On NATO and peace

[Sunforged General]

Since recuring wars in Europe were the norm since before the fall of the Roman Empire all the way up to 1945, do you think its fair to say NATO, by using deterrence to ensure peace, has likely saved tens of millions of lives since its formation by preventing (most) of the recurring wars which had plagued Europe for millennia? Some may claim it was merely Europe being exhausted after WWII that led to this peace, but given the belligerence of the USSR, and now modern Russia, we now know it was not exhaustion nor benevolence that prevented wars in Europe after 1945, but deterrence.

Now obviously wars still happen in Europe, but the frequency of them is massively lowered compared to any time prior to NATOs founding in 1949.

 

[Rubidium]

I'd say nuclear deterrence had a lot to do with it as well. I doubt we get through the 20th century without a major NATO-Warsaw Pact war if it wasn't for the fact that everyone quickly concluded it would probably go nuclear and devastate everybody.

But as for intra-NATO wars, the hegemony of the US (and the USSR for the Warsaw Pact) meant that the US could basically say "cut that out" whenever one of its European allies got up to something it didn't approve of (see, the Suez Crisis for instance). Basically a Pax Americana. The Soviets could do likewise for their allies, but the relative unpopularity of the Soviet puppet governments meant that they occasionally had to use force to bring their allies back in line (see, Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968). More than just NATO, it was the advantage of having a single, dominant actor who could act as the policeman.

 

[Grandpa Maur]

Counterpoint: EU (or EEC&allies) was set up for that outcome specifically, not NATO.

 

[LordTempest]

I have never liked the argument that the EU has been anything more than a tangential force for peace, because it implies that without the EU, nations like France and Germany or Belgium and the Netherlands would be routinely at each other throats as if 19th Century political rivalries were an inevitable fact of history or something.

It's an argument largely made by people who don't like NATO for ideological reasons and do have an excessively benign view of the one European nation that actually might have started a European war in the mid-to-late 20th Century: the Soviet Union.

 

[Grandpa Maur]

I have never liked the argument that the EU has been anything more than a tangential force for peace, because it implies that without the EU, nations like France and Germany or Belgium and the Netherlands would be routinely at each other throats as if 19th Century political rivalries were an inevitable fact of history or something.

It's an argument largely made by people who don't like NATO for ideological reasons and do have an excessively benign view of the one European nation that actually might have started a European war in the mid-to-late 20th Century: the Soviet Union.

Huh? It was explicit aim of the founding fathers of European Economic Community.

 

[bz249]

Huh? It was explicit aim of the founding fathers of European Economic Community.

The explicit aim was to strengthen the economic cooperation, in particular bringing German coal in peaceful contact with French/Belgian iron ore.

You can see how hard is now for the EU to find a purpose as both of these are gone and the European economies are more competitors to each other than partners bringing complementary skills to the table.

 

[Kazanov]

Having all the troublesome nations inside one defensive pact, certainly helps to maintain peace. Just imagine if they accepted Russia. Peace in Europe.

I have never liked the argument that the EU has been anything more than a tangential force for peace, because it implies that without the EU, nations like France and Germany or Belgium and the Netherlands would be routinely at each other throats as if 19th Century political rivalries were an inevitable fact of history or something.

It's an argument largely made by people who don't like NATO for ideological reasons and do have an excessively benign view of the one European nation that actually might have started a European war in the mid-to-late 20th Century: the Soviet Union.

Since the times of the Romans, Germans were the antagonists of history. After their two humiliating defeat at the hands of the allies, that they are in the side of the "good" nations.

After ww2, Russia became the antagonist of history. I wonder what would happen if they are humiliated in the current conflict and then allowed to enter the "Western alliance" as an equal partner.

 

[LordTempest]

After ww2, Russia became the antagonist of history. I wonder what would happen if they are humiliated in the current conflict and then allowed to enter the "Western alliance" as an equal partner.

I have argued many times that not incorporating Russia into NATO in the early 1990's was a massive historical mistake on the part of the west, on par with the implementation of shock therapy.

 

[VTs]

I have argued many times that not incorporating Russia into NATO in the early 1990's was a massive historical mistake on the part of the west, on par with the implementation of shock therapy.

Are you implying it was NATO that prevented Russia from joining? Could it not be possible that Russia did not want to join ?

 

[Kazanov]

Are you implying it was NATO that prevented Russia from joining? Could it not be possible that Russia did not want to join ?

Spoiler: Russia & NATO wikipedia

The idea of Russia becoming a NATO member has at different times been floated by both Western and Russian leaders, as well as some experts. No serious discussions were ever held.[156]

In February 1990, while negotiating German reunification at the end of the Cold War with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev said that "You say that NATO is not directed against us, that it is simply a security structure that is adapting to new realities ... therefore, we propose to join NATO." However, Baker dismissed the possibility as a "dream".[157] During a series of interviews with filmmaker Oliver Stone, President Vladimir Putin told him that he floated the possibility of Russia joining NATO to President Bill Clinton when he visited Moscow in 2000.[158][159]

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish Prime Minister who served as NATO Secretary General from 2009 to 2014, said in 2019 that "Once Russia can show it is upholding democracy and human rights, NATO can seriously consider its membership."[159] According to Rasmussen, in the early days of Putin's presidency around 2000–2001, Putin made many statements that suggested he was favorable to the idea of Russia joining NATO.[159]

In response to a March 2009 suggestion by Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski that Russia join NATO, the Russian envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, stated that Russia had not ruled that out as a future possibility but that it instead preferred to keep practical limited cooperation with NATO, adding that Russia wanted to be NATO's "partner" provided that Georgia (with which Russia had a war the previous year) and Ukraine did not join the alliance.[123]

In early 2010, the suggestion was repeated in an open letter co-written by German defense experts. They posited that Russia was needed in the wake of an emerging multi-polar world in order for NATO to counterbalance emerging Asian powers.[160]

In a 2019 interview with Time Magazine, Sergey Karaganov a close advisor to Putin, considers not allowing Russia to join NATO was the “one of the worst mistakes in political history, It automatically put Russia and the West on a collision course, eventually sacrificing Ukraine”.[161]

On Nov. 4, 2021 George Robertson, a former UK Labour defence secretary who led NATO between 1999 and 2003, told The Guardian that Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join Nato?’...They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said. The account agrees with what Putin said in an interview with David Frost in a BBC interview just before Putin was inaugurated as President of Russia for the first time in 2000. He told Frost it was hard for him to visualize NATO as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilized world.”[162]

Russia could have joined NATO, But then Russia went full r..rogue state and started their Crimean shenanigans.

 

[VTs]

Yes I read the Wikipedia article too. My read on it (and what I remember from the time) is that the West was willing to talk after Russia showed it would live up to human rights requirements. Choices Russia made, closed the door on that possibility.

 

[pithorr]

Guys, don't be ridiculous. NATO has always been the anti-Russia pact. Because who else might countries like the UK or Germany be afraid of?
Any "talks" or "proposals" were no more than only trolling, both by Russia and NATO countries.

 

[Rubidium]

Guys, don't be ridiculous. NATO has always been the anti-Russia pact. Because who else might countries like the UK or Germany be afraid of?
Any "talks" or "proposals" were no more than only trolling, both by Russia and NATO countries.

People tend to forget it now, but there was very real concern, especially in places like France but elsewhere as well, about what a reunited Germany might do. Reader's Digest (about as boring and mainstream an American magazine as you could get) had a December 1990 cover story titled "Can We Trust the Germans?"

Remember that folks' last experience with a united Germany had been the one that had started two World Wars in 25 years, and that the generation in power in most countries had personally experienced World War II (Mitterrand was President of France in 1989 and had been a POW during the war, Thatcher in the UK had been in school during the Blitz, Bush in the US had been a naval aviator in the Pacific, etc.). So there were personal reasons for concern as well.

But NATO in general had something of a crisis of identity during the 1990s, and there were calls to dissolve it as an outdated Cold War relic.

 

[Director]

I remember a French diplomat saying, at the time of German reunification, "Every time they unify, twenty years later they march on Paris."

But I also remember Churchill urging Britain into the EU as a way to prevent a third pan-European war.

Had Russia been willing to join NATO, and had it satisfied the conditions the other nations would have imposed, then... predicting the outcome gets really murky. I can see any outcome from Russia being a good EU member to Russia exploiting its NATO membership for military advantage.

I do believe that NATO and the EU have been great forces for economic, political and military stability in Europe.

 

[Abdul Goatherd]

I remember a French diplomat saying, at the time of German reunification, "Every time they unify, twenty years later they march on Paris."

Well, as the old saying goes, NATO was created to "keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down".

 

[VTs]

2 out of 3 ain't bad

 

[IsadorBG]

Well yes, Imperial order ensures that peace is enforced. It's how empires work. If they didn't they'd collapse. Like Rome did, or the HRE, or Russia or what have you.