Abstract
The United Kingdom (U.K.) has been at the center of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since the organization’s creation in 1949. And even before that the U.K. was a member to the Treaty of Brussels, which is widely considered the precursor to NATO. The aim of this chapter is to briefly trace the development of the U.K.-NATO relationship.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Tim Oliver. “Special relationships in flux: Brexit and the future of the U.S.—E.U. and U.S.—U.K. relationships”, in: International Affairs 3/2016, S. 547–567.
- 2.
Campbell, D.A. (2007). Unlikely Allies: Britain, America and the Victorian Origins of the Special Relationship. New York: Hambledon Continuum, p. 1.
- 3.
For a reaffirmation of this special relationship in the context of Brexit see Missy Ryan, “U.S. Military Ties with Britain Are Sheltered from Brexit Storm, Officials Say,” Washington Post, June 28, 2016; and Spencer Ackerman, “U.S.—U.K. Security Officials Cement Intelligence Partnership after Leave Vote,” Guardian, June 24, 2016.
- 4.
NATO (2012). A Short History of NATO. Retrieved from, http://eu-nato.gov.ge/sites/default/files/20120412_ShortHistory_en.pdf, p. 1.
- 5.
Lord Ismay was the first Secretary General of NATO from 1949–1957.
- 6.
Inis L. Claude, Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization, 4th ed. (New York: Random House, 1971), 245.
- 7.
Baylis, John (1982) Britain and the Dunkirk Treaty: The origins of NATO. Journal of Strategic Studies, 5(2), 236–247, p. 237.
- 8.
See for example Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography, 1st ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001), 809–813.
- 9.
Urwin, Derek W. (1991). The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration since 1945, Longman: London and New York.
- 10.
There still is debate in the literature if the blockade was an overreaction of the Soviet Union trying to gain a hegemonic position in Central Europe of it is was a reaction to the London Agreement of June 1948 in which the allies decided to create a West German state, which was opposed by the Soviet Union. At the end of the month the allies had also introduced a new currency into Germany, which threatened to undermine economic policies in Eastern Germany. For the latest research on this period see the excellent volume of Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 145–146.
- 11.
The negotiations for the creation of a North Atlantic Alliance took place in light of George F. Kennan’s long telegram sent from the American Embassy in Moscow on 22 February 1946. For an excellent discussion about the time period see John W. Young and John Kent, International Relations since 1945: A Global History (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 68–93.
- 12.
Baylis, 1982, p. 237.
- 13.
Ibid., p. 20.
- 14.
Ibid., p. 238.
- 15.
John Holms clearly shows that the primary objective of Canadian foreign policy immediately following WWII was to create a collective security system. As Holmes argues, “there was, however, no particularly Canadian territorial or economic interest at stake. Canadians were more concerned with general questions of collective security.” See Holmes, The Shaping of Peace: Canada and the Search for World Order, 1943–1957, 106. Eventually, this policy became known as a middle-powermanship that gave Canada international status and a feeling of moral superiority—they were the ones that constrained the great powers “and acted as the world’s conscience when things got out of hand.” See Chapnick, “Canadian Foreign Policy: The Middle Power Muddle,” 4.
- 16.
Park, W. (1986). Defending the West: A History of NATO. Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, p. 7.
- 17.
(Baylis, 1982, p. 244. Examples of EU military cooperation has occurred, among others, include the German-French brigade created on 13. November 1987; Bundeswehr support for the French army in Mali in response to the terror attacks in Paris on 13 November 2015; deployment of the Bundeswehr in support of France, Iraq, and the international coalition against ISIS; French-German defence industry cooperation (e.g. (Krauss-Maffai Wegmann on the German side, and Nexter on the French side; as well as joint French-German diplomatic missions to solve the civil wars in Syria and the Ukraine (Minsk agreement of 12. February 2015). Notably is also the French-German defence- and security council (DFVSR), which is also known as the Elysée Treaty and was singed on 22. January 1988; available online at https://www.france-allemagne.fr/Deutsch-Franzosischer,0582.html.
- 18.
Escott Reid, “The Birth of the North Atlantic Alliance,” International Journal 22, no. 3 (1967), p. 427. See also Treaty of Dunkirk, 1947, Article 1. Treaty of Dunkirk (1947). Retrieved from http://www.cvce.eu/en/education/unit-content/-/unit/026961fe-0d57-4314-a40a-a4ac066a1801/5d5a64ab-9c7c-4e19-b528-9e53f9ce937b/Resources#1fb9f4b5-64e2-4337-bc78-db7e1978de09_en&overlay.
- 19.
Baylis, 1982, p. 244.
- 20.
Government of Canada. Department of External Affairs, Canada and the United Nations 1948, Report of the United Nations (Ottawa: Edmond Cloutier, 1949), 23.
- 21.
According to Reid, Canada’s Prime Minister Mackenzie-King was informed about such developments by a top-secret telegram from the British Prime Minister in mid January 1948, in which the British PM spoke about an urgent necessity of a Western Alliance against the evolving Soviet threat.
- 22.
For a great historical analysis of this negotiation process see Adam Chapnik, The Middle Power Project: Canada and the Founding of the United Nations. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005.
- 23.
Reid, 1967, p. 430.
- 24.
Reid, 1967, p. 426.
- 25.
The following states were signatories to the Treaty: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, and the United States.
- 26.
See for example John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York: Penguin, 2005).
- 27.
See Park, 1986, p. 21.
- 28.
See for example David J. Rothkopf, Running the World: The inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power, 1st ed. (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), 63.
- 29.
See Park, 1986, p. 28. To be clear, American nuclear forces were only stationed in several European countries (e.g. Germany, the Netherlands); they were never “handed over” to those states’ armed forces and thus at all times were under the control of the United States government.
- 30.
Ismay, L. (1954). NATO: The First Five Years, 1949–1954. Bosch: Utrecht, p. 33.
- 31.
See Park, 1986, p. 27. This small, yet important fact is often forgotten in contemporary burden sharing debates that the Trump has put on the agenda since 2016. See Benjamin Zyla. 2015. Sharing the Burden? NATO and its Second-Tier Powers (New York, Toronto: University of Toronto Press).
- 32.
Park, 1986, p. 29.
- 33.
Hodge, C.C. (2005). Atlanticism For a New Century: The Rise, Triumph and Decline of NATO. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, p. 4.
- 34.
Park, 1986, p. 31.
- 35.
Peden, G.C. (2012). Suez and Britain’s Decline as a World Power. The Historical Journal, vol. 55, p. 1073.
- 36.
Frankel J. (1975). British foreign policy, 1945–1973. London: Oxford University Press, p. 162.
- 37.
Kaplan, L. (2006) Report of the Three Wise Men: 50 years on. NATO Review.
- 38.
NATO. (1956). Report of the Committee of Three on Non-Military Cooperation in NATO. Retrieved from http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17481.htm#top, parag. 16.
- 39.
Kaplan, L. (2006) Report of the Three Wise Men: 50 years on. NATO Review.
- 40.
NATO, 1956, par. 9.
- 41.
Hodge, 2005, p. 8.
- 42.
Hodge, 2005, p. 10.
- 43.
Fabius, L. (2012) France and NATO. Diplomatic Insight.
- 44.
White, B. (1992). Britain, Détente, and Changing East-West Relations. London: Routledge. p. 39.
- 45.
This report was named after Belgian Foreign Minister Pierre Harmel.
- 46.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, North Atlantic Council Ministerial Communiqué, “The Future Tasks of the Alliance—Report of the Council,” Brussels, 13–14 December 1967.
- 47.
Ibid.
- 48.
Following the Harmel Report on NATO doctrine, the North Atlantic Council formally adopted the strategy of flexible response. The flexible response strategy allows the Alliance to engage in some degree of conventional warfare before and escalation into nuclear exchange is being pursued. Flexible response, before it became an official NATO strategy, was a new doctrine developed by US Secretary of State Dean Rusk in 1961 in a report for the Kennedy administration entitled “A Review of North Atlantic Problems for the Future.”
- 49.
For an excellent discussion about the withdrawal of France from NATO’s integrated command structure see Michael M. Harrison, The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).
- 50.
Defence Planning Committee DPD/D(67)23, “Decisions of the Defence Planning Committee in Ministerial Session 11 May 1967.
- 51.
Military Committee 14/3, “Overall Strategic Concept for the Defence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Area.”
- 52.
Ibid.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
See for example Tony Judt, Post War: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 441–447.
- 55.
It needs to be noted that the INF issue has been around since the NATO 1979 ‘dual-track’ decision to deploy Cruise Missiles and Pershing II missiles in Europe. After they arrived in Europe in 1983, the Soviets left the INF talks. They were finally revived in March 1985 almost simultaneously with Gorbachev taking power in the Kremlin.
- 56.
The INF treaty was officially signed on 8 December 1987 in Washington by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. The treaty eliminated all INF systems of missiles with a range of 500–5,500 km. The agreement also provided verification mechanisms. It is precisely this treaty that the Trump administration declared to withdraw from on 20 October 2018.
- 57.
Young and Kent, International Relations since 1945: A Global History, 585.
- 58.
Hodge, 2005, p. 27.
- 59.
McCalla, R.B. (1996). NATO’s Persistence After the Cold War. International Organization, 50(3), p. 448.
- 60.
Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO United: The Evolution of an Alliance. Similar arguments were offered by Maersheimer.
- 61.
“The future Tasks of the Alliance,” Speech by NATO Secretary General Manfred Wörner to the Quadrangular Forum, Brussels, 1 April 1989.
- 62.
What is often forgotten in this discussion is that according to a NATO Parliamentary Report, by 1999 the United States had also reduced its forwardly deployed forces in Europe from 325,000 to about 100,000 troops while European members of the Alliance reduced them by more than 500,000 in total (NATO Parliamentary Assembly, Report NATO Enlargement, International Secretariat, October 2001, Article 4). This accounted for 30–40% reductions of troops of all three services in the NATO Alliance.
- 63.
McCalla, 1996, p. 451.
- 64.
Ibid.
- 65.
London Declaration on A Transformed North Atlantic Alliance, issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, London 5–6 July 1990, Article 14.
- 66.
Kaplan, L. (2004). NATO Divided. NATO United: The Evolution of an Alliance. Connecticut: Praeger, p. 112.
- 67.
This concept of NATO’s new force structure was institutionalized in the Combined Joint Task Force Concept (CJTF).
- 68.
For a detailed discussion of NATO burden sharing at the time see Benjamin Zyla, Sharing the Burden? NATO and its Second-Tier powers. Toronto, New York: University of Toronto Press, 2015.
- 69.
S/RES/660, 2 August 1990.
- 70.
S/RES/660, 6 August 1990.
- 71.
To be sure, this was not a NATO mission.
- 72.
£200 million of British equipment was lost or written off.
- 73.
Turkey shared a border with Iraq and its government was anxious that the conflict would spread into Turkey.
- 74.
Asmus, R.D. (2002) Opening NATO’s Door. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 54.
- 75.
The White House, National Security Directive 23, September 22 1989. The Bush Library, F 89–191.
- 76.
For a greater discussion about the role of the PCC see G. Lange, “The PCC—a New Player in the Development of Relations between NATO and Partner Nations,” NATO Review 3 (May 1995).
- 77.
Member of the PfP program as of 2007 are the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyz Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
- 78.
See Asmus, 2002. As a result, these three countries are often referred to as the Visegrad countries.
- 79.
Bilinsky, Y. (1999). Endgame in NATO’s Enlargement: The Baltic States and Ukraine. Connecticut: Praeger, p. 1.
- 80.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 81.
Solomon, G.B. (1998). The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990–1997: Blessings of Liberty. Connecticut: Praeger, p. 31.
- 82.
He held this position until 1996.
- 83.
Brent Scowcroft, “Whither the Atlantic Community” Issue Brief, (01–02), (Washington, DC: The Forum for International Policy, March 21, 2001).
- 84.
Although the E.U. at the time was primarily a political and economic entity, it also makes an important contribution to European security. See Richard Holbrooke, “America: European Power,” Foreign Affairs 74 (March/April 1995): 46.
- 85.
See Kaplan, 2004, p. 117; see also Lenard J. Cohen, Alexander Moens, and Allen G. Sens, NATO and European Security: Alliance Politics from the End of the Cold War to the Age of Terrorism, Humanistic Perspectives on International Relations (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003).
- 86.
See for example Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” or Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability after the Cold War.”
- 87.
A good discussion can be found in Sophie Vanhoonacker, The Bush Administration (1989–1993) and the Development of a European Security Identity (Aldershot, Hampshire, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001), 147–204.
- 88.
Source: Department of Public Information, United Nations, September 1996.
- 89.
See for example “Fighting escalates, UN role in question,” United Nations Chronicle vol. 32, no. 3 (September 1995).
- 90.
Kaplan, 2004, p. 118.
- 91.
Later, this became known as the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (R2P).
- 92.
Behnke, A. (2013). NATO’s Security Discourse After the Cold War: Representing the West. New York: Routledge, p. 137.
- 93.
Bono, G. (2003). NATO’s ‘Peace-Enforcement’ Tasks and ‘Policy Communities’: 1990–1999. Aldershot: Ashgate, p. 114.
- 94.
Kaplan, 2004, p. 120.
- 95.
Behnke, 2013, p. 138.
- 96.
IFOR AFSOUTH Fact Sheet, 1 March 1996. The list of non-NATO countries participating in the IFOR mission include countries from the NATO PfP countries such as Albania, Austria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Sweden, and the Ukraine. It was the first time that Russian forces served in a NATO operation and were under the tactical control of the United States led multinational division. NATO’s Combined Joint Task Force concept allowed for a smooth integration of the forces.
- 97.
Important to note here is that a 2,200-strong Russian contingent was deployed as part of IFOR.
- 98.
Douglas A. Macgregor, “The Balkan Limits to Power and Principle,” Orbis 45, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 95.
- 99.
Kaplan, 2004, p. 125.
- 100.
Congressional Research Service, Report for Congress, Kosovo and US Policy, 4 December 2001, RL31053, 2.
- 101.
Indeed, NATO intervened without an approval of the UN Security Council. It was thus considered illegal. However, the Council later retroactively endorsed the intervention.
- 102.
Congressional Research Service, Issue Brief for Congress, “Kosovo and Macedonia: US and Allied Military Operations,” July 8, 2003, 1.
- 103.
Nossal and Roussel, “Canada and the Kosovo War: The Happy Follower,” 183.
- 104.
Kaplan, 2004, p. 134.
- 105.
Kaplan, 2004, p. 136.
- 106.
Behnke, 2013, p. 146.
- 107.
See Claudia Major and Nicolai von Ondarza. “Kein «Global Britain» nach dem Brexit: Der Brexit schwächt die britische Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik—eine bilaterale Einbindung ist dennoch im deutschen Interesse,” SWP Aktuell No. 29, May 2019, p. 1.
- 108.
Ballard, J.R., Lamm, D.W., & Wood, J.K. (2012). From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Maryland: Naval Institute Press, p. 2.
- 109.
Behnke, 2013, p. 166.
- 110.
Joshi, S. (2015). Assessing Britain’s Role in Afghanistan. Asian Survey, vol. 55, p. 420.
- 111.
Blair, T. (2011). A Journey. London: Arrow, p. 352.
- 112.
Cyr, Arthur I. “Special Relationships: Brexit and Transatlantic Security,” Parameters 48(1) Spring 2018, pp. 85–93.
- 113.
Behnke, 2013, p. 167.
- 114.
OECD DAC. (2007, April). Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations. Paris: OECD; OECD DAC. (2008). Concepts and Dilemmas of State Building in Fragile States (Discussion Paper). Paris: OECD. Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/development/incaf/41100930.pdf.
- 115.
NATO (2015). NATO and the 2003 campaign against Iraq (Archived). Retrieved from http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_51977.htm.
- 116.
Barry, B. (2016). Britain’s Difficult War in Iraq. London: The Stationary Office, p. 168; NATO, 2015.
- 117.
Murphy, S.D. (2004). Assessing the Legality of Invading Iraq. Georgetown Law Journal. 92(2), p. 174.
- 118.
Barry, 2016, p. 172.
- 119.
Kuperman, A. (2013). A Model Humanitarian Intervention? Reassessing NATO’s Libya Campaign. International Security, 38(1), p. 108.
- 120.
Only six European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, and the U.K.) as well as Canada contributed to strike missions in Libya. See Tim Haesenbrouck. 2016. “NATO Burden Sharing in Libya: A Fuzzy Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61 (10): 2235–2261.
- 121.
Ibid., p. 105.
- 122.
Ralph, J. & Gallagher, A. (2015). “Legitimacy Faultlines in International Society: The Responsibility to Protect and Prosecute after Libya.” Review of International Studies, 41(3). p. 555.
- 123.
Oliver, T. & Williams, M. (2016). Special relationships in flux: Brexit and the future of the U.S.—E.U. and U.S.—U.K. relationships. International Affairs, 92(3), 557.
- 124.
O’Sullivan, J. (2017). A Very Special Relationship. National Review, 69(3), 38–40.
- 125.
Chalmers, Malcolm. “U.K. Foreign and Security Policy after Brexit,” Briefing Paper, January 2017.
- 126.
Dearden, L. (January 10, 2017). Brexit: U.K. could lose its most senior military position in Nato to France after departure from E.U. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-latest-news-uk-lose-most-senior-nato-military-position-eu-european-union-deputy-supreme-a7519196.html. For a more positive perspective that Brexit indeed would not impact the U.K.’s ability and effectiveness to continue to work with the EU in the area of foreign and security policy see Menon, a. (2016). Britain’s military standing would not suffer after Brexit. Financial Times, 24 April. https://www.ft.com/content/a6f95c18-087d-11e6-a623-b84d06a39ec2; Godement, F. (2016). China and Brexit: What’s in it for us? European Council on Foreign relations. China analysis. http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/china_and_brexit_whats_in_it_for_us7112.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zyla, B. (2020). A Brief History of the U.K.—NATO Relationship. In: The End of European Security Institutions?. SpringerBriefs in Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42160-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42160-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-42159-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-42160-1
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)