Why NATO Survived the Cold War: Three Theoretical Views

Introduction: The Puzzle of NATO's Persistence

NATO's continuous survival after the end of the Cold War remains a puzzle for academics, scholars, and politicians alike. There have been numerous theoretical debates on the necessity, reasons for being, and possible means through which the Alliance influences world politics and international conflicts. The main directions of analysis have attempted to explain NATO from neorealist, institutionalist, and social constructivist perspectives. It can be said that all three approaches were viable at certain points in the history of post-Cold War NATO.

From its very inception, NATO was built within the realist perspective of the post-World War II experience. In traditional terms, realism is a power-oriented theory that addresses international power as the final goal of the state (Morgenthau, 1978). More precisely, Morgenthau considered states to be inevitably heading toward a continuous conflicting state of being, with power as the ultimate goal. The distribution of power, in realist terms, was the deciding element for the structure and configuration of the international system. Therefore, following the Second World War, it was relatively clear that the U.S.S.R. would soon become an important pole of power — one that would challenge the security perspective of the international system. In this context, NATO was established to provide security assurances and, at the same time, as a sign of power and domination. Its mirror image, the Warsaw Pact, played a similar role for the Eastern bloc and the U.S.S.R.

At its very beginnings, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was first and foremost a political tool rather than a military one. It cannot be denied that its merits made it an essential actor in the power struggle of the Cold War, yet soon after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact it was widely believed that NATO's reason for being no longer existed. In this sense, "when the Cold War ended in Europe, many observers expected that NATO's demise would soon follow" (Duffield, 1994–5). There were also less negative scenarios, which held that the very existence of NATO was a remnant of the Cold War and that, in a New World Order in which the bipolar system was no longer a reality, the idea behind NATO would in time become dissolute (Kissinger, 1995). The major explanations revolve around the idea that "with the loss of its enemy, the very purpose of the organization, the basis of its legitimacy, and the glue that kept the allied states together were also gone" (Sjursen, 2004).

The end of the Cold War brought a series of changes to the wider international system. Following the Second World War, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. became fierce rivals — not so much through direct military confrontations but rather through a war of interpretations and expectations (Nye, 2005). The world order created at the time did not revolve around explicit contact, but on mutual expectations that drove world politics forward. There was no formal declaration at the official level of a "Cold War" between the two superpowers. Nevertheless, the actions one political bloc took in reaction to the other served as implicit communication and constituted the norms of the system, shaping state behavior without actual diplomatic or military contact between the two powers.

NATO's actions during the Cold War represented the military channel through which the Western bloc sent messages. The main aim of the organization was to restrain Russian influence in the world (Van Ham, 2001). However, once its counterpart, the Warsaw Pact, was dissolved, a similar fate was expected for NATO. Despite this, "despite predictions of fragmentation from within or supercession from above, the Alliance has emerged as a — perhaps the — dominant institution in contemporary security relations" (Williams and Neumann, 2000). This evolution was analyzed throughout much of the 1990s from various perspectives, as scholars sought justification for NATO's existence and possible means of establishing its role in the security framework of the twenty-first century.

Neorealist Perspectives on Alliances and NATO

There have been various theories discussing international organizations and regimes, most importantly from a security perspective, given that a state's existence relies on its ability to ensure a secure environment for the exercise of power, both internally and externally (Nye, 2005). The realist perspective of international relations theory completely rejects the idea of cooperation as discussed in Wilsonian terms. On the other hand, it accepts alliances as a means of establishing and maintaining the balance of power (Kapstein and Mastanduno, 1999). NATO was the product of this line of thought. Subsequent theories, however, questioned some premises from which realists depart. Neorealists, for instance, believed that the balance of power can be maintained through structural constraints (Waltz, 1979). Although they did not deny the state of anarchy presented by the realists, and the security dilemma remained central to their perspective, neorealists argued that the main goal of the state is survival rather than global supremacy. In this context, the role of alliances and of NATO ends the moment the threat disappears (McCalla, 2006), because alliances are created as a response to a threat or menace (Katzenstein, 1996).

The neorealist theory was the first to consider NATO's future from the end of the Cold War through the lens of alliance formation. Although this issue was not of extensive interest to realists and neorealists (McCalla, 2006), they considered that alliances, though they might survive a sudden change in the international system, would eventually see their role and scope diminish to dissolution. Kenneth Waltz, as one of the most important neorealist voices, contended that states are constantly faced with security dilemmas and that nothing in the evolution of international politics would support the belief that war would eventually be averted (Waltz, 1979). In this sense, alliances remain a necessary element of the international political scene.

This perspective was invoked by neorealists to consider the eventual need for NATO or a similarly structured organization. It was argued immediately following the Cold War that "institutions are easier to adapt once in place than to build from scratch" (Lepgold, 1998). Up to that point, realists did not believe in the possibility of actually changing the system, viewing the status quo as a constant reality. Therefore, it was argued that "in neorealism, the role of practice in shaping the character of anarchy is substantially reduced, and so there is less about which to argue: self-help and competitive power politics are simply given exogenously by the structure of the state system" (Wendt, 1992). This is partly why realists and neorealists failed to predict the fall of the U.S.S.R. (Hyland, 1990; Lebow and Risse-Kappen, 1996).

The necessity of institutions and of NATO in particular was given a clear neorealist explanation: "neorealists argue that institutions matter to the extent that they cause states to behave in ways they otherwise would not — for example, foregoing short-term self-interest in favor of long-term community goals" (Schweller and Priess, 1997). However, as John J. Mearsheimer suggests in his critique of the institutional framework, alliances and institutionalized relations cannot guarantee that war is averted. In his more radical position, he suggests that institutions in fact offer a false hope of peace for their member states (1994–5). He further argues that "realists maintain that institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution of power in the world. They are based on the self-interested calculations of the great powers, and they have no independent effect on state behavior" (Mearsheimer, 1994–5), and therefore their presence would ultimately prove dissolute.

Change within NATO was imminent at the end of the Cold War. As Andrew Cottey notes, "the NATO of the Cold War was a single-threat, single-role organization. Although NATO always had other purposes — in particular providing the context for post-war reconstruction in western Europe and helping to integrate West Germany back into the community of states — it was created in response to the perceived threat posed by the Soviet Union, and its central purpose was the organization of defense and deterrence vis-à-vis the Soviet Union" (Cottey, 2004). Therefore, a new perspective had to be developed if the organization were to continue to exist. Neorealists believed that because war would persist even after the U.S.–USSR confrontation ended, the future of the Alliance would lie in its role in striking a balance between the new poles of power emerging in the coming decades.

Due to a lack of vision concerning the future evolution of the international system, there was little agreement on how to proceed in reestablishing and redefining NATO's role and scope. Some scholars considered that the immediate years following the end of the Cold War were marked by a high degree of uncertainty, arguing that the aims set forth in 1991 were vague and lacked clear determination in time and space (Forster and Wallace, 2001). The leaders of the Alliance needed, according to the realist and neorealist vision, a new common threat or goal that would keep Cold War unity intact. Europeans viewed cooperation with the U.S. as security insurance, while the American side viewed NATO as a means of exercising its influence in the broader security sphere (Cottey, 2004). Despite the theoretical uncertainty, the main result of this period of searching was the continuity NATO experienced immediately after the Cold War.

Institutionalist Explanations for NATO's Continued Role

The institutionalist approach, unlike the neorealist one, takes into account different aspects of institutional theory. According to these beliefs, institutions are essential for the establishment of world order — on the one hand because they represent the actual framework for the conduct of international relations, and on the other because they set up rules and formulate behavioral criteria that ensure peaceful and positive development (Nye, 2005). Within the institutional theoretical framework, the role of organizations and regimes is to provide choices and incentives as an alternative to war for changing the political and international environment.

The use of institutions to this end stems from the fact that "institution-building has been intimately tied to strategies of learning and change, of changing the economic fabric of a society" (Reinert, 2006). By applying a different set of norms or conducting policies aimed at cultivating cooperation within various institutions, the entire international system can change to the point where these institutions shape the future distribution of power and even define regional identities and roles (Nye, 2005; Scharpf, 2000). The Partnership for Peace, established by NATO in 1994, was the expression of this approach (Borawski, 1995). An American initiative, this step was taken as a result of consideration of possible future relations with former Soviet satellite states. NATO was used as a means of offering incentives and opportunities for engagement in international politics, with the expressed aim of changing the world order as it had existed until the end of the Cold War. From this point of view, the institutional approach served as guidance for the establishment of NATO's new set of goals.

Institutional theory has, like any other international relations theoretical approach, several secondary lines of thought. For the study of international politics, however, rational choice institutionalism appears most appropriate. NATO's approach in the early 1990s regarding the expansion of the Alliance to include Eastern and formerly communist countries can be explained through this rational choice framework. As Hall and Taylor argue, "an actor's behavior is likely to be driven, not by impersonal historical forces, but by a strategic calculus, and this calculus will be deeply affected by the actor's expectations about how others are likely to behave as well. Institutions structure such interactions by affecting the range and sequence of alternatives on the choice agenda, or by providing information and enforcement mechanisms that reduce uncertainty about the corresponding behavior of others and allow 'gains from exchange,' thereby leading actors toward particular calculations and potentially better social outcomes" (Hall and Taylor, 2006). Thus, the United States, in order to build influence in former communist countries and promote a different set of values and norms to replace Soviet ones, advanced a project aimed at increasing cooperation with states outside NATO in the prospect of membership, helping them reemerge as political actors in Europe and strengthen their pursuit of democracy (Borawski, 1995; Walt, 1998).

Conclusion: NATO's Survival in a New Security Environment

NATO has adopted a new system of strategies ever since the 1991 Summit of Rome (Croft, 2000). These include cooperation with other organizations such as the OSCE, the UN, and the EU in particular (Boulden, n.d.; Szönyi, 1997). Taking this approach into consideration, it is evident that NATO's endurance cannot be attributed to any single theoretical explanation. Rather, neorealist, institutionalist, and social constructivist perspectives each illuminate a different dimension of the Alliance's persistence and adaptation. NATO survived not merely because structural incentives demanded it, but because it proved capable of redefining its purpose, expanding its membership framework, and reshaping the international norms and identities of the states within its orbit.

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