Stephen Platten: Nato fights to fnd a changed role in the world

Bokeria is nothing if not a realist. He did not expect an American-led coalition to enter the affray; the likely results are unthinkable. He did, however, expect some sort of concerned response. Where did Nato stand? What did the EU intend? Or, were in the end EU nations simply to respond individually? This is still crucial to Georgia since both membership of the EU and Nato are sharply there among the medium-term goals.

Where then does the latest Nato summit in Lisbon leave things? Nato was a post-Second World War response to the Soviet threat. At its heart was the collective security of the Western Alliance. In its trail, rather like the early 19th century congress system, were spawned other similar treaties: CENTO (the Central Treaty Organisation looked to the Middle East) and SEATO performed a similar function for the South East Asia and the Pacific Rim.

Of course, the landscape has changed radically since then and the events of 1989, and all that followed, have altered the strategic needs almost entirely. Nato's response has been slow – only the very recent UK Strategic Defence and Security Review has hastened the withdrawal of British troops from Germany.

Despite this, Nato has almost imperceptibly broadened its front. From Bosnia and Kosovo, the frontier has now pressed further East to Afghanistan. The collective security role has now been blurred by the need for crisis management – admittedly, in this case, crisis management to prevent further threats to collective security. Al-Qaida was the paramount target, but a resurgent Taliban guerrilla war has made even that target a far more moving one. The focus is blurred.

Bokeria's concerns in that conversation bring together most of the issues that faced the Lisbon summiteers. Will not an expansion of Nato into the Caucasus re-fuel Russia's natural default mode of xenophobia? Is it realistic to include Caucasian states in the EU and will that not be seen as a similar threat by Russia? Russia now has less need of military force – the switching off of gas supplies would be sufficient. So what has Lisbon been about and what is the sum result?

Primarily the issue has been to define a new strategic concept. The last, defined in 1989, has suffered from the blurring arising from the Afghan conflict, its proliferation and continuation with the knock-on destabilisation of Pakistan.

The 11 pages of the new strategic concept contain a predictable feeling of compromise – or is it a fudge? The three key strands are collective security (the original foundational principle), crisis management (a pragmatic requirement?) and co-operative security (a reaching out towards alliances beyond Nato's natural frontiers).

This debate engages both moral and tactical questions, especially following the recent UK Strategic Defence and Security Review. When does crisis management drift into an improper incursion into the affairs of a sovereign state? Iraq posed the question sharply. Few have been able to defend the Iraq adventure using Just War principles, principles which have been clearly derivative of the western Christian tradition.

Nonetheless, Christian principles have also underpinned much of the talk of human rights: the United Nations' Responsibility to Protect kicks in here. All of this has immediate implications for the UK. The recent defence review feels much like an interim response.

How should Lisbon – fudge, compromise or whatever – inform the farther reflections on the defence review? What is the UK's contribution to be?

Giorgi Bokeria was being deliberately provocative in his probing questions about Nato and the EU, but his realism included a sharp strategic and philosophical edge. How is the West going to respond to crises like that in Georgia – and on what moral principles might such a response depend?

As well as enlightened self-interest, does Nato have a responsibility to protect or defend vulnerable nations and ethnic groups?

Just War and human rights language are key elements to any such reflection. They are the responsibility of every one of us and not just of generals and politicians. The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was foundational in remaking European religion, politics and moral thoughts. What will Lisbon 2010 have to say about an increasingly unstable and troubled world?

The Right Reverend Stephen Platten is the Bishop of Wakefeld and

the lead bishop on defence issues in house of Lords.