İSKENDER KARAKAYA’NIN ULUSLARARASI İLİŞKİLER ANALİZLERİ

‘NATO has become an “Alliance for the USA?” : NATO’s Enlargement and the USA

The Post-Cold War, NATO’s position turned into as a “controversial case” within its existence. Many scholars, policy-makers and journalists have discussed and asked this question themselves: “What will happen about NATO’s existence from now on?”

Before the answering this question, we must handle the subject (or question) from NATO’s evolution perspective. By this way, we can both answer the first question and think about the new problematic whether has “NATO become an alliance for USA?”: NATO’s Enlargement and the USA.

Introduction

The North Atlantic Organization (NATO) has saved its existence in Post-Cold War Era. The Warsaw Treaty, which was founded against NATO in 1955, was dissolved in 1991. But NATO continued to its existence. At the same time, it has been going to its enlargement for 17 years. NATO not only has been expanding but also it has been transforming itself to new adapt to new circumstances and conditions in international area.

The Soviet Union, which was collapsed in 1991, was enemy of USA during the Cold War Era. After 1991, The Soviet Union lost its control on Central and Eastern Europe. The Communist ideology would no longer rule on these countries again.

The successor states, which remained from Soviet Union, weren’t powerful as much as Soviet Union. Also they weren’t hostile towards NATO. On the other hand Russia had a lot of problems 1990s such as economic, politics, social and internal problems. It needed all the help it could get from the West, as well as Soviet Union’s successor states.

The Post-Cold War Eras has started with new events. “A new geopolitical world-order” as we call it has begun. It could be called “American geopolitical world-order” In other words USA has started to use its economic, politics and military power since 1990. NATO has come into prominence as a military instrument for USA in 1990s. Now, we will search the answer for question: What does it mean NATO’s Enlargement in Post- Cold War Era.

The Debates on NATO’s Future

When the people were thinking about NATO that it would remain at Cold War Era and would dissolved rapidly, the events showed us the opposite realities. While the international community was imagining that Europe would be safer than past and Europe Security would established around the Organization (then Conference) for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Contrary to this, NATO has found itself in a new process of action. It meant “enlargement”.

In Yugoslavia, after the dissolution of Warsaw Pact, there was a threat for NATO as a consequence of violence and instability. Besides that Russia became a huge problem since the beginning of 1990s. Because Russia was a nuclear power, torn by internal instability, its economic was ruined etc. When NATO didn’t perceive Russia as a threat no longer about its military power, On the contrary, Central and Eastern Europe countries perceived Russia due to its historical desires and past experiences. Therefore these countries wanted and needed security guarantees from NATO, as full members of the Alliance, as a guarantee toward a possible Russian neo-imperialism.

The debate on “enlargement”, between the West and USA, was caused a lot of problems. One of them, “enlargement” would only antagonize Russia that Russian neo-imperialism would improve if NATO went to East and expand against the Russia.

The end of the debates, NATO policy-makers decided that the new era brings with itself new challenges which demand the new missions, but NATO has every reason to continue its existence. Later this sentence became a mainstream opinion and doctrine of NATO.

Challenges to the Enlargement – Influence of the European Unification and Balkan Wars

In NATO, the biggest problem was relationship with between USA and France and some degree Germany. The enemy that was the cause of founding the Alliance and its survival during the four decades of the Cold War was gone.

Changing geostrategic priorities also indentified NATO’s complete transformation, which started at the end of the geopolitical transition, as a reaction to the beginning of new era in international relations and a new geopolitical world-order. Transformation was used to improve NATO’s ability. NATO’s countries carried out transformation so as to prepare NATO in new era.

Transformation of NATO as a main goal of the Alliance can be found in all the official documents from the Summit 1991 of Rome to Summit 2006 of Riga. The enlargement was one of the elements of transformation of NATO itself and it is also one of the main geopolitical and geostrategic objectives of NATO. But before the enlargement could start, NATO had to show that it was capable to function in the new geostrategic relations and that it was able to shape the new security architecture in Europe and its border regions.

The influence of wars in the Balkans was important for NATO’s enlargement process. War in Yugoslavia meant that it was perceived renewal of old, medieval conflict and hatred which reformed of geopolitical situation and balance of power in Europe again.

Presumption that the war and cruelty were something that was natural for the Balkans influenced the USA and the West in a sense that they didn’t want to get involved in war. In 1995 at Bosnian War, NATO played important role in there. Bosnia was stabilized after Croatian victories and weak interventions of NATO which allowed the genocide in Srebrenica to occur. In 1999 NATO’s intervention against Serbia in 1999 finally showed that NATO actually was dominants as one of the pillars of European security.

Geopolitical and Military Predominance of USA and Its Influence on NATO’s Enlargement

The beginning of Post-Cold War Era, USA has occurred as a superpower in the world. In other words, a completely new geostrategic relation has begun. As a new and sole superpower, USA has never thought NATO’s dissolution.

The Administration of President Bush senior decided that NATO would continue to be actively involved in the Europe Affairs. So USA’s existence would continue in Europe. Since the beginning and especially from the middle of the nineties, appeals for the downsizing of US presence in Europe and more substantial involvement of Europeans in the projection of power started. That is also meant transferring the burden of responsibility on Europe.

All the key decisions which made even the debate about the possible enlargement possible, and the decisions that brought the first round of enlargement into being were made during the Clinton administration and were the result of the President’s will.

The second round of the enlargement was simply a next logical step, like the third round of enlargement that started at the NATO Summit in Bucharest with invitations to Croatia and Albania to join the Alliance is the present logical step. The process is more and more becoming a sort of routine. But the first round and the initiative that came from the administration of the USA at that time were a factor that broke the deadlock and changed NATO from a Cold War military alliance toward a Post-Cold War security community.

During the nineties, NATO was in fully crisis and debates due to changing and strategy confusion. The USA as the only power, which is capable of projecting and exerting strategic power, gave its allies the opportunity to enjoy these benefits without the real burden sharing.

The Use of NATO as a mechanism for the defense of Western interests was planned so that US allies would start to prepare for their projection of military power. It was planned so that NATO would become capable for the exertion of power in the regions that were not in the reach of the Alliance for.

To sum up, the situation hasn’t changed over the years. Since the USA gave about 90 percent of coalition troops in both Iraqi wars in 1991 and 2003. We can conclude that USA military predominance and European lack of capability to follow the USA in military spending and development continue to be a constant fact of transatlantic relations.

What is the NATO Today by Its Definition

NATO is, by its definition a political and military alliance, based on the collective defense of its members. It protects its members and their security in the transatlantic area. It has precisely defined the geographical area of its responsibility, which is written in the North Atlantic Treaty. But NATO in its new, out-of-area missions went out of the transatlantic area, and it conducts missions outside the territories of its members.

If we define NATO as an organization of indivisible Western, liberal and post nationalistic interstate community, the following objections could be raised:

1. NATO is a regional organization. Liberal, Western identity is universal, but NATO, like the EU, has in its documents a defined territorial reach and area of responsibility, and will not enlarge over the defined borders. NATO does not want to become a unified liberal or Western community, since it is not its meaning or intention of its member states
2. Regional identity is a second objection. NATO, besides European, includes the Anglo-American states – the USA and Canada, and the North Atlantic Ocean, and it represents the enlarged European i.e. Euroatlantic liberal community, and not the international community at large. NATO is the organization of European security, established with a purpose to defend Europe from Soviet threat. NATO is the main security organization of liberal Europe. The area that is included in the North Atlantic Treaty is the North Atlantic Ocean.
3. NATO is based on liberal norms and multilateralism, and it represents a typical interstate organization which functions on the principles of negotiating and agreements that leave the sovereignty of member states almost intact, so it is not a unified community;

4) Religious culture is the fourth objective, since NATO and the EU have their origins in the states whose societies belong to Western Christianity. Although there is a difference between Western and Eastern Christianity in Europe, and of course between Christianity and Islam, these lines of division are today not key factors of division in Europe, because NATO and the EU have, through their enlargements, overcome these dividing lines.

The Real Character of NATO: A Tool for Fulfillment of Geopolitical Objectives of the USA or A Security

By enlarging its territorial reach, and going “out-of-area” to the areas that are considered strategically important and that represent territories where security threats come from, NATO has fulfilled the geopolitical and geostrategic objectives of the USA and of some of its other members.

If we want to understand NATO’s persistence after the Cold War, we must turn to international institutionalism theories to explain why, contrary to neorealist expectations, NATO remains the key international security institution for its members.

Here we have to draw the line between NATO before and after September 11. We also have to draw the line between American global policies, whose goal of global leadership has become a pursuit for global hegemony with direct territorial control of strategically important areas, where the oil reserves are located, have started to fulfill after George W. Bush became President of the USA, and especially after September 11, in a sense that was unprecedented until then. The ways of fulfilling these goals have changed. They have become much more militaristic.

The degree of how much the USA is willing to go in fulfilling these goals has also changed, at the same time destroying the fragile stability of the Middle East. We also have to draw a distinction between justifiability of the intervention in Afghanistan and in Iraq, since the intervention in Iraq probably had nothing to do with the struggle against terrorism. NATO’s different views about these operations were shown in the inability to make decision by consensus and participate in the attack on Iraq in 2003, which was not the case with Afghanistan, where NATO is leading the ISAF, a stabilization force in Afghanistan.

However, we can say that commitments that were taken in Afghanistan and Iraq (by training Iraqi forces) are a result of a new consensus in NATO, which includes the shift of NATO’s area of interest and shift in NATO’s missions outside of Europe. It commits NATO to the development of capabilities, especially strategic, to be able to fulfill these kinds of missions.

The USA, with couple of its real allies would have a possibility to wage real war when they wanted, and NATO would provide peace making and peace keeping forces and send them to missions outside of Europe. The European Union would be responsible for police forces and society building after a conflict would end and the country was stabilized. A better way would be a balanced responsibility and burden sharing for global security.

After September 11, and especially after the Iraq intervention, and all the problems in transatlantic relations and division among the NATO members it has caused, we can say that NATO has again, for the second time after the Cold War, changed itself. Only the formal structure remains the same. Besides including ten new members, huge changes also happened in the internal relations among the allies, in NATO’s objectives and missions. The characteristics of this new NATO are now: strong American unipolarism and the pursuing of geopolitical and geostrategic goals outside of NATO, the struggle against terrorism by military means and interventions, deteriorated relations between some of the allies.

After the Istanbul summit, held in 2004, relations between the two sides of the Atlantic have improved, and the USA also realized that it could not follow a completely unipolar policy. The European allies realized that they have to improve their own relations, and not base them on their relation towards American global policy. The situation during the Iraqi crisis, when NATO’s functioning was blocked, was one of the results of American unipolar policies. NATO was for a long time considered the most important alliance where the USA participate, and its unity and strength were really weakened and tested because of the transatlantic division over Iraq. The international action that the USA started, through efforts on making an international coalition, ended in a fiasco. American power was at its peak, and its political and moral authority at the bottom. This great division in transatlantic relations threatened to make NATO unimportant, and maybe even redundant, because it would lose its ability to act and the meaning of its existence.

NATO must not allow itself to become a simple tool for the realization of geopolitical and geostrategic objectives of any state, not even the USA. By becoming a simple tool, NATO would ruin its legitimacy, which could never be restored. If NATO, as an alliance, went for military occupation of Iraq, together with the USA and some of the NATO members, it would have posed an irreversible step towards becoming a sort of “supermarket” of the USA, which would use it for fulfilling its geopolitical and geostrategic objectives. Even in the current situation, NATO permanently suffers from the perception that it is used as a mechanism, which serves for the recovery and stabilization of the states that the USA attack, and occupy.

If the USA wants to change the ways they address the security challenges and respond to those challenges differently, Washington has to express its support to the strong, unified and pro-Atlantic Europe, and abandon its policy of dividing the Europe on the Old and New Europe, as former American defense minister Rumsfeld called the two groups of states of Europe.

If Washington wants Europe to take more responsibility for security, it has to start treating Europe as unified. That kind of Europe could take a real responsibility. The lesson that everybody has to take from the crisis in transatlantic relations is that every attempt of building a unified Europe on the basis of anti-Americanism leads to the division of Europe. American power is a possibility, and not a problem, so it should be used in the right way.

Europe has to address the problems of current multilateral institutions in a realistic manner. USA unilateralism and coalitions of the willing are not the answer. But those Europeans, who insist on the use of the United Nations, at the time when this institution is not capable to fulfill its missions, are also not realistic. In reality, there is a huge disproportion between the problems in the World and the capability of international institutions to resolve them. Therefore, both sides of the Atlantic have to find new solutions, either through building new institutions or through radical reform of the existing ones.

Conclusion

To sum up, NATO’s enlargement has a lot of problems. The key problem for NATO in the future will be defining its role and position in transatlantic relations, and a challenge that it could become a tool for fulfilling the American geopolitical and geostrategic objectives. If NATO faces this challenge, it must resist the possibility to operate militarily in the interest of the USA, which is mainly oriented towards gaining and keeping control of oil and gas reserves, pipelines and strategic maritime locations.

NATO must not also allow itself to become a tool that will be used for operations of cleaning and stabilization of states that were the objects of the US military interventions. The lesson of the crisis in relations between the USA and Europe is that the USA and Europe need each other, and NATO is the only institution in military and security field, where representatives of both sides participate and make decisions by reaching a consensus. Therefore, NATO is a necessity. It should not be a NATO as current American official policy would like it to be, but the NATO where the USA and Europe would treat each other as equal partners.

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