NATO London Declaration

Declaration

By: Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council

Date: July 6, 1990

Source: North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). "London Declaration." <http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/b900706a.htm> (accessed May 25, 2006).

About the Author: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance formed in 1949 by the United States, Great Britain, Canada, France, and other northern European nations. NATO was constituted as a defensive alliance, primarily concerned with threats posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. The North Atlantic Council is the body constituted from representatives of each NATO member nation. It determines and coordinates NATO policy.

INTRODUCTION

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance established in 1949. NATO was created as a response to the threat to Western stability posed by the rise of the Eastern European bloc of Communist nations headed by the Soviet Union. The Soviet-led alliance became known as the Warsaw Pact nations. The original membership of NATO included the Allied nations of World War II, the United States, Great Britain, Canada, and France. NATO's other charter members included Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Portugal, Norway, and Italy. The United States in particular was anxious to reinforce its military treaties after the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb for the first time in 1949, thereby establishing a nuclear weapon capability. As tensions between East and West deepened into the 1950s, Greece and Turkey were admitted to NATO in 1952, with West Germany joining the alliance in 1955.

During the course of the Cold War, there were a number of occasions when it appeared that the NATO nations would be engaged in a "hot" war with the Soviet Union and its allies. In each case, the threat was diffused. In May 1960, a United States spy plane flown by Gary Powers was captured after flying over Soviet airspace, an event that triggered an escalation in tensions between the two nations. The hostilities between the Soviet Union and the United States reached a fever pitch in October 1962, when it became apparent that the Soviet Union was prepared to use a military base built in Cuba, a Soviet ally, located 90 miles (150 km) from the Florida coastline. This dispute, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, was resolved when the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles from Cuba in November 1962.

Reform-minded forces rose to prominence in the Warsaw Pact nations during the 1980s. The Berlin Wall, an iconic symbol of the division between the Eastern and Western nations, was constructed as the division between East and West Berlin in 1961. The wall was torn down in November 1989, and with the end of the wall came a rapid movement towards the liberalization of East Germany and its Eastern Bloc neighbors that continued for several years. The NATO London Declaration was made as those developments were consuming Eastern Europe.

PRIMARY SOURCE

1. Europe has entered a new, promising era. Central and Eastern Europe is liberating itself. The Soviet Union has embarked on the long journey towards a free society. The walls that once confined people and ideas are collapsing. Europeans are determining their own destiny. They are choosing freedom. They are choosing economic liberty. They are choosing peace. They are choosing a Europe whole and free. As a consequence, this Alliance must and will adapt.
2. The North Atlantic Alliance has been the most successful defensive alliance in history. As our Alliance enters its fifth decade and looks ahead to a new century, it must continue to provide for the common defence. This Alliance has done much to bring about the new Europe. No-one, however, can be certain of the future. We need to keep standing together, to extend the long peace we have enjoyed these past four decades. Yet our Alliance must be even more an agent of change. It can help build the structures of a more united continent, supporting security and stability with the strength of our shared faith in democracy, the rights of the individual, and the peaceful resolution of disputes. We reaffirm that security and stability do not lie solely in the military dimension, and we intend to enhance the political component of our Alliance as provided for by Article 2 of our Treaty.
3. The unification of Germany means that the division of Europe is also being overcome. A united Germany in the Atlantic Alliance of free democracies and part of the growing political and economic integration of the European Community will be an indispensable factor of stability, which is needed in the heart of Europe. The move within the European Community towards political union, including the development of a European identity in the domain of security, will also contribute to Atlantic solidarity and to the establishment of a just and lasting order of peace throughout the whole of Europe.
4. We recognise that, in the new Europe, the security of every state is inseparably linked to the security of its neighbours. NATO must become an institution where Europeans, Canadians and Americans work together not only for the common defence, but to build new partnerships with all the nations of Europe. The Atlantic Community must reach out to the countries of the East which were our adversaries in the Cold War, and extend to them the hand of friendship.
5. We will remain a defensive alliance and will continue to defend all the territory of all our members. We have no aggressive intentions and we commit ourselves to the peaceful resolution of all disputes. We will never in any circumstance be the first to use force.
6. The member states of the North Atlantic Alliance propose to the member states of the Warsaw Treaty Organisation a joint declaration in which we solemnly state that we are no longer adversaries and reaffirm our intention to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or from acting in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and with the CSCE Final Act. We invite all other CSCE member states to join us in this commitment to non-aggression.
7. In that spirit, and to reflect the changing political role of the Alliance, we today invite President Gorbachev on behalf of the Soviet Union, and representatives of the other Central and Eastern European countries to come to Brussels and address the North Atlantic Council. We today also invite the governments of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Hungarian Republic, the Republic of Poland, the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Romania to come to NATO, not just to visit, but to establish regular diplomatic liaison with NATO. This will make it possible for us to share with them our thinking and deliberations in this historic period of change.
8. Our Alliance will do its share to overcome the legacy of decades of suspicion. We are ready to intensify military contacts, including those of NATO Military Commanders, with Moscow and other Central and Eastern European capitals.
9. We welcome the invitation to NATO Secretary General Manfred Woèrner to visit Moscow and meet with Soviet leaders.
10. Military leaders from throughout Europe gathered earlier this year in Vienna to talk about their forces and doctrine. NATO proposes another such meeting this Autumn to promote common understanding. We intend to establish an entirely different quality of openness in Europe, including an agreement on "Open Skies".
11. The significant presence of North American conventional and US nuclear forces in Europe demonstrates the underlying political compact that binds North America's fate to Europe's democracies. But, as Europe changes, we must profoundly alter the way we think about defence.
12. To reduce our military requirements, sound arms control agreements are essential. That is why we put the highest priority on completing this year the first treaty to reduce and limit conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) along with the completion of a meaningful CSBM package. These talks should remain in continuous session until the work is done. Yet we hope to go further. We propose that, once a CFE Treaty is signed, follow-on talks should begin with the same membership and mandate, with the goal of building on the current agreement with additional measures, including measures to limit manpower in Europe. With this goal in mind, a commitment will be given at the time of signature of the CFE Treaty concerning the manpower levels of a unified Germany.
13. Our objective will be to conclude the negotiations on the follow-on to CFE and CSBMs as soon as possible and looking to the follow-up meeting of the CSCE to be held in Helsinki in 1992. We will seek through new conventional arms control negotiations, within the CSCE framework, further far-reaching measures in the 1990s to limit the offensive capability of conventional armed forces in Europe, so as to prevent any nation from maintaining disproportionate military power on the continent. NATO's High Level Task Force will formulate a detailed position for these follow-on conventional arms control talks. We will make provisions as needed for different regions to redress disparities and to ensure that no one's security is harmed at any stage. Furthermore, we will continue to explore broader arms control and confidence-building opportunities. This is an ambitious agenda, but it matches our goal: enduring peace in Europe.
14. As Soviet troops leave Eastern Europe and a treaty limiting conventional armed forces is implemented, the Alliance's integrated force structure and its strategy will change fundamentally to include the following elements:
    • NATO will field smaller and restructured active forces. These forces will be highly mobile and versatile so that Allied leaders will have maximum flexibility in deciding how to respond to a crisis. It will rely increasingly on multinational corps made up of national units.
    • NATO will scale back the readiness of its active units, reducing training requirements and the number of exercises.
    • NATO will rely more heavily on the ability to build up larger forces if and when they might be needed.
15. To keep the peace, the Alliance must maintain for the foreseeable future an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional forces, based in Europe, and kept up to date where necessary. But, as a defensive Alliance, NATO has always stressed that none of its weapons will ever be used except in self-defence and that we seek the lowest and most stable level of nuclear forces needed to secure the prevention of war.
16. The political and military changes in Europe, and the prospects of further changes, now allow the Allies concerned to go further. They will thus modify the size and adapt the tasks of their nuclear deterrent forces. They have concluded that, as a result of the new political and military conditions in Europe, there will be a significantly reduced role for sub-strategic nuclear systems of the shortest range. They have decided specifically that, once negotiations begin on short-range nuclear forces, the Alliance will propose, in return for reciprocal action by the Soviet Union, the elimination of all its nuclear artillery shells from Europe.
17. New negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction of short-range forces should begin shortly after a CFE agreement is signed. The Allies concerned will develop an arms control framework for these negotiations which takes into account our requirements for far fewer nuclear weapons, and the diminished need for sub-strategic nuclear systems of the shortest range.
18. Finally, with the total withdrawal of Soviet stationed forces and the implementation of a CFE agreement, the Allies concerned can reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons. These will continue to fulfill an essential role in the overall strategy of the Alliance to prevent war by ensuring that there are no circumstances in which nuclear retaliation in response to military action might be discounted. However, in the transformed Europe, they will be able to adopt a new NATO strategy making nuclear forces truly weapons of last resort.
19. We approve the mandate given in Turnberry to the North Atlantic Council in Permanent Session to oversee the ongoing work on the adaptation of the Alliance to the new circumstances. It should report its conclusions as soon as possible.
20. In the context of these revised plans for defence and arms control, and with the advice of NATO Military Authorities and all member states concerned, NATO will prepare a new Allied military strategy moving away from "forward defence" where appropriate, towards a reduced forward presence and modifying "flexible response" to reflect a reduced reliance on nuclear weapons. In that connection NATO will elaborate new force plans consistent with the revolutionary changes in Europe. NATO will also provide a forum for Allied consultation on the upcoming negotiations on short-range nuclear forces.
21. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) should become more prominent in Europe's future, bringing together the countries of Europe and North America. We support a CSCE Summit later this year in Paris which would include the signature of a CFE agreement and would set new standards for the establishment, and preservation, of free societies. It should endorse, inter alia:
    • CSCE principles on the right to free and fair elections;
    • CSCE commitments to respect and uphold the rule of law;
    • CSCE guidelines for enhancing economic cooperation, based on the development of free and competitive market economies; and
    • CSCE cooperation on environmental protection.

22. We further propose that the CSCE Summit in Paris decide how the CSCE can be institutionalised to provide a forum for wider political dialogue in a more united Europe. We recommend that CSCE governments establish:

    • a programme for regular consultations among member governments at the Heads of State and Government or Ministerial level, at least once each year, with other periodic meetings of officials to prepare for and follow up on these consultations;
    • a schedule of CSCE review conferences once every two years to assess progress toward a Europe whole and free;
    • a small CSCE secretariat to coordinate these meetings and conferences;
    • a CSCE mechanism to monitor elections in all the CSCE countries, on the basis of the Copenhagen Document;
    • a CSCE Centre for the Prevention of Conflict that might serve as a forum for exchange of military information, discussion of unusual military activities, and the conciliation of disputes involving CSCE member states; and
    • a CSCE parliamentary body, the Assembly of Europe, to be based on the existing parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and include representatives of all CSCE member states.

    The sites of these new institutions should reflect the fact that the newly democratic countries of Central and Eastern Europe form part of the political structures of the new Europe.

23. Today, our Alliance begins a major transformation. Working with all the countries of Europe, we are determined to create enduring peace on this continent.

SIGNIFICANCE

The London Declaration of July 6, 1990, has a primary historical significance; it is the foundation document that initiated the transformation of NATO in a post-Cold War Europe. The declaration is a blueprint for change, describing the way in which NATO would govern itself in its future dealings with the Soviet Union and its allies.

The declaration was the first clear acknowledgement by the NATO membership that it recognized the permanent nature of the profound changes that had transpired in the former Eastern Bloc nations. Because the precise nature and extent of those changes was still unclear, the NATO members did not make wholesale commitments to arms reduction or wholesale changes in defense policies when the declaration was promulgated. However, there are clear expressions throughout the declaration that NATO and the former Warsaw Pact were no longer adversaries. In light of the political changes in Eastern Europe, NATO strategies concerning both defense and arms reduction were poised to change so that they would reflect the new face of Europe. This attitude was prescient, since former Warsaw Pact nations Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were admitted into the NATO alliance within a few years of the London Declaration.

The political response to the London Declaration was mixed in the period immediately following its release. In Britain, debates in the House of Commons indicated an enthusiasm for the new European order, tempered with a recognition that, for the short term, the status quo would be maintained regarding NATO's military operations. Quite soon, however, the NATO alliance became a coalition of former adversaries. NATO now included Italy, West Germany, and the three former Eastern Bloc nations, evidence of how the world had reconfigured itself since the end of World War II in 1945.

The London Declaration also foreshadowed the position of the United States as the one remaining global superpower. Since the founding of the United States in 1776, it had occupied a position of military and commercial strength, but not overriding supremacy. The influence of the United States had been counterbalanced by the power of other nations, first England, Germany, and Japan, and then the Soviet Union. With the fall of Communism in Europe, and the subsequent inclusion of Eastern Bloc nations in both the political and military alliances of the NATO nations, the United States became the de facto world superpower.

The expressions of intent set out in the London Declaration led to a revamping of NATO's structure, accomplished during a conference of NATO members known as the Rome Summit in November 1991. The Rome Summit laid the groundwork for significant arms reductions in Europe. The newly constituted NATO forces participated in a coordinated response to the 1999 civil war in Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia. NATO delivered air strikes and ground attacks for three months against Serbian targets in support of the Albanian insurgency known as the KLA. The NATO deployment in Kosovo is significant because it represents a relatively straight line progression from the principles articulated in the London Declaration—that there would be a larger group of European nations making decisions concerning collective action.

The culmination of the post-Cold War world envisaged by NATO in the London Declaration of 1990 occurred in May 2002, with the creation of the NATO-Russian Council. The creation of this council brought Russia fully into the NATO orbit.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Solomon, Gerald B. The NATO Enlargement Debate, 1990–1997. Washington, D.C.; Center for Strategic and International Studies/Praeger Publishers, 1998.

Periodicals

Baker, James A., III. "Russia in NATO." Washington Quarterly (Winter 2002): 95–103.

Web sites

The United Kingdom Parliament. "House of Commons Hansard Debates, July 17, 1990." <http:// www.publication.parliament.uk/pa/cm198990/cmhansard/1990-07–17/Orals-1.html> (accessed May 26, 2006).