This piece was originally published in 1989, in bout de papier volume 7 number 1, to mark the 40-year anniversary of NATO. Now, with NATO in its 75th year, we hope this article will yield brand new insights.
This is a year of many anniversaries. 50 years ago, the most destructive war the world has ever seen broke out. 44 years ago, VE- and VJ-Days marked the end of that war, and with it the emergence of a new bipolar world order. 40 years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed, giving clear warning to the Soviet Union that further encroachment on the Western democracies would be met by force and sealing an historic new commitment by the United States, as leader of the free world, to transatlantic co-operation and collective defence.
Taken together these events confirmed dramatically the truth, hitherto only dimly perceived, of two important lessons. The first was that it costs infinitely more to fight a war than to prevent one. And the second was that the security of Europe and that of North America are inextricably linked and can be decoupled only at the peril of both. To these lessons, NATO has added a new concept, stability, which depends as much on political as on military means. Hence NATO’s “twotrack” policy (as elaborated in the Harmel Report of 1967) of defence/deterrence and dialogue/détente. NATO has thus been able to avoid the mistakes leading up to World War I, when there was too much defence and not enough dialogue, as well as those leading up to World War II, when there was too much dialogue and not enough defence.
These lessons bear repeating, because our collective memory tends to be very short and a majority of our population has no personal experience of the events leading up to the creation of NATO – events which had as much to do with two world wars as with the Soviet threat. It also bears repeating that the Alliance has done well the job for which it was created. For 40 years, it has secured peace in freedom for its members, while countless conflicts have raged in the rest of the world. But 40 can be a difficult time of life, with risks of middle-age complacency and hardening of the arteries of communication. It should, therefore, be a time of taking stock.
The challenges NATO has had to face over the years have been as much internal as external. Differences of power, perception, and policy have often strained the transatlantic dialogue. Divergences have arisen over how to maintain the nuclear deterrent (the European allies wanting to tie NATO’s defence in Europe as closely as possible to the US strategic deterrent, the Americans wishing to make the link discretionary); how to reconcile defence cooperation with economic competition (the European allies accusing the Americans of mismanaging the economy, the Americans complaining that they are carrying an unfair share of the defence burden, and both sides charging the other with protectionism); and how to deal with the Soviet Union (the European allies wishing to avoid confrontation which might deepen the division of Europe, the Americans giving priority to showing resolve). While the Alliance has shown remarkable resilience under these tensions in the past, it cannot simply be assumed that in future the allies will always weigh their shared interests as more important than those which divide them, or that they will continue to regard the Alliance as the best available means to secure those shared interests at acceptable cost and risk. It is no longer enough for the allies to know what they are against; they must now define more clearly what they are for.
NATO’s very success is now one of its problems. It has led some people to overlook the causes and to take the results for granted as self-generating. They think that, since there has been no fire for so long, it is no longer necessary to pay the fire insurance premium. For others, NATO’s success means that yesterday’s fire prevention methods will continue to be effective against tomorrow’s fires. They fail to see that the elements which have secured peace so far have to be constantly renewed and adapted to the changing international environment. And today that environment is in greater flux than at any time since 1945.
For one thing the post-war world of the two superpowers has yielded to a more diffused multipolar pattern, with the rise of other power centres in Europe and Asia. And the predominance of the Atlantic basin as the centre of economic and political gravity has been modified by the increasing importance of the Pacific rim. This does not mean that Europe is no longer where the global balance of power is at stake, but it does mean that the growing weight of Japan and China, and the mounting social and population pressures in Latin America are drawing American attention increasingly south and west.
By the same token, the United States is no longer in a position to exercise the sort of hegemonic leadership it did in the past, not because the United States has declined but because others have grown stronger. While internal pressures are working to limit US overseas commitments, the momentum of “Europe 1992” is leading the European allies to concentrate their defence efforts more closely, to articulate a European defence identity, and to deal with the United States on a more equal footing. Such changes are bound to have enormous implications not only for burden sharing (in its broadest sense), but also for power sharing within the Western world. Another remarkable development is the second Communist revolution going on in the Soviet Union as a result of Gorbachev’s “new thinking.” His reform program is impelled by the failure of the Soviet system to deliver the goods. The imperative of economic reform has led to political reform and the imperative of internal reform has led to foreign policy initiatives designed to ensure a more stable and predictable international environment. It has certainly caused a dramatic improvement in East–West relations and significant changes in public perceptions in the West of both Soviet military capabilities and Soviet intentions. Gorbachev’s announcement of unilateral force reductions has made a deep impression, as has the less ideological and more pragmatic approach adopted by Soviet spokesmen.
Gorbachev may not have realized when he started how hard it would be to put his “new thinking” into effect, but it is now clear that, having let the genie out of the bottle, he has a tiger by the tail (to mix metaphors). The trouble is that too much depends on him alone and his problem is that, while the results of “glasnost” are immediate, the results of “perestroika” will take years to realize. His game plan must be to try to bridge the gap, and his strongest card is that there is no alternative. At the same time, there are likely to be serious threats to stability not only in the Soviet Union, but even more in Eastern Europe, as the old order gives way to pressures for more freedom, pluralism, and decentralization.
In these circumstances, it will be prudent for NATO to keep its guard up. The East–West confrontation is certainly reduced, but even with Gorbachev’s unilateral reductions the Soviet Union retains a decided superiority in conventional forces in Europe. Deliberate war is certainly unlikely, but there is still a risk of inadvertent conflict. The prospects are certainly better for setting East–West relations on a more constructive course, but the inherent instability in the Eastern European situation is likely to make the task of managing the East-West relationship more complex rather than easier. We should therefore be cautious, but that does not mean standing pat. The “Soviet threat” is no longer sufficient to guarantee Alliance solidarity or public support for NATO. It is no longer enough for the allies to know what they are against; they must now define more clearly what they are for.
The time has come to revisit the Harmel Report and reconsider Article 2 (the “Canadian article”) of the North Atlantic Treaty. Well-articulated, comprehensive, long-term strategies are needed for the management of both East–West and West–West relations. In a situation where new opportunities are opening in East–West relations, policies should be developed to bring the Soviet Union and its allies more fully into the international system and to make the transition with as little disruption as possible. There is also need for a new conceptual framework of “mutual security” in which both sides would acknowledge that they cannot buy their own security at the price of the other’s insecurity.
All this can be accomplished only if Alliance solidarity can be maintained in conditions of greater burden sharing, risk sharing and decision sharing. Statesmanship of a high order will be needed to build a more reciprocal partnership in which there is a concerted effort by the United States, on one side, and its allies on the other, to take greater account of each other’s views, and to contribute more to each other’s interests. Such a partnership should seek, among other things, to promote the strategic unity of the Alliance, to establish better coordination between NATO’s military and political “tracks” and to bring Alliance strategy and arms control policy into closer alignment.
Canada has an important though difficult role to play here. The polarization of NATO between American and European “pillars” and the accompanying trend toward regionalism threaten either to make us “odd man out” or to absorb us into the American “pillar.” Neither would be in our best interests. NATO still offers the most congenial framework for seeking our security in cooperation with like-minded nations. It is our entrée into the highest councils affecting our security. And it is our window into the arms control negotiations and the confidence building process in Europe.
Given Canada’s geopolitical position, we have a vital interest in the betterment of superpower relations and we are well placed to contribute to increasing East–West exchanges, particularly with respect to the environment and circumpolar cooperation. At the same time, we should help ensure that better East–West relations do not lead to a weakening of cohesion in the Alliance and we are well situated to contribute ideas for reinforcing the bridge across the Atlantic. Such a role will depend, however, on our maintaining our transatlantic vocation, and the presence of Canadian forces in Europe which is its visible symbol.
Projecting present hopes into the future, I foresee the prospect that the progressive integration of the Soviet Union and its allies into the international system could lead to East–West cooperation in dealing with the global problems facing all of us. NATO could become an essential political instrument for helping to manage that process. Far fetched? Perhaps, but what we need in this age of rapid change is a vision of where we want to go, for without that we will become victims, rather than managers, of change.
