Separate and Unequal

Current North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations in Afghanistan continue a relatively recent trend in Alliance out of area involvement. Starting with the Bosnian conflict in the early 1990s and continuing today, NATO now deploys more often and farther beyond its borders than ever in its history. Beside the stress of committing military forces to areas well beyond the strict borders of member nations, NATO must deal with perceptual gaps: both internal and external to the Alliance: concerning its expeditionary role. This paper specifically examines NATO's participation in Afghanistan as part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in relation to the non-NATO United States (US) Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) coalition operations.