European Mutual Self Defence:
Latin-American Copyright?
Remco López
Bachelor Project #10: The History We Live In Mentor: dr. Claire Vergerio
Second Reader: Rebekah Tromble Word Count: 8.431
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Inhoud
Introduction ... 3 Definitions ... 4 Why is it important? ... 4 Literature Review ... 5 Conceptual Framework ... 6 Research Design ... 7 Thesis outline ... 8 I.Historical Context ... 9Latin America (Rio Pact) ... 9
The Panama Treaty (1826) ... 9
The Rio Pact ... 10
Europe ... 12
Dunkirk Treaty ... 12
Brussels Treaty ... 13
II.The North Atlantic Treaty Organization ... 15
Creation ... 15
Negotiation on Article 5 ... 16
Comparison of the creation, text and meaning of the treaties ... 18
Creation ... 18
Textual phrasing ... 19
Meaning ... 21
Conclusion ... 23
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Introduction
In 1949 twelve countries signed the Washington Treaty, otherwise known as the founding treaty for the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). The goal of the treaty was to unite the Western world against the possible threat of the communist Soviet Union (Grady, 2002, p. 176). Even though Europe had already united within the Brussels Treaty, they knew that any defensive alliance would be useless without the involvement of the United States. The ‘heart’ of the NATO Treaty lies within Article 5:
‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that…each of them…will assist the Party so attacked’ (NATO Treaty, 1949, Article 5)
In this Article the concept of ‘Mutual Self Defence’ (MSD) is the key. If one of the Member States is attacked, it is considered an attack against all. Since then, this concept has been branded European: almost every book regarding the subject focusses on the influence of the Brussels Treaty on the creation of the NATO Treaty. The puzzle here, is that the United States entered one other MSD treaty prior to NATO, the Rio Pact in 1947, which also contained an MSD clause. The question here is where the concept of MSD originates from. Is it solely based on the Brussels Treaty, Article 4 (Grady, 2002, p. 173), making it a purely European concept? Did Latin America influence the creation of the European concept of MSD? And if it did, how did it develop within Latin America, leading up to the Rio Pact? The research question for this Bachelor Project is as follows: ‘To what extent did the principle of ‘Mutual Self Defence’ development in Latin America influence the creation of Article 5 NATO?’.
This topic is not new to either the field of Historical Research or International Relations. Yet, most of the research that has been done on this topic does not focus on the Rio Pact. It simply mentions it as a small possible influence for the NATO Treaty (Grady, 2002, p. 177), yet never credits it for being a major influence nor explains to which degree it has influenced the NATO Treaty. By doing so, it decreases the value of the Rio Pact and with it, the development of MSD and legal concepts in Latin America. This research hopes to contribute to the awareness of the importance of Latin American legal history and development.
4 Definitions
The most important concept that needs to be defined for this research question is ‘Mutual Self Defence’. It is a concept that has a lot of different meanings; it could apply to for example, bilateral agreements or it could apply to Non-State actors. The concept of MSD is a part of the broader concept of ‘Collective security’, which is defined as: ‘Security arrangements between two or more states to provide for mutual self-defence in the face of aggression’ (Samuels, 2006, p. 138). For this research, I will be defining Mutual Self Defence (MSD) as an agreement between multiple state actors, multiple meaning more than three, thus ignoring bilateral and trilateral agreements. I will focus namely on the concepts used in the Brussels Treaty, the Rio Pact and the Washington Treaty, respectively Articles 4, 3 and 5, concerning MSD. It is important to note that all these articles or treaties have a few lines dedicated to staying in line with the United Nations Charter Article 51 on self-defence: these parts will not be quoted nor used, as this research does not focus on the relationship with the United Nations.
Why is it important?
There are two main reasons why it is important to answer this question. First of all, because this concept is mainly used to back up a wrong historical narrative: namely a Europe-centered one. Even one of the most important international theories, the English School, which sought to combine realist and liberal theorist points, is evidence of this statement. The English School orthodoxy is based, for example, for a large proportion on the belief that international society was an outgrowth of 17th century Europe. Being allowed to enter the European ‘club’ was what made a country civilized (Schulz, 2014, p. 838). By answering my research question I want to investigate if the concept of MSD is indeed European or Latin American and thus proving that not every concept in International Law is originated in Europe.
Besides the argument of problematizing the Europeanisation thesis , it is also important to pay more attention to the legal history of other continents and their contribution to the international system. Even in Latin America, lawyers barely consider the existence of a Latin American mode of thinking about International Law and its concepts; they ultimately defer to ‘great European scholars’ on the content of definitions (Lorca, 2006, p. 288). It is crucial to highlight the impact that Latin America has made on the international system, thus giving importance to answering my research question.
5 Literature Review
Alejandro Alvarez laid out a very useful foundation for this research in his article ‘Latin America and International Law’. Written in 1909, he describes the transition that Latin America went through, going from colonized countries to sovereign states. Even though the 18th and 19th century was a turbulent time with many border wars, Latin American states did find a lot of methods to cooperate with each other through treaties (Alvarez, 1909, p. 273). The first call for a confederation dates back to 1822, leading to the first treaty signed in 1826 by Mexico, Central America (now: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama), Colombia and Peru in which they already agreed that together they had to maintain their independence (Alvarez, 1909, p. 277). The first brick for Mutual Self Defence was laid down. The cooperation that started in 1822, aiming for a confederation of Latin American states, eventually lead to the Pan-American Conferences in 1906 (Alvarez, 1909, p. 330), and as we now know, to Rio in 1947. I will expand more on the development of MSD in Latin America in the chapter regarding the Historical Context.
As for the NATO side of the story, Grady provides an article regarding the ‘past, present and uncertain future’ of Article 5 NATO. The reason that the article by Grady was selected for this project was because he is one of the most important authors on this topic outlining the different contributions to Article 5 NATO. Grady states that there were three mayor treaties that gave way to the formation of NATO and of Article 5; the Atlantic Charter, the Brussels Treaty and the Rio Pact (Grady, 2002, p. 171- 177). He argues that Article 5 is a combination of the textual framework of the Rio Pact and the Brussels Treaty, yet does not define how this came to be. The major difference between the two consists of the fact that the Rio Pact (Article 6), theoretically, gives its members a legal justification for pre-emptive attacks against a potential aggressor; the Brussels Treaty does not give this latitude (Grady, 2002, p. 179). This still leaves open the question as to which extent Rio (and by extend Latin America) actually influenced Article 5 and the creation of a European Mutual Self Defence.
Another author that focusses on the creation of Article 5 NATO is Kaplan, proving the necessity of this research. Kaplan emphasizes that the ‘Rio language did not satisfy the European partners’ and that a compromise had to be sought between the Americans (who wanted the Rio language) and the Europeans (Kaplan, 2001, p. 2). He states that the final outcome of the intense debates over the wording of Article 5 resulted in a blending of the Rio Pact with the Brussels Treaty and an awkward arrangement. He emphasizes the difficult of coming to a consensus by stating that; ‘It required twelve lines, as opposed to four lines in the Brussels Pact, to bring
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Article 5 to a conclusion’ (Kaplan, 2001, p. 3),. When Kaplan enters more into context, he focuses almost purely on the Brussels Pact, neglecting the influence of the Rio Pact.
Conceptual Framework
An historian wants to know why a sequence of happenings took place as it did; for this, the historian has to link specific experiences, one to the other, with the aid of appropriate generalizations (Highman, 1954, p. 339). What is important to realize here is that ‘the circulation of concepts across a space defined by a multiplicity of translations…cannot be adequately grasped without recognizing that the concept has itself been elaborated through a long history of translations.’ (Moyn & Sartori, 2015, p. 12). In other words, we cannot just compare the articles in these treaties to find the similarities. We must look at the development of these concepts within their respective continents and then analyse how this idea travelled; ‘while the genesis of ideas will remain important , global intellectual histories will profit from looking for the moments when ideas begin to lose their association with one part of the world and become common property’. (Hill, 2013, p. 153). These descriptions are crucial to this research; the historical context aims to provide the multiplicity of development within the respective continents and to uncover the way in which the MSD concept travelled from Latin America to Europe.
A lot has been written on the research on the ‘travel of ideas’; all writers with their own theories on how to prove or state these ‘travels’. Each of these theories contributes to the present research, although each of them also has their own limitations. Rosenau argues for the theory of ‘linkage politics’, with the focus on recurring sequence behaviour that originates in one system and is reacted to in another (Rosenau, 1980). Although Rosenau focusses on the national reaction on international affairs and not on transcontinental reactions, the contribution here is the focus on the reaction through different systems. Was the creation of MSD in Europe to a certain degree a consequence or reaction to the creation of MSD in Latin America?
An important contribution is also made by Galton on the non-independence of units. This is also known as ‘Galton’s problem’, meaning that in comparative studies, unites are seldom independent of each other (Gilardi, 2012, p. 2). In other words, the MSD in Europe and Latin America were probably not formed independently of each other, giving reason for this research. In this research I am investigating a concrete policy that is being adopted by another institution, or a ‘model’ as Weyland would define it, which would normally be adopted without mayor adaptations (Gilardi, 2012, p. 8).
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Gilardi focusses on Weyland because in his research he differentiates between ‘guidelines’ or ‘principles’ that are adopted or ‘models’, a concrete policy. This contributes to this research, because it is important to keep in mind while comparing the MSD clauses that we are examining how the model of Latin America influenced the model of Europe, not just as a guideline or principle, but as concrete wording. The question here is why in this case, the ‘model’ was changed and to what degree.
Research Design
To be able to answer my research question I will first take a short look at the development of MSD in Latin America in treaties in the 19th century, namely in the historical context. The reason why a significant part of this project focusses on historical context is because of the conceptual framework; the context and history of the creation of the Rio Pact gives greater insight into what was meant by the wording and what the purpose of creation was. This provides the tools to be able to compare these with the European historical context, creation and wording and thus with NATO.
In order to be able to do this, I must narrow down the case selection. For this research, aside from the treaties mentioned above, I will look at the treaty of 1826 and 1906 for the development in Latin America, specifically at the Mutual Self Defence Articles, as primary sources. I will also use the interview record with Theodore Achilles, one of the drafters of the NATO Treaty, which will form a significant baseline for American influence on Article 5 NATO. The limitation of this research, given the amount of time, lacks a thorough research on the development of Mutual Self Defence in Europe, prior to World War II; solely focusing on the possibility of a Latin American influence on the content of Article 5 NATO.
The outline of rest of the project will be as follows: in the first section I will lay down the foundation for this research by examining the historical context in which the Rio Pact, the Brussels Treaty and the NATO Treaty were established, specifically the MSD clause. In the second section I will examine the creation of the NATO, followed by an analysis of the negotiations for the wording of Article 5 (the MSD Article). With this analysis I will be able to see the influence from either the Brussels Treaty or Rio Pact. I will conclude with analysing the textual wording and meaning of this Article in comparison to the Brussels Treaty and Rio Pact.
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The comparisons will form a basis for determining to what degree the United States got its way in the formation of Article 5 NATO; as mentioned before, Kaplan states that the compromise between the Americans and Europeans finally lead to the wording of Article 5 NATO (Kaplan, 2001, p. 2). With this, I will be able to draw some conclusions on the influence of the Rio Pact and thus Latin American influence, since the Rio Pact is a result of a century of Latin American development regarding MSD. This will lead to a conclusion on whether the European MSD concept is indeed, Latin American ‘copyright’.
Thesis outline
Chapter 1 (Historical Context) is divided into two subchapters: Latin America (Rio Pact) and Europe (Brussels Treaty). In the subchapter Latin America I look into the Panama Treaty and the Rio Pact and in the subchapter Europe I look into the Dunkirk Treaty and the Brussels Treaty. Chapter 2 (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) is divided into three subchapters: creation, negotiation on Article 5 and the comparison of the creation, text and meaning. In the conclusion I summarize the argument made and conclude the thesis.
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I.
Historical Context
In this chapter I will lay down the foundation for this research by examining the historical context in which the Rio Pact, the Brussels Treaty and the NATO Treaty were established. As mentioned in the Research Design I will focus on the treaty of 1826 and 1906 for Latin America.
Latin America (Rio Pact)
The Panama Treaty (1826)The ‘New World’ was still divided after its decolonialization, yet they had common grounds which connected them; a pride of independence, the love of liberty and an eager striving for the formation of a political entity which would protect them against all attacks on their sovereignty and maintain peace among themselves. In other words, they had jointly decided never to lose their independence, liberty or equality again. America should be ‘left free to follow the path of evolution most in keeping with its destinies’ (Alvarez, 1909, p. 275).
The idea back then, while they still had the fear of foreign invasion, was to create a confederation, which would not only serve as a protection against European countries but also as a harmonization tool for their domestic and foreign interests and conflicts between them. This idea, to begin with, was revolutionary and one with few precedents, of which none European. In order to accomplish this confederation, congresses were convened to which all Spanish-American states were invited (Alvarez, 1909, p. 276). Even though almost all treaties that were a result of those congresses were not ratified, the idea that was represented in those treaties does give insight in the development of concepts in Latin America.
The first congress that was convened was the congress of Panama in 1826, which was only attended by Mexico, Central America (now: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama), Colombia and Peru. This congress was seen by many as the beginning of ‘Pan Americanism’ (Reza, 2013, p.1). One of the main goals of the congress was to secure their liberty and independence (Reza, 2010, p. 319). Article 2 being the heart of the treaty: ‘the object of this pact is to maintain defensively and offensively, if necessary, the
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sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of all and each of the Confederated Republics of America, against all foreign domination’1 (Reza, 2010, p. 320)
Article 2 created the objective of the treaty while Article 3 could be seen as their MSD clause: ‘…obligate and commit themselves to mutually defend each other from any attack that might endanger the political existence of the other, and to employ against these enemies of the independence all their influence, resources and land/sea forces…’2 (Reza, 2010, p. 320) This MSD clause can be seen as very strong, solid. It obligates all Member Parties to respond to threats with their full capability when the political existence of another Member Party is at stake. Although never ratified other than by Colombia, it does show the will of the Latin American states to form a strong unified force against the outside world. It is here that we can
see the beginning of the road to Rio.
The Rio Pact
After the Panama Treaty as mentioned above, various other treaties of the same nature were intended; Congress of Lima (1847), Congress of Chile (1856), Washington (1856) and Lima (1864), but those were also never ratified (Serra, 1984, p. 294). The real progress came when all independent American countries gathered in Washington in 1889 for the ‘First Interamerican Conference’. There were three more conferences of the same kind up until World War I, but the matter of MSD started playing a concrete part again at the Buenos Aires Conference of 1936. The final treaty signed at the Buenos Aires Conference (Interamerican Conference on the Consolidation of Peace) declares the existence of a solidarity democracy and that any act that might disturb the peace of the American continent affects each and every one of the American countries (Serra, 1984, p. 294).
This solidarity was reaffirmed at the Eight Interamerican Conference in Lima in 1938 with the ‘Declaration of the Principles of American Solidarity’, again at the Conference of Panama in
1 Original Spanish text: ‘El objeto de este pacto perpetuo será sostener en común, defensiva y ofensivamente,
si fuere necesario, la soberanía e independencia de todas y cada una de las potencias confederadas de América contra toda dominación extranjera’
2 Original Spanish tekst: ‘Las Partes Contratantes se obligan y comprometen a defenderse mutuamente de todo
ataque que ponga en peligro su existencia política, y a emplear contra los enemigos de la independencia de todas o algunas de ellas, todo su influjo, recursos y fuerzas marítimas y terrestres, según los contingentes con que cada una está obligada, por la convención separada de esta misma fecha, a concurrir al sostenimiento de la causa común’
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1939 with the ‘Declaration of Continental Solidarity’. After the German invasion of the Netherlands and France in 1940, American leaders summoned another reunion in Havana. Here, through the Resolution XV, they stated that;
‘if acts of aggression, or preparations of acts of aggression by a Non-American state against the integrity or inviolability of the territory, sovereignty or political independence of an American state are detected, the signatories … organize themselves through defensive cooperation and the help that is needed against said aggressions’3 (“Asistencia Reciproca y Cooperacion Defensiva de las Naciones Americanas”, 2014)
In other words, the Second World War was a major catalysator for InterAmerican cooperation, relighting this fire after almost a century of not being able to ratify any treaties. After the United States entered the war, as a result of the attack of Japan on Pearl Harbour, the American countries met again in Rio, cutting all diplomatic ties with Germany, Italy and Japan. It was followed by a conference in Mexico ‘Acta de Chapultepec’, where the American countries promised each other to uphold their wishes for unity and solidarity until they could actually form a regional system for collective security and MSD (Serra, 1984, p. 295). It was this that lead them to sign the Rio Pact (also known as: Tratado InterAmericana de Asistencia Recíproca) on September 2nd, 1947.
The heart of the Rio Pact, its MSD clause, resides in Article 3:
‘The High Contracting Parties agree that an armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack’ (Rio Pact, 1947, Article 3)
Although this clause may seem strong (which it is), it is limited by Article 6 of the treaty, which states that for non-armed attacks, an extracontinental conflict or other situations the Organ of Consultation must decide which measures to take (Rio Pact, 1947, Article 6). It is worth noting that they state ‘meeting the attack’, not mentioning in which way. This seems trivial, yet as we
3 Original Spanish text: En el caso de que se ejecuten actos de agresión, o de que haya razones para creer que
se prepara una agresión por parte de un Estado no americano contra la integridad e inviolabilidad del territorio, contra la soberanía o la independencia política de un Estado americano, los Estados signatarios de la presente Declaración consultarán entre sí para concertar las medidas que convenga tomar.
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will see later on, provides difficulty for their influence on the NATO Treaty. Rio, being ratified by all signatories, is in full effect. The debate regarding the effectivity of this treaty is left to other researches. Now that I have outlined the historical context of the Rio Pact, I will analyse that of the Brussels Treaty in order to be able to compare the NATO Treaty to both of them.
Europe
Dunkirk Treaty
The Brussels Treaty is a treaty between Great Britain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. This treaty held great significance for Western Europe in that it laid the groundwork for the Western European Union and more organisations regarding European unity (Grady, 2002, p. 173). Yet, before I look into the MSD clause of this treaty, it is important, just as it was with the Rio Pact, to know where the origin of the treaty lies, in order to be able to analyse what the textual meaning of the treaty actually intends to mean.
The Brussels Treaty grew out of an earlier treaty; the Dunkirk Treaty of 1947, between Great Britain and France (Grady, 2002, p. 173). The reason the parties stated for this alliance was to be prepared against a revival of German aggression (Beckett, 1950, p. 18), yet some state that that was a pretext used to defend against the USSR (Trachtenberg, 1998, p. 1). The parties also stated their belief in the preamble, that a treaty must be formed between all parties which hold responsibilities in relation to Germany in order to keep it in check (Bantas & Beldiman, 2017, p. 377).
According to the definition section laid down in this research, a bilateral agreement cannot be seen as a MSD agreement (3 or more countries, is the criteria). It does however have similarities that might have given a framework for the Brussels criteria. The Dunkirk Treaty is relatively short, with Article 1 stating that in the case of a growing threat of Germany the Parties will consult with each other and other Powers who have responsibilities in relation to Germany about the possible course of action (Beckett, 1950, p. 19)
It is Article II that would hold the MSD clause, if it were indeed a treaty between more than 3 countries. It states that should either of the Parties become involved in hostilities with Germany, the other Party will at once give all the military and other support and assistance in their power (Beckett, 1950, p. 19).
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It was indeed the hope for Great Britain and France that the United States or/and the Soviet Union might have also acceded to the treaty, giving it more backbone. When this did not happen, they joined forces with Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg in the Brussels Treaty in 1948 (Grady, 2002, p. 173).
Brussels Treaty
As mentioned above, one of the possible explanations for the creation of the Brussels Treaty was the fact that Great Britain and France expected the support of either the United States or the Soviet Union and when that didn’t happen, searched for a backbone of their treaty elsewhere. Yet, there is also one other possible explanation.
Theodore Achilles was one of the people who was assigned to negotiating the NATO Treaty on behalf of the United States (he was assigned to the working group). In his memoirs he stated that the United States was aware that a European union without American support would not be enough; ‘only a moral commitment by the United States to do whatever was necessary, including to fight if necessary, to restore and maintain a free and sovereign Europe could create that confidence and energy within and respect elsewhere’ (Achilles, 1992, p. 12). However, the United States policy became: ‘Show what you’re prepared to do for yourselves and each other, and then we’ll think about what we might do’ (Achilles, 1992, p. 14).
In reply to this, Great Britain hoped to construct multiple bilateral agreements between them and France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. Yet, having just signed the Rio Pact, the United States suggested that a similar collective defence arrangement between Great Britain, France and the Benelux countries would be far preferable to a network of bilateral alliances. This resulted in the Brussels Treaty (Achilles, 1992, p. 13).
The heart of the Brussels Treaty, the MSD clause, is located in Article IV:
‘If any of the Parties should be the object of an armed attack in Europe, the other Parties will afford the Parties attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power.’ (Brussels Treaty, 1948, Article 4)
Yet, here we find no Article (such as in the Rio Pact) on the subject of non-armed attacks. This treaty is also ratified by each signatory.
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In sum, the American states, although divided after decolonialization, decided to work together to never lose their independence, liberty or equality. They started cooperating with the goal of forming a confederation yet this idea was later abandoned. Consequently they cooperated through many unratified treaties until they United States joined them in the Rio Pact as a result of the Second World War. The Brussels Treaty is a product of European cooperation as a consequence of the Dunkirk Treaty, as a response to the Soviet communist threat.
This historical context, as stated in the conceptual framework ‘is crucial to this research; the historical context aims to provide the multiplicity of development within the respective continents and to uncover the way in which the MSD concept travelled from Latin America to Europe’. Now that I have analysed the historical context of the MSD concept in both continents, it is time to examine the ‘travelling’ of the concept by examining NATO.
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II. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
I have now outlined the summary of the historical context of the creation of the Rio Pact (which origin lays in the Panama Treaty of 1826) and of the Brussels Treaty (which origin lays in the Dunkirk Treaty of 1947). Now, I turn to NATO.
Creation
The Washington Treaty (or North Atlantic Treaty) was signed on April 4th, 1949 in Washington by all 12 founding member states4. The European states had already united under the Brussels Treaty, yet knew that ‘any defensive alliance would be useless against the power of the Soviet Union without the direct involvement of the United States’ (Grady, 2002, p. 175).
While the Brussels Treaty was being finalized and signed, the pressure from the Soviet Union increased every day in Europe. A coup in Prague, the murder of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Czechoslovakia, increasing pressure on Norway and Finland to enter a ‘friendship’ alliance with Stalin; enough reasons for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the United Kingdom, Bevin, to act quickly (Cook, 1989, p. 125). The same day the Brussels Treaty negotiations were completed, he contacted Washington: ‘The most effective steps would be to take very early steps; before Norway goes under, to conclude…a regional Atlantic Approaches Pact of Mutual Assistance, in which all of the countries directly threatened by a Russian move to the Atlantic could participate. We could at once inspire the necessary confidence to consolidate the West against Soviet infiltration…the alternative is to repeat our experience with Hitler and to witness helplessly the slow deterioration of our position’ (Cook, 1989, p. 125)
Taking into account all the above named threats, this time there was no internal debate in Washington. They directly invited Bevin over to start discussions on establishing an Atlantic security system, together with the Canadians. It was Bevins intention to make this trilateral talk lead as quickly as possible to a union with all Western Union powers (Cook, 1989, p. 128). The Pentagon talks lasted just eleven days, concluding in five recommendations, of which three are relevant for this research: first, thirteen countries would be invited to join in a negotiation for a collective defence agreement for the North Atlantic. Second, the President would issue a statement that the United States would consider an attack on signatories of the Brussels Treaty
4 Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United
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an attack on itself. Thirdly, they would offer similar support to countries joining the treaty (Cook, 1989, p. 131). It is important to note that they also agreed that the basis for the NATO Treaty would be the Rio Pact, reflecting the fact that most European countries, who preferred the Brussels Treaty, were not yet sitting at the discussion table. This is evident given the fact that, as later argued, the Europeans were not as content with the Rio Pact as the Americans were. Even though the talks had concluded, it still lasted three months before the European powers were actually invited to the table, but when they did, it lead to the signing of the Washington Treaty.
Negotiation on Article 5
Now that we know how the NATO was created, lets zoom in on the Article that matters for this research; Article 5, the MSD clause;
‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.’ (NATO Treaty, 1949, Article 5)
Before I analyse the meaning of this Article in comparison to Brussels and Rio to compare the influence from both on the consequence of the text itself, lets first turn towards the negotiations that were needed to create a consensus on this article. The negotiations regarding all articles and the complete treaty took place in super-secret Pentagon talks Working-Groups. The United States still stated here that ‘approval of any treaty by the United States Senate would be greatly facilitated if the Rio text were adhered to as closely as possible’ (Cook, 1989, p. 205); yet this was considerably short of what was needed or wanted by the Europeans. They wanted to use the Brussels Treaty. This created two basic models for Article 5: the Rio Pact model and the Brussels Treaty model. The big difference in text being that Rio states that Parties shall respond in ‘assist in meeting the attack’ while Brussels states ‘afford the party so attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power’. The Brussels Treaty, in the eyes of the Europeans, had a more urging core, a binding commitment to go to war. This directly proves the difficulty and as Don Cook states: ‘Not since the ratification of the Constitution of the United States have
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so many men spent so much time drafting and debating so few words’. (Cook, 1989, p. 204). The text from Rio was first altered to an early draft by the Americans which phrased:
‘The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, …shall assist the …so attacked by taking, individually and in concert with the other Parties such action as it deems necessary to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’ (Cook, 1989, p. 214)
As stated above, the Europeans were not content with this draft, as it had too many similarities with the Rio Pact and it did not reflect the criteria they found most important, namely the urgency and the devotement to be able to respond swiftly to a threat. The wording of ‘such action as it deems necessary’ felt too ‘soft’ (Achilles, 1992, p. 22). To the Europeans, this took out the heart of the treaty, the binding commitment to go to war. What if Congress disagreed about the action that was necessary? Could the United States even handle quickly with this phrasing? It also caused sufficient internal trouble; the first wording, chosen by the Americans was ‘as may be necessary’, already to the dislike of the Europeans (Cook, 1989, p. 206) since this might open the way for needless debate at a moment of crisis. The Americans on the Working Group wanted it to create a bit of governmental flexibility. The Senate wanted it completely removed and replaced by a clause about ‘constitutional process’ (Cook, 1989, p. 208). Eventually, the Senate and the Working Group decided on ‘deems necessary’, which was, although not enthusiastically, accepted by the Europeans. They only did accept it because eventually the United States agreed to insert the word ‘forthwith’ before ‘such action’ and ‘including the use of armed force’ (Achilles, 1992, p. 23). Now the final part read:
‘will assist…so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’ (NATO Treaty, 1949, Article 5)
On this phrasing, all parties agreed. It is important to note that it was not an easy internal move for the United States to incorporate ‘including the use of armed forces’ into the Article text. There was a lot of resistance from the Senate regarding the use of ‘military’ or words compared to that term and against ‘forthwith’, since both could be read as ‘an attempt to stampede the United States Senate’. It eventually required the participation of President Truman to calm the
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Senate and to incorporate not ‘military’ but ‘including the use of armed forces’ between commas (Cook, 1989, p. 214).
There was also a lot of debate regarding the actual reach of the treaty, territorially speaking. This was resolved in Article 6, which defines the boundaries of the treaty (Achilles, 1992, p. 23), yet since this is not relevant to this research, I shall not delve further into that topic. Thus far in this chapter, I have examined the creation of the NATO and zoomed into the negotiations that were needed to establish Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. This proves to be crucial in order to be able to compare this treaty with the Rio Pact and the Brussels Treaty. After all, the context of a concept provides for the analysis of the development of said concept.
Comparison of the creation, text and meaning of the treaties
Creation
First of all, lets shortly compare the conditions each of the three treaties had in order to be created, in order to address the similarities or differences each of these treaties had during their creation and being able to compare them. The Rio Pact was a direct consequence of the Japanese aggression versus the United States and thus versus the American continent. It was indeed a development in the way the American countries reacted to external threats, a tradition started in 1826 when they united against the threat of a new European invasion under the Panama Treaty. A possible threat was thus the cause for uniting under a MSD treaty. For Europe the cause was similar yet marginally different. The Brussels Treaty was not a reaction to an aggression from an external Party, but a way to actually prevent this from happening. It was on the one hand a way of showing the United States that Europe was able to unite and on the other hand a way of showing the Soviet Union that they would stick up for each other. It was a development from the Dunkirk Treaty, which was more focused against a possible German aggression.
The creation of NATO was a reaction to the communist threat provided by the Soviet Union on European territory, yet also not as a response to a direct aggression such as the Rio Pact. The NATO Treaty can be seen as a consequence to the creation of Brussels, as it was the logic step to take; yet the United States have made it clear that the Rio Pact did form the main basis for constructing the NATO Treaty. As far as creation criteria go, we can state that both treaties have had a mayor influence on the creation of NATO and that an outside threat, be it the Soviet Union, Germany or Europe, can act as a catalysator for uniting a continent under an MSD treaty.
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Now let us look to the textual comparison of the three different Articles;
- Rio: ‘The High Contracting Parties agree that an armed attack by any State against an American State shall be considered as an attack against all the American States and, consequently, each one of the said Contracting Parties undertakes to assist in meeting the attack’ (Rio Pact, 1947, Article 3)
- Brussels: ‘If any of the Parties should be the object of an armed attack in Europe, the other Parties will afford the Parties attacked all the military and other aid and assistance in their power.’ (Brussels Treaty, 1947, Article 4)
- NATO: The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all; and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, …will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.’ (NATO Treaty, 1949, Article 5)
The central language in Article 5 ends up being very similar to both the Rio Pact and the Brussels Treaty. The drafters were interested in how this Article would operate and what kind of obligations and responsibilities member states would have through this Article (Grady, 2002, p. 177). What directly resonates is that the NATO Article needed a lot more words to be able to get to an MSD clause than both other treaties, due to the troubling negotiations and having to please all signatories. When comparing the textual element of the articles, we can directly see that the NATO Treaty includes the same part as the Rio Pact regarding the way an attack is seen, namely that an attack on another Party is to be considered an attack against all Parties (Grady, 2002, p. 177) while the Brussels Treaty doesn’t make such a claim. The Brussels Treaty simply states that if one Party is attacked, the other Parties shall aid that Party. It may seem a trivial difference, but the phrasing of the Rio/NATO Treaty arguably suggests a more unified solidarity than the Brussels wording. The difference between ‘feeling’ attacked and aiding a country that is attacked, marks a crucial difference.
The NATO Article continues ‘if such an armed attack occurs, each of them will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties…’. As mentioned previously, the word ‘forthwith’ means a great deal here, as it was crucial for the
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Europeans that the wording of the Article carried some level of urgency, hoping to avoid internal discussions to delay the aid. It is therefore peculiar to notice that the phrasing of the Brussels Treaty article does not carry the same sense of urgency that the Europeans required from the Americans. This of course explainable given the fact that the Europeans were simply scared that the United States, in case of a Party invoking Article 5, would end up in a Senatorial process and thus delaying the aid.
The NATO Article is the only one out of the three that emphasizes ‘individually and in concert with, whereas Rio states ‘each one …undertakes’ and Brussels ‘other Parties will afford the Parties attacked…’. It seems as if the NATO Article provides for more multilateral actions, while the Rio Pact focusses on the individual countries response and the Brussels Treaty on the cooperative response. Of course each of these Articles still creates the mutual obligation of providing aid for each other, yet this part of the phrasing truly seems a combination of both the Rio and Brussels wording.
Article 5 NATO ends with ‘such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’. For the sake of the analysis, lets split this up into multiple parts. First ‘such action as it deems necessary’. It is mentioned in the chapter ‘Negotiation on Article 5’ of this thesis that this wording had already caused sufficient internal American trouble and it still does weaken the wording of the whole Article. Both the Rio Pact and Brussels Treaty do not have a similar ‘boundary’ to the possible action to be undertaken in their Article. ‘As it deems necessary’ simply leaves a lot of room for subjectivity on what the attacked Party needs; in this phrasing there is no influence from neither treaty, but only from the United States Senate.
The second part is the part that reads ‘including the use of armed force’. As was established in ‘Negotiation on Article 5’, this too caused significant internal trouble, eventually requiring the intervention of President Truman to create consensus. The wording of the Rio Pact on this subject is a lot weaker than that of NATO and simply reads ‘to assist in meeting the attack’. It is true that the Rio Pact, as mentioned above, bears no subjective ‘boundary’, but the wording of ‘meeting the attack’ leaves much to the imagination. Does this involve meeting the attack until peace is insured, or simply that wave of attack and through which possible ways? This part of the Rio Article phrasing is why the treaty itself has been described as ‘weak’ (Cook, 1989, p. 209). The Brussels Treaty reads ‘all the military and other aid and assistance in their power’. It is obvious that this wording is the strongest of all three by actually naming the military, aside from other aid and assistance. Rio is, as described, weak in this sense and NATO
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simply states that armed forces might be a possibility. Again, the ‘Negotiation’ bit of this research already addressed the struggle regarding the ‘military’ wording, but it is clear that this part was inspired not so much by the Rio Pact, but more by the Brussels Article phrasing. The final few words of the NATO Article are ‘to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’. There is not much to compare with this wording, for both the Rio and Brussels Treaty do not specify a ‘goal’ or ‘purpose’ within their MSD Article.
Meaning
I have now compared the creation of all treaties and the textual comparison of their MSD Articles. What remains is to compare the meaning of the Articles; which meaning did they want to give to the Articles and by what was this influenced? I can draw these conclusions on basis of the Historical Context that was given in said chapter and on basis of the chapter on negotiations on Article 5.
What was the meaning that the Rio signatories wanted to give to Article 3? I have already analysed that the first creation of MSD in 1826 was due to the pending threat of the European re-colonialization and that their goal was to unite the American states under a confederation. Eventually Rio was created as a consequence of a 100 year development of this MSD principle and as a response to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour during World War II. The meaning they most wanted to convey with the Rio Pact was a sense of unity in the American continent; an attack on one is an attack on all.
The Brussels Treaty was meant as a treaty to unite the not-yet communist countries of the European continent, as an extension to the Treaty of Dunkirk, against the communist threat of the Soviet Union. Where the Dunkirk Treaty was still more focused against the Germans, the Brussels Treaty was focusing more on the possible aggression from the Soviet Union. The meaning they most wanted to convey was a sense of unity and being able to show the United States that they could work together.
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The NATO Treaty was specifically created against the communist threat of the Soviet Union, the United States combining its powers with the European states. The phrase ‘an attack against one is an attack against all’ was used here too. The meaning they most wanted to convey was a sense of unity and showing the world that they would defend each other, lowering the risk of one of them being attacked. One could also argue another crucial difference between the NATO Treaty and the other two; the ‘statement’. The NATO Treaty, specifically Article 5, can actually be seen as more of a statement than the other two treaties. It was almost a direct message to the Soviet Union stating their union, and that now an attack against one of them would mean retaliation by all of the NATO members, including the United States. The Rio Pact and Brussels Treaty can be seen as more of an ‘internal’ statement, knowing and stating who your allies are and knowing that you don’t stand alone as a country, while as mentioned above, NATO was more of a political statement.
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Conclusion
The research question for this Bachelor Project was as followed: ‘To what extent did the principle of ‘Mutual Self Defence’ development in Latin America influence the creation of Article 5 NATO?’. In order to answer this question, I first expanded on the history and development of MSD in Latin America and Europe. For Latin America the development was described through the Panama Treaty of 1826 and the Rio Pact of 1947. For Europe the development was described through the Dunkirk Treaty of 1947 and the Brussels Treaty of 1947.
After expanding on the Historical context within Latin America and Europe I started focussing on NATO. First, the creation of the treaty was discussed context wise. This was followed by a description of the negotiations that were needed to establish Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. The chapter concluded with an in-comparison of the Rio Pact, the Brussels Treaty and the NATO Treaty on the topics of creation, textual phrasing and the meaning that the drafters wanted to convey. These comparisons now help us in answering the research question.
After this research I can conclude that the development of the principle of ‘MSD’ in Latin America has certainly contributed and influenced the creation of Article 5 NATO. Creation-wise and meaning-Creation-wise all three treaties bear similarities; all three of them were devised with the intention of uniting a continent versus an external threat. The difference, as was established, was that the creation of NATO was more of a ‘statement’ than the creation of Rio and Brussel. Textually speaking, the expression of solidarity ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’ is completely based on the Rio Pact. Also, if we look into the negotiation that was needed to establish Article 5 NATO, we see that the Rio Pact formed the first basis for the draft and for the way the United States wanted the treaty to be phrased. However, when looking at the way of answering a breach of the MSD, the Rio Pact is weak (‘meeting the attack’) and this was specifically what the drafters did not want for the NATO Treaty. This part of the Article was inspired by the Brussels Treaty and the U.S. Senate. It also must be stated that entering the Rio Pact 2 years prior to the NATO Treaty did facilitate the entering into an MSD treaty for the United States.
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The title of this project is; ‘European Mutual Self Defence: Latin-American Copyright?’. In conclusion, we can establish that both the Brussels Treaty and Rio Pact heavily influenced the NATO Treaty. Although this has been suggested in some of the existing literature, this project has sought to expand on the importance of the Latin American development and influence on so called ‘European concepts’. There had been significant prior developments in Latin America, a continent which had confederate dreams and treaties long before the Europeans even thought about a European Union. This project brought together existing elements of literature and research in order to provide a broader picture of the development on the concept of MSD. It can be concluded that although the ‘copyright’ of European Mutual Self Defence does not fully belong to America, credit is due where credit is deserved. This project proves that Latin-America does deserve more credit for their development on MSD and that they are owed a significant part of the ‘copyright’ by the European states and by the studies of International History and International Relations which has been lacking up until now.
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