Invitations to Intervene and the Legitimacy of EU and NATO Civilian and Military Operations

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the connection between invitations to intervene and the creation of legitimacy for European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operations. By tracking the incidence and source of pleas for an intervention, this study finds that invitations are associated with most EU and NATO interventions, and identifies three different types of invitations – true, collaborative, and rigged – which denote greater or lesser degrees of demand for Western security services. This variability in demand for Western security services signalled by the three types of invitations impacts the level of legitimacy associated with an EU or NATO operation: true invitations confer the greatest amount of legitimacy, collaborative invitations generate weaker legitimacy, and rigged invitations create low levels of legitimacy. Moreover, both organizations have, at times, coerced external political actors into offering an invitation to intervene in order to manufacture stronger legitimacy for their interventionist designs. Ultimately, because invitations play such a large role in prompting EU and NATO interventions, international relations scholars and political leaders should carefully consider their quality and influence on the decision-making process when determining the initial legitimacy for an interventionist operation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Andrew T. Wolff is an associate professor of political science, international studies, and security studies at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He received his doctorate in international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and he also holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in politics and European history from Washington and Lee University. He has worked as a legal staff assistant in the United States Senate and as an English teacher in Prague. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Transatlantic Studies, Contemporary Security Policy, the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, and International Affairs.

Notes

1 For a sample of literature on humanitarian and peacekeeping interventions see Diehl, International Peacekeeping; Paris, “Broadening the Study of Peace Operations,” 27–44; Pickering and Kisangani, “Political, Economic, and Social Consequences of Foreign Military Intervention,” 363–76; Balas, Owsiak, and Diehl, “Demanding Peace,” 195–226.

2 For a discussion of legitimacy and interventions see Chesterman, “Legality Versus Legitimacy,” 293–307; Hurrell, “Legitimacy and the Use of Force,” 15–32; Mersiades, “Peacekeeping and Legitimacy,” 205–21; Pattison, “Legitimacy and Humanitarian Intervention,” 395–413.

3 For a discussion of the efficacy of various types of interventions see Regan, “Conditions of Successful Third-party Intervention in Intrastate Conflicts,” 336–69; Pushkina, “A Recipe for Success?,” 133–49; Whalan, How Peace Operations Work; Druckman and Diehl, Peace Operation Success.

4 From 1998 to 2014, the EU and NATO initiated fifty-one external operations. During the Cold War they initiated zero.

5 Johnstone, “Managing Consent in Contemporary Peacekeeping Operations,” 170.

6 Hurd, “Legitimacy and Authority in International Politics,” 381.

7 Clark, Legitimacy and International Society, 240.

8 Heinze, “Humanitarian Intervention, the Responsibility to Protect, and Confused Legitimacy,” 27.

9 Dandeker and Gow, “The Future of Peace Support Operations,” 337–9.

10 Bellamy and Williams, “Who’s Keeping the Peace?,” 171, 173.

11 Hardt, “Rapid Response or Evasive Action?,” 386.

12 Sari, “The Conclusion of International Agreements by the European Union in the Context of the ESDP,” 64.

13 Bellamy and Williams, “Who’s Keeping the Peace?,” 161. For an overview of contending interpretations of the legal issues involved in authorizing intervention see Badescu, “Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention,” 51–78.

14 Badescu, “Authorizing Humanitarian Intervention,” 62.

15 The Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report. For more discussion of the legitimacy of the Kosovo War see Hehir, “NATO’s “Humanitarian Intervention” in Kosovo” 245–64; Falk, “Introduction,” 9–23.

16 Johnstone, “Managing Consent in Contemporary Peacekeeping Operations,” 170; Mersiades, “Peacekeeping and Legitimacy,” 206.

17 Piccolino and Karlsrud, “Withering Consent, but Mutual Dependency,” 447–71.; Karlsrud and Felix da Costa, “Invitation Withdrawn,” S171–87.

18 Beck, “The Grenada Invasion, International Law and the Scoon Invitation,” 288.

19 Luck, “The United States, International Organizations, and the Quest for Legitimacy,” 62–3.

20 For more on details on determining the legitimacy of an invitation see Fox, “Intervention by Invitation,” 816–40.

21 Pattison, “Legitimacy and Humanitarian Intervention,” 398.

22 Ibid., 407.

23 Binder and Heupel, “The Legitimacy of the UN Security Council,” 242–4. Whalan uses a similar typology which she calls source, substantive, and procedural legitimacy, Whalan, How Peace Operations Work, 65–71.

24 See Kuperman, “The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention,” 49–80.

25 Agence France Presse, Albania.

26 Segell, “The First NATO Mission to Africa,” 4.

27 NATO Maritime Command, “Operation Allied Provider.”

28 Andrew Cottey describes this phenomenon as coerced consent. See Cottey, “Beyond Humanitarian Intervention,” 433–4.

29 Hansen, Against All Odds, 18–19.

30 Gottwald, TEPSA Brief, 2.

31 For more on this methodological approach see George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in Social Sciences.

32 See Levy, “Case Studies,” 1–18.

33 For more on the issue of forum shopping see Mondré, Forum Shopping in International Disputes; Kreps, “Multilateral Military Interventions,” 579. See also Alter and Meunier, “The Politics of International Regime Complexity,” 13–24.

34 Hofmann provides a comprehensive overview of the complexities arising from institutional overlap, Hofmann, “Why Institutional Overlap Matters.”

35 Hardt, Time to React, 34.

36 Gegout, “The Quint,” 331–2.

37 Mayer and Theiler, “Coping with Complexity,” 140–58.

38 See Appendix for a list of all external EU and NATO operations from 1998 to 2014.

39 Allied Harbour (1999), Allied Force (1999), KFOR (1999), ISAF (2003), Unified Protector (2011), and Resolute Support (2014).

40 In cases where an operation has multiple invitations, the operation’s invitation type is listed by the most prevalent and/or influential type of invitation.

41 In a 2009 speech NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson reluctantly admitted that NATO does exhibit first responder qualities. See Lord Robertson, “Remarks by Former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson.”

42 Tejpar and Zetterlund, “EUCAP Nestor,” 17–23.

43 Tardy, “EU-UN Cooperation in Peacekeeping,” 59.

44 The EU rejected the UN’s plea to intervene in Lebanon in 2006 and in the North Kivu region of Congo in 2008.

45 The African Union (AU) made five requests – two invites to the EU and NATO each to support its missions in Darfur and Somalia and one invite to NATO in 2013 to assist in Mali. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) made one request – an invite to NATO to assist its 1998 monitoring mission in Kosovo.

46 For details about this episode see Engberg, “To Intervene or Not to Intervene?,” 408–28.

47 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Backgrounder, 7.

48 The tally of rejected invitations is four National Government, two UN, two Faction, and one Regional.

49 Rudoren, “Palestinian Leader Seeks NATO Force in Future State.”

50 Debeuf, The Untold Story of Libya’s Mahmud Gebril.

51 For more on the political maneuverings within the EU see Koenig, “Between Conflict Management and Role Conflict,” 250–69. Although authorized, this operation never deployed to Libya because it failed to obtain approval from the UN Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs.

52 Adler-Nissen and Pouliot, “Power in Practice,” 905–6.

53 Dijkstra, “The Military Operation of the EU in Chad and the Central African Republic,” 397.

54 Dijkstra, Policy-Making in EU Security and Defense, 147–8.

55 Council of the European Union, Council Joint Action 2007/667/CFSP.

56 For more on French motives behind EUFOR Chad see Pohl, “To What Ends?,” 191–211.

57 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Press Conference by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.”

58 Hendrickson, “Public Diplomacy at NATO,” 9–11; Agence France Presse, Scheffer Says NATO ‘Ready’ to Send Troops to Iraq if Government Makes Request.

59 Stevenson and Sanger, “Bush Doesn’t Expect NATO to Provide Troops to Iraq.”

60 Dijkstra, Policy-Making in EU Security and Defense, 102.

61 Brosig, “EU Peacekeeping in Africa,” 84–85.

62 For details on U.S. President Obama’s push for a NATO training mission in Afghanistan see Sten Rynning, NATO in Afghanistan, 175–84.

63 Gent, “Strange Bedfellows,” 1101.

64 Fox, “Intervention by Invitation,” 833–5.

65 This finding supports Andrew Cottey’s observation of a new pattern in humanitarian interventions which relies more on partial or coerced consent. See Cottey, “Beyond Humanitarian Intervention,” 433–4.