.
Not good enough for some on the far left, who castigated anyone who took a moderate, even moderately critical, stance. For these "pros of protest," climbing fences and getting themselves arrested is preferred over other forms of discourse.
On the centrist, free-market "Liberal" (in the European, not the US sense) side, whose political hue is blue, the atmosphere was decidedly more sedate. Yesterday, the Brussels office of the "Friedrich Naumann Stiftung" organized, with the Transatlantic Institute, an equally well-attended review of NATO's achievements and challenges on the eve of the 60th anniversary summit. NATO was represented by Dr. Stefanie Babst, Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy Strategy, and veteran journalist Brooks Tigner of Jane's Defence Weekly provided an independent view.
Chatham House non-attribution rules prevent me from quoting, but much of the discussion centered around competing views of NATO as a defense (but not "military") alliance, and NATO as a forum for every conceivable threat ranging from illegal immigration to combating climate change. Rather than another dry theological debate on the desirability of NATO's continued existence - the audience did not need to be convinced of that - the debate was over the achievable versus the desirable.
Sure, it would be nice to have an agreed strategic vision between NATO and the EU, but both organizations function by consensus, and beyond problematic matters like Turkish membership in the former and not the latter, there is the matter of the neutrality of certain EU members like Ireland and Austria, not taken lightly in either country.
Yes, NATO could discuss the impact of climate change in the far north and how sea lanes and maritime borders will be affected, but let's not make it sound like the defense alliance is now going to go all environmental.
To be fair, those calling for Alliance focus on non-traditional threats (cyber warfare, piracy, terrorism) are not advocating abandonment of nuts-and-bolts collective security of the kinetic type. There was interest in building on NATO's comparative advantage in some areas - cyber security for example - that touch on legitimate non-traditional areas of security concern.
But for every call for branching out into sometimes esoteric subject areas, or transforming itself into "Global NATO," there will be member states ready to say, "not us, that's the other guys' job," as one NATO veteran put it. Other guys, as in the European Union or the UN. That's the beauty of consensus, and it should comfort the pacifists.
NATO's game, despite the fence-climbers' fondest wishes, is not over. But "global NATO" has begun to show its limits, which may be somewhere between Tora Bora and Waziristan.