“Guardian of the international order”? NATO’s contested identity, the discourses of Secretaries General, and the Ukraine crisis

ABSTRACT

This article examines the role of NATO Secretaries General within the transatlantic security community in the wake of the 2014 Ukraine crisis. Drawing on a social constructivist perspective, the comparative discourse analysis of Rasmussen and Stoltenberg offers important insights regarding the role of a non-governmental actor in transatlantic relations. So far, research on transatlantic relations rarely investigated the discourses of NATO Secretaries General. The analysis shows that despite increased attention toward collective defence, both Secretaries General argued for an alliance, which is engaged not only in regional but also global affairs. As Eastern European NATO allies, especially Poland and the Baltic states, embrace divisive notions of the alliance’s self and perceived threats, the security community’s collective identity remains contested.

KEYWORDS:

• NATO
• Secretary General
• Ukraine crisis
• security community
• collective identity

Acknowledgements

This article emanates from the research project on “Authority and Trust in American Culture, Society, History, and Politics” (GRK 2244), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). For helpful comments and suggestions, I would like to thank the journal’s editors and the anonymous reviewers. For feedback on earlier drafts of this article, I am grateful to Tobias Bunde, Steffen Hagemann, Félix Krawatzek, Kai Oppermann, Ronja Ritthaler-Andree, and Sarah Wagner.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Florian Böller is a postdoctoral researcher at Heidelberg University’s Center for American Studies (HCA). His research interests include US foreign policy, transatlantic relations, and the role of trust in international politics.

ORCID

Florian Böller http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0386-4758

Notes

1. For the Cold War era, Jordan’s (1979) study offers the only analysis of NATO's secretary generalship.

2. Hylke Dijkstra's study (2015, 141) for example, which provides a rare analysis of the role of NATO's international staff, highlights how preference heterogeneity of member states limited institutional change and thus the ability of agents to adapt to shifting security environments.

3. For a more sophisticated approach to NATO's identity debates see Bunde (2016).

4. See the online appendix for specific coding rules and anchor examples (Mayring 2014, 29).

5. The salience of the crisis decreased by mid-2015, therefore it can be assumed that the initial phase of the conflict is highly relevant for the discursive reactions to the crisis.

6. Discourse analyses cannot evaluate the sincerity of an argument. It is also possible that non-public speech acts differ from public rhetoric. However, speakers are bound both by existing social norms and held accountable by their own (public) rhetoric. Public records can therefore be expected to have a significant impact on processes of identity formation.

7. All coded arguments can be found in the online appendix. The coding strategy aimed at grasping the meaning of a statement, which results in varying lengths of coded frames (see Mayring 2014, 34-36). The average length of the coded frames was 339 characters (Rasmussen) and 335 characters (Stoltenberg). Each subcode is only counted once per speech. On average, 2.9 (Rasmussen) and 2.3 (Stoltenberg) arguments were coded in each speech.

8. The Minsk protocol (Minsk I) was concluded on September 5, 2014, but is not mentioned by Rasmussen. Stoltenberg refers to the Minsk I agreement several times to underscore the importance of a diplomatic conflict resolution.

9. When US General Joseph Dunford described Russia as the “greatest threat to our national security” during the nomination hearing as Joint Chief of Staff, the White House was quick to distance itself from Dunford's view (see Chicago Tribune 2015).