Out-of-area: NATO perceptions of the Third World, 1957–1967

Abstract

This article discusses the reports of the NATO study groups on the situation in the Third World, from the aftermath of the Suez crisis until the 1967 reorganization of the alliance through the Harmel Report. These were the infamous ‘out-of-area’ issues which caused significant disagreements within the alliance. NATO analysis was dominated by the primacy of the Cold War: its major subject was ‘Soviet penetration’ of the periphery, rather than the problems of the global South as such. Arguably, this Cold War perspective prevented the NATO analysts from fully evaluating the dangers of the situation in the Third World.

Notes

76 NATO/CM(67)38, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 26 June 1967.

75 David L Anderson, Trapped by Success: the Eisenhower Administration and Vietnam, 1953–61 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 200; Thomas Schwartz, Lyndon Johnson and Europe: In the Shadow of Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 235

74 See, among others, Vanni Pettinà, ‘The Shadows of Cold War over Latin America: the US Reaction to Fidel Castro's Nationalism, 1956–59’, Cold War History, 11, no. 3 (August 2011): 317–339; Bevan Sewell, ‘A Perfect (Free Market) World? Economics, the Eisenhower Administration, and the Soviet Economic Offensive in Latin America’, Diplomatic History, 32, no. 5 (November 2008): 841–868; Nathan J. Citino, ‘The “Crush” of Ideologies: the United States, the Arab World, and Cold War Modernization’, Cold War History 12, no. 1 (February 2012): 89–110.

73 See this view, among others, in Walter LaFeber America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945–2006 (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2008), 165.

72 Westad, The Global Cold War, 110–157.

71 Brands, The Specter of Neutralism, 9.

70 NATO/CM(68)57, ‘The Situation in Latin America’, 8 November 1968.

69 NATO/CM(65)26, ‘The Situation in Latin America’, 23 April 1965.

68 Michael E. Latham, ‘The Cold War in the Third World, 1963–1975’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 2:258–280. See also NATO/CM(62)44, ‘The Situation in the Far East’, 17 April 1962; CM(63)76, ‘The Situation in Latin America’, 12 November 1963.

67 See, among others, Jeffrey H. Michaels, ‘Managing Global Counterinsurgency: the Special Group (CI), 1962–1966’, Journal of Strategic Studies 35, no. 1 (February 2012): 33–61.

66 See especially, Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

65 See for example, Kathryn C. Statler, Replacing France: the Origins of American Intervention in Vietnam (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2007), 285–286.

64 Harmel Report, sub-group 4, ‘Developments in Regions Outside the NATO Area’ (Patijn), NATO, http://www.nato.int/archives/harmel/harmel02.htm, assessed 12 February 2011.

63 See among others, James Ellison, The United States, Britain and the Transatlantic Crisis: Rising to the Gaullist Challenge, 1963–1968 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 108–116 and 170–178; Helga Haftendorn, NATO and the Nuclear Revolution: a Crisis of Credibility, 1966–1967 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 320–374; Andreas Wanger, ‘Crisis and Opportunity: NATO's Transformation and the Multilateralization of Détente 1966–1968’, Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 1 (Winter 2004): 22–74.

62 NATO/CM(66)142, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 20 December 1966.

61 NATO/CM(64)128, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 2 December 1964; CM(66)1, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 5 January 1966.

60 NATO/CM(62)94, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 28 September 1962.

59 NATO/CM(62)44, ‘The Situation in the Far East’, 17 April 1962.

58 NATO/CM(61)119, ‘The Situation in the Middle East’, 30 November 1961; CM(61)112, ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, 23 November 1961.

57 See Robert Rakove, ‘The US and British Assessment and Response to the Inaugural Nonaligned Conference’, and Jason Parker, ‘“What Might Come Out of This Bag of Eels”: The USIA, Nonalignment, and the Babel of Belgrade’, papers presented at the conference ‘Non-aligned Movement (NAM) in the Cold War: A True Alternative?’, Belgrade, 24–26 May 2012.

56 ‘The Situation in Latin America’, NATO/CM(66)39, 11 May 1966; CM(67)23, 24 May 1967; CM(67)64, 27 November 1967; CM(68)19, 11 June 1968.

55 ‘The Situation in Latin America’, NATO/CM(63)76, 12 November 1963; CM(64)37, 27 April 1964; CM(64)86, 16 November 1964; CM(65)26, 23 April 1965; CM(65)91, 19 November 1965; CM(66)39, 11 May 1966; CM(67)23, 24 May 1967.

54 ‘The Situation in Latin America’, NATO/CM(61)123, 1 December 1961; CM(62)33, 6 April 1962; CM(62)108, 27 November 1962; CM(63)20, 17 April 1963.

53 TNA/FO 371/155761/15, minute (Hankey), 21 November 1961; FO 371/162000/17, minute (Edmonds), 16 April 1962.

52 On the intellectual origins of this approach see, among others, Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and ‘Nation Building in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000); Nils Gilman, Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). See also William O. Walker III, ‘Mixing the Sweet with the Sour: Kennedy, Johnson, and Latin America’, in The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade, 42–79.

51 TNA/FO 371/155759/1, Murray (NATO) to Ramsbotham (FO), 19 July 1961.

50 Pedaliu, ‘Transatlantic Relations’.

49 Reports ‘The Situation in the Far East’, NATO/CM(64)79, 30 October 1964; CM(65)34, 29 April 1964; CM(65)93, 23 November 1965; CM(66)45, 23 May 1966; CM(66)100, 22 November 1966; CM(67)27, 30 May 1967; CM(67)60, 20 November 1967; CM(68)17, 28 May 1968; CM(68)53, 25 October 1968.

48 NATO/CM(65)32, 27 April 1965; CM(65)94, 26 November 1965; CM(66)129, 7 December 1966; CM(66)1, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 5 January 1966.

47 Reports ‘The Situation in the Far East’, NATO/CM(64)79, 30 October 1964; CM(65)93, 23 November 1965; CM(66)45, 23 May 1966; CM(66)100, 22 November 1966; CM(67)27, 30 May 1967; CM(67)60, 20 November 1967; CM(68)17, 28 May 1968; CM(68)53, 25 October 1968.

46 ‘The Situation in the Far East’, NATO/CM(58)143, 5 December 1958; CM(59)101, 3 December 1959; CM(60)42, 22 April 1960; CM(60)108, 30 November 1960; CM(61)33, 19 April 1961; CM(62)44, 17 April 1962; CM(63)26, 6 May 1963. See also the views of the Economic Advisers in AC/89-D/21, ‘Economic Development in Communist China’, 9 July 1958.

45 NATO/CM(63)84, ‘Atlantic Policy Advisory Group’, 15 November 1963.

44 ‘The Situation in the Far East’, NATO/CM(58)143, 5 December 1958; CM(60)42, 22 April 1960; CM(60)108, 30 November 1960.

43 Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001); Lorenz Luthi, The Sino-Soviet-Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Chen Jian and Yang Kuisong, ‘Chinese Politics and the Collapse of the Sino-Soviet Alliance’, in Brothers in Arms: the Rise and Fall of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1945–1963, ed. Odd Arne Westad (Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998), 275–277; Mingjiang Li, ‘Ideological Dilemma: Mao's China and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1962–63’, Cold War History 11, no. 3 (August 2011): 387–419.

42 NATO/CM(62)110, ‘The Situation in Africa’, 4 December 1962. See also the reports, with the same title, CM(64)23, 16 April 1964; CM(64)113, 28 November 1964; CM(67)21, 8 May 1967; CM(67)63, 24 November 1967; CM(68)18, 29 May 1968; CM(68)55, 5 November 1968. On military rule, see TNA/FO 371/187696/4, Bushell (NATO) to Brown (FO), 17 February 1966.

41 See the reports ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, NATO/CM(59)32, 20 March 1959; and CM(60)43, 23 April 1960. See also CM(61)112, ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, 23 November 1961

40 See the reports ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, NATO/CM(59)32, 20 March 1959; and CM(60)43, 23 April 1960. See also CM(61)112, ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, 23 November 1961 See also the reports ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, NATO/CM(60)106, 28 November 1960; CM(61)35, 22 April 1961.

39 See the reports ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, NATO/CM(59)32, 20 March 1959; and CM(60)43, 23 April 1960. See also CM(61)112, ‘Communist Penetration in Africa’, 23 November 1961.

38 TNA/FO 371/131198/1 and 2, minute (Bruce), 20 November 1958, and Roberts (NATO) to FO, 25 November 1958; FO 371/137954/10, Roberts to FO, 14 January 1959.

37 NATO/PO/68/98, Brosio to Permanent Representatives, ‘The Threat to NATO in the Mediterranean Area’, 15 February 1968; CM(68)15, ‘Economic Activities of the Communist Countries in the Mediterranean’, 14 May 1968; CM(68)16, ‘Report on the Situation in the Mediterranean’, 17 May 1968. See also Lawrence S. Kaplan and Robert W. Clawson, ‘NATO and the Mediterranean Powers in Historical Perspective’, in NATO and the Mediterranean, eds. Lawrence S. Kaplan, Robert W. Clawson and Raimondo Luraghi (Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 1984), 3–17.

36 Reports ‘The Situation in the Middle East’, NATO/CM(67)19, 3 May 1967; CM(67)62, 23 November 1967; CM(68)20, 7 June 1968. See also CM(67)65, ‘Trends and Implications of Soviet Policy’, 29 November 1967.

35 Peter L. Hahn, ‘The Cold War and the Six Day War: US Policy towards the Arab-Israeli Crisis of June 1967’, in The Cold War in the Middle East: Regional Conflict and the Superpowers, 1967–1973, ed. Nigel J. Ashton (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 16–34.

34 Douglas Little, ‘A Fool's Errand: America and the Middle East, 1961–1969’, in The Diplomacy of the Crucial Decade: American Foreign Relations during the 1960s, ed. Diane B. Kunz (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 283–319. See also Guy Laron, ‘Stepping Back from the Third World: Soviet Policy toward the United Arab Republic, 1965–1967’, Journal of Cold War Studies 12, no. 4 (Fall 2010): 99–118.

33 From the biannual reports on ‘The Situation in the Middle East’, see mostly NATO/CM(62)112, 4 December 1962; CM(63)31, 13 May 1963; CM(65)89, 16 October 1965; CM(66)101, 22 November 1966.

32 See the reports ‘The Situation in the Middle East’, NATO/CM(59)95, 23 November 1959; CM(60)37, 12 April 1960; CM(60)113, 5 December 1960; CM(61)27, 14 April 1961; CM(61)119, 30 November 1961.

31 TNA/FO 371/141835/16, Shattock to Rothnie, 6 March 1959.

30 H. W. Brands, The Specter of Neutralism: the United States and the Emergence of the Third World, 1947–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 296–303; Roland Popp, ‘Accommodating to a Working Relationship: Arab Nationalism and US Cold War Policies in the Middle East, 1958–60’, Cold War History 10, no. 3 (August 2010): 397–427.

29 NATO/CM(57)141, ‘Situation in the Middle East’, 2 December 1957.

28 Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, ‘Greece and the Arabs, 1956–1958’, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 16 (1992): 49–82.

27 See the reports ‘The Situation in the Middle East’, NATO/CM(58)71, 24 April 1958; CM(58)142, 28 November 1958; CM(59)25, 9 March 1959. See also AC/119-WP(59), ‘The Soviet Role in the Middle East’, 12 May 1959.

26 NATO/CM((57)63, ‘The Middle East’, 16 April 1957; CM(57)141, ‘Situation in the Middle East’, 2 December 1957; CM(57)147, ‘Soviet Economic Penetration in the Middle East’, 10 December 1957

25 NATO/CM((57)63, ‘The Middle East’, 16 April 1957; CM(57)141, ‘Situation in the Middle East’, 2 December 1957; CM(57)147, ‘Soviet Economic Penetration in the Middle East’, 10 December 1957.

24 On the special position of the Middle East in NATO planning, see Dionysios Chourchoulis, ‘The Southern Flank of NATO, 1951–1959: Military Strategy or Political Stabilisation?’, PhD thesis, University of London, 2011.

23 NATO/CM(63)39, ‘The Economic Offensive of the Sino-Soviet Bloc in the Less-Developed Countries’, 31 May 1963. See also the documents entitled ‘Communist Economic Activities in the Developing Countries’, CM(64)67, 7 August 1964; CM(65)72, 15 September 1965; CM(67)55, 14 September 1967.

22 TNA/FO 371/146509/17, minute (Shattock), 11 April 1960.

21 NATO/APAG(65)4, Note by the US Delegation, 18 Mach 1965.

20 NATO/CM(60)38, ‘Trends and Implications of Soviet Policy’, 12 April 1960.

19 NATO/CM(57)116, ‘The Economic Offensive of the Sino-Soviet Bloc’, 21 August 1957; CM(58)97, ‘Economic Offensive of the Sino-Soviet Bloc’16 June 1958; CM(59)103, ‘The Economic Offensive of the Sino-Soviet Bloc’, 8 December 1959; CM(60)4, ‘The Sino-Soviet Bloc Economic Offensive in Underdeveloped Countries’, 1 March 1960; CM(62)13, ‘The Economic Offensive of the Sino-Soviet Bloc’, 12 February 1962; CM(62)36, ‘The Sino-Soviet Bloc Economic Offensive, 1954–1961: A Summary Review’, 9 April 1962.

18 Westad, The Global Cold War, 160–170. See also an interesting analysis in Jeremy Friedman, ‘Soviet Policy in the Developing World and the Chinese Challenge in the 1960s’, Cold War History 10, no. 2 (May 2010): 247–272.

17 TNA/FO 371/120804/4, Coulson (Washington) to Wright (FO), 5 April 1956; FO 371/120804/16, FO to Washington Embassy, 29 April 1956; FO 371/120807/97, Steel (NATO) to FO, 28 June 1956.

16 NATO/CM(56)142, ‘Report on the Pineau Plan for Aid to Underdeveloped Countries’, 18 December 1956.

15 Hatzivassiliou, ‘Images of the Adversary’.

14 See, among others, Charles S. Maier, ‘The World Economy and the Cold War in the Middle of the Twentieth Century’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 1:44–66.

13 Melvyn P. Leffler, For the Soul of Mankind: the United States, the Soviet Union and the Cold War (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), 231.

12 Evanthis Hatzivassiliou, ‘Images of the Adversary: NATO Assessments of the Soviet Union, 1953–1964’, Journal of Cold War Studies 11, no.2 (2009): 89–116.

11 See the analysis of the American ‘empire of liberty’, the Soviet ‘empire of justice’ and the search of Third World leaders themselves in Odd Arne Westad, The Global Cold War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 8–109; Robert J. McMahon, ‘Eisenhower and Third World Nationalism: a Critique of the Revisionists’, Political Science Quarterly 101, no. 3 (1986): 453–473; Mark Philip Bradley, ‘Decolonization, the Global South and the Cold War, 1919–1962’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, eds. Melvyn P. Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 1:464–485. See also John Darwin, After Tamerlane: the Global History of Empire (London: Penguin, 2007), 439: ‘But the drift to cold war is only part of the story, and in many parts of the world not the most important part’. On a different analysis regarding the notion of the Cold War lens and the interactive nature of the East-West cleavage and the North-South divide, see Matthew Connelly, ‘Taking Off the Cold War Lens: Visions of North-South Conflict during the Algerian War of Independence’, American Historical Review, 105, No.3 (June 2000): 739–769.

10 In NATO reports, the term ‘Third World’ was used for the first time in the 1963 documents, but the French referred to ‘le tiers monde’ in a memorandum that they submitted to APAG in 1962: NATO/AC/214(a)-WP8, 15 October 1962.

9 TNA/FO 371/133300/1, Benson (FO) to Cheetham (NATO), 28 November 1958.

8 See, among others, TNA/FO/371/137956/59, Shattock (NATO) to Watson (FO), 29 August 1959; FO 371/154730/23, East (CRO) to Faber (FO), 15 November 1961 (on Africa); FO 371/150863/9, minute (Rothnie), 15 February 1960 (Middle East); FO 371/155761/15, minute (Hankey), 21 November 1961; FO 371/162000/17, minute (Edmonds), 16 April 1962 (Latin America).

7 See, among others, TNA/FO/371/137955/35, Brief, March 1959; FO371/141835/18, minute (Rothnie), 19 March 1959; FO 371/146519/37, minute (Boothby), 6 September 1960.

6 London, The National Archives (hereafter TNA/), FO 371/137956/65, Petrie (IRD) to Ewart-Biggs (FO), 16 October 1959; FO 371/131198/4, FO to UK delegation NATO, 23 December 1958; FO 371/151729/3, Boothby (FO) to Murray (NATO), 20 January 1961.

5 On Britain's influence in the NATO Committee on Information and Cultural Relations, see Linda Risso, ‘“Enlightening Public Opinion”: A Study of NATO's Information Policies between 1949 and 1959 Based on Recently Declassified Documents’, Cold War History 7, no. 1 (February 2007): 45–74.

4 Geir Lundestad, The United States and Western Europe since 1945: from “Empire” by Invitation to Transatlantic Drift (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 142–167; Lawrence S. Kaplan, ‘The Vietnam War and Europe: the View from NATO’, and Fredrik Logevall, ‘The American Effort to Draw European States into the War’, in La Guerre du Vietnam et l'Europe, 1963–1973, eds. Christopher Goscha and Maurice Vaïsse (Paris: LGDJ, 2003), 89–102 and 3–16 respectively; John Kent, ‘NATO, the Cold War and the End of Empire’, and Frode Liland, ‘Explaining NATO's Non-Policy on Out-of-Area Issues during the Cold War’, in A History of NATO: the First Fifty Years, ed. Gustav Schmidt (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 1:141–152 and 1:173–189 respectively; Effie Pedaliu, ‘Transatlantic Relations at a Time When “More Flags” Meant “No European Flags”: America's War in South East Asia and its European Allies, 1964–68’, International History Review, forthcoming.

3 See for example the discussion in the ministerial NAC in NATO/CVR(58)62, 16 December 1958.

2 Brussels, NATO Archives, International Staff, (hereafter NATO/) CM(58)138, ‘Interim Report of the Secretary General on Political Consultation’, 17 November 1958; CM(59)29, ‘Annual Political Appraisal’, 17 March 1959.

1 Winfried Heinemann, ‘“Learning by Doing”: Disintegrating Factors and the Development of Political Cooperation in Early NATO’, in NATO and the Warsaw Pact: Intrabloc Conflicts, eds. Mary Ann Heiss and S. Victor Papacosma (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2008), 43–57.