NATO, the EU, and Global Security: A New Role for Europe

10.58867/IBIS9578/QJNS2807

NATO operates today within the context of the New Cold Wars between the U.S. and Russia and between the U.S. and China.[1] The New Cold Wars - and the expansion of NATO – are propelled by bi-partisan U.S. foreign policy to sustain its global hegemony as well as by NATO policy and by intense European fear of Russian aggression after the invasion of Ukraine. 

The world desperately requires mediators and peace-makers that can help prevent the New Cold Wars and the war in Ukraine from becoming all-out global wars that imperil the planet. Unfortunately, NATO, as Europe’s main global military force allied with the U.S., has long allowed itself to become an instrument of U.S. hegemonic policy, at a time when we need Europe to help reduce hegemonic aspirations of all the Great Powers, including the U.S., China and Russia.[2] Fortunately, Europe’s interests and policy are not exclusively tied to NATO, and Europe has long been struggling to define its independent foreign policy from the U.S., even as the EU and NATO continuously negotiate to build a strong partnership as in its 2022 Strategic Concept and its January, 2023, Third Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation.[3]

I argue here that Europe must crystallize and pursue its foreign policy, both inside and outside NATO, to defend its economies and security and to advance global collective security in alliance with the Global South and progressive popular forces in Europe and around the world. This does not necessarily imply leaving NATO but making significant change. It requires fully recognizing Europe and the EU as entities with their own values and interests, as well as rejecting U.S. hegemonic policy and the current expansionist NATO agenda. It also requires recognizing the historic Western and Great Power biases of European mediation efforts, as perceived by other nations.[4] Overcoming such biases requires working closely with non-aligned nations in the Global South. Success would change and limit NATO, seeking to restrain it from pursuing New Cold Wars and making it a new partner in pursuing global peace and collective security.[5]

Collective security is not a new or novel agenda for Europe. As late as the 1990s, Europe built a Common Security architecture. It included the Paris Charter, the NATO-Russian Founding Framework, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which issued the noteworthy 1999 Istanbul Summit OSCE memorandum.[6] The European concept was that no nation would seek greater security at the expense of any other. This principle has been eroding with the expansion of NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union.[7]

NATO members such as France and Türkiye have recently shown some initiative in moving beyond the New Cold War framework; as such, they are potentially trying to renew Common Security and turn Europe itself into an independent negotiating coalition that would help end the Ukrainian war and bring the international community - including much of the Global South - into an independent force limiting the Great Powers. It may be hard to imagine NATO – and a Europe within NATO – aligning itself with the Global South in this way. Still, there are the Collective Security historical traditions, strong economic interests and peace and collective security movements in Europe and the EU that could support such new policy, both for Europe and a transformed NATO.[8] There are also U.S. labor interests and peace movements that support such change. Leading U.S. public intellectuals argue that NATO expansion and militarism must be urgently curtailed and ultimately prevented in the context of the Ukraine conflict, U.S. Hegemony and the New Cold Wars.[9] In addition, many nations in the Global South reject current U.S. and NATO policies in the New Cold War and would support a Europe seeking to help build an international mediating role to bridge Great Power rivals in the New Cold Wars and move the world from hegemony toward peaceful diplomacy and collective security.[10]

Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine has dramatically intensified the New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. Both sides are escalating the conflict into a protracted and deadly conflict in which nobody benefits. The position on both sides has been maximalist, fearing that any concessions to start negotiations will lead to weakness and defeat in the larger New Cold War.

All interests require concessions on both sides as all-out victory by either side will be disastrous for peace and risks of nuclear conflict. This will destroy Ukraine and risk global nuclear war. But maximalist strategy reflects the U.S. and Russia's foreign policy, while destructive to Ukraine, Europe and the global South.

Like the Old Cold War, the New Cold War is functional for both the U.S. and Russia. Each needs the other – a credible evil enemy - to justify foreign expansion and pacify their domestic populations restive because of internal economic and social/political crises. While long serving vital aims of the U.S. and Russia, these interests do not serve Europe and are destructive to the rest of the world.[11]

Since maximalist agendas of both the U.S. and Russia are not in the interest of Europe or NATO, both have strong incentives to break from current American policy as well as to oppose both Russian and U.S. expansion. I analyze what this implies for the NATO policy regarding Ukraine, Russian aggression and American hegemonic policy, and the alliance between the U.S. and Europe. I conclude by looking briefly at domestic socio-economic and political forces and movements in Europe and the U.S. that can help move Europe and NATO away from U.S. maximalism and hegemony.

From Maximalism and U.S. Hegemony to Mediation and International Global Collective Security

The shift of NATO and Europe from maximalism and U.S. hegemony to a new global mediating role requires 1) changing current European and NATO policy in Ukraine, including rejecting Zelensky’s maximalism 2) rejecting current NATO embrace of U.S. maximalism in the larger global New Cold War, 3) changing current European and NATO policy toward European defense and security and 4) changing current European and NATO policy toward China, the Global South and global collective security.

Ukraine

Following the lead of the U.S., NATO has been helping sponsor Zelensky ‘s maximalist policy for defending Ukraine. Zelensky has increasingly taken a clear maximalist position – no concessions of any territory. Zelensky proclaims Ukraine must regain all territory taken over or annexed by Russia before or during the 2022 Russian invasion, including Crimea, the Donbass, and other Eastern autonomous regions of Ukraine. But such maximalism will prolong the war and further destroy Ukraine while also peeling off support in the U.S. and Europe as the war grinds on, something already happening as Ukrainian support weakens in parts of the U.S. and Europe. Ukraine must enter negotiations prepared, as in all peace negotiations, to compromise. Failure to do so will risk total destruction of Ukraine and further loss of global support.[12]

Acting both within and outside NATO, Europe needs to play a significant role in helping jump-start negotiations by making clear to Zelensky that it will not continue indefinitely to provide massive arms and political support to Ukraine without a shift in Ukraine’s maximalism. Europe should proclaim that while it and NATO oppose Russian aggression and support Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukraine must offer concessions to survive and get a durable peace from which they can recover and gain aid from all other nations. This will require explicitly limiting current NATO and European aid and conditioning future assistance to a Ukraine open to immediate negotiations, a demand of many current European peace movements, discussed later.[13i]

The war in Ukraine is not just a military catastrophe for Ukraine but an economic disaster for Europe. Re-arming Europe and pouring unlimited money into NATO in an endless war is creating a European financial crisis, threatening the financing of the social welfare, generous wages, and climate policies that have defined European identity for decades[14]. The greatest threat to European security is the economic costs of endless war in Ukraine and the New Cold War; that threat must be stopped initially by an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine which growing numbers of European leaders and peace movements are beginning to support.

NATO, Europe, and the U.S. Hegemony

European critique or distancing of itself from U.S. policy appears complex, as it fears Russian expansion more than ever. But the only way to reduce Russian aggression is to build bridges with Russia. Russia believes with justification that U.S. and NATO movements toward the Russian border after the unification of Germany are a violation of the 1989 verbal agreement between the American Secretary of State, James Baker, and Soviet Premier Gorbachev to move NATO not “one inch further” toward Russia.[15] Russia perceives this violation as just the latest form of Western aggression toward and invasion of Russia that follows invasions by Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler and U.S. expansion during the Cold War. Europe can be safe only if Russia feels safe, which ultimately means Europe, and NATO itself, must move away from the New Cold War militarism in the U.S. and shift Europe, acting inside and outside of NATO, away from hegemonic U.S. global aspirations. This will help reduce Russian fear and aggression, thus beginning to increase European and American security and as shown later, awaken peace movements throughout Europe.

NATO, European Defense, and Relative Autonomy of Europe from the U.S.

Since the end of World War II, European security has been primarily outsourced to the U.S., through NATO and European acceptance of U.S. hegemony as its own security guarantee[16]. Ukraine appears to make this dependency on the U.S. even more intense, but peace in Ukraine, as well as in the larger world community, requires a more independent European voice. Europe has long had independent economic interests and political ideologies from the U.S., expressed after the end of World War II in support for social democratic European economic and social policy and a collective security foreign policy focus that rejected the possibility of new European empires and more World Wars that would destroy Europe again. Today, some leaders, political parties, civil society and peace movements in France, Germany, Spain and the rest of Europe are looking for ways to build independent European defense and trade as well as create a more independent foreign policy that is non-hegemonic and the foundation of a more autonomous Europe. Acting within and outside of NATO, Europe must resist U.S. policy and its own fears of a more autonomous foreign policy to promote European and collective security. This position will allow Europe to mediate between Europe and Russia in the New Cold War and begin the long process of moving NATO and the world toward a post-hegemonic world order. Some European governments and peace movements are beginning to promote this vision, reflecting public feelings and movements in parts of Europe and in much of the Global South.[17]

NATO and Europe, China, and the Global South

Much like Europe, China and the Global South have an interest in ending the war in Ukraine and the New Cold War between the U.S. and Russia. The Ukraine war could go nuclear and imperil survival of the entire world; escalation of conventional wars has always been the most probable way that a nuclear war would begin.[18] War in Ukraine is also creating global food supply issues, economic global downturns, and deeper conflicts among Russian and U.S. and NATO allies. More broadly, the rest of the world has a massive stake in avoiding a New Cold war, where the ultimate victims are the Global South subject to big power New Cold war post-colonialism. That is why much of the world is moving toward negotiation rather than maximalist support of either side.[19] Europe, inside and outside of NATO, needs to help sponsor and join these effects in Ukraine and the larger New Cold Wars between the U.S. and U.S. and China itself. In the long run, this would transform NATO itself from an instrument of U.S. hegemonic policy to a global partner with the Global South for a global collective security system.

As the war has intensified and become more dangerous, the rest of the world has increasingly shown interest in helping broker a peace in Ukraine and, ultimately, to avoid war between the U.S. and Russia. This is partially reflected in the declarations of many nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia, including some that initially voted with the U.S., NATO, and Ukraine in the General Assembly, that they do not support current U.S. and NATO increases of military aid to Ukraine, and seek immediate negotiations and a cease-fire. An example is President Lula da Silva of Brazil, who has expressed horror about the war and the urgent need to start negotiations now before it is too late. Another example is India, which was one of 32 Global South nations which abstained to support the February 23, 2023 General Assembly resolution in support of the U.S. and Ukraine; India has consistently refused to condemn Russia’s invasion, has purchased Russian oil, and rejected other U.S. trade sanctions on Russia.[20] Other Global South nations are expressing similar views, and many support efforts by the leaders of France, China, Türkiye, Brazil and India to take a neutral role and not support U.S. or NATO positions.[21]

This posture reflects the Global South’s long experience with Big Power hegemony, that historically led to Western colonialism and military subjugation of less developed countries. Indeed, as noted above, the Old and New Cold Wars essentially served as a legitimating discourse for the Great Powers to expand into the Global South and subjugate them, in the name of “protecting” them from rival predatory or imperial powers. While this unwillingness of the Global South to support what the U.S. calls its “rules-based global order” is not well understood by many in the U.S., it reflects the reality that U.S. hegemony and the Old and New Cold Wars have always hurt the Global South most intensely; in fact, subjugating the Global South has long been a major purpose of Great Power Cold Wars.[22] After centuries of their own colonial Empires, the Europeans do not experience the views of the Global South in the same way. Still, their own destruction in two World Wars allows them to understand it more than Americans, who felt that the World Wars propelled them to global dominance. European memory of its devastation in World Wars may be fading in current younger European generations. Still, it remains a foundation for many Europeans to promote anti-hegemonic concepts of collective security that can help propel Europe as an essential mediator of the New Cold Wars, along with the Global South. 

China is a particular case of the rest of the world. It has been a victim for centuries of Western colonialism but is now also a rising Great Power itself embroiled in its own New Cold War with the U.S.. Taiwan could become the Ukraine of the increasingly dangerous rivalry between the U.S. and China, leading to war in what Graham Allison has famously called “Thucydides’ Trap” in which a reigning hegemon feels threatened by a rising hegemon, leading inexorably to war.[23]

But war is not inevitable, and Europe is a major player who could help prevent it. Europe needs urgently to help mediate and limit the escalating conflict between the U.S. and China. Europe has strong economic and political interests in building its own peaceful relations with China. It can ally with the Global South to help lead a collective security movement to de-escalate and ultimately stop both New Cold Wars that could blow up the planet. This would enhance European stature in the world, increase European independence from the U.S. and reduce potential aggression both from Russia and China. It would help build European economies by opening up more friendly investment and trade opportunities in Russia, China, and much of the world.

European policy is still in flux. In April, 2023, the EU’s top foreign policy minister, Josep Borrel, called for European military exercises in the straits of Taiwan to signal support the EU’s support for Taiwan’s traditional autonomy.[24] While the EU and some European nations have increasingly expressed opposition to China’s growing aggressive posture toward Taiwan, Europe has also expressed concern about the American maximalist policy against China as an enemy or rival, and have traditionally tried to maintain its own economic and strategic relations with China, that do not fully align with the American aggressive hostility to China and its rising power. French President Macron’s April 2023 trip to China was an open rebuff to U.S. definition of China as an enemy or “adversary,” with the French leader calling for an independent and more cooperative European relation to China, and expansion of trade and investment projects with China.[25] While some EU officials quickly rejected Macron’s trip as showcasing for domestic purposes, some European governments and parts of the European public, quietly supported the underlying purpose. Many European nations are interested in expanding trade and investment in China. Decoupling from the Chinese economy as advocated by maximalist U.S. New Cold War policy would be against the interests of Europe and the Global South.[26] Moreover, Europe and the EU have broader interests in assuming a new leadership in limiting the New Cold Wars and building a world based on international law, cooperation and collective security, including a NATO supporting these aspirations.[27]

Europe is a site of foreign policy contestation, with great consequences for global peace. The U.S. government will continue to use NATO to seek American maximalism, and subordinate European interests to U.S. hegemony. But Europe has always had interests and values promoting an independent Europe and EU. In the context of the New Cold Wars, it is both possible and essential that

Europe pursues an autonomous foreign policy, both inside and outside NATO. Such a policy must advance global collective security and mediate Big Power conflict in concert with the Global South, while opposing hegemony of any Great Power. Forces within both Europe and the U.S., as well as the rest of the world, are rising to support this agenda.

Conclusion: Promoting Collective Security in Europe and NATO

The new role for Europe advanced here – both inside and outside NATO - is an urgent necessity for peace and global survival. Where powerful forces are working against it, there are also essential interests and movements to promote such changes in both Europe and NATO.

The forces opposing such urgent changes are mainly Big Power governments, especially the U.S.. NATO itself largely acts, as already discussed, as an instrument of U.S. hegemony. The global forces supporting the Big Power status quo are thus potent. But they can and are being opposed by domestic social and political movements of ordinary people and activists within the U.S. and Europe itself, acting in solidarity with nations and peoples in the Global South who share an interest in moving toward global collective security. After all, their survival is at stake, as is the public’s economic well-being in Europe, the U.S., and the rest of the world. We conclude by looking briefly at interests, forces and movements in Europe and the U.S. that can change their own nations and global security arrangements, including significantly changing NATO itself.

The historical legacy of complete European destruction through two World Wars has left a deep popular sentiment against hegemony and war in Europe. Two generations after two World Wars questioned centuries-old policies of European policies of Empire, colonialism, and hegemony. After World II, Europeans rejected traditional European militarism and supported the United Nations and global collective security. True, they relied on the U.S. and NATO for European defense. They also sustained their commitments to a world of social democracy and peace, that helped Europe rebuild and create prosperity for new generations.[28]

Russian invasion of Ukraine has threatened to erase the European memory of the horrific costs of Western hegemony to Europe and the world. European nations such as Finland joined NATO in 2023 and Sweden has also applied, in what many, especially Russia, interpret as a major European shift toward its own new model of Western hegemony through a more expansive and aggressive NATO.[29] A long Ukrainian war -with ever more threatening Russian aggression - could institutionalize this shift and prevent the changes proposed here.

But there are possibilities of a different European future, leading toward another NATO. Many European governments and people fear Russia and war, but they also have long feared maximalist U.S. hegemony. European nations and publics deeply opposed the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, which sparked massive European peace movements and opposition in the French and German governments.[30] While Iraq was the most dramatic instance, since the end of World War II, large sectors of the European publics have tended to oppose U.S. wars in the Global South, whether 20^th century Cold War interventions in Latin and Central American nations such as Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador or other imperial wars In Vietnam, Indonesia, East Timor, Angola and Palestine. More broadly, European governments and publics have been far more engaged in UN and regional peace-making forces throughout the world, as well as more supportive of the International Court, international law, and economic development strategies supportive of their own publics and the Global South, including global development and climate strategies developed at the UN.[31]

Economic interests coincide with collective security and peace interests. War and hegemony are costly, draining funds from domestic investment in jobs and social welfare. Europe has committed itself to a labor-driven social democracy and welfare state that became possible only by shifting public spending from war and imperialism to domestic public goods and development of a more sustainable and equitable society than likely in a militarized U.S., where trillions of dollars are diverted from jobs and domestic public welfare to war and empire.[32] The European public has a major stake in preserving its social welfare state, investment in public goods, and a green economy.[33]

Because these interests are so strong, both European governments and publics, including European social movements, have quietly been rising to express them, even in the heated militarist fever of the Ukrainian war. While French president Emmanuel Macron has been most visible in promoting an autonomous and mediating role for Europe, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has also pursued a more independent role for Germany and the EU, especially in the U.S. New Cold War with China. The German government has been more cautious than the U.S. would like in approving new weapons to Ukraine, while German companies and political leaders are seeking new trade and investment opportunities in China, which break with maximalist U.S. sanctions.[34] Türkiye has also rejected U.S. maximalism in Ukraine and has sought to mediate and limit the broader New Cold War conflicts.[35] Many European governments are also in a new phase of seeking a European defense and security role outside of NATO, partially stimulated by the Trumpist chaos that makes the U.S. a more unpredictable and potentially unreliable partner. This was especially clear when Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iranian nuclear agreements that Europe saw as critical for peace and survival while restoring U.S. sanctions opposed by Europe[36]. The apparent danger to U.S. democracy at home, rooted in Republican election denialism, signals to Europeans that they have to assert a more autonomous role in their own security matters and be a more independent voice in NATO and in modeling democratic values globally.

European and U.S. publics and social movements are rising to nourish such changes, often as part of global movements opposing U.S. neoliberalism and militarism. The Peace in Ukraine coalition, Democracy in Europe (DIEM25), and 92 U.S. organizations have called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine, a centerpiece of a June 2023 Peace Summit in Vienna.[37] In 2022 and 2023 large peace protests have erupted in most of the major capitals of Europe, including Paris, Madrid and Berlin.

Democracy in Europe is allied with Progressive International (PI), co-founded by former Greek Minister of Finance Yanis Varoufakis, a global movement based on the vision of global democracy, sustainability and peace. DIEM25 promotes a European and global clean break with both U.S. and NATO hegemonic policy, in solidarity with the Global South.[38] DIEM25 seeks to democratize the EU, opposes European servitude to U.S. hegemony and end all forms of European New Cold War initiatives; it now advocates for a Green New Deal for Europe.[39]

DIEM25 joins many other European climate activists who have also advanced a European and global climate agenda that opposes U.S. militarism, a significant source of carbon emission. The ties between climate change and war are now too strong to ignore,[40] and European commitment to a leading role in combating climate change, a central issue for European political and social movements inevitably leading toward a critique of U.S. and NATO militarism. Peace movements that erupted in Europe against the U.S. war in Iraq are regrouping to oppose the new U.S. Cold Wars and U.S. and NATO maximalism. On 2 March 2023 major peace protests swept through Germany Belgium, the UK, and Italy to call for peace in Ukraine and an end to EU and NATO militarism.[41]

Interestingly, U.S. peace movements, while relatively weak today, are growing in the face of U.S. militarism and maximalism in Ukraine. The New Cold Wars are catching the attention of the U.S. public, at a time when the public interest in jobs and social programs at home are not being met.[42] This reflects extreme inequality in the U.S., spurring fears among U.S. workers who feel abandoned by U.S. neoliberalism and outsourcing of manufacturing jobs; they are identifying as part of a “precariat” that experiences severe economic insecurity and needs the U.S. government to shift from spending on wars abroad to jobs at home.[43] It leads to U.S. public opinion shifting toward domestic concerns; a plurality of U.S. voters in early 2023 favor “isolationism.”[44]

Pouring massive funds into Ukraine and more significant U.S. military spending is thus becoming a growing political issue in the U.S.. While support for U.S. hegemony and NATO has always been bi-partisan, we are seeing movements on both the Right and the Left that are challenging this consensus. On the Right, significant voices of the Trumpist Republican party are opposing the war in Ukraine, and some are looking toward withdrawing U.S. troops from Europe; Trump himself discussed pulling U.S. from NATO. [45]

The issue of U.S. hegemony and militarism has always been a focus of the U.S. Left and peace movement, particularly since the Vietnam era. U.S. progressives and the Left have long sought to withdraw U.S. troops in NATO from Europe, as part of opposition to U.S. Cold War politics. U.S. peace leaders and writers, such as Noam Chomsky, who helped found the Progressive International, increasingly try to focus the U.S. public on the dangers of NATO expansion and the risk of nuclear escalation both in Ukraine and the New Cold Wars.[46] They now support major shifts in the U.S. budget from war to desperately needed public goods at home and peace abroad. The unequivocal support for NATO is eroding both in the Republican Party, the Left of the Democratic Party, and the U.S. peace movements. These forces in the U.S. will increasingly build ties to European powers for peace and collective security, and advance support both in the US and Europe for a more autonomous Europe and a transformed NATO that advance collective security rather than hegemonic interests and wars.