North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Definition and Much More from Answers.com

US Foreign Policy Encyclopedia: North Atlantic Treaty Organization

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was founded on 4 April 1949 in Washington, D.C. On behalf of the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by Dean Acheson, secretary of state throughout President Harry S. Truman's second term. The founding members of the Atlantic alliance consisted of the United States, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Italy. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty on 21 July 1949 by a vote of 82 to 13; it entered into force on 14 August 1949. By joining the North Atlantic pact, the Truman administration turned its back on the many voices in the American political establishment and the country at large that favored a return to the political isolationism of the interwar years. After all, isolationists were able to go as far back as George Washington's Farewell Address, in which he admonished his fellow Americans to beware of the Europeans and "to have with them as little political connection as possible." But U.S. membership in the United Nations in 1945 had indicated that the country intended to stay involved in international political affairs. Subsequently, the 1947–1948 Marshall Plan made clear that the United States felt it was in its national interest to use its massive economic and financial resources to help in the reconstruction of Europe. This, it was hoped, would stabilize the old continent, prevent it from becoming once again a hotbed of nationalist fervor and civil war and, not least, make it immune to the forces of international communism. But even after the European Recovery Program (ERP) had been announced, it was still a major step to enter into a close military association. By committing the United States to NATO and thus to a formal and long-lasting entangling military alliance in peacetime, the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949 marked, as Lawrence Kaplan put it, a "radical transformation in American foreign policy."

It is unlikely that this almost revolutionary development in U.S. political thinking would have come about without the Cold War and the global ideological and political power struggle with the Soviet Union. With the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty the United States indicated its willingness—after much prodding by the United Kingdom and other leading European nations—to accede to the role of protector of western Europe. The Truman administration clearly hoped that with the help of both the Marshall Plan and NATO, U.S. influence, and indeed its example, would help the countries of the old continent to integrate their political and above all economic and military systems in a peaceful and stabilizing way. It was expected that eventually a united and federally organized Europe would evolve in a manner similar to the development of the United States 150 years previously.

One should not credit the leading U.S. politicians of the day and organs like the State Department's Policy Planning Staff too much with a visionary long-term strategy: much came about by default and by means of ad hoc reactions to unexpected developments. Still, quite a few elements of a coherent and well-considered strategy can be detected in American foreign policy after World War II. Much thought was for example dedicated to the perennial German question. It was hoped that the unification of the European continent would defuse the German problem by incorporating this large and potentially still powerful and economically important country into a peaceful and fully integrated European system.

In view of the perceived military threat from the Soviet Union and the weakness of the Western world in terms of conventional warfare capabilities, America's unrivaled nuclear security umbrella was initially gladly accepted by all members. In fact, possession of the atomic bomb and Washington's apparent willingness to use this weapon if necessary in response to an attack on any NATO member was the basis for Washington's hegemonic position in the Atlantic alliance. NATO allowed the United States to carve out a clear sphere of interest for itself. Washington's overwhelming military and also economic and political strength as well as its supremacy within NATO and the Western alliance enabled the United States to form what in the 1960s came to be called bluntly "the American Empire." In the 1970s and 1980s, when Europe's important role in the early Cold War and the creation of NATO was belatedly recognized, many historians began to refer to Washington's dominance somewhat more benevolently as an "empire by invitation." Yet the existence of American hegemony was disputed by very few European observers. Americans, however, often tended to regard their country's superiority in the Western alliance as the realization of Thomas Jefferson's well-meaning "empire of liberty." While to some extent Washington's role as a benign but still vastly powerful and at times quite autocratic leader rested on its economic strength and its political influence, primarily it was American dominance of NATO that furnished it with formidable global importance.

This explains why both the Bush and the Clinton administrations strongly objected to any thoughts of abandoning NATO after the end of the Cold War in 1989–1991. The largely unchallenged American dominance of NATO was the most important and most powerful tool at the disposal of the United States to maintain its influence in Europe and beyond. More than a decade later this was still the case. In view of the increasingly frequent economic and trade as well as political and strategic disagreements in transatlantic relations in the early twenty-first century, Washington's efforts to bolster NATO and turn it into one of its main pillars of influence in the contemporary world was hardly surprising. NATO still provided the United States with a crucial instrument of global leadership. Moreover, in the aftermath of the entirely unexpected terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., in September 2001, NATO would also serve as the instrument that was able to provide the United States with crucial military and logistic help and indeed much needed political and moral support in the war against international terrorism.

Creation of Nato

The establishment of NATO in April 1949 rested upon a European and in particular a British initiative. As John Lewis Gaddis has written, it was "as explicit an invitation as has ever been extended from smaller powers to a great power to construct an empire and include them within it." However, in the circumstances of the times, considerations about American empire building and American dominance played a rather minor role. The Europeans were looking for military protection and economic and military aid to ensure their survival as democratic states. Some American observers have therefore concluded that the western Europeans deviously "entrapped" the United States. This is unjustified. The American political establishment of the time—both the Democratic administration and, until the election of 1948, the Republican leadership of Congress—realized very well that putting a stop to Soviet expansionist encroachments and maintaining democratic states with a liberal economic order on the European continent were very much in the national interest of the United States.

Yet, admittedly, without strenuous European attempts to persuade the Truman administration to come to the rescue of the European nation-states, American involvement might never have come about. What proved to be decisive for American support in both the economic and military sphere was evidence of European willingness to help themselves. This was Washington's condition for providing financial aid under the Marshall Plan and joining the European nations in talks about setting up a North Atlantic defensive alliance.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, American policymakers, and in particular Secretary of State James Byrnes, were hopeful that some kind of modus vivendi could be found with Stalin's Soviet Union. Yet, this soon proved to be impossible. In March 1946, in Fulton, Missouri, Winston Churchill spoke of the iron curtain that was descending "from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic." A month before this well-publicized event, the U.S. diplomat George Kennan had already sent his influential Long Telegram from the Moscow embassy to Washington warning about Soviet expansionist intentions. As a result of these efforts, in the course of 1946 the foreign policy elite in Washington and American public opinion were becoming rather critical of Stalin's activities. It was a slow process, however, and the turning point only came in 1947. The tightening of Moscow's grip on the states of Eastern Europe, frequent difficulties with Moscow's ambitions in Turkey, Greece, and elsewhere, and increasingly tense East-West relations in occupied Germany made many contemporaries slowly aware of the apparently irreconcilable nature of Soviet and Western political aims. Of great importance was the ever more apparent economic weakness of Britain and the unsustainable nature of the country's long-standing imperial role. Crucially significant also was the state of near starvation and the considerable political and economic instability of much of western Europe. This propelled the United States into action.

In the Truman Doctrine of 12 March 1947, the United States declared that it would respond to the British request to assume responsibility for the support of the anticommunist forces in Greece and Turkey. Moreover, much less to Britain's liking, Truman also promised American support for the worldwide fight against international communism. Three months later, Secretary of State George Marshall, Acheson's predecessor, announced the European Recovery Program (ERP) in his speech at Harvard University on 5 June. The Marshall Plan was meant to provide economic assistance to the states of western Europe to enable them to withstand the onslaught of communist fifth columns. Otherwise communism's ideological temptations might well have held a tremendous attraction for the peoples of Europe who lacked food, housing, and heating fuel.

It was Washington's intention to stabilize and reconstruct the continent with the help of generous economic and financial aid. American policymakers recognized that only a united western Europe at peace with itself would be able to create a common front against the military and ideological threat from the Soviet Union. Only such a Europe would ensure the reconciliation of Germany with the countries of the Western world while avoiding tendencies toward neutralism and defeatism. Underlying America's postwar vision was the assumption that only a fully integrated, stable, and economically viable Europe would develop into a peaceful and democratic continent. The lessons from America's own past as well as the country's federalist structure were to serve as the model to achieve a single European market. This would prevent economic nationalism, lead to European prosperity, and form a truly free and multilateral transatlantic economic system.

It also was expected that in due course this strategy would have the advantage of making unnecessary the continuation of American economic aid to western Europe. Active American governmental support and interference were always regarded as temporary. It was hoped that European reconstruction would close the dollar gap, permit the convertibility of European currencies, allow the Europeans to export to the United States, and, not least, create a huge market for U.S. exporters. The latter would be important in avoiding the predicted domestic American recession. Washington therefore stipulated that most of the goods purchased with Marshall Plan aid had to be bought in the United States.

In his speech at Harvard, Marshall had spelled out that while the United States would give generous economic aid, the initiative for proposals on how best to make use of this aid for reconstruction and economic revival had to come from the Europeans themselves. British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin realized this; he regarded Marshall's offer as "a life-line to sinking men" to avert "the looming shadow of catastrophe" over western Europe. Together with his French counterpart Georges Bidault, he organized an international conference in Paris in June and July 1947. The conference led to the formation of the Committee of European Economic Cooperation and to the acceptance of decisive American economic and political involvement in the internal affairs of the countries of western Europe. Eventually, in April 1948, the European Recovery Program was set up and a new European Payments Union and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) were established. The latter was the organ responsible for the distribution of Marshall Plan aid to sixteen European nations and the western zones of Germany. Due to European disagreements and contrary to its original intention, Washington decided to become a direct participant in the running of the OEEC.

The Soviet Union, however, declined to accept the liberal-capitalist economic conditions Washington imposed as a precondition for participation in the ERP. Moreover, Moscow prevented Eastern European states like Poland and Czechoslovakia from accepting U.S. aid. According to some historians, the Soviet Union's self-exclusion may well have been a result secretly hoped for in Washington, as the United States had no interest in using American taxpayers' money to support the economic reconstruction of the communist world. Be this as it may, the nonparticipation of Eastern Europe meant that the Marshall Plan and the OEEC contributed to the widening of the economic, ideological, and political gulf in postwar Europe.

Although Marshall's speech was received with a great deal of hope in Europe, throughout 1947 and most of 1948 fear of a military invasion from the East stalked the western part of the continent. The spirit of the times was characterized by despondency and fatalism. Not only were Greece, France, and Italy, with their large communist parties, on the brink of civil war, but East-West relations in Germany, with the eastern zone firmly controlled by Stalin's lieutenants, were becoming ever icier. Questions such as reparations, four-power control of Germany's industrial heartland (the Ruhr Valley), and the desirability of the reestablishment of a central and united state were among the most contested.

It was the collapse of the London foreign ministers conference in December 1947 over disagreements regarding the future of Germany and the February 1948 communist coup and subsequent purges in Czechoslovakia that were decisive. These moved the United States toward participation in an Atlantic defense organization. In early 1948 both Ernest Bevin and Georges Bidault impressed on American leaders the urgency of the situation. Ever since he had become British foreign secretary in July 1945, it had been Bevin's primary aim to persuade the United States to remain committed to the security and well-being of the European continent. But in the absence of a lasting U.S. commitment to Europe, Bevin, in response to a French initiative, had signed the Treaty of Dunkirk on 4 March 1947. It established an Anglo-French bilateral military alliance with an anticipated duration of fifty years; the formal aim of the treaty was the prevention of renewed German militarism. Yet for both Britain and France the Dunkirk treaty represented merely a second-best solution as it did not involve the United States.

Shortly after the collapse of the foreign ministers conference, Bevin explained his idea of a Western union to Marshall and Bidault, who both heartily endorsed a new political and defensive agreement among Britain, France, and the Benelux countries. Bevin insisted, however, on the need for American assistance and participation in a loose and flexible "spiritual federation of the West." He told Marshall that the "salvation of the West depends on the formation of some form of union, formal or informal in character, in Western Europe, backed by the United States and the [British] Dominions." During an impressive speech in the House of Commons on 22 January 1948, Bevin officially proposed the establishment of a western European union; he did not hesitate to spell out that such a treaty would be directed against the threat posed to western Europe by the Soviet Union. The impact of the communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February and increasing Soviet intransigence over Berlin, which by June had led to the Berlin blockade crisis, confirmed the importance of Bevin's pronouncements.

On 17 March 1948 a treaty for European economic, political, cultural, and military cooperation with a duration of fifty years was signed in Brussels. Participants of this multilateral treaty, the anti-German tone of which was much milder than that of the Dunkirk treaty, were Britain, France, and the three Benelux countries. Unlike the Dunkirk treaty arrangements, the Brussels Treaty Organization (BTO) could be enlarged to include other members. The values of self-help and cooperation were emphasized in the treaty to impress the United States and, indeed, President Truman warmly welcomed the new organization. Nevertheless, the United States still needed to be persuaded to accept a European security commitment. Truman's enthusiastic welcome of the BTO and his unusual decision to maintain conscription in time of peace were hopeful signs.

Almost immediately after the Brussels treaty was concluded, top-secret Pentagon talks between Britain and the United States and Canada about the setting up of a North Atlantic defense organization took place. It is unlikely that these talks would have taken place without the prior formation of the BTO. However, the establishment of transatlantic military cooperation was still viewed in terms of cooperation between the BTO and the United States; neither American membership in the BTO nor the creation of a new treaty organization was yet envisaged.

Shortly after the Pentagon talks, from July 1948 to March 1949 the BTO and the United States and Canada entered into drawn-out negotiations for the establishment of some sort of Atlantic security organization. The aim of the talks was the achievement of a unanimous decision rather than merely a majority vote. Still, the Truman administration remained cautious. As Lawrence Kaplan has explained, opposition to the establishment of a joint American-European military alliance came from three major camps in the United States.

First, there was the still formidable opposition from isolationists who suspected that America was being asked to pull the European chestnuts out of the fire. These largely emotional and psychological pressures were difficult to satisfy. The administration, and in particular Secretary Acheson, embarked on a major effort of persuasion to win over as many isolationists in Congress as possible by, for example, emphasizing the harmony of interests between the UN Charter and the NATO treaty. But due to congressional pressure, and much to the dislike of the Europeans, Article 5 of the North Atlantic charter, in which an attack on one member was regarded as an attack on all and would lead to a joint war effort, had to be expressed much more vaguely than originally anticipated. Thus, not the Soviet Union or any other potential enemy but the U.S. Congress would in fact decide whether or not the United States would become involved in a war. Essentially, this was the result of the Vandenberg Resolution passed by the Senate in early June 1948. On the whole, however, the compromise achieved by Arthur Vandenberg, the influential Republican senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, only slightly diluted the North Atlantic Treaty. However, when article 5 was invoked for the very first time after the terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, it occurred in an entirely unforeseen way and for a totally unexpected reason. During the Cold War it had always been expected that the United States would have to come to the aid of European countries to defend them against a Soviet invasion. But in September 2001, article 5 was invoked by NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson and the North Atlantic Council on the request of the U.S. administration to obtain NATO's political and military support in the fight against international terrorism.

Secondly, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. military in general were more than doubtful whether the country had the resources to build up a transatlantic military alliance. Indeed, the Joint Chiefs feared that the resources Congress would be able to make available to the American military services would be greatly reduced if Washington decided to rearm the Europeans. Whether or not European rearmament went ahead, in view of Stalin's conventional superiority, the West would be helpless if faced with a Soviet invasion of Europe. Eventually, however, the Joint Chiefs realized that the proposed Mutual Defense Assistance Program would actually enable them to enlarge and modernize the equipment available to the army, navy, and air force. Moreover, the administration's willingness to listen to the military and to agree to rule out the right of any of the future NATO members to automatic military assistance greatly pleased the Joint Chiefs. Instead, bilateral agreements with each member were made the precondition for offering U.S. military aid to western Europe.

Thirdly, supporters of the United Nations and Roosevelt's "one world" concept feared that an "entangling alliance" would revive the despised and dangerous balance-of-power concept of pre–World War II days. Although they recognized that the Soviet Union's veto in the Security Council made any use of the United Nations for Western defense purposes difficult, if not impossible, the envisaged alliance appeared to ignore the United Nations altogether. This was a poor precedent that might well threaten to undermine the United Nations fatally. The Truman administration therefore invoked the UN Charter as much as possible in the articles of the North Atlantic Treaty, although they realized, as Kaplan writes, "that there was a basic incompatibility between the treaty and the charter." During the strenuous efforts to sell the North Atlantic Treaty to the country, the administration pretended that NATO was a regional organization of the United Nations (chapter 8, article 53). Wisely, however, no reference to this effect was included in the text of the treaty. After all, regional organizations were obliged to report to the UN Security Council, which would have given Moscow an unacceptable element of influence on NATO.

During the many months of negotiations between the Brussels Treaty Organization and the United States and Canada many other issues became controversial. For example, the question of whether the new organization should be only a strategic or also a political alliance was contentious. In the end, and largely on the insistence of Canada, the envisaged organization was also given a political and ideological role rather than a mere military function. Thus, article 2 emphasized the necessity of economic and social cooperation between the member states, and article 8 stated that no member state should enter into any obligations that conflicted with NATO—in other words, no member state was allowed to go communist. Also, the role of Germany, and how to restrain and integrate Germany into the Western world, was extensively and successfully discussed. At the London conference in the spring of 1948, the three Western allies were therefore able to agree on the radical step of setting up a separate West German state.

Of particular importance were questions of NATO membership, coverage, and duration. Eventually it was decided that there should be no different categories of membership; countries were either participants or not. For strategic and political reasons it was decided to interpret the term "North Atlantic" loosely. For example, the Algerian departments of France were accepted as being covered by NATO, and countries such as Italy and Portugal (and later Greece and Turkey) were of such strategic importance that they needed to become involved. This meant for example that Antonio Salazar's Portugal, which was hardly a democratic country, was allowed to join. Yet, Spain only became a member in 1982, after the death of fascist dictator Francisco Franco. For largely strategic reasons, Portugal (including the Portuguese Azores) and Italy as well as Norway, Denmark (including Danish Greenland), and Iceland were allowed to accede to NATO in April 1949. They had not participated in the negotiations between the BTO, the United States, and Canada.

By September–October 1948 it had become clear that a new unified alliance would be created rather than a defensive agreement between the Brussels Treaty Organization and a North American organization, as had been envisaged in the Pentagon talks. Most importantly, at around the same time it became obvious that the United States would be a definite member of the new North Atlantic alliance. While the Europeans expected above all to benefit from NATO by means of American protection and military aid, Washington hoped that the existence of NATO would convince the Soviet Union to restrain its expansionist ambitions. Not least the United States expected that due to American participation, the North Atlantic alliance would help to overcome the outdated balance-of-power concept that had dominated European politics for centuries. NATO was therefore meant to contribute decisively to the establishment of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous continent.

Nato Construction and Rearmament

After the establishment of the North Atlantic alliance in 1949, almost immediately two important organs for the running of NATO were set up under article 9 of the treaty: the North Atlantic Council and the Defense Committee. The first council meeting in September 1949 in Washington and the subsequent meetings in late 1949 and early 1950 decided that for the time being the organizational structure of the Brussels Treaty Organization was to be adopted for NATO's use. In addition, the establishment of a united command with a supreme commander and Council of Deputies was also agreed upon. The most important NATO institutions for the next few years were the five regional planning groups (including the Western European Regional Planning Group consisting of the five BTO nations); the Military Committee, consisting of the chiefs of staff of the member states with a standing group based in the Pentagon; and a general three-nation standing group of NATO's most crucial members, the United States, Britain, and France. Thus by 1950 a relatively well-integrated alliance structure was taking shape.

It was much more difficult, however, to design a strategic and military concept that would turn NATO from a paper tiger into a real collaborative transatlantic alliance. NATO's first strategic concept was adopted in January 1950, with the United States being mostly responsible for strategic bombing issues, the United Kingdom for naval warfare matters, and the continental Europeans for tactical air warfare issues and the provision of ground troops. However, differences soon surfaced regarding American ideas about the defense of Europe. During the first few years of NATO the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff were so pessimistic about the availability of Western military resources that the American defense plans for Europe essentially consisted of the withdrawal of U.S. troops to the Pyrenees and Britain. It was hoped that it might be possible to reconquer the continent at a later stage. Not surprisingly, the Europeans were less than impressed; they insisted on a defense of Europe at the Rhine or ideally at the Elbe. Thus, in May 1950 the Medium Term Defense Plan (MTDP) that took European sensitivities into account was agreed upon. Still, the plan was based largely on the optimistic prognosis that more than ninety divisions and eight thousand planes would be available by 1954. This was highly unrealistic but NATO essentially believed that no Soviet invasion was to be expected in the foreseeable future (1954 was regarded as the danger year). Further, it was assumed that the American atomic monopoly would provide immunity from attack, whatever the availability and readiness of Western conventional forces on the continent. There was great fear that any strenuous rearmament effort by the Europeans would irreparably damage the economic and social reconstruction of the continent.

The explosion of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union in August 1949 undermined this confident belief in the American atomic umbrella. After all, the Western alliance had expected that Moscow would not be able to develop atomic weapons for a considerable number of years. Yet, much to the consternation of politicians in Washington, by mid-September firm scientific evidence was available that a Soviet explosion had indeed taken place. Britain was only able to embark on its first atomic test explosion in 1952, and it took France until 1960 to develop an atomic device. Although it was considered unlikely that the Soviet Union would be able to rival Washington's growing atomic arsenal for a significant period of time, the Truman administration decided to go ahead with the building of a hydrogen bomb.

In the course of 1950 the U.S. government began to doubt whether the resources allocated to the defense of the Western world were sufficient. The result was the controversial document NSC 68, which reflected the increasing militarization of the Cold War. Subsequently, Washington's belief in the necessity of making more radical efforts to rearm the countries of western Europe (including the new West German state) and to expand and modernize America's conventional and nuclear forces was strengthened by the out-break of war in Korea, which was regarded as another Western failure in Asia after the loss of China to the communists in 1949. In June 1950 communist North Korean forces invaded South Korea, the American protectorate. Parallels were drawn with the precarious position of divided Germany in Europe. It was clear that the envisaged MTDP program was grossly inadequate. Under the impact of the Korean War the huge American and allied rearmament program called for by NSC 68 was signed into law by President Truman. In addition, and despite strong French opposition during the Western head of government conference in September 1950 in Washington, the United States firmly insisted on the rearmament of the new West German state. West German forces as well as the territory of West Germany were needed for the forward defense of the European continent.

Eventually, a compromise was achieved by means of the Pleven Plan, which was based on the recently conceived European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for the integration of the French and German coal and steel industries. Both plans were the brainchild of the influential French businessman and civil servant Jean Monnet. Instead of an independent German army, navy, air force, and general staff, French Prime Minister René Pleven proposed the creation of a multinational European army under the umbrella of a European Defense Community (EDC), which, as Acheson expressed it, would be closely "interlocked" with (and presumably subordinate to) NATO. Approximately ten German divisions would be integrated with other countries' forces at the regimental level to form mixed European divisions that would remain under the command of non-German EDC member states. To make the difficult task of rearming the Germans more palatable to West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who would face enormous domestic opposition, he was offered sovereignty for the Federal Republic as a reward. The EDC solution also envisaged the establishment of a European minister of defense, an assembly, and a council of ministers as well as a common defense budget. The persuasive skills of NATO's first allied supreme commander and World War II hero Dwight D. Eisenhower helped to convince the Truman administration that the EDC project was a sensible way of obtaining West German rearmament without antagonizing the other European countries too much. Fears of the reestablishment of Hitler's Wehrmacht were still widespread. Consequently, Washington regarded the realization of the EDC as of vital importance. It was believed that the European army would cement the Western alliance and lead to the establishment of lasting Franco-German friendship, thus strengthening NATO's coherence and preventing future European civil wars.

Although the EDC treaty was signed in May 1952, ratification was a difficult affair. President Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who succeeded Truman and Acheson in January 1953, were unable to pressure Paris into ratifying the treaty. Ultimately, in the absence of Britain, which was prepared to cooperate with the EDC but not to join it, fear of German dominance of the EDC led the French parliament not to go ahead with the ratification of the EDC treaty in late August 1954. With the exception of the out-break of the Korean War, this was the most severe crisis of the Atlantic alliance to date. NATO was thrown into turmoil. Washington was particularly shocked. After all, the U.S. administration had hoped that the establishment of the EDC might enable Washington to reduce both its financial and troop commitments to Europe. Instead, the rearmament and sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as the European integration process and the coherence and military buildup of NATO, had to be reconsidered from scratch.

The British managed to come to the rescue. During two rapidly convened conferences in London and Paris in September and October 1954, and by way of an earlier whirlwind journey through the European capitals, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden was able to convince his partners to agree to West German membership in NATO on a nondiscriminatory basis. Eventually, French agreement was won after the negotiation of Bonn's prior admission to the Western European Union (WEU). This was the renamed Brussels Treaty Organization of 1948. By way of West German WEU membership, France and the other member states were to receive a veto over the rearmament and arms procurement activities of the Federal Republic. Eden had also announced during the London conference that despite British sovereignty concerns, his country would not withdraw its Rhine army and tactical air force based in West Germany without the agreement of its WEU partners. As long as U.S. troops remained on the continent, the British would also be prepared to make a European commitment. The "great debate" of 1951 in Washington between the administration and isolationists in Congress about further troop commitments in Europe had already resulted in the dispatch of four additional American divisions to Europe.

Thus, the WEU solution to control German rearmament and London and Washington's commitment to continue deploying troops on the European continent were decisive in persuading France to cease its opposition to West German membership in NATO. Both German rearmament and the unity of the Western alliance had been preserved. Yet the WEU never developed a life of its own. It is fair to say that the development of a European defense identity and a European pillar of NATO—as had been envisaged with the explicit agreement of the United States by means of the EDC—therefore did not commence before the 1980s and 1990s. With the exception of France and despite the occasional crisis in transatlantic security relations, throughout most of the Cold War the western Europeans placidly accepted American predominance in NATO and thus the buildup of the American empire. While Britain believed it could rely on the "special relationship" with the United States to maintain its influence, the West Germans, at the front line of the Cold War, felt too dependent on the American security umbrella to oppose this strongly. Only the French were prepared to challenge American hegemony in Europe.

At the Lisbon North Atlantic Council conference in February 1952, agreement had been reached on a substantial military and political reorganization of NATO. That structure was largely still in place in the early twenty-first century. With regard to the military organization of the alliance, most of the regional planning groups were abolished. Instead, the standing group of the Military Committee would oversee SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe), commanded by SACEUR (Supreme Allied Command Europe). An Atlantic command (Supreme Allied Command Atlantic, SACLANT) and an English Channel command were established on the same level of responsibility, which included planning issues. SHAPE, which was essentially modeled on the Brussels Treaty Organization headquarters near Paris and took over many of its administrative units, was clearly the most important command. It was subdivided into four geographical commands: Northern Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, and the Mediterranean. While the supreme commanders for Europe and the Atlantic were Americans, the Channel Command was headed by a Briton; all the command posts reported directly to the standing group in Washington. Unlike the failed European Defense Community, in NATO the vast majority of troops were national forces; NATO only mixed nationalities at the various command headquarters.

The Lisbon conference also approved a new political structure. A civilian secretary general (who would always be a European) was to be appointed. The secretary general was to be responsible to the Council of Ministers and in charge of an international secretariat that had responsibility for financial and economic planning and for military production issues. The Council of Deputies was to be replaced by permanent representatives at the ambassadorial level who assumed responsibility when the Council of Ministers was not sitting; their meetings would be chaired by the secretary general. Moreover, despite British protests it was decided to move NATO headquarters from London to outside Paris where it would be closer to SHAPE.

The conference also approved the first enlargement of NATO, which led to the admission of Greece and Turkey in 1952. Both countries were of great strategic importance to NATO's southern rim and contributed more than twenty-five valuable divisions. The western Europeans reiterated their willingness to make huge rearmament efforts in the conventional field so that ninety-six well-equipped divisions (including the West German contingents) would be available by 1954. However, economic and financial realities in western Europe would prevent the achievement of these ambitious and quite unrealistic military goals. With respect to domestic opinion and the obvious limits on the tax burden that could be imposed, no country was willing to adhere to the Lisbon goals.

Still, by 1955 NATO had already expanded its membership twice, had become a much more integrated military alliance with a clear political dimension, and had also seriously attempted to tackle its military weakness. However, it was still in no position to rival the forces at the disposal of the Soviet Union.

Consolidation

After the Austrian peace treaty in April and the admission of West Germany to NATO in May 1955, the Geneva Four-Power Summit in July inaugurated the first thaw in East-West relations. Although neither the summit conference nor the subsequent Geneva foreign ministers' conference managed to solve any of the many outstanding Cold War problems, the two meetings led to a more relaxed international climate. It appeared to be possible to contain the Cold War in Europe peacefully and agree to disagree, something that was soon called "peaceful coexistence."

Although East-West relations deteriorated temporarily when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in late 1956, the almost simultaneous Anglo-French-Israeli attack on Egypt to reverse nationalization of the Suez Canal shook the Western alliance to its foundations. American anger at not having been consulted and Washington's fear that the British-French action would open the doors of the Middle East to the Soviet Union (as it did) led to the first occasion when the United States and the Soviet Union sided against two western European countries. An American-inspired run on the pound sterling and the effective imposition of an oil embargo on Britain by President Eisenhower had the desired result. Britain gave notice to the French that they would have to withdraw from Egypt, an action that caused a great deal of anti-British resentment in Paris. The Suez crisis made it clear that Britain and France, who still retained a good deal of global influence, were not able to embark on independent international action without the approval and support of the United States. Thus the crisis symbolized the decline of western Europe to the status of a mere satellite continent.

After the Suez crisis American preponderance within the Western alliance, both in its political and strategic dimension, could no longer be doubted. The Europeans increasingly became reactive members who criticized and complained while most constructive initiatives originated in Washington. This was evident during the long Berlin crisis of 1958–1963, which led to a quite unexpected escalation of the Cold War and to the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961. The Berlin crisis and in particular the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis brought the world close to nuclear war. The August 1963 limited test ban treaty between the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and any other state that wished to join was one of the lessons drawn from the missile crisis. Another was the installation of a "hot line" between Washington and Moscow.

Despite the increasing Cold War marginalization of Europe in the second half of the 1950s and during the 1960s, European alliance members played a subordinate but still significant role with regard to the development of NATO's strategic concepts. However, most initiatives came from the United States. Shortly after taking office the Eisenhower administration realized that the conventional force goals as agreed at Lisbon would either remain unrealistic or, if implemented, would undermine American and European economic competitiveness and social well-being. Thus, Washington invented vague concepts with names such as "long haul," "massive retaliation," and "new look," which would obscure the fact that the alliance was unable to develop as quickly and as intensively as originally envisaged.

Although the European alliance members were very critical of the increased reliance on nuclear containment, there was very little they could do. While always prepared to criticize American proposals, NATO's European members were not prepared to put more of their own scarce resources into developing their conventional forces. The only concept they partially agreed with was the "long haul" idea, which essentially consisted of the insight that the frantic rearmament efforts of the Korean War and Lisbon conference era could not be sustained for financial and psychological reasons; the plan was therefore to be stretched out over a longer period of time. However, "massive retaliation" and the "new look," as first outlined in NSC document 162/2 in late 1953, were very different matters. Because the envisaged conventional rearmament goals were unrealistic and because the production of atomic weapons appeared to be a lot cheaper than conventional warfare methods, the Eisenhower administration intended to focus NATO's strategy on nuclear containment. U.S. officials argued that fear of an American atomic response would prevent any Soviet attack on the countries of the Western alliance. Moreover, getting "greater bang for the buck," as Eisenhower's secretary of defense expressed it, would ensure the maintenance of healthy Western economies and budgets.

The increasing reliance on nuclear diplomacy meant that NATO would have no choice but to respond with atomic weapons if, for example, the Soviet Union invaded West Germany. NATO was all but incapable of retaliating to a communist attack with conventional weapons. Instead it would rely on the so-called "trip-wire" idea: once the Soviet Union attacked Europe and the U.S. soldiers stationed there, Washington's Strategic Air Command would be activated. The implications of such a scenario were most disconcerting for the West Germans and their European neighbors. The Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral William Radford's 1956 suggestion, as leaked to the New York Times, that the United States needed to reduce U.S. troops in Europe to two million by the withdrawal of 800,000 soldiers from the continent, gave rise to great concern. Moreover, the greater the arsenal of intercontinental nuclear weapons at the disposal of the Soviet Union, the larger the question mark in the minds of European leaders about whether or not Washington would be prepared to run the risk of inviting a Soviet attack on American territory by coming to the aid of Europe.

This became a realistic concern in 1957, when Moscow sent Sputnik, the first space satellite, into orbit and also managed to launch the first intercontinental ballistic missile. American cities, and not merely European ones, could now be reached by Soviet nuclear bombs. Soon politicians were talking about a "missile gap" to the detriment of the West; this dominated the U.S. election campaign of 1960, although it soon became known that Nikita Khrushchev had been vastly exaggerating the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities. Still, Sputnik contributed to the fact that the U.S. government was more than ever in favor of "burden sharing" within the alliance. While the United States would be responsible for enhanced nuclear containment, Washington expected the western Europeans to provide for the cost-intensive conventional means of defending the European continent from any Soviet invasion. However, much to the irritation of the United States, the Europeans were both unwilling and economically unable to dedicate the expected resources to the defense of the Western alliance.

American politicians also became increasingly uneasy about the military implications of "massive retaliation." In the last few years of the Eisenhower administration and in particular with the advent of the Kennedy administration in January 1961, U.S. officials considered plans for replacing this doctrine with a new NATO strategy. Initially, they developed the concept of a shield force, which would include troops equipped with tactical nuclear weapons as well as conventional arms. The administration attempted to persuade Congress that nuclear sharing with the NATO allies, in particular with Britain, was essential for maintaining NATO's credibility. In 1958 this resulted in the repeal of the 1946 McMahon Act, which had forbidden the sharing of nuclear secrets with either friend or foe. In late 1962 it also helped British prime minister Harold Macmillan argue his case with President Kennedy that the canceled Skybolt missile be replaced with American Polaris missiles that the British could equip with their own nuclear warheads. The French were offered a similar deal but turned it down. Under President Charles de Gaulle, France would later insist on military independence.

A new strategic concept, "flexible response," was eventually adopted in 1967. It was meant to allow NATO to respond to an invasion by the Soviet Union with a range of escalating options: use of conventional weapons, use of small tactical atomic weapons, and only finally initiation of a full-scale nuclear war. But this also was a controversial concept. The European NATO allies generally feared that a Soviet and eastern European attack at multiple locations and by multiple means would still give the Western alliance no option but to embark on escalating the conflict into a nuclear counterattack. Moreover, the question remained: Who would decide the use of nuclear weapons by NATO and would the European members be able to influence Washington's decision? As Ian Thomas has recognized, the issues were "command and control" of NATO's nuclear forces. A compromise solution had already been found with the so-called dual key arrangements for the use of intercontinental ballistic missiles; the host nations had to give their agreement to the use of these weapons. However, Britain and other European nations were concerned about whether in a sudden emergency the United States would wait for the agreement of the Europeans. After all, despite the looming threat of a global nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis, the Americans had not bothered to consult with the Europeans; even the British had hardly been informed. Thus, the anxieties of the Europeans that they might be dragged into a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union against their will dominated the early to mid-1960s.

American ideas about the establishment of a multilateral force (MLF), put forth in early 1963, were a reaction to this. Although originally developed during the Eisenhower years, the Kennedy administration argued that the MLF would lead to greater alliance cooperation and transatlantic military transparency. It would create an integrated nuclear force similar to the existing integrated conventional forces and thus increase NATO military efficiency. Washington also hoped to integrate British and French nuclear forces into the MLF and thereby defuse the discussion about the creation of German-owned nuclear forces and Germany's participation in nuclear decision making.

The MLF was to consist of twenty-five ships, to be jointly owned, financed, controlled, and manned by the entire alliance; each ship would be equipped with eight Polaris missiles. In military circles it was technologically and organizationally a very controversial concept, and many experts doubted its military usefulness. However, the Kennedy administration appeared to believe that the MLF could be used to overcome the deep dissatisfaction within the alliance with regard to NATO's nuclear strategy. It would continue full American control over the deployment and use of nuclear weapons while giving the Europeans the impression that they were participating in nuclear decision making. At the same time, the MLF concept had the advantage of preventing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons within the alliance. Despite strong German support for the MLF (and strong French and British opposition; London even proposed its own equally flawed Atlantic Nuclear Force concept), by 1965 the Johnson administration had withdrawn the idea. Instead, Washington was now in favor of creating a nuclear planning group within NATO.

By then France's increasing uneasiness about American dominance of and strategy for the alliance was rapidly posing a severe threat to the unity and coherence of NATO. Paris doubted the U.S. commitment to nuclear deterrence if America's own national interest (that is, U.S. territory) was not threatened. Moreover, many in France argued that multilateral nuclear deterrence would contribute to the prevention of nuclear war. Thus, for French nuclear strategy the existence of NATO was counterproductive and not necessary at all. In addition, De Gaulle viewed American predominance in NATO and talk of an Atlantic community with ever greater suspicion. Not without justification he believed that Washington intended to prevent the development of independent nuclear forces within NATO and to keep individual alliance members as subordinate as possible.

In early March 1966 President Lyndon Johnson was informed that France would leave NATO's Integrated Military Command (IMC) and that all NATO forces and NATO headquarters had to depart France by April 1967. This led to another severe crisis within NATO, yet by late 1967 the alliance had resettled in Brussels, and no lasting damage to the unity of the remaining NATO IMC members had occurred.

Nato and DÉtente

After the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, East-West détente was widely seen as the only option to ensure the world's long-term survival. Washington became increasingly interested in East-West détente and pushed NATO in the same direction. As early as May 1964, President Johnson had spoken of the need for "building bridges," and in October 1966 he advanced the idea of "peaceful engagement" with the countries of the Eastern bloc. The Harmel Report, approved by NATO member states in December 1967, spoke explicitly of the Western aim "to further a détente in East-West relations." However, it was made clear that any détente would have to be based on NATO's and the West's cherished policy of strength. During the NATO Council of Ministers meeting in Reykjavik in June 1968, all NATO members emphasized their willingness to embark upon East-West negotiations regarding troop reductions in Europe. In fact, Washington hoped that NATO would become one of the instruments driving détente; in an era of lessening threat perception it would help to give the Atlantic alliance a new sense of purpose. It would also discourage the European allies from pursuing bilateral policies of détente, as for example the French and especially the West Germans were doing.

Washington's readiness in the late 1960s and early 1970s to use NATO as a vehicle for embarking upon détente with the Soviet Union, thus giving in to European calls for a relaxation of the Cold War, was strongly influenced by American economic and financial problems. Some commentators began speaking of relative American decline and the end of the American century. This was symbolized by Richard Nixon's termination in 1971 of the 1944 Bretton Woods economic system by his sudden suspension of the dollar's convertibility into gold, which resulted in the free floating of international currencies and an effective devaluation of the dollar. Simultaneously, the president imposed a 10 percent protective tariff on imported goods. These measures were solely dictated by domestic economic requirements in the United States, and any negative economic consequences for its European allies were disregarded. America's problems were largely due to the costs of the Vietnam War, the lingering burden of financing the domestic Great Society programs of the 1960s, and the relative overvaluation of the dollar, which helped European and Japanese exports. The European Community's imposition of quotas, exchange controls, and import licenses on goods from outside the community as well as its protectionist common agricultural policy (CAP), inaugurated in 1966 also, contributed to America's ever-larger budget deficit. The United States had not only accumulated a considerable balance-of-payments deficit, but from 1971 it also had a considerable trade deficit as well as inflationary problems, rising unemployment, and almost stagnant wages; further, the position of the dollar, the world's leading reserve currency, was weakening. Transatlantic relations were becoming increasingly difficult, and this included relations within NATO.

America's relative economic and financial decline, in combination with global détente and the accompanying perception that the military threat from the Warsaw Pact was receding, decisively contributed to undermining the Nixon administration's commitment to the European continent and, to some extent, to NATO. Congress had also grown increasingly skeptical about the benefits of America's involvement in Europe. During the 1970s, Senator Mike Mansfield introduced eight amendments for U.S. troop reductions in Europe. Within the administration, it was the national security adviser Henry Kissinger, a keen student of nineteenth-century European power politics, who insisted on basing America's relations with its western European allies on a purely bilateral nation-state basis within the Atlantic framework. Establishing a united and federal Europe, as the creators of NATO originally had envisaged, was now seen as counterproductive for Washington's hegemony in the Western world. In Kissinger's realist worldview, it was unlikely that "Europe would unite in order to share our burdens or that it would be content with a subordinate role once it had the means to implement its own views." Kissinger even recognized that once "Europe had grown economically strong and politically united, Atlantic cooperation could not be an American enterprise in which consultations elaborated primarily American designs."

However, as far as public rhetoric was concerned, the Nixon administration continued speaking out in favor of a united federal Europe with a large single market, fully integrated into the Atlantic system. It was still assumed in Washington that a united Europe would share "the burdens and obligations of world leadership" with the United States. In particular, the Nixon White House favored the envisaged expansion of the European Community. It hoped that Britain's entry and the revival of the Anglo-American "special relationship" would lead to an improvement in transatlantic relations and within NATO. Yet on the whole Nixon and Kissinger were not prepared to accept the growing maturity of Europe and the realities of a more pluralistic and interdependent world. The Nixon administration still expected a largely docile Europe. As far as East-West relations and the NATO alliance were concerned, Washington certainly wished to be in full control. Ostpolitik, West Germany's fairly independent variant of détente, was therefore only grudgingly accepted by the U.S. administration. Nixon and Kissinger disliked the independence and confidence with which the West Germans proceeded with Ostpolitik and competed with Washington's own strategy of superpower détente.

By 1973 Kissinger realized that transatlantic relations were in urgent need of revision and repair. To the anger of the European Community countries who had not been consulted, he grandly announced the "Year of Europe." The Nixon administration had been largely occupied with the Vietnam War and the development of détente with China and the Soviet Union during its first years in office, and the "Year of Europe" was Kissinger's attempt to improve U.S.–EC relations inside and outside NATO while safeguarding Washington's leadership role. Kissinger proposed a new Atlantic Charter and did not hesitate to emphasize that the United States had global responsibilities while the EC countries only had to deal with regional problems. Moreover, he insisted on a greater degree of military burden-sharing, arguing that only Europe's economic contribution would guarantee the continued functioning of America's security umbrella. The so-called Nixon Doctrine of 1970 had emphasized that America's allies ought to assume more of the burden of defending themselves.

The linkage between economic and security concerns led to severe difficulties between Washington and the western Europeans. Kissinger, however, managed to persuade the Europeans to agree to a clause in the new Atlantic Declaration, signed in June 1974, stating that Washington should be consulted before the EC countries arrived at important decisions that impacted on transatlantic issues. Thus, American ideas of the nature of the transatlantic relationship had largely won the day. In practice, however, allied relations remained tense. Severe friction occurred during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 when Washington wholeheartedly backed Israel and many European countries hesitated to do so. The European Community was much more dependent on Middle Eastern oil than the United States, and many countries (like France, the United Kingdom, and West Germany) had strong economic links with the Arab countries in the region. Thus the war and the energy question were closely connected with both security and economic prosperity.

American-European differences with respect to the Year of Europe and the Yom Kippur War pushed the European Community into developing more sophisticated processes of cooperation, not least in order to resist pressure to fall in line with American wishes. The 1973 Declaration on European Identity was influential in gradually leading to a tentative common European foreign policy. It encouraged EC members to use the instrument of European Political Cooperation (EPC), created in 1970, to ensure that foreign policy positions would be coordinated among all EC countries. In 1968 the informal Eurogroup of EC defense ministers had been founded to discuss European defense cooperation. In late 1970 this led to the launch of the European Defense Improvement Program (EDIP) to build up NATO's infrastructure and national European forces. But as some authors have argued, this may have been less a demonstration of European independence in defense matters than an attempt to impress the United States with Europeans' willingness to help themselves. Thus, most authors view the 1970s as a "dark age" for both transatlantic relations and European integration. The two oil crises and the accompanying economic recession (best characterized by the term "stagflation"), as well as the expansion of the European Community from six to nine countries with the addition of the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Denmark on 1 January 1973, caused a severe, long-lasting crisis of adaptation within Europe.

It certainly weakened the ability of the European member states of NATO t