NATO enlargement and the CFE Treaty

In an attempt to assuage Russia's concerns about NATO enlargement, the Alliance has presented Moscow with a series of radical proposals for revising the 1992 Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. One of the key recommendations involves replacing the original bloc-to-bloc and zonal restrictions on the five categories of military hardware with national limits. With NATO poised to announce candidates for membership at its Madrid summit in July, a strategy to calm Russian fears about the military consequences of enlargement is becoming increasingly urgent. The process of revising the CFE Treaty, however, is unlikely to be completed before the Madrid summit.     

Finland's NATO membership: Continuous shelter-seeking strategy

This article offers a challenge, in the form of an illustrative case study, to the notion that Finland's NATO membership is a radical reversal in security policy. With the use of shelter theory, it examines how Finland (as a small state), beginning in the Cold War, has actively sought to achieve political, economic and societal shelter from Western organizations. However, due to geopolitical restraints, the country has at various times been unable to fully adopt preferred shelter arrangements, especially within the military security sphere. The analysis indicates that the institutionalisation of Finland's shelter strategy has often been a tedious, diplomatic quest to integrate with the West, contingent upon opportunistically taking advantage of external ‘critical junctures’ to solidify its own interests. The article posits that Finland's pursuit of Western economic and societal shelter during the Cold War transformed into further Western political shelter-seeking in its aftermath and, finally, membership of NATO in 2023. The case of Finland indicates that shelter theory captures the foreign policy strategy of a small neutral/nonaligned state. Nevertheless, our specific case also indicates that the theory ought to take a closer look at four features regarding relations between small and large states, that is how an agressive neighbour can restrict a small state's foreign policy choices, how economic and societal shelter relations may precede political shelter relations (or vice versa), the role of critical junctures within shelter theory, and, finally, how a history of cooperation may be transitioned into full-fledged shelter.     

NATO summit: reassurance and effective responses

Events in Ukraine and northern Iraq dramatically increased the significance of NATO's September summit. It marked a turning point for the Alliance, as combat operations in Afghanistan drew to a close and members renewed their commitment to collective defence.     

Managing the NATO alliance: Congress and burdensharing

The Congress has been an active partner in the transatlantic alliance from the negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty to the present day. Congressional perpectives have been substantially influenced by the desire to limit the U.S. share of the NATO burden. In recent years, U.S.—European differences over East—West relations, Third World security requirements, and other issues have intensified the burdensharng debate. Now some members of Congress are once again using the threat of unilateral U.S. troop withdrawals from Europe—the main source of congressional influence on the alliance—to pressure the Europeans to increase their defense efforts. Whether the recent focus on burdensharing will recede or grow in the next few years will depend on how the administration and the allies respond to the congressional pressure. In any case, Congress is likely to continue to insist on its due share of management rights in the NATO relationship.     

Why Freedoms Do Not Exist by Degrees

The overall freedom of an individual or a society is something that exists in differing degrees. By contrast, anyone's particular freedom to engage in this or that mode of conduct is something that exists (or does not exist) in an all-or-nothing manner. Many political philosophers have taken a contrary view, however, and have contended that each particular freedom exists to a greater or lesser extent in proportion to the easiness or difficulty of exercising it. This essay argues that the temptation to view particular freedoms as matters of degree can be overcome when careful attention is paid to three distinctions: overall liberty versus particular liberties, the existence of any particular liberty versus the probability of its emergence, and becoming more free to do something versus becoming free to do something in more ways. By properly marking these distinctions, one can readily apprehend that the existence or inexistence of each particular freedom is characterized by no gradations – an insight that improves one's understanding of the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of any such freedom.     

European defence spending rises,but well short of NATO target

Although NATO's European member countries have begun to increase defence spending, there is a $100bn deficit between aspirations and actual spending levels. In the context of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, states are seeking to heighten military readiness.