The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was originally composed of the United States, Canada, and a handful of Western European nations.

It was designed to counterbalance the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe. All NATO nations pledged mutual common defense in the face of an attack by any external party. The standoff between NATO and the Soviet-allied Warsaw Pact countries defined global policy and politics for five decades, until the breakup of the Soviet Union. During that time, NATO expanded to become a regional quasi-political organization as well.

Now, NATO has outlived its usefulness. There is no Soviet Union, and also gone are fears of an impending attempt by Socialist nations to wipe out the West.

The core reason for NATO’s creation and survival is gone. Thus, as a military alliance, NATO has no reason to exist. Its members have no common enemy.

A case could be made for terrorism as an enemy of all nations, and therefore to NATO.

However, fighting terrorism is nothing like fighting the Soviet forces of decades past.

Instead of millions of armed soldiers in ordered formations, terror cells are composed of a few dozen to a few hundred members, and their attacks are not aimed at overcoming military formations.

Terror attacks are aimed at densely populated and highly visible civilian areas.

Taking out civilian targets with a small group of fighters was not the aim of the forces in the Cold War. A military alliance designed to fight the fire-breathing behemoth of the Soviet Cold-War forces was not designed to tackle terrorism.

NATO’s structure and sheer size do not grant its member states any advantages in fighting terror over those states working alone or through normal international law-enforcement cooperation. Thus, NATO itself has little role in fighting terror.

NATO has played a role in global peace keeping, its most notable success being its activity in the Balkans in the mid 1990’s. However, even here, its role is being filled by other groups.

The EU Battlegroups, drawn from European military forces, are quick-deployment formations akin to U.N. Peacekeeping Forces, and already have several successful deployments to their credit.

In the future, the EU member nations will be more willing to commit their forces to the EU Battlegroups rather than to NATO missions, which will deprive NATO of crucial manpower and materiel and limit its military effectiveness.

Semblances of this can be seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, where most NATO nations have committed only token numbers of troops to the U.S.-masterminded invasions.

When NATO was first formed, the most economically powerful nations in the world were among its members.

Since a good economy equals a wealthy country, and since money definitely equates power in global politics, NATO had strong political clout based on its wealth – which enabled it to support large and technologically advanced military forces.

While NATO still boasts some of the wealthiest countries in the world, it no longer occupies an economically-preeminent position. China, India, Brazil and even a resurgent Russia are now economic powerhouses.

Compare some nations’ gross domestic products (GDP).

China’s GDP grew by 9.8 percent in 2008, and India’s GDP rose by 7 percent in 2007, while the US GDP grew by 1.4 percent and the United Kingdom’s GDP rose a mere 1.1 percent.

This trend is expected to continue and even increase in the coming decades.

Evidence of global acceptance of this fact is the rising prominence and clout of the G-20, a group of the twenty largest economies of the world.

The majority of the G-20 nations are not NATO members. Economically speaking, NATO will soon be eclipsed by the growing economies of the developing world, the first signs of which are visible are visible even now.

China and India already boast some of the largest armed forces in the world, and are rapidly matching Western nations in military technology.

With rising economic clout comes increased global political and military power. Thus, as NATO gradually recedes as an economic powerhouse, its relative military and political power will also shrink.

NATO was once the preeminent military alliance in the world. Its purpose was to resist the expansion and military power of the Soviet Union and its allies.

For 50 years, it served that role well. Thanks to its existence and power, there is no longer a global threat of Communist military expansion.

However, today’s world has its own set of challenges. NATO as a military alliance is ill-equipped to deal with these new challenges.

The Cold War and the Soviet Union have become anachronisms of a bygone era. NATO itself is set to head down that path.

NATO should not be seen as a failure, but as an organization that was a victim of its own success in eliminating its principal adversary.

-Munim Deen is a microbiology senior.