Former NATO secretary general Lord Peter Carrington has warned that the current mission in Afghanistan could sound the “death knell” for the organisation. Lord Carrington, who was NATO secretary general from 1984 to 1988, was critical of foreign powers not backing the mission with sufficient troops. He agreed that France and Germany were not “pulling their weight” and said the organisation was “not working”.Lord Carrington told GMTV’s The Sunday Programme that if the mission in the country did not succeed, questions would be asked about the usefulness of the organisation. Speaking to fellow former foreign secretary Lord David Owen, who suggested the mission could lead to defeat, he said: “Not just defeat, I think it may be the death knell for NATO. I think when you get a situation in which so many countries in NATO are not prepared to join in and those that do join in say ‘We mustn’t fight’...I think this is very dangerous for NATO.
“I think we ought to ask ourselves if this doesn’t work, what on earth is NATO for?” He added: “What happens in Afghanistan is going to have an enormous impact on the future of NATO. Those of us who supported NATO in Afghanistan feel that large parts of it are not really prepared to take any part in it. I think it’s going to cause a great difficulty.”