The EU NATO and Collective Security

The European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Collective Security.

A casual United States observer would think that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance appears to function as the Defense department for the European Union (EU), however the NATO alliance actually predates the EU. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C. by Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, The United Kingdom, and the United States in April 1949(Sandler & Hartley, p55). The Treaty of Paris which created the European Coal and Steel Community was signed by France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg was signed in April 1951 (McCormick, p216).

The first expansion of the NATO alliance occurred in February 1952 when Greece and Turkey joined the alliance. Article 10 of the NATO treaty states: By unanamous consent, any other European state can join NATO (Sandler & Hartley, p26). Thus NATO had its first expansion before the West German state was able to join the Western European Union (WEU), with Italy, in 1954. The running joke at the time was NATO was formed to keep the United States in Europe, the Soviets out of Europe and the Germans under control. In 1955 West Germany joined NATO. The respose from the polarized east was to form the Warsaw Pact of Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania.

The treaty of Rome was signed in March 1957 creating the European Economic Community (EEC). The first expansion for the EU occurred when Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom joined the EEC in January 1973. The second EU expansion was for Greece in 1981. In 1982, Spain joins NATO; in 1986 Spain and Portugal become members of the EEC.

After the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a unified Germany became a member of NATO. By 1991 the Warsaw Pact has disbanded, and the foreign ministers of Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia express the wish to join NATO. In Brussels, the first meeting of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) is held with foreign ministers attending from the NATO Countries and nine Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries (Sandler & Hartley, p54).

Austria applies for EEC membership in 1989; Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark apply to join the EEC in 1992. Switzerland also applies in 1992. In 1995 Sweden, Finland, and Austria join the European Union, and Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania apply for accession. In 1996, the Czech Republic and Slovenia apply for EU membership. These two states are the first members to apply from nation states that desintigrated with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. In 1999, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary joined the NATO alliance.

In 2004, the EU expanded to 25 members with the addition of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, and Slovakia.

Currently there are 27 EU member states and 26 NATO member states.

NATO

Belgium
Bulgaria
Canada - not eu
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland - not eu
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway - not eu
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Turkey - not eu
United Kingdom
United States - not eu





EU

Austria - not nato
Belgium
Bulgaria
Cyprus - not nato
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland - not nato
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Ireland - not nato
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta - not nato
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden - not nato
United Kingdom

It is shown that there is not perfect symetry between NATO and the EU. There are costs and benefits that come with expansion. For NATO member states, potential benefits include:
collective defense
encourage political reforms and stability in entrants
support for economic and political integration
improved relations among neighbor states
further adaptation of NATO to the post cold war environment

potential expansion costs:

enlargement costs of infrastructure, logistics, and interoperability of forces
risk from entrants ethnic and territorial disputes
joint exercises
larger concensus
entrants force modernization
(Sandler & Hartley, p71)

For EU entrants, cost include:
Loss of sovreignty and national independence
Reduced power of national government
Little public input on integration issues
Increased competition and job loss after removal of market protections
Progressive state norms may be reduced to help integrate states with lower standards
Cross border criminal activity may increase with lessening of border controls

Benefits to EU membership:

Cooperation makes war and conflict less likely
The single market is a larger pool of customers for European businesses
Freedom of cross border movement
Pooling of economic and social resources
Member states enjoy increased global power and influence
Less advanced states rise to the standards maintained by progressive states
Investment creates new opportunities in the poorer regions of the EU
Democracy is promoted in member states
(McCormick, p7).

NATO was formed post WWII as a defense pact, with the presumption that the attack would come from the Soviet Union. Thw c ollapse of the Soviet gave an opportunity to redraw or create something new in place of the NATO alliance. Yet instead we saw a expansion of NATO. The first time NATO forces were dispatched to fight was in the former Yugoslavia. Not used in defense but used as humanitarian intervention. NATO air strikes forced a cease fire in Bosnia, with NATO groundtroops replaceing United Nations (UN) forces in 1995. There was no hesitation when the need for intervention appeared in Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia, but the intervention also consisted of diplomatic support, direct aid, and sanctions. This speaks to the issue of collective security as different from ‘defense’. NATO was formed as a defensive alliance. The Alliance and its collective nation states were not directly threatened by the ethnic militias and autocratic demogogues in the former Yugoslavia. However the EU’s collective security was certainly threatened by the prospects of failed states and genecidal refugees. These are the breeding grounds for terrorism and dictatorship. Leonard (2005) has European strategic doctrine very different from America’s. Force may be necessary to defend Europe’s values, but will never be a part of European foreign policy. Contrast this with the United States use of military force as a cornerstone of US foreign policy.

Some of the newer members of NATO had devalued their military, and had no desire to rebuild. To integrate these nations into the NATO operations system they were allowed to develope boutique forces, for example Romania’s Moountain Division, or Norway’s Rapid Reponse Force. This is the true strength of the European model, the slow but steady evolutionary growth, involving member states with real responsibility. NATO has used this incremental to good effect. The NAC pledged resources to the UN, Organization for Security and Cooperation Europe (OSCE), and the EU to bring peace to the Balkans. At a NATO Defence Planning Committee in 1992, NATO defense ministers supported including UN and OSCE peacekeeping among NATO missions. By 1993, NATO defense ministers were supporting Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTF) and designing the Partnership for Peace (PFP) program.

In 1994, German constitutional restrictions on the use of German forces in peacekeeping missions abroad were removed by German courts. This same year, in Poland, the first PFP exercises were held (Sandler and Hartley, p55). By 1997, NATO led forces replaced the UN forces in Bosnia.

This European style incrementalism has been used with NATO - Russian Federation relations. The Founding Act on Mutual Relations Cooperation and Security is signed in 1997 between the Russian Federation and NATO. NATO and 26 partner nationsconvene the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) as a sucessor to the PFP and the North Atlantic Cooperation Council (NACC).

The question for the future will be further expansion of the EU, and further expansion of the EU model. A common labor market between the United States and Mexico would do much to allieviate the illegal immigration problem in the United States, but Mexico would have great problems bringing its economy in line to support its own labor market.

The Russian Federation could request acession to the EU, without NATO involvement, yet like the United States have issues with sovreinty. The EU members delegate some of their decision making power to shared institutions they have created, so that decisions on specific matters of joint interest can be made democratically (europa.eu).

It is probable that the United States and Russian Federation are not yet ready to provide defense using collective security and shared sovreinty. Other nations are starting down this road however. The leaders of ten Southeast Asian countries have signed a declaration to integrate their economies and construct a political union modelled on that of the European Union (Phillips). Just like the EU there will be taboo subjects, such as varying norms on civil and human rights, and the disparities between the economies will make it difficult to reach common standards. The Association of Southeast Asain Nations (ASEAN) plan looks to build a common market, without a common currency, in six years. The six countries that founded the European Coal and Steel Community took fifty years of incremental institutional engagement to become the twenty-seven member European Union. The twelve countries that signed the North Atlantic Treaty also grew to twenty-six member states over fifty years of incremental engagement. The NATO defense forces have never been used for defense. They took the offensive against humanitarian abuses in the Balkans, which were a security threat to the stability of Europe. In fifty years we should hope to see the same type of positive growth from the ASEAN countries, and possibly other continent based models.