NATO and the EU: A Bipolar Alliance for a Multipolar World

Abstract

Ever since the creation of the European Union (EU) and its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) by the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, followed by the creation of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and the adoption of the European Security Strategy (ESS), scholars and policymakers have been faced with the question: where does this leave NATO? While the question of relations between NATO and European defence has been one of NATO’s ‘perennial dilemmas’, the alliance’s post-9/11 operations have further highlighted the importance and interconnections of such a vital relationship. This chapter proposes that the EU and NATO are unlikely to ever become competitors, as long as this emerging European strategic actorness is translated into a reconfiguration, not just of the alliance but of the transatlantic relationship with the United States as such. For NATO, an intergovernmental military alliance, cannot be compared with the EU, a comprehensive state-like actor — thus, CSDP-NATO relations have to be framed in terms of EU-US relations. The United States will likely play a less prominent role in NATO, as their strategic focus shifts to the Asia Pacific region. NATO will nonetheless persist as an instrument first and foremost for European crisis management in the broader European periphery. On that ‘Europeanized’ basis, a healthy alliance can continue to bring great added value to the transatlantic relationship and global stability.