Term Paper on "NATO and the European Union the Cold"

Term Paper 16 pages (5701 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

NATO and the European Union

The Cold War period represented an important time in the history of the European continent and in the development of the concept of security and the way in which it was dealt with at the level of the national security strategies. The bipolar system that succumbed following the fall of the Iron Curtain had established up to that point a security structure based on the alliance system, NATO and the Warsaw Pact. However, when the Pact no longer represented an adversary for the Northern Alliance, the major problem for NATO as well as for the European Union became obvious in the lack of threat such a construction must face. At the same time, the challenges facing the new, emerging, international environment included the issue of nationalistic pressures coming from former Soviet states as well as former communist countries.

In terms of NATO and the European Union, the security aspect was considered essential to be dealt with at the level of the alliances and the future partnerships these organizations had to engage in order to insure the success of an equilibrium that at the time was fragile. In this sense, although during the Cold War the European Union had attempted create a certain security dimension, after the end of the bipolar security structure, this became an imperative need. Therefore, the evolution of the European Union, in relation to NATO as well as from the perspective of the European security dimension must be seen in the framework of the historical evolutions after the Cold War due to the fact that the European Union found it essential to address issues such as Russia, Turkey, the Ukraine, and their role in the security environment of the post Cold War era.

The present paper will try to assess the impact of the European enlargement process on the development of the countries it entangles as well as on the European Union's Security and Defence Policy. From this point-of-view it is important to consider the history of the security initiative developed by the European Union, on the one hand. On the other hand, an essential role in the evolution of this segment of the European integration is the background and the framework in which this development took place. Thus, a special emphasis will be placed on the challenges the EU had to face and which determined its answer in the form of the enlargement of the ESDP. Secondly, throughout the history of the European Union, any attempt to improve or at least increase the institutional framework or the political environment among the member countries or the partners in the neighbouring area, has concrete consequences on the way in which developments take effect. Therefore, another important dimension for analysis is the actual consequences of the political initiatives that led to the expansion of the ESDP's role. This retrospect view however must take into account both the internal effects on the EU countries, as well as the external impact, on the countries that are targeted by these attempts to increase the security space in Europe and in the Mediterranean area. This analysis will include views on the role of Russia, Turkey, the Ukraine, as well as Mediterranean countries. Finally, it is important to consider the potential future evolutions of the ESDP, not so much from the perspective of concrete predictions, but rather from a political point-of-view and taking into account possible internal evolutions in member countries and recipient countries.

History and challenges of the ESDP

First and foremost it must be pointed out the fact that the ESDP is the result of a traditional structure, which is the international organization. In this sense, the realistic theory argues that although there is a need for states to keep their sovereignty, it is important for them to have a certain form of cooperation that supports political relations. At the same time, the structure of the EU and implicitly the existence of the ESDP are justified through the neorealist perspective. In this sense, taking realist and neorealist points into account, it can be said that the birth of the ESDP was a matter of power calculus; thus, "states must look to themselves to survive" hence they must engage in strategic alliances or forms of cooperation that would ensure them the ability to maintain a certain balance of power and, as structural realists argue, their relative power. In this sense, the creation of the European Union and the establishment of its security dimension was a well thought of affair, taking into account the perspectives after the Second World War and the need for a strategic and political balance of power. The actual creation of the ESDP was more difficult than the issue of the First Communitarian Pillar because of the specificity of the European Union which does not fall in the traditional category of the international organization, but rather its supranational character determines state to share sovereignty, a factor which determined several member states to be reluctant to address the issue of security at a supranational level.

Current developments in ESDP have arisen out of powerful historical forces arising on both sides of the Atlantic." In this sense, it is clear that the end of the Second World War had left a power vacuum that had to be filled with a political and security actor that would balance the power equilibrium on the continent. However, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization had filled the security vacuum in Europe by providing the necessary guarantees to European states in their relation with the U.S.S.R. From this point-of-view, the European Communities were not politically motivated to increase their efforts to accommodate the sovereignty needs and at the same time the security needs of the member states. Thus, there was little progress made in the area of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

The first attempts to create a common position in terms of security and defence issues was the 1953 Rome Treaty which put the basis of the European Defence Community. However, this aspect of cooperation was left outside the supranational pillar precisely because it represented a sensitive issue for states who were not willing and politically prepared to share their sovereignty in a matter of national security. Thus, the Fouchet Plans for a European voice in security and defence issues were rejected as being possibilities for increasing the voice of Europe in the relation with the North Atlantic organization. One of the most fervent proponents of an independent defence policy was France's Charles de Gaulle who constantly supported the idea of a European defence, not a transatlantic one.

The major breakthrough in this sense was actually the fall of the Berlin War and the symbolic ending of the Cold War. That brought again to the attention of the political leaders the challenges the European Union, independent of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, had to face. On the one hand, there was the matter of the lack of equilibrium in terms of the theoretical analysis of the post Cold War structure of power. Thus, as the U.S. had risen victorious from the Cold War, the international system became uni-polar in its distribution of power. However, the realist point-of-view, that was still dominating the scholarly environment considered that current state of affairs to be rather dangerous. Thus, there was a need for the balancing of the relations with the U.S. To such an extent as to create a new pole of power, which would offer the system a multi-polar structure, a much more stable framework for conducting politics. The emergence of the ideas related to the CFSP resulted in the official creation of the Second Pillar at the Maastricht Summit of 1992. That step enabled the European Union to have a stronger stand and role in the relations within the Union as well as by comparison with external factors, such as the U.S. Or the Russian Federation.

Another challenge Europeans had to face was the fall of the U.S.S.R. And the regional conflicts the EU had to face. "The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the subsequent process of German reunification, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Gulf War, the wars in the Caucasus and especially the wars in Yugoslavia combined to give new impetus to the process of European defence." These crises proved that the EU had "limit(ed) itself to the more popular and productive tasks of European construction; that it was an 'economic giant and political pygmy' (the same thing, not by coincidence, was often said about Germany); and the obvious point was made that the EU had no military component at all up to 1999."

The EU had to either limit itself in both initiatives and goals to a mere economic power, or establish a common and coherent foreign policy and to offer it the necessary tools to make a differences in war theatres of emerging democracies. Thus, "The European Union's European security and defence policy (ESDP) includes the gradual framing of a common defence… READ MORE

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