Security without the United States?: Europe’s Perception of NATO 9 pages, pdf  Download Back

Security without the United States?: Europe’s Perception of NATO

Publisher: Air University Press

Volume: 9 pages, pdf

Description:

For nearly 60 years, Europe has benefitted from America’s willingness to view European security as part of its own and to extend the umbrella of “extended nuclear deterrence” over it. During the Cold War, it was the United States above all that prevented war in Europe, in particular in the form of a nuclear first strike, which the Soviet Union had planned. After the end of the Cold War, it was again the United States that restored peace in Europe when it decided, working within a NATO framework, to put an end to the Yugoslavian wars of secession and to lay the groundwork for the peaceful reordering of post-Soviet Europe by means of NATO expansion and the Partnership for Peace program.

This “Pax Americana” in Europe broke down after the United States began its war on terror following the attacks of 11 September 2001. This prompted anew the question that had already arisen once, at the end of the Cold War, about the future of NATO and about Europe’s security without US involvement. This same question arises again with the arrival in office of the new Obama administration, for, in spite of the likely return to multilateral foreign and security policies, it cannot be ruled out that President Obama, like George W. Bush, will look upon European issues as largely settled and perceive his primary interests as lying in the Middle East and Asia. The question as to whether or not European security is possible without the United States is one that must be addressed on both sides of the Atlantic. An answer requires that we first examine the situation in Europe in 2009 so that we may then determine how Europe’s security can be safeguarded before we can decide whether this can succeed without US involvement and what NATO’s role in it will be.