The North Atlantic treaty Organization and international security in the Post-Cold War world

Author(s)

Juliana Santos Maia Bertazzo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas
• Defense date: 2009-02-04

Examining board members

Shiguenoli Miyamoto; Suzeley Kalil Mathias; Cristina Soreanu Pecequilo; Paulo Cesar Souza Manduca; Valeriano Mendes Ferreira Costa

• Advisor: Shiguenoli Miyamoto

Abstract

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization stands against this theory of alliances: even after it was declared winner of the Cold War by a sudden lack of opponent, it was not disbanded. The Atlantic Alliance has since then expanded and gradually adapted itself to respond to new demands of the regional and international contexts, keeping itself actively present in both. In the post-September 11 era, however, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization loses its main focus, which was the defense of Europe, and takes on regional and global tasks to comply with requests from its own members and also extraneous actors. My research topic is therefore the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in this new phase, at once a unique case of persistence among military alliances and of adaptation amongst organizations. My analysis of the phenomena related to the new phase of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization revolves around four points: enlargement, persistence, transformation and operations. My central hypothesis is that during the Cold War, although the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was a reference for international security, it was restricted to the dynamics of regional security, and after the end of the bipolar confrontation, it takes on tasks that progressively reveal the limits of the Alliance. Thus, in this research work I divided these four main points into two axes: while one is concerned with regional security issues, such as enlargement and persistence, the other involves international security, namely transformation and operations. I use data obtained through bibliographic and field research to argue that the current geographic and strategic expansion policy carried out by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has serious limitations. More specifically, my working hypotheses are that there are limits to (I) the enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, posed by Russia, (II) to its persistence, posed by the European Union, to its (III) transformation, posed by the lack of a civilian component for its operations, and finally, for its (IV) global operations, due to unsteady commitment by its members. Therefore, in this thesis I analyze (I) the pace and direction of expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, (II) its persistence and its relations with other organizations, (III) its strategic concept and institutional design, and finally (IV) its operations, with special attention to legitimacy issues. The conclusions of my study reveal the coming of an important turning point: having gone through the whole of the Cold War without engaging in combat, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization mow lives a new phase, which sees it constantly involved in conflicts, but assuring its continued utility and relevance is hitherto its major challenge. (AU)