The relationship between EU and NATO
Zhang Lijuan (Jane) Student ID :s06135
Research Paper Supervisor : Dr. Sekou Conde
Minzhu University of China
2006-2007 Academic Year
The end of the Cold War led to significant transformations of the geopolitical environment. A complex, much more unpredictable multipolar security landscape, had replaced the bipolar structure of confrontation between two rival power blocs (US and The Soviet Union). Transatlantic relations saw themselves confronted with new security threats: international terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states, regional conflicts. Especially after 2001, global terrorism became the priority threat, when linked with the prospect of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
In response to the new environment and changing threats, NATO has brought in new members and conducted combat missions far outside its traditional territory. The EU has developed its own security and defense policy. At the same time, EU members have taken steps toward political integration with decisions to develop a common foreign policy and a defense arm to improve EU member states’ abilities to manage security crises. Both those changes in the geopolitical environment and Europe's expanding capabilities as a global political and strategic actor led to a positive reassessment of EU-NATO relations at the end of the Cold War.
However as the EU continues to evolve, some U.S. analyst worry that a larger, potentially more confident EU may seek to rival the United States and could weaken the transatlantic link. They also contend that a more unified EU would likely lessen Washington’s leverage on individual members and could complicate U.S. efforts to rally support for its initiatives in institutions such as the United Nations or NATO. As the potential for overlap has grown, some has concern about the dangers of competition between NATO and the EU. Even U.S. and European leaders have pledged many times to ensure that NATO and the EU work together, concrete examples of collaboration remain limited. However others suggest that an EU able to “speak with one voice” — especially on foreign policy and defense matters — would be a more credible, capable partner for the United States in managing global challenges and could shoulder a greater degree of the security burden, both within and outside of Europe. Opinion in Europe is also divided. Some view the EU’s defense efforts as a way to encourage Europeans to take a greater role in providing for Europe’s security, but others see the EU as an emerging competitor to NATO. Most EU member states support close NATO-EU links, but also view ESDP as a means to give themselves more options for dealing with future crises. Some numbers view EU either as a “counterweight” to the United States or as a key element of transatlantic security.
The main purpose of this paper is to explore the issue of the relationship of NATO and EU.
This paper will answer the follow questions:
1. What was the relationship between EU and NATO in the history?
2. What problems exist in the relationship between NATO and EU now?
3. Is it possible for them to cooperate together?
4. If they can, what they should do to transform the NATO-EU relationship into an effective partnership? If they can not, what the relationship will be in the future.
??The relationship between EU and NATO in the history
Since its creation in 1949, NATO has served as the primary institutional link between the United States and Europe on matters affecting the security of Europe. During the Cold War, the Alliance was focused exclusively on the defense of Western Europe against a single threat — attack by the Soviet Union.
The Alliance tied together the fate of the United States and Western Europe in the face of a massive Soviet military buildup and the ideological challenge of communism.
In practice, NATO also provided a mechanism for ensuring that U.S. and European militaries were capable of fighting together. Its integrated military structure prepared war plans and carried out joint exercises.
NATO also maintained an elaborate committee structure responsible for Alliance decision-making and providing guidance to military commanders. Headed by the North Atlantic Council (NAC), that structure also provided opportunities for political consultations on a range of security issues.
During this period, NATO’s European members believed that a close alliance with the United States was essential for their territorial security. For the most part, they also regarded U.S. nuclear capabilities and worldwide military deployments as necessary to contain the Soviet Union. With this security arrangement in place, European governments could focus on rebuilding their economies destroyed during World War II and begin building an integrated Europe intended to end military rivalries permanently and ensure economic prosperity.
Since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, NATO has faced unanticipated new threats and responded by moving far beyond its traditional Cold War role. The disintegration of Yugoslavia led to four years of war on the fringes of Europe, with bloody atrocities and refugee flows threatening the very foundation of a post-Cold War Europe “whole and free.” A few years later, violence erupted again in Kosovo.
NATO played the leading military role in imposing peace in Bosnia in 1995, and four years later did the same in Kosovo. In the process, it undertook military operations very different from those envisioned by its Cold War planners. Instead of defending the border of Western Europe against Soviet tanks, it deployed “out-of-area” for the first time, used military power to force a cessation of the conflict, and then provided stability for the long process of reconciliation and reconstruction.
NATO also responded to the potential instabilities of the post-Cold War era by assisting the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in their transition to democracy. The Alliance began programs to reform the militaries of these countries and created the Partnership for Peace as a way of connecting them more closely to the West. Many of these new “Partners” contributed forces to NATO missions in the Balkans. By the end of 2004, ten of the Central and Eastern European countries had joined NATO, and several more are expected to take that step by perhaps 2010[1].
The attacks of September 2001 immediately made terrorism a top priority for NATO. In the face of these new threats, NATO has changed from a regional security provider to a military alliance with global scope. The Cold War debate over “out-of-area” operations is no longer relevant. Preserving the security of the United States and Europe requires much more than simply safeguarding their borders. To protect the United States and Europe from terrorism, WMD proliferation, and the consequences of nearby instability, NATO must undertake operations well outside its traditional area of responsibility. Once focused on the North Atlantic region, NATO can no longer ignore developments in far corners of the globe.
From its creation to today, NATO has served as the primary institutional link between the United States and Europe on matters affecting the security of Europe. NATO and EU have a deep relationship in the history.
??The problems exist in the relationship between NATO and EU after the cold war :
The European Union: A New Emerging EU Security Institution
Evolution of NATO and the EC/EU after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has brought with it some friction between the United States and several of its allies over the security responsibilities of the two organizations. These differences center around threat assessment, defense institutions, and military capabilities. European NATO allies that were also members of the EC/EU have sought from 1990 to build a security organization able to respond to developments believed to threaten specifically the interests of Europe. In 1990, after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, some European governments — led by France — concluded that they lacked the military capabilities to respond beyond the North Atlantic Treaty area to distant threats. In consultation with the United States, they sought to establish the European Security and Defense Identity (ESDI) within NATO, in which they would consult among themselves and with NATO over response to a threat. Both the first Bush Administration and the Clinton Administration asked that ESDI not duplicate NATO structures, such as headquarters and a planning staff, but rather “borrow” NATO structures for planning and carrying out operations. Initial reluctance of the Clinton Administration to involve the United States in the emerging conflicts accompanying the break up of Yugoslavia led some allies to redouble their efforts to enhance their political consultation, unity, and military capabilities. They saw a threat in the form of large refugee flows, autocratic regimes, and the spread of nationalist ideas emanating from the conflict-ridden Balkans.
In 1994-1996, NATO endorsed steps to build an ESDI that was “separable but not separate” from NATO to give the European allies the ability to act in crises where NATO as a whole was not engaged.
In 1998-1999, the EU largely adopted ESDI as its own and began to transform it into a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP), given greater definition by more detailed arrangements for the Europeans to borrow NATO assets for the“Petersberg tasks” (crisis management, peace operations, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance). Britain, in [...]
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