NATO – 75 Years of Adapting

By Winfried Heinemann

During the late 1940s, the Soviet threat to Europe was perceived as political rather than military – hardly anyone thought the Soviet Union capable of waging another world war so soon after the devastations of 1941-1944. But the Communist coup d’état in February 1948 in Prague, where there were no Soviet troops, was seen by many in the West as the writing on the wall. Could the same not happen in France where in the 1947 elections, the Communists had been returned as the strongest single political party, or in Italy^[1]?

The North Atlantic Alliance was a reaction to this. Conceived and founded in 1948/9, it started as a political alliance. It is a misconception that the NAT guarantees military assistance in case of a member country being attacked. Rather, Article 5 stipulates

“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and [… that] each of them […] will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking  […] such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

the emphasis being on “as it deems necessary”.

The Treaty provides for a “Council”, but not for any military organisation – that was to be left to the Brussels Pact, i.e. the defence organization uniting France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Benelux countries, with Field Marshal Montgomery as its Commander-in-Chief.

Some countries found it difficult to join the new alliance – Sweden and Ireland were among those who opted out. For Canada, Secretary of State for External Affairs Louis Saint-Laurent put another aspect succinctly: “Twelve in the bed [rather than just two] means no rape.^[2]” – certainly relevant again today.

NATO’s first adaptation came in 1950: after the Korean War, a military aggression in Europe suddenly seemed possible; this “put the ‘O’ in NATO”. A military command structure was created which superseded that of the Brussels Pact, with an American, General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, as SACEUR, and Montgomery relegated to Deputy SACEUR. However, at the same time member nations felt the need to retain political control of Allied military planning and operations, which led to the creation of an International Staff with a Secretary General at its head. NATO’s first Secretary General, Churchill’s Second World War Chief of Staff General Lord Ismay, interpreted his job more as a political coordinator than as a mere director of the civilian staff – an interpretation which was later continued when not only former high-ranking cabinet ministers, but several heads of government went on to serve as NATO SecGen.

Allegedly, it was Ismay who described NATO’s role as “Keeping the Russians out, keeping the Americans in, and keeping the Germans down”. While this is apocryphal, it is to the point. NATO developed into an instrument for the collective defence, for involving the United States (and Canada!) in European security policies, and for NATO eventually developing de facto into an instrument of collective security, effectively protecting members against each other. It is no small feat that in the years since 1949, there has never been a war between NATO members. Of course, the U.S. military presence in Europe was core to this.

1956 brought what was the most serious challenge for NATO cohesion so far. In the Suez crisis, the two leading NATO members besides the US went to war in the Middle East without even consulting their allies, thus grossly violating Article 6 of the NAT. The U.S. under a president who had been NATO’s first SACEUR refused to support them. While the Suez Crisis was clearly out-of-area, both Britain and France felt betrayed that the United States should not have lived up to their security guarantee, bringing Ismay to the point of almost resigning. Only an intervention by his personal friend Eisenhower changed his mind^[3].

Before that, a Committee of Three including Italian Foreign Minister Gaetano Martino, Norwegian Foreign Minister Halvard Lange, and the Canadian colleague “Mike” Pearson (Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson Airport is named after him) hastily re-drafted their almost finished report on improving political consultation within the alliance. This report would form the basis for political cooperation within NATO for decades.

Yet, Paris and London drew drastically different consequences. The French reaction to the alleged betrayal in Suez by the US and by the UK was to create their own national nuclear deterrent. At the same time, they played the European card. 1957 saw the signing of the Treaty of Rome, founding what is now the European Union. The British, on the other hand, decided they would have to cooperate more closely with the United States; they created their nuclear deterrent by relying on US-built Polaris missiles.

In 1958, Soviet Party Chairman Nikita Khrushchev tested western cohesion when he threatened to award the GDR full sovereignty, which would disrupt Western rights of access to West Berlin by land or by air. Without going into the details, let us just say that the West stood firm and prepared contingency plans, both within NATO and in a separate organization called LIVE OAK^[4], to deal with any attacks on the transit routes. The eventual outcome was the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961, a tacit Soviet admission that they would not use force to change the status quo; Allied rights of access remained secure until 1990^[5].

Another test of Alliance cohesion came with the Cuban Missile Crisis; this was Khrushchev’s last attempt at changing the Cold War balance of power in favour of the Soviets. US President John F. Kennedy again reacted firmly, but apparently risked nuclear war, without consulting the Western Allies before he took decisions^[6].

During the 1960s, the French policy after Suez, détente and the development of Flexible Response threatened the cohesion of NATO. Soviet pressure grew to hold a conference on European Security, and there was growing support for that proposal in Western capitals – let me just name de Gaulle’s visit to Moscow in the summer of 1966, or Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik of 1969-1973. NATO’s Harmel Report of 1967 redefined the Alliance’s role as an organization to coordinate the West’s policy during the détente period, ensuring continued US and Canadian participation in European security, in particular in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe from 1973-1975^[7].

After the end of the Cold War, NATO adapted again, helping integrate Central and East European democracies into the new world order, not least by ensuring that a reunited Germany would remain under the political and military control of the Alliance. NATO partners lived up to their alliance obligations when they responded to the 9/11 attack on the U.S. by sending troops to Afghanistan, although admittedly their aim was also to ensure that the US would coordinate their response to 9/11 with their NATO partners. However, “in together – out together” did not work when individual partners began to pull out unilaterally, not least the U.S. themselves. This highlighted the limitations of political cohesion.

NATO has developed into a collective security system, protecting member states from each other. This role must not be overlooked – especially with a view towards the role of Germany in a future Europe without a U.S. military presence to balance NATO’s largest European partner. European partners perceive this in the light of growing electoral support for pro-Russian, authoritarian and populist forces. It will remain to be seen if NATO can adapt to that as well, or if a new institutional framework will need to be found.

---

^[1] For more detailed comments, see Heinemann, Vom Zusammenwachsen des Bündnisses – sadly, not available in English.

^[2] Morton, Uncle Louis.

^[3] Lucas, NATO, "Alliance" and the Suez Crisis; Kiszely, General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay.

^[4] Pedlow, Allied Crisis Management; Maloney, Berlin Contingency Planning.

^[5] Harrison, Driving the Soviets up the Wall.

^[6] Gibson, Talk at the Brink.

^[7] Ruiz Palmer, The NATO-Warsaw Pact competition; Haftendorn, Entstehung und Bedeutung des Harmel-Berichtes.

Bio: Winfried Heinemann served as a German Army officer in the Centre of Military History and Social Sciences (Freiburg, later Potsdam) in a variety of functions. His Ph.D. Thesis is about the origins of political cooperation within the Alliance. He also taught in the Brandenburg University of Technology, Cottbus, as their professor of modern history. 

 

Bibliography

Gibson, David R.: Talk at the Brink. Deliberation and Decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press 2012

Haftendorn, Helga: Entstehung und Bedeutung des Harmel-Berichtes der NATO von 1967, in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 40 (1992), pp. 169-221

Harrison, Hope M.: Driving the Soviets up the Wall. Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press 2003

Heinemann, Winfried: Vom Zusammenwachsen des Bündnisses. Die Funktionsweise der NATO in ausgewählten Krisenfällen 1951-1956, Munich: Oldenbourg 1998 (=Entstehung und Probleme des Atlantischen Bündnisses bis 1956, 1)

Kiszely, John: General Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay. Soldier, Statesman, Diplomat. A New Biography, London: Hurst 2024

Lucas, W. S.: NATO, "Alliance" and the Suez Crisis, in: Securing Peace in Europe, 1945-62. Thoughts for the post-Cold War Era, ed. by Beatrice Heuser and Robert O'Neill, London: St. Martin’s Press 1992, pp. 260-276

Maloney, Sean M.: Berlin Contingency Planning. Prelude to Flexible Response, 1958-63, in: The Journal of Strategic Studies 25 (2002), p. 99-134

Morton, Desmond: Uncle Louis and a Golden Age for Canada. A Time of Prosperity at Home and Influence Abroad, in: Policy Options, 1 June 2003

Pedlow, Gregory W.: Allied Crisis Management for Berlin. The LIVE OAK Organization, 1959-1963, in: International Cold War Military Records and History. Proceedings of the International Conference on Cold War Military Records and History Held in Washington, D.C., 21-26 March 1994, ed. by William W. Epley, Washington DC: OSD 1996, pp. 87-116

Ruiz Palmer, Diego A.: The NATO-Warsaw Pact competition in the 1970s and 1980s. A revolution in military affairs in the making or the end of a strategic age?, in: Cold War History, 14 (2014), 533-573