NATO enlargement and the failure of the cooperative security mindset

Abstract

In the 1990s and 2000s, as NATO enlargement became a reality, scholars commented on the socializing influence of NATO, predicting a transformation of security identities. Was NATO successful in institutionalizing self-restraint and cooperative security among its new members and partners? We contend that it was successful so long as threats to transatlantic security remained low. When states perceive that the threat is increasing, however, more traditional conceptions of national identity displace the cooperative security model. While a great deal of institutional learning happened through the process of NATO accession and partnership building in the past two decades, the socialization process stopped short of transforming new members’ security mindsets. Our main contribution, then, is to provide an accurate picture of NATO’s influence in terms of reshaping the transatlantic security community and to analyze the different versions of NATO that were proposed in the post-Cold War era.