Talking in grand terms about developing modern capabilities to deal with modern threats was all well and good. As sober voices point out, it is fine to spell out a new security doctrine. It is something else to get member states to pay for it in an age of austerity. This is particularly true as NATO continues to fight an extended and increasingly costly war in Afghanistan, where success is in painfully small increments and retreat looks an ever-present possibility. With NATO’s western public showing less inclination to support this particular war, the future of the organisation looks decidedly uncertain as the first decade of the twenty-first century gives way to the
second.