Integration and Disintegration in NATO: Processes of Alliance Cohesion and Prospects for Atlantic Community - Softcover

Beer, Francis A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081426008X ISBN 13: 9780814260081

Publisher: Ohio State University Press, 2027

Synopsis

A foundational analysis that remains essential as NATO faces new existential threats.

Francis A. Beer’s classic study of NATO, first published in 1969 at the critical time of French withdrawal, focuses on processes of Atlantic alliance cohesion and implications for cross-Atlantic relationships. At the present time, as NATO faces existential threats in the form of fresh attacks and skepticism, Beer’s foundational analysis remains essential. He surveys five key areas of alliance activity: political consultation, military forces, armaments, infrastructure, and science. Across each, he identifies a recurring pattern: nationalism, self-interest, and state-level dominance repeatedly constrain and often work against collective action, even in areas where technical logic might otherwise unify coalition members.

Significant support for cooperation, Beer argues, can emerge during periods of international crisis, when member states are pressed to set aside individual concerns for common security. International crises are challenging but need not be destructive. To the contrary, crises provide opportunities for creative institutional leadership. As the book shows, a well-articulated ideology, connected to variable coalitions in different issue areas, can bring members together to maintain and build collective political-military institutions.

About this title

About the Author

Francis A. Beer is Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he directed the Conflict and Peace Studies Program. He has published such books as Alliances: Latent War Communities in the Contemporary World,Peace Against War: The Ecology of International Violence, Post-Realism: The Rhetorical Turn in International Relations, Meanings of War and Peace, and Metaphorical World Politics.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction:
NATO and InternationaI lntegration

During the last several years the bipolar configuration of international politics has appeared to be loosening. Growing difficulties within the major blocs―between the Soviet Union and China, between the Soviet Union and some of its East European neighbors, and between the United States and France―have all indicated that a less rigid international order may be possible in the foreseeable future. While this new order has looked as if it may bring with it increased tension in Asia, new opportunities for co-operation in Europe have also appeared possible.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been one of the cornerstones of the postwar international system. During the late 1960’s, however, NATO’s future has appeared uncertain. Not only has there been some doubt about the continuity of NATO institutions, but also over the extended participation of at least one major actor. Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty provides that, “after the Treaty has been in force for twenty years any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation.” Thus, depending on legal interpretation, any nation may secede in either 1969 or 1970.

The intentions of French President de Gaulle are couched in ambiguous terms. In his note of March 7, 1966, to President Johnson announcing his decision to withdraw militarily from NATO’s activities, de Gaulle stated France’s intention to remain a Party to the Treaty in 1969, provided that there had been no “basic” change in East-West relations, and that she was determined “to fight on the side of her Allies” should aggression against one of them be “unprovoked.” The French Aide Memoire to the fourteen other NATO members on March 10, 1966, repeated the cloudy message, declaring that “the Alliance must continue as long as it appears to be necessary.”

These undecided circumstances have prompted NATO Secretary General Manlio Brosio to state that one cannot “guarantee automatically that the Alliance will continue without changes and without defections after its twentieth anniversary.” They also help to justify a study of NATO’s state and processes of cohesion through a focus on integration in NATO. Such an analysis may help to refine general ideas concerning alliance solidarity. More narrowly it may provide new information and insights―or recast old impressions―about the firmness of an organization which importantly affects the security of the United States, the Atlantic area, and the Western world.

According to NATO tradition, the Alliance’s military command structure and infrastructure have often been referred to as “integrated,” meaning that they are either jointly manned or jointly owned by the Allies. Such usage is obviously helpful in distinguishing what “belongs” to NATO from what does not. At the same time it would probably be unwise to lift the term from the Alliance quarry and place it as the cornerstone of the present analysis. Joint manning or joint ownership are criteria of integration which are too limited to serve as major analytical tools in a general study of NATO cohesion.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ohio State University Press
• Publication date: 2027
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081426008X
• ISBN 13: 9780814260081
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344