70 years of NATO: protection for Europe or American occupation?

(To Tiziano Ciocchetti)
08/04/19

The 17 March 1948, Britain, France, Holland, Luxembourg and Belgium, signed a multilateral treaty in Brussels aimed at countering the possibility of an aggressive renaissance of Germany as well as any situation that could pose a threat to peace.

However, the Brussels Treaty had clear geographical limits, even though it was already evident that it was only a first step in a more extensive process. In fact, the exponents of the European Movement - a consociation of Europeanistic organizations - contributed to a more extended influx, holding a European congress in the 1948 in May in The Hague.

The work of the congress had the consequence of assimilating the Brussels Treaty and the subsequent negotiations for the Atlantic Alliance with the Europeanist Movement, leading to the birth of the Council of Europe.

Already on 17 March, President Truman had assured the five countries of the Treaty that US support would not be lacking. It was a promise not without political repercussions, as in the United States the conviction prevailed that the Marshall Plan was more than sufficient to favor the revival of Western Europe and that, consequently, Europeans could block expansionism alone Soviet.

The idea was also widespread, especially among the American political-military ruling class, that Stalin, once he had assimilated Czechoslovakia into Moscow's sphere of influence (February 1948), did not plan further attacks on the rest of Europe. Moreover, the electoral victory in Italy of pro-American parties (18 April 1948) reassured Washington about the fate of the country most exposed to the interference of Yugoslavia (then part of Cominform).

This set of analyzes made it difficult for the American establishment to understand the reasons for European fears and the insistence of appeals for Washington to give political-military support, as well as economic aid.

Especially the British insisted on a rapid decision, this insistence led, in March-April 1948, to a series of meetings with US and Canadian military leaders to analyze the Soviet strategy and the means to counter it.

In order for the Truman Administration to take the initiative in Europe, it needed the support of the Senate. Fortunately, the American President (in the photo, on the left) could count on Senator Vandenberg (in the photo, right), head of the Republican group, then majority in the Senate, but above all exponent of the internationalist wing of the same party.

The senator was firmly convinced that the United States should become a global superpower and promoted a resolution that granted the President the power to enter into collective agreements concerning the national security of the United States through a constitutional procedure.

To help this political line, not a little contributed to the Soviet bloc of Berlin, which began the 11 June 1948, following the retaliation for the western projects of change of the mark.

The 6 July 1948 negotiations began - lasted until March 1949, to define the scope, extension and commitments that the Atlantic Pact would take - the 4 April 1949 ended with the signing, in Washington, of the Treaty to which they adhered Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, France, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Portugal and precisely the United States.

The United States became the guarantor of status quo European Union, however it was threatened. Thus a permanent political bond was created - modifiable only with the will of the parties involved - between Western Europe and the United States of America.

It is also clear that a crucial aspect for the realization of the Treaty was the definition of the geographical limits to which it would have been extended. The concept of North Atlantic area could be declined in different ways.

Just a crucial point was represented by Italy (certainly not for the alleged lack of contribution that the Italian Armed Forces could have given), whose geographical position appeared fundamental for American policies in Europe, but which obviously placed it outside the North Atlantic. Moreover, Italy was a former enemy country, just returned to international respectability and its admission would have posed the most militarily relevant problem in Greece and Turkey.

The situation was resolved thanks to the insistence, meditated and of considerable political significance, of France. Without Italy, the Treaty would literally have been a treaty maritime comprising only states bordering the North Atlantic. An alliance thus formulated would have seen the United Kingdom in a geographically relevant position and would have deprived Paris of the political background necessary to counterbalance the political consequences of this centrality.

Furthermore, the exclusion of Italy as a Mediterranean country would have led to the exclusion from the guaranteed area of ​​the African territories of France, a part of which (the Algerian departments), according to the French constitutional dictate, were an integral part of the territory national of France.

At the beginning of March of the 1949 the Italian Government was invited to join the Alliance, the text of which it had not helped to draft.

However, if the meaning of the Alliance's creation had been only to stem Soviet expansionism, it would certainly not have survived the 1989, when the Soviet Empire dissolved. Instead, I believe it is necessary to reflect on the political significance that it had in the balance of time, to understand the participation of the United States in such a vast commitment and, practically, without time limits.

President Truman writes in his memoirs: an Atlantic security system was probably the only means by which the French could be induced to accept the reconstruction of Germany. This system would have given all the nations of the free world the sense of trust they needed to build peace and prosperity in the world.

Since the birth of the Treaty, however, the fundamental question of the commitment that the contracting parties (especially the United States) would have assumed through the alliance remained open, since the nature of the actions that each of the signatories should have undertaken would have derived from it. if the casus foederis, or the event that would have triggered the entry into operation of the negotiated guarantees. In this regard, I believe it is right to mention the Art. 5 of the Treaty:

"the parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or in North America will be considered as a direct attack against all parties, and consequently agree that if such an attack were to occur each of them, in the exercise of the right of legitimate individual or collective defense recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, it will assist the party or parties thus attacked immediately, individually or in concert with the other parties so attached, the action that it deems necessary, therein including the use of the armed forces, to restore and maintain security in the North Atlantic area. "

Thus the Alliance's political focus was represented by a defensive guarantee against third-party attack. The USSR was not mentioned, even though, at that historical moment, it was the only possible aggressor. The casus foederis it was clear and indicated according to the formulas of diplomacy in use: aggression and reaction. Entirely peculiar and non-transparent were the commitments that the Allies took in favor of the attacked state.

The criticality of the article consisted precisely in the lack of precision with which the countermeasures were indicated. In fact the nature of the actions to be taken was left to the individual members of the Alliance, who would have undertaken the action that (if judged) necessary, including the use of force.

A double distinction was thus introduced: the reaction would not have been of military necessity and the nature of it was remitted to judgment of the interested parties.

The reason for this ambiguity was to be found in the exclusive power of the US Senate to declare a state of war, regardless of the current administration. The judgment remained at the total discretion of the majority of senators. Therefore any doubt, on the part of the European allies, about the nature of the action that the United States would undertake, in case of aggression against one or more countries belonging to the Alliance, was completely legitimate.

Ever since the Trump Administration has been in office, there has been insistent talk of a disengagement of US forces from Europe, resulting in weakening of the Alliance. The reality is completely different, in fact, in the last two years, the Pentagon has increased, in the Old Continent, the allocation of troops (especially in Germany and in the Eastern countries), contributing not a little to the sense of encirclement that for centuries grips Russia.

Photo: NATO / web