In Favor of a New North Atlantic Treaty

After the Soviet bloc’s collapse, no European NATO member country wanted to volunteer the political and financial help which would have been necessary without the U.S.’ help. The successive NATO strategic concepts, then, were developed on America’s initiative and followed the objectives necessary for the U.S.’ interests to be protected in the new post-Cold War context. These objectives were, firstly, to stop the resurgence of any new strategic organization which would threaten America; secondly, to make their investment in NATO worthwhile by orienting the funding toward exterior operations; and thirdly, for the U.S. to enjoy free usage of European land, sea and air spaces.

The American defense policy defined by Barack Obama in his most recent directive strategy shows two things. It shows that the center of gravity regarding the interests of American security — which are not necessarily the same as French or European interests — has shifted toward the Asia-Pacific zone, and also that the U.S. has invested less in promoting European defense and security.

The arms race, the wishes of the growing powers in certain countries, nuclear proliferation and the EU’s geographical instability present major security risks for Europe’s citizens. The lack of EU political power when compared with that of America, Russia or China is, in these times of crisis, alarming. Europeans now risk being dragged into major crises because of clashes between geopolitical groups worldwide, without having the means to keep their decision-making autonomy.

The concept of defensive Europe, in development since about 15 years ago, is suffering from two major handicaps: Firstly, it does not concern European territorial defense, and secondly, the concept is either redundant, as either the EU and NATO policies overlap, or there is competition between them for exterior operations. We need to get past this idea of a defensive Europe, which is no longer relevant to the security needs of the European people, and put forward a real European defense policy, the point of which would be to give the EU the power to protect its territories and to preserve its geostrategic autonomy against the rest of the world.

One of the first actions should be to revise the North Atlantic Treaty, the founding idea of the politico-military organization NATO. The point of this would be to better adapt the transatlantic link to new strategic realities while truly giving Europeans the responsibility for their own security, related to their own political-strategic interests, rather than systematically influencing them with the interests of non-EU NATO member countries.

The states which are members of both the EU and NATO consider their common defense policy to be represented in NATO policy, in particular in article 5 (“…if such an armed attack occurs, each [party], in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defense…will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary…”). But article 42.7 of the Lisbon treaty is much more constraining in its imposition of solidarity vis-a-vis an armed attack (“…if a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power…”).

The EU can no longer base its security on the current rickety system within which national defense policies coexist: EU security policy is endowed with limited tools for managing crises, and NATO is held accountable for its actions by America. The EU will adopt a new security strategy in order to define these new inter-country relationships (the current strategy dates back to 2003, even if it was lightly retouched in 2008, and its analysis of threats is very heavily influenced by the post-9/11 American doctrine), taking into account threats and risks by starting with those which are geographically closest. The EU also needs to establish a security framework with its neighbors, starting with Russia (who has already suggested it) and the Mediterranean countries. As Turkey intends to join the EU and occupies a geographically strategic position, it should cover some certain links.

This autonomous European defense policy should be written to include the three ambitions outlined by the then-candidate François Hollande in March 2012: Firstly, to promote convergences with all of our European partners; secondly, to explore all possibilities allowing a rationalization of EU members’ military devices; and finally, to strengthen European technology and industrial bases. As much as it is true that some leading countries are necessary to initiate this process, it is contrary to the idea of European defense that we support to encourage the creation of a central power which would hold all the power and therefore always be limited.

EU security should be the concern of all its members.