Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 2, April–May 2009, pp. 5–12
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When the secretaries-general of NATO and the United Nations, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Ban Ki Moon, signed a joint declaration in September 2008, it came as a surprise to many observers. After almost 60 years of wary coexistence, the two organisations established, for the first time, a formal relationship between the headquarters and a framework for expanded consultation and cooperation. The organisations already cooperate to safeguard Kosovo’s fragile stability and to manage a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, and NATO has until recently protected UN food-aid shipments to Somalia against the growing threat of pirate attacks. The UN is involved in virtually all ongoing NATO operations in one way or another, but relations have always been troubled. The Alliance is still seen by many UN members and parts of the UN bureaucracy as a Cold War military machine and US ‘tool box’. Given the tensions between the two, even UN staff wonder why Ban decided to sign the declaration. Put into a broader strategic perspective, however, the joint declaration fits within the trend towards a stronger role for regional actors in global security.
The agreement offers the opportunity for substantial strategic dialogue, which could make fragmented UN–NATO efforts to stabilise and rebuild war-torn countries such as Afghanistan more coherent. Given the difficult history of relations between the two, however, closer UN–NATO cooperation is likely to face continuing challenges.
Regional organisations and security
When the UN founders met in San Francisco in 1945, they expected that ‘regional arrangements’ would play a significant part in a new system of collective security. Chapter VIII of the UN Charter encourages the settlement of local disputes by regional organisations, and the UN Security Council can use regional organisations for enforcement action under its authority. With the beginning of the Cold War, however, the role of regional organisations could not develop as anticipated.
De jure, the Security Council is the only body with the authority to legitimise the use of force in international relations. The only exception is provided by Article 51 of the UN Charter, which sets out the right of individual or collective self-defence. In reality, the UN’s lack of resources and military capabilities impede its ability to enforce its decisions, and its authority is frequently ignored. NATO’s very creation in April 1949 as an alliance for collective defence demonstrated that Western Europe had serious doubts about the UN’s ability to fulfil its promise of collective security. The North Atlantic Treaty does not mention Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. As a Chapter VIII organisation, NATO would have been constrained to take military action only after Security Council authorisation. This would have given permanent Security Council members Russia and China the power to veto an Alliance decision. The drafters of the Treaty chose to rely instead on Article 51, which obliges the Alliance simply to report to the Security Council after collective self-defence measures have been taken.
NATO and the Warsaw Pact quickly earned reputations as vehicles for superpower interests, marginalising the...
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Michael F. Harsch is a Visiting Fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington DC and a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin.Johannes Varwick is Professor of Political Science at the University of Kiel and an independent consultant in Berlin.
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