Global NATO: An Identity Based Account of the Alliance in the 21st Century

Abstract: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is one of the most active international entities in the world today. Its scope and purpose have grown incredibly over the past decade and its operations have become increasingly complex and diverse. The purpose of this paper is thus to seek the reasons behind such developments. More specifically, unlike mainstream IR studies which usually focus on interest and power politics, the present thesis is interested in determining the extent to which the Alliance’s behavior in the 21st century has been driven by identity. Guided by the postulates of social constructivism, the paper builds an identity based narrative founded on four methodological benchmarks, developed by Erik Ringmar (1996), and aimed at accounting for an identity driven behavior. As a second purpose, the study also looks to test the usefulness of this four step model, subsequently demonstrating that (1) interest based accounts of NATO have proven faulty or inefficient, (2) that 9/11 represented a turning point in the history of the Alliance, bringing about change, (3) that upon this formative moment NATO developed a new “self”, a new (global) identity and projected it to the world and (4) that this new image was somewhat rejected and undermined due to the difficulties encountered by the Alliance in Afghanistan and due to the war between Russia and Georgia. Finally, and also in line with Ringmar’s framework, the paper reveals the Alliance’s attachment to this global identity and its desire to project it even further, through the 2010 Strategic Concept and through the intervention in Libya.