European Security and Defence Policy and Nato

...

Moreover, for the United States, any European security and defence initiative always has to acknowledge the primacy of NATO. It should moreover not develop in something autonomous that would decouple or delink from NATO and could perhaps even weaken NATO’s hegemonic position. In the beginning of the nineties the United States was a strong proponent of the creation of a ‘European Pilllar’. The European Security and Defence Identity (ESDI) was set up with the intention to make the Europeans spend more on defence, however it was firmly embedded in the structures of NATO. Another example of this fear of decoupling, that will be discussed in detail later, is the Berlin Plus agreement that formally binds ESDP to NATO. These different attempts to avoid decoupling has to prevent ESDP of becoming a competitor to NATO. Even the appointment of Solana, the former Secretary-General of NATO, to be the High Representative was strategically interesting for the United States since there was now someone leading ESDP that would certainly not wanted to undermine NATO. Interesting as well was the reaction from the United States in response to an initiative of four European countries to create an autonomous headquarter for ESDP. ‘The US permanent representative to NATO, Nicholas Burns, went so far to call the plan “one of the most serious dangers to the transatlantic relationship”.’[4]

Conclusion

According to Sloan, the transatlantic bargain made in the 1950s has been challenged by the emergence of a policy on European integration of security and defence.[5] This essay has first of all brought up different examples of the dominant role that the United States has in the relationship between NATO and the European Union. The US message towards Europe can be found a bit contradictory at times. The United States has forced their European partners many times for different reasons to expand their military capabilities. This, however always had to be done without decoupling from NATO. The fact that the European Union has expressed ambitions to develop military capabilities as well, thereby undermining ‘the division of labor’ that had prevented competition and duplication between the two organizations, worries the United States. However, it has been argued in this essay that there are huge obstacles for the European Union to overcome before it will be as military powerful as NATO. First, military operations so far rely on the political will and interests of the bigger European powers, secondly defence budgets are not being spent rational and there is no durable and structural development of capabilities, thirdly ESDP has become formally dependent on NATO for military and operational assets and finally the EU itself is still too fragmented about to what extent ESDP has to be developed any further.

Ideally, the relationship between ESDP and NATO should be reciprocally reinforcing. Perhaps part of the current confusion is caused by the fact that both organizations are still very much in the progress of defining their roles in the world. No consensus has yet been reached among the European countries about the ultimate nature of ESDP and how far they want to go in establishing more autonomy. NATO also struggles with the exact content of its new Strategic Concept planned for this year. Howorth therefore argues that it is too soon to set up a new ‘grand strategic relationship’, because both NATO and ESDP need time to develop and frame their roles.[6] Therefore, for now it is very important that mechanisms for better and structural dialogue and consultation between the two organizations will be developed in order to prevent competition and duplication such as in the case of Darfur. Finally, the European Union has to aim to be as transparent as possible towards the United States about which developments ESDP is making, so that misunderstanding and distrusted will be limited to a minimum. The United States on the other hand should aspire to develop a more balanced relationship with its European partners and has to acknowledge and treat the European Union as an increasing important independent security actor.

Bibliography

CAMERON, F. (2007) ‘An introduction to European Foreign Policy’, Routledge

CORNISH, P. and G. EDWARDS (2001) ‘Beyond the EU/NATO dichotomy: the beginnings of a European Strategic culture’, International Affairs, Vol 77, No. 3, pp. 587-603

HOWORTH, J. (2009) ‘NATO and ESDP: Institutional Complexities and Political Realities’, Politique étrangère 5/2009 (Hors série), pp. 95-106

LARRABEE, F. (2004) 'ESDP and NATO: Assuring complementarity', The International Spectator, Vol. 39: 1, pp. 51-70

SLOAN, S. (2005) NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community. The transatlantic bargain challenged, 2nd ed., Rowamn & Littlefield

WALLACE. W. (200) Foreign and Security Policy. The Painful Path from Shadow to Substance, in: Helen Wallace/William Wallace/Mark A. Pollack (eds.): Policy- Making in the European Union, 5th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 429-456.

WHITMAN, R. (2004) 'NATO, the EU and ESDP: an emerging division of labour?', Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 25: 3, pp. 430-451

---------------------------------------------------------------