NATO's uncertain future is demography destiny?
(Web-Based Document)

Title from caption, PDF title screen (viewed on Sept. 29, 2011).

"October 2008."

Strategic rept.

Available online.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 7).

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) finds itself increasingly stressed by current and prospective demographic shifts within its membership that will almost certainly hamper its collective ability to deploy operational forces and further strain the transatlantic relationship in the years ahead. NATO has shifted from large conscript forces, which were useful for its territorial defense during the Cold War, toward smaller, all-volunteer military establishments to carry out expeditionary operations. This shift has had different political consequences in Europe and the United States and has resulted in increasingly diverging views of the role of the military and how it contributes to security and defense. Demographically, the gap between U.S. and European NATO members military age cohorts is widening, with the U.S. cohort increasing while the European numbers shrink. At the same time, diverging immigration patterns and shifting internal demographics could erode the common historic identity of the United States and Europe and affect the transatlantic relationship. A relatively young and growing U.S. population will contribute to its slightly enhanced global economic profile in 2050, while Europe's aging and shrinking productive population will be a factor in its diminishing presence. Finally, the world's population and the locus of its economic growth will continue to reflect the inexorable shift away from the Eurocentric world that existed when NATO was created in 1949, leading to Europe s rapid demographic marginalization and relative economic decline by 2050.