The European neutral countriesâof which Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland are the most prominent casesâare a distinctive group in European international politics. During the Cold War, most European states were members of one of the two military alliances which emerged in the context of the East-West division of the continent, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has expanded its membership to include most of the Central and Eastern European states stretching from the Baltic region in the north to the Black Sea in the south, reinforcing the idea of NATO membership as the norm for most European democracies.
The status of Austria, Finland, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland as long-established European democracies but outside NATO is thus unusual in the larger context of European international politics. In the late 1980s and 1990s the winding down of the Cold War raised questions about the meaning and continued relevance of neutrality: to the extent that neutrality had been about being neutral in the context of the East-West conflict, did neutrality make sense or have utility in a world moving beyond that conflict? In the early 1990s Austria, Finland and Sweden decided to join what was about to become the European Union (EU) , a process completed when they formally became EU members in January 1995 (Ireland had joined the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, whereas Switzerland remains outside the EU) . Austria, Finland and Swedenâs accession to the EU was an important turning point in these countriesâ foreign policies, reflecting their moving beyond the Cold War and joining the mainstream of Western European international politics. This was particularly the case for Austria and Finlandâalthough also true for Swedenâbecause guarantees given to the Soviet Union in the context of the Cold War had precluded them from joining the EUâs predecessors. Austria, Finland and Swedenâs accession to the EU , further, coincided with the Unionâs development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) in the early 1990s, followed by a Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) in the 2000s. As EU members Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden have all actively participated in both the CFSP and the CSDP and argued that involvement in the CFSP and CSDP is compatible with policies of neutrality. The end of the Cold War , membership of the EU and participation in the CFSP and CSDP nonetheless involved some re-calibration of these statesâ policies of neutrality. To varying degrees Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden have redefined their national neutrality policies, with governments and officials often instead using terms such as military neutrality, military non-alignment or simply non-membership of military alliances . Switzerland, remaining outside the EU, has maintained a stricter or narrower interpretation of neutrality, although it too has modified its policies, in particular by joining the United Nations in 1992 and beginning to contribute to peacekeeping and conflict management operations (albeit within certain limits). All five states, however, have clearly maintained their neutrality in the sense of remaining outside military alliances and, in particular, NATO (as the only such alliance that they might realistically join). Although the maintenance of neutrality has in large part been an example of policy continuity on the basis of long-standing policies of neutrality, it has nonetheless also been an active political choice. The end of the Cold War and NATOâs enlargement into Central and Eastern Europe put the issue of NATO membership on the political agenda in a way that was not the case during the Cold War . The European neutral states could have opted to pursue NATO membership but have (so far) chosen not to do so, even if that choice has been one of quiet continuity rather than prominent debate.
The end of the Cold War also triggered changes within NATO, in particular the development of partnerships with states outside the Alliance, which have resulted in what may be viewed as a quiet revolution in relations between the European neutral states and NATO and are the focus of this book. Historically, non-membership of military alliances has been the defining element of policies of peacetime neutrality. Since engaging with an alliance, even short of joining it, might be viewed as an infringement of neutrality, neutral states have largely not sought cooperation with alliances (although to varying degrees, the five countries which are the focus of this book also âleaned Westâ during the Second World War and the Cold War ). During the Cold War , NATOâs own focus was centrally on defence and deterrence vis-Ă -vis the Soviet Union and the Alliance therefore had no policies or institutions for partnerships with non-members. As is explored in the chapters on Sweden and Switzerland in this book, these two countries did have elements of undeclared cooperation with NATO, but these were the exception to the more general pattern of a non-relationship between NATO and the European neutral states. Beginning with the Harmel report in 1967, however, NATO began a policy of engagement with the Soviet bloc countries. This grew into a political dialogue and military confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs) in the 1970s and 1980s, which also included the European neutral states in the context of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe or OSCE) . When the Cold War ended, this policy was transformed into one of partnerships with non-members. Initially targeted at the post-communist Central and Eastern European states, the Partnership for Peace (PfP) , as the new programme was called, was also opened to the European neutral states. In the 1990s and 2000s, NATO also established partnerships with the southern Mediterranean states, some Middle Eastern states and a group of âglobal partnersâ, as well as other international organisations, in particular the UN, the EU, the OSCE and the African Union . Today, NATO defines âcooperative security ââof which its partnerships are the central elementâas one of its three core missions, alongside defence of its member states and crisis management beyond its borders (NATO 2010). Additionally, from the early 1990s, NATO began to play an important role in peacekeeping and crisis managementâin particular in the Yugoslav conflict in the 1990s and then in Afghanistan in the 2000sâand this became an important focus of cooperation between NATO and its partners. The five European neutral states have all become active partners of NATO since the 1990s, now engaging in a range of political dialogue, military cooperation and shared initiatives with the Alliance, as well as contributing to NATOâs peacekeeping operations in the Balkans and Afghanistan . This book explores this new relationship between the European neutral states and NATO, seeking to understand the dynamics behind the relationship, the nature and limits of cooperation between these states and NATO, and the significance of the relationship for both the European neutral states and NATO. Additionally, although all five countries have chosen to maintain their long-standing policies of neutrality, the issue of possible NATO membership remains. As the country chapters in this book indicate, in the Austrian, Irish and Swiss cases NATO membership is simply a domestic political impossibility. In the Finnish and Swedish cases, however, there is ongoing debate on NATO membership âa debate intensified by the wars in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014â15 and growing concern about a renewed âRussian threatâ. This book therefore also explores the circumstances in which Finland and/or Sweden might join NATO and the factors shaping debate on this issue. The rest of this introduction examines which European states may be viewed as neutral, reviews existing academic literature on the foreign and security policies of the European neutral states and situates the analysis of the European neutral statesâ relations with NATO in the wider fields of international relations theory and foreign policy analysis.
Who Are the European Neutral States?
Before reviewing existing academic literature in the area, the issue of which European states are neutral should be addressed. Historically, quite a wide range of European states adopted policies of neutrality in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, in particular in the context of the two World Wars. Many of these states, however, abandoned these policies in the wake of invasion in one or both of the two World Wars or in the context of the Cold War . Sweden and Switzerland are the longest-standing European neutral countries, having formally established policies of neutrality towards the end of the Napoleonic wars in the early nineteenth century (although a Swiss policy of avoiding being drawn into wars involving neighbouring states can be traced back even further to the sixteenth century). Both countries have maintained policies of neutrality ever since. Ireland established a policy of neutrality at the beginning of the Second World War, and has likewise maintained that policy since then. Finland and Austria became neutral in the context of the Cold War , in Finlandâs case via a bilateral treaty agreed with the Soviet Union in 1948 and in Austriaâs case in 1955 in the framework of US-Soviet-British-French negotiations on the future of Germany and Austria. Communist Yugoslavia also adopted a policy of neutrality after it split with the Soviet Union in 1948. These six statesâSweden, Switzerland, Ireland, Finland, Austria and Yugoslavia âwere generally recognised as neutral states in the European Cold War context ...