Decision-Making in the Atlantic Alliance and its Parliamentary Dimension

Abstract

Among intergovernmental institutions NATO takes pride of place. Over the years it developed into a permanent consultation machinery for its members and through its 'Partnership for Peace' (PfP) programme extended security cooperation throughout the Euro-Atlantic area, which now includes the republics emerging from the former Soviet Union. Its integrated military structure provided a role for all allies and achieved impressive results in terms of common practices, joint operating procedures and rules of engagement. Even in operations which were not commanded by NATO as such, but conducted on the basis of a coalition of the able and willing, NATO procedures were the fabric facilitating joint action. This paper analyses the characteristics of the NATO system and its decision-making with special emphasis on the parliamentary dimension. For illustrating the parliamentary dimension, three case studies are selected which dominated NATO's decision-making in the last decade: the enlargement process, Kosovo as an example of a NATO military intervention, and the adaptation of NATO's Strategic Concept (with special emphasis on out-of-area operations). In each case, special attention is given to the role of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) and how it tries to influence NATO decision-making. In each case it was apparent that parliamentary control in the strict sense of the word exclusively rested with national parliaments. In this respect NATO was not different from other intergovernmental organisations. Where it differed, however, was US leadership, the emphasis on multilateral review procedures which put national commitments in a comprehensive system of defence planning and a well-oiled bureaucratic system capable of dealing with crises in problem-solving. The international parliamentary dimension grew into a consensus-building network of committee meetings, visits and reports within the NATO PA which, until 2001, was called the North Atlantic Assembly, providing national parliamentarians with important information they could use in their own parliamentary debates. The contacts between parliamentarians from Europe and North America in particular, provided a basis of common understanding and assessment which became essential in mustering political support for the major decisions taken by the North Atlantic Council.