NATO Alliance NOT at Risk in Afghanistan

LNR comments on the following story:

As Afghanistan goes, so goes NATO. Interviews across the U.S foreign policy establishment reveal a unified belief that the authority of the transatlantic alliance will be won or lost in the Afghan war.There is an emerging U.S. consensus that if Europe does not reverse itself and significantly reinvest in the war effort, the transatlantic military treaty will cease to matter. (absolutely ridiculous- LNR)
NATO's credibility is on the line," (not at all- LNR) said Sandy Berger, who served as national security advisor during the Clinton administration. "NATO needs to succeed in Afghanistan," Berger added in an interview. "If it doesn't, it really does undermine the vitality of the alliance."
Or as John Bolton put it, "Ironically, the risk here is that Afghanistan looked like the future of NATO. It could become its graveyard."

The weakness in America’s foreign policy establishment is sickening. LNR completely disagrees with Berger and Bolton’s comments. Why ? It is because Afghanistan is NOT the litmus test for the durability of the NATO alliance for two main reasons: first, these pundits and others fail to recognize or mention that Afghanistan is a special case for NATO because it is an “out-of-area” operation. This in principle remains within the mandate of the NATO charter, however, NATO ‘s main purpose was NOT to engage in “out-of-area” operations, but rather a military bulwark against the Soviet threat. NATO was to maintain European-Atlantic stability through deterrence via massive combined conventional forces.

The second reason the pundits are completely wrong is because NATO’s main operating order of battle is NOT strategic or unconventional. In other words, NATO was not designed for use of nuclear weapons (except perhaps battlefield tactical nukes) nor unconventional “special forces” type warfare- as we have in Afghanistan. So, NATO’s actions in Afghanistan is operating on the periphery of NATO’s charter and raison d’ etre. This is why Afghanistan is hardly about NATO’s credibility, the operations there is NOT a case of “clear and imminent danger” to the broad security of NATO countries, i.e. invasion, occupation, total destruction- as it was meant to protect from.