NATO: conţinutul real actual al unei alianţe politico-militare intens asimetrice
NATO: Current State of a Profoundly Asymmetrical Political and Military Alliance

Summary/Abstract: The author starts by clearly stating that most alliances along the entire world history are dominated by important internal asymmetries (which means that political power and military capabilities are not evenly distributed – some members are very powerful, others not at all powerful). Then the author states that, not too often, internal structure of alliances can be less asymmetric and present some significant historic examples to support his opinions and evaluations. The next step is to state that at this very moment, NATO is an intensely asymmetric political- military alliance. But its main feature is not only the concentration of military power across the Atlantic, in USA, but also the massive and deep problems US military power is confronted with. In order to better explore the present status of different branches of the military power of USA, the author extensively comments a recent book edited by Gary J. Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly. The general conclusion of the study is that, in order to maintain a really significant role on the world arena, NATO needs major internal reforms (diminishing both the “capability gap” separating US and Europe, but also diminishing or solving the severe problems US military power is confronted with). Without such reforms, global role of NATO might be badly harmed, situation to be regarded in direct contradiction with the national interests of both Romania and all other member states of the Alliance.

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