The emergence of the European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) in the last two-thirds of the 1990s and continuing into the new century, has been a complex process intertwining politics, economics, national cultures, and numerous institutions. This book provides an essential background for understanding how security issues as between NATO and the European Union are being posed for the early part of the 21st century, including the new circumstances following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. This study should be of interest to those interested in the evolution of U.S.-European relations, especially in, but not limited to, the security field; the development of institutional relationships; and key choices that lie ahead in regard to these critical arrangements.

Four years after the end of the Cold War, the United States and its European allies have still not agreed on a new security system to deal with war in Yugoslavia, a restless eastern Europe, and an unstable Russia. The contributors to this timely volume evaluate reforms in the North Atlantic Alliance, the new European Union, and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). They also explore a number of critical issues: Why is it that NATO cannot end the Yugoslav conflict? Why do the Americans and West Europeans quarrel over a European Security and Defense Identity? Why is it that the states of Central and Eastern Europe cannot simply join NATO? Is the CSCE becoming the pan-European security organization that will bear responsibility for preventing or managing future conflicts? The book offers careful analysis of the pivotal years of reform between 1989 and 1992. In the first section, the contributors assess those developments from the viewpoint of the key institutions—NATO, CSCE, the European Union, and its security arm, the Western European Union (WEU). They then examine the policies of the key allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. The book concludes that the current problems in European security affairs are directly explained by the discord, divergences, and contradictions that have characterized the crucial formative years of these newly significant organizations. In the closing chapter, the editors suggest pragmatic political initiatives for strengthening these groups in the near future.

At the EU's Helsinki summit in 1999, European leaders took a decisive step toward the development of a new Common European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) aimed at giving the EU a stronger role in international affairs backed by a credible military force. This report analyzes the processes leading to the ESDP by examining why and how this new European consensus came about. It touches upon the controversies and challenges that still lie ahead. What are the national interests and driving forces behind it, and what steps need to be taken to realize Europe's ambitions to achieve a workable European crisis mgmt. capability?

From the end of the Cold War to the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, the NATO Alliance has changed profoundly. This book explores the multifaceted consequences of NATO's adjustment to new international and domestic political and security realities. Internal Alliance politics and matters of relative power within the membership have strongly influenced recent NATO developments. Several major issues challenging the Alliance are examined, including how the impact of efforts to develop an enhanced common European security and defense policy have affected NATO: whether missile defense is driving the United States and its European allies closer or further apart; how the experience of NATO in the Balkans and elsewhere brought alliance members together or made MATO cohesion more difficult to maintain; and in what way the changing role of NATO has influenced American and Canadian participation in the Alliance. An important guidepost to pivotal changes and likely NATO developments, scholars and policymakers of Atlantic and international politics will find these meditations indispensable. A number of authors also speculate on the likely changes for the alliance that will ensue in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the possibility that NATO will soon modify its mission and responsibilities in reaction to the threat of international terrorism. Indeed many of the same strategies and strains that affected NATO cohesion over the past decade are likely to complicate efforts to maintain Alliance unity as part of the anti-terrorist coalition.

In this collection the leading authorities address the complexity of present day NATO, its inherent contradictions, and its current direction. The authors reflect on the significance of these issues for the alliance's future prospects, for Russia, and for European security generally. The Future of NATO looks at the conceptual and theoretical approaches that underlie the question of enlarging NATO's membership and the consequences of enlargement on international relations. It examines the policies of some of NATO's leading member states - including Canada, which has recently begun a two-year term on the security council - and deals with the issue of enlargement from the point of view of the East European candidates, focusing on Russia and its opposition to the current process. Contributors include Andràs Balogh (Loràn Eötvös University), Martin Bourgeois, Charles-Philippe David (UQAM), André P. Donneur (UQAM), David G. Haglund (Queen's), Philippe Hébert (Montréal), Stanislav J. Kirschbaum (Glendon College), Richard L. Kugler (RAND, National Defence University), David Law (Queen's), Paul Létourneau (Montréal), Jacques Lévesque (UQAM), Gale Mattox (U.S. Naval Academy), Marie-Claude Plantin (Lumière Lyon 2), Sergei Plekhanov (York), Jane M.O. Sharp (Kings College, London).

Providing perspectives from five Western capitals, this multinational study examines the formidable political and structural conditions for effective collaboration between NATO and the United Nations in performing peace-making and peacekeeping missions. The diplomatic and military requirements for operating principles of collective security in post-Cold War Europe are illuminated by contrasting the policies of major NATO governments. Candid assessments of the differing national attitudes that lie behind them are offered by an international team of scholars. Their analyses are set against the backdrop of the experience in Yugoslavia, and the momentous decisions on NATO's structural reform and enlargement.

Analyzing changes in the role and place of NATO, European integration, and Franco-American relations in foreign policy discourse under Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, this book provides an original perspective on French foreign policy and its identity construction. The book employs a novel research design for the analysis of foreign policies, which can be used beyond the case of France, by combining the discourse theory of the Essex School with Interpretive Policy Analysis to examine political ideas and how they are organized into a foreign policy identity. On these grounds, the volume undertakes a comparative analysis of parliamentary and executive discourse of President Chirac’s failed attempt at NATO reintegration in the 1990s, Sarkozy’s successful attempt in the 2000s, and the Libyan War. Ostermann depicts French foreign policy and identity as turning away from the European Union, atlanticizing, and losing its American nemesis. As a result, France uses a much more pragmatic, de-unionized, and pro-American strategy to implement foreign policy objectives than before. Offering a new and innovative explanation for a major change in French foreign policy and grand strategy, this book will be of great interest to scholars of NATO, European defense cooperation, and foreign policy.