Diplomacy adapts to new threats

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It was well past the official close of business at NATO headquarters in Brussels on September 11, 2001, but the chamber of the North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s political decision-making body, was anything but dark and quiet.

Hours after the terrorist attacks in New York and suburban Washington, Secretary-General George Robertson had gathered the ambassadors from all 19 member states to discuss how the events that were still unfolding live on television affected the organization and what NATO might do in the immediate aftermath.

“After the meeting, the Canadian ambassador, David Wright, took me aside to ask if Article 5 should be considered,” Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador, recalled last week, referring to a clause in the 1949 Washington Treaty that created the alliance that says an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Initial consultations indicated that, despite the unanimous solidarity with the United States, not all members were convinced that Article 5 should be invoked, mainly because it never had been done before, said diplomats who were present.”There was reluctance by a couple of members,” a former NATO official said. “Although everything pointed to international terrorism, some people thought it could have been an act of domestic terrorism. They also said: ‘What are we committing to? What will the U.S. ask us to do?’”

The former official said the uncertainty and urgency of the situation and the typically slow decision-making process at an international organization put the diplomatic skills of Mr. Burns; his deputy, Victoria Nuland; and the entire American mission to NATO to the test.

Once they had received Washington’s approval to seek the invocation, they held meetings with allies to craft language acceptable to everyone, working late into the night, diplomats said.

The next morning, the council “agreed that if it is determined that this attack was directed from abroad against the United States, it shall be regarded as an action covered by Article 5.”

The decision led news bulletins and broadcasts around the globe.

Mr. Burns said the stakes in the vote had been very high.

“If one ally had hesitated, the initiative would have failed, and NATO would have sent a signal of weakness and irresolution in the face of terrorism,” he said in an interview.

U.S. and foreign diplomats said the move was crucial in securing worldwide support for the war on terrorism and the military campaign in Afghanistan the next month.

The tools of traditional diplomacy — secret handshakes and high-level negotiations behind closed doors — helped the United States to achieve an important foreign-policy objective that day. Since then, however, those instruments have proven hardly sufficient to carry out the ambitious global agenda of the world’s only superpower, American diplomats say.

Winning the war on terrorism and maintaining a leading role in international affairs, they say, are goals that cannot be achieved with the help of governments and multinational institutions alone. It is vital to have support from ordinary people around the world, many of whom have never met an American and know little about the United States.

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