NATO-CSDP International Relations Analytical Essay

Overview

The paper presents comprehensive study on the frameworks of NATO-CSDP community as well as the challenges the alliance poses to the former EU-NATO cooperation. The discussion is basically based on the concept of community applied within the NATO-EU alliance. Various conflicts have been faced by the alliance, some of which include incomplete overlap, fallout between nations and application of incomprehensive frameworks.

The study discusses the nature of approach used in ensuring existence of a strong international security body based on shared values from various member states. So much attention has been given to the possible nature of dichotomy between competition and complementarily resulting from CSDP-NATO relations. This is because the two factors dominated the previous EU-NATO relation to the extent of forming good percentage of their security policies.

European Union and North American participant’s views on security matters based on community perspective are also discussed in details. Then the conclusion based on the impact of the alliance on culture and its impact on the North Atlantic security community framework.

How has the emergence of the CSDP affected the EU-NATO relationship?

Introduction

Development of Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) took place within the institutional context of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) (Merlingen and Ostrauskaite, 2008: 6). The institutions main concern and goal is international security based on shared values amongst the member states.

NATO-CSDP relationship has been considered corporate practice since all the countries involved have declared some percentage of social commitment on the same (Adler, 2005: 15). The new focus brought by the CSDP into NATO-EU relationship presented a different perspective from the previous one, which made this relationship be identified by inter-organizational competitions with shallow insights on their operations.

However, the inclusion of CSDP has ensured the institution’s success despite many identified inefficiencies (Hofmann, 2009:47). There has been lack of adequate plans and strategies which has led to sharing of assets without considering the investment pumped in by the old member states. There are so many elements which resulted from this relationship such as NATO-EU Capability Group, European Union Cell at SHAPE (EUCS), the NATO Permanent Liaison Team (NPLT), and the alliance’s operational headquarters.

At the centre of the cooperation is the Berlin-Plus agreement of 2003, which allowed the sharing of assets by the member states. Such agreement ignored the nature of cooperation on the ground at the presence of all organizations making any meetings on the political domain informal. The cooperation between CSDP-NATO does not recognize European Union as the overall decision-maker within the alliance (Howoth, 2009:95).

Negative influences on CSDP-NATO relations

The relationship between NATO-CSDP is characterized by major constraints, especially in decision making as well as involvement of many governments. The potential of the alliance lies in contribution made by member states and not EU as a supreme body.

Lisbon Treaty led to the abolishment of what was referred to as European Union three-pillar framework, leading to the current management system known as second pillar framework, which was meant for solving civil-military international crisis management correlated to Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The treaty led to the creation of developmental frames and structures meant for crisis management (Grevi, 2009: 60).

Inclusion of members from various governments was meant to reinforce the relationship, however, the partnership of EU-NATO with multilateral security agencies seem to be in jeopardy. Before CSDP joined the partnership, the use of military capabilities was given priority by EU-NATO relations supported by Berlin-Plus treaty. Examples range from 2003 interventions in Macedonia, Bosnia to Democratic Republic of Congo.

However, the coming of CSDP has shifted the focus from military-oriented interventions to non-military missions as key to promoting peace amidst conflict. This has made United Nations (UN) a significant ally since it plays major role in authorizing any action. International crisis management has further involved cooperation by African Union (AU) in dealing with multilateral security concerns.

The European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) have similar goals where international security is concerned and also refer to a base of values that are common. Overlap has caused many stumbling blocks within the confines of cooperation amongst the three bodies (Hoffman, 2009).

However, the two bodies have been considered critical elements within the institution where Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) are developed. The different views on the impact of the CSDP on the North Atlantic security relationship have ranged from warnings that unnecessary competition will be fostered with NATO from the autonomous EU framework to a division of labour between the two structures as a result of the European operational experience, useful to both and enduring (Hoffman, 2009).

The identification of the characteristics between competition and complementarily has occurred in various circumstances. Their relationship has been viewed in a different perspective where the NATO-CSDP is seen as “a community of practice” which connotes a group of actors interacting on a particular domain of action to which they have a social commitment.

Inter-organizational networks within the alliance have been further complicated by the concepts on either completion or complementarity where these relations are concerned. One of the critical features of the NATO-CSDP connection that cooperation is capable of making some significant move despite various insufficiencies within their lines of operation owing to the non-existence of a comprehensive framework.

Given that there is no evidence of an all-out competitive pattern as a starting point, the EU and NATO share expectations usually taken for granted based on the fact that none of them will resort to the use of force or threats or make any preparations for the same when conflicts arise.

This justifies the essence of the community perspective shared by the member states, a good example being the North Atlantic security community. However, there is still the problem of identifying the way the activities of the EU in security and defence matters have an impact within the context of a community. Various elements such as collective identity, identification of common threats, compatibility where primary values are concerned, social and religious institutions are essential components of the security community.

Security communities are “imagined” (Adler, 1997) and their existence relies on participants acting “as if there is a community” (Waever, 1998: 77). Security communities are as such “Communities of practise”, marked by a domain of knowledge, a community of people, shared practices, and a sense of joint enterprise (Adler, 2005: 17).

Socially recognised forms of activity, done on the basis of what members learn from each other, and capable of putting it into action, correctly or incorrectly are referred to as practices. If the concern is the impact to international security issues on the North Atlantic Security community of a specific “European Approach”, then what remains at stake is not the “dependable expectations of peaceful change” that are relied upon by such a community (Adler and Barnett, 1998:30).

Much as the clashes over Iraq were not about an issue presented by some actors as an existential threat to the whole community; such expectations were not put to question. The questions that arose were about the North Atlantic security community’s ties exceeding the dependable expectations of peaceful change, most notably multilateralism and threat identification convergence.

Fears that North Atlantic multilateralism would be challenged by the autonomous EU framework for the development and use of member states’ military capabilities being built and military operations being launched sometimes without consultation of NATO were raised (Menon, 2003). The difference in the EU and US approaches to counterterrorism was also stressed by scholars and revealed by the comparison of the ESS with the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy of 2002 (Berenskoetter, 2005).

Grasping how the dynamics of the EU’s external action have an impact on the practices of the North Atlantic security community was linked to the cultural change issue, as suggested by the frequent and sometimes interchangeable references to the nature of European culture in CSDP related studies.

There have been difficulties in differentiating the EU’s security culture, thus providing an example for the lack of conceptual clarity of these notions. The four elements commonly highlighted when it comes to strategic culture are; ideologies, collective sharing, group-specific and relatively stable. Strategic culture research can be held to have began with implicit references in the cultural explanation for specific national ways of war put forward in the 1930s and ’40s.

The first conceptualization of the term “strategic culture” is a complementary element for explanation as to why significant powers with similar military capacities did not share the same outlook because of geographic and historic specificities during the cold war. However, ignorance on the fact that cultural reference was liable to manipulation by the elite led to the critique concerning strategic culture as a context for action.

However, strategic culture in the 1990s was linked to a constructivist approach as an independent explanatory variable for actors’ behaviour (Johnston, 1995). Significant shortcomings on both sides were revealed as a result of dialogue with those who supported the concepts. Rather than general definitions of strategic culture, the emphasis has thus shifted towards case studies.

The tendency was to consider these frameworks as resistant to change and tracking the dynamics of an emerging culture going against such tendency (Ramel, 2003:103). However, traumatic events triggered significant shifts (Rousell and Morin, 2007: 20-21). Otherwise, the changes would be mere fixing towards international influences (Longhurst, 2004: 18). Even then, the various adjustments proved not sufficient enough to explain the emerging process owing to the methodology applied in most contexts.

There is in appropriation in identifying the European strategic culture as a unified set of ideas that would be completely opposed to the US strategic culture because it is just emerging (Kagan, 2002). The degree of convergence between EU member state outlooks has been the focus of studies, especially emerging European strategic culture (Gingerich, 2006; Meyer, 2006).

Inevitably, persisting divergences are pointed out as well as agreement among these actors on core elements as follows; the EU has to be able to count on military capabilities that it can use autonomously from NATO, given the North Atlantic’s relationship uniqueness as a security community, this autonomy can only be developed in cooperation with NATO and the US. At the same time, its comprehensive range of tools and especially its ability to tie the use of armed forces to non-military missions will is the EU’s main contribution.

The EU’s action is about providing collective security through international crisis management, not about collective defence. CSDP is about enhancing international crisis management, not a means for narrow-defined European interests.

Concerning differentiation between strategic culture and security culture, one tendency is considering strategic culture on the basis of being clearly military while security culture both in terms of tools and outlook looks more comprehensive (Gariup, 2009).

It is therefore fair to consider that cultural change both in the EU and the North Atlantic level is triggered by a European strategic culture. Support for this is in the observations of a move between CSDP and NATO, with notably a growing EU-US bilateral security cooperation. In the EU as well, the major dynamics of its relationship with the alliance lies in differentiation.

The Approach of the Relationship

The relationship focuses on the use of community approach in tackling issues. However, there has been concern on whether the relations will complement or results into competition between NATO and CSDP. The two bodies will have to be considered as separate entities within the partnership owing to different approaches each take towards conflict resolution. Complementary view considers cooperation at organizational level inclusive of all limits despite its focus on differences in capabilities and nature of operations involved.

From concrete analysis, community of practice approach is seen as one of the perspectives capable of incorporating various essential elements of NATO-CSDP relationship. The approach simplified nature of interactions amongst different organizations and institutions across the member countries.

Communities of practice ensured existence of essential elements in the NATO and CSDP since they operated from the same organization of military command terming their operations as international crisis management. NATO’s structures of command and operation principles were incorporated within the European framework owing to the alliance (Varwick and Koops, 2009: 120-122).

Inclusion of CSDP in the alliance created a common point of knowledge as key focus within the community of practice, therefore considering NATO-EU relations special kind of community (Adler, 2005: 17). However, the alliance remained vulnerable in terms of formal organization structure as well as social aspect.

The framework brought by CSDP presented freedom to participants in the NATO-EU relations with regard to full participation in their operations. The relationship is basically based on the Berlin-Plus agreement first applied in Macedonia and Bosnia in 2003 and 2004, respectively.

Framework of the cooperation

The emergence of CSDP led to the adoption of Berlin-Plus agreement as to the core element within the relations. The first trial was made in the Macedonia Bosnia interventions, where the EU took over through its alliance operations.

The emergence brought about two concepts through which the alliance could operate the first being through Berlin-Plus treaty and the second allowing CSDP operate on its own without NATO’s involvement but utilizing the alliance’s properties in their operations. NATO-EU capabilities were found to be incomprehensive due to lack of formal framework within the cooperation like that found in EUCS and NPLT.

Communication constraints

The formation of NATO-CSDP relations raised concern in the mode of communication used. Communication protocol used within the relations presented some level of constraints; an example is a case where EU officers have to pass through NATO officials for clearance on certain information at national levels (Roussel and Morin, 2007).

The communication channel also considers level of expertise as the various organizations focus on links between NATO and other agencies such as CMPD. The relations have focused on separating contacts from the civilian component of CSDP developing existence of more essential constraints. The conditions have been considered by military personnel as frustrating and hence permitting cooperative practices.

The lack of cooperation in development concepts has led to duplication and adoption of policies and assets, which ultimately resulted into competition. Some crucial definitive terms are ignored in the CSDP meetings and documentations making relations within the cooperation a nightmare. For example, CSDP finds it challenging to use terms such as integration and cooperation and instead uses terms such as coherence which is not acceptable to military practitioners.

The constraints have led to many shortcomings such as wastage of scarce resources and at the same time putting civilian personnel and military in jeopardy due to unnecessary delays in troop deployment (Hofmann, 2009: 47). The constraint is best revealed by the current mission in Afghanistan, where CSDP police mission does not enjoy any protection from ISAF troops on the ground.

Social Aspect

One may ask the question on how the European strategic culture affects the framework of the North Atlantic security community, taking into account that a shared security culture appears as a permissive element for security communities. A security culture like this is a system of socially constructed sense concerning international threats, implying their common identification description and a common mindset about ways to respond to them (Pouliot and Lachmann, 2004: 136).

The idea of a challenge from the North Atlantic security culture through the European strategic culture given the picture of the European strategic culture sketched here is suggestive. This is because both though less stable, are more inclusive than usual descriptions of national strategic cultures would have it.

Their concern centres around collective actors, provision of a general consensual view on the international environment, and even beyond considering the military domain as the essential way of dealing with the security issues they are concerned with incomprehensive coverage of all security concerns by members or participants (Mérand and Pouliot, 2008).

The challenge that European culture references regarding security pose to North Atlantic evolutions should not be overrated. An example is the war on terror which was the position taken by the Bush administration after 9/11, while the EU’s outlook was more comprehensive and less aggressive.

But in actuality, the EU’s position on preventive action in handling threats points to a framework of pre-emption quite similar to the US (Goede, 2008). The appearance of challenging and conforming elements in the European strategic culture’s articulation with North Atlantic references comes as no surprise.

The difficult relationship between culture and international security has to be taken into consideration when trying to grasp the range and impact of the changes that accompany the emergence of a European strategic culture (Weldes et al., 1999). The fact that anthropologist Clifford Geertz’s semiotic approach on culture informed both takes on the strategic culture and security culture as highly suggestive.

Following Max Weber, Geertz argued, “that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,” which would be his culture (Geertz, 1973a: 5). The definition of culture as “a system of symbols creating meaning within a social group” is a follow up conception as a result of that argument. The conceptualization of security culture as a variable of security communities is an approach inspired by Geertz. Geertz also defines religion as “cultural system”.

Following the lead of his works, scholars have tended “to represent culture as essentially static” while “accounts of how the effects of culture evolve over time are relatively rare” which is why this ambiguity is observed. Geertz’ statement that formulations of other peoples’ symbols systems must be actor-oriented needs not be contradictory to his notions regarding culture.

In line with the interest he showed for the influence exerted by particular actors in the elaboration and dissemination of ideologies, nationalism is seen as actor-centred approach (Ortner, 1997: 7). The development of CSDP provides an excellent example in this context since through EU specific practices and highlighting of a particular European approach to international crisis management and to issues of global security more generally, the differentiation of NATO has been promoted and implemented.

A focus on the production of meaning as a process through which conventions become intelligible to participants through observable usages and effects suggests that meanings are open to various and changing interpretations, while also sometimes appearing to be overly coherent, fixed or inevitable” (Wedeen, 2002: 722).

Since CSDP formal framework is consensus-based and intergovernmentalist, so rather an unfavourable context for having a non-state centred dynamic taking place, such an approach is also relevant for the case of the European strategic culture. Based on methodology, an actor-oriented approach is centred on the way in which people attempt to make apparent, observable sense of their worlds in emotional and cognitive terms (Wedeen, 2002: 721).

In the continuous references to the 2003 ESS as a key to Europe’s relevance in dealing with international security challenges, one example can be found of such meanings. So many contradictions have been featured in NATO’s elaboration with view of a new strategic concept as to suggest that in this North Atlantic setting has become more elusive than in the European. The focus is then shifted to actor’s practices, with the inclusion of the discursive elements of them, rather than to see them as bounded by cultural references.

If the link between territory and culture is blurred, then this becomes especially important as in the case of the North Atlantic security culture or the European security culture. A Bourdieusian framework seems a check against the overstatement of predispositions both individual and collective related to culture in works inspired by Geertz, among others (Jackson, 2008).

Where culture is concerned, the Bourdieu inspired turn to practice has pointed the contradictory reign, politically charged, changeable and fragmented character of meanings. Unlike Geertz reception, input from Bourdieu is handled in a more consistent and aware way by most scholars who draw on him (Merand and Pouliot, 2008).

The idea of cultural references not providing what is referred to as ultimate ends or values towards action but rather a “tool kit”. “This toolkit may be used in varying configurations to solve different kinds of problems” and “components that are used to construct strategies of action” is one of the ways that the Bourdieu inspired turn to practice in the study of culture has taken in the Sociology field. A focus on the practical dynamic of repertoires of meanings is suggested. One example is the range of tools for national security have been enlarged- by the emergence of a European strategic culture- while at the same time pushing them to confront within the EU framework their cultural references (Wæver, 1998).

The idea of sustaining already existing frameworks which are enhanced by the institutional framework of CSDP being inter-governmentalist would be supported by national actors drawing on the emergence of a European strategic culture. In this instance, co-constitution as suggested by Geertz’ idea of culture as a “model of and for” experience would lead it and “structural circumstance” to “reinforce each other”.

The definition of an ideology as an explicit, articulated, highly organized meaning system establishing new styles or strategies of action in an unsettled situation is met by the insistence that there is a European way to deal with international security issues.

This aspect is present in the claim that the EU’s civil-military approach in CSDP has initially been something unique to it to which other multilateral organisations that are involved in intervening in international crisis management have progressively come around with a notable example being NATO through its references to a “comprehensive approach”.

Conclusion

Defining the alliance from European framework is in this context an outstanding example of the contested and politically charged characteristics of such a reference. The EU’s assertiveness in terms of strategic guidance provided by the ESS is pitched against the difficulties NATO experiences in an effort to follow up in its practices on its mentions of a comprehensive approach as a priority (Giegerich, 2006).

The idea that the alliance actually would be a senior partner in relation to CSDP as the European intervention in international crisis management because of its overwhelmingly bigger military capabilities and its experience of high-level intensity use of armed forces is challenged by putting the focus on orientations rather than means.

Turning to the perspective of North Atlantic security community, consideration has to be taken that such communities of practice are “sustained by a repertoire of ideational and material communal resources” (Adler, 2005: 17).

The claim for European uniqueness through CSDP and conceptual guidance like the ESS is very much the issue (Howorth, 2009). Looking at it materially, these elements are not detached from the North Atlantic framework; after all, the concerned participants are made to draw on one set of capabilities because of the overlap in membership between NATO and EU also military speaking they rely on the experience of the alliance and higher risk-taking for specific operations of international crisis management.

According to a European approach, the shift in the North Atlantic security community as a result of the EU’s growing assertiveness is not caused by an all-out opposition. Rather, it reflects that practices in this domain have led to the disruption of several representations that represented a settled situation. The idea of a clear-cut division of labour between NATO and the institutions emerging through the process of European integration is one such representation.

By unsettling the division of labour or the centrality of NATO for political-diplomatic interaction between the EU and its member states and the North American participants, CSDP’s emergence has triggered shifts in the practice of the North Atlantic security. As a result, while not challenging the community itself, the shift in European practice accompanying the development of CSDP has led to important changes in it.

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