The Evolution of NATO’s Three Phases and Turkey’s Transatlantic Relationship

Year 2012, Volume: 17 Issue: 1, 19 - 36, 01.05.2012

Gülnur Aybet

Abstract

This article explores the evolution of NATO as a security community in three phases. It argues that during the Cold War and immediate PostCold War era, the Alliance had a focused grand strategy. In the third phase which starts after September 11th, the Alliance’s grand strategy is in flux, while it is engaged in various missions that are a mixture of borderless collective defence, humanitarian intervention, and the safeguarding of trade routes and resources. The place of Turkey as a predominantly ‘functional’ ally in the first two phases and then as a ‘strategic partner’ in the last phase is examined and followed by the likely points of continuing cooperation with NATO and likely divergence of interests in the long term

Keywords

NATO, Collective Defence, Collective Security, Security Community, Turkey, Missile Defence.

References

• For the legitimacy of a western security community see Gülnur Aybet, A European Security Architecture After the Cold War: Questions of Legitimacy, Basingstoke, Macmillan, St Martin’s Press, 2000.
• Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1991, p.5.
• Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas That Conquered the World, New York, Public Affairs, 2003, pp.34-73.
• Robert Art, A Grand Strategy for America, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2003, p.2.
• Bradley Klein, “Beyond the Western Alliance, the Politics of Post-Atlanticism”, in Stephen Gill (ed.), Atlantic Relations Beyond the Reagan Era, New York, St Martin’s Press, 1989, pp. 201-202.
• Karl Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1957.
• Paul Kennedy, Grand Strategies in War and Peace, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1992, pp.172- 273.
• Dieter Mahncke, Parameters of European Security, Paris, Chaillot Paper No. 10, WEU Institute for Security Studies, September 1993, p.10.
• See Karl Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1957.
• See Gülnur Aybet, “Towards a New Transatlantic Consensus”, NATO Review, (Autumn 2004); See Philip G Gordon, “NATO After 11 September”, Survival, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Winter 2001-2002).
• Gülnur Aybet, “The NATO Strategic Concept Revisited: Grand Strategy and Emerging Issues”, in Gülnur Aybet and Rebecca Moore (eds.), NATO in Search of a Vision, Georgetown, Georgetown University Press, 2010.
• NATO Strategic Concept 2010, “Active Engagement, Modern Defence”, at http://www.nato.int/ lisbon2010/strategic-concept-2010-eng.pdf [last visited 25 December 2011].
• The White House, Fact Sheet “A Phased Adaptive Approach for Missile Defense in Europe”, at http:// www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FACT-SHEET-US-Missile-Defense-Policy-A-Phased-Adaptive- Approach-for-Missile-Defense-in-Europe [last visited 11 January 2012]. 14 Ibid.
• Allied Command Transformation, “The Global Commons”, at http://www.act.nato.int/activities/ seminars-symposia/the-global-commons [last visited 11 January 2012].
• For the three phases see: Ekavi Athanassopoulou, “American-Turkish Relations since the End of the Cold War”, Middle East Policy, Vol. 8, No. 2 (September 2001).
• Turkey serves in the EU mission in Bosnia but essentially has served in the same mission under NATO when it was SFOR. After the handover to the EU, the mission continued with some of the existing contributions from non-NATO states.
• See transcript of Gülnur Aybet’s talk at Annual Missile Defence Conference, Atlantic Council, Washington D.C., 18 October 2011, at http://www.acus.org/event/transatlantic-missile-defense- phase-ii-and-lead-nato-chicago-summit [last visited 14 January 2012].