Environmental security and international cooperation: The case of NATO

The research aims to reveal the NATO policy elements on environmental security, of which scope, according to many academics, is perceived as an environmental threat all by itself. The concept of security and its content has been widened and deepened after the Cold War. Environmental security has been a major issue on the international agenda and cooperation within the new security concept. The study has examined NATO Environmental Security Policy through a four-stage general policy consisting of initiative, formulation, implementation and evaluation. In the first stage, NATO's purpose, nature and outline of basic security tasks were subjected to document analysis based on strategic concept documents. In the formulation stage, NATO scientific activities and environmental security projects were examined and presented to describe how environmental security is defined within NATO and which elements its content is composed of. In the third stage, environmental protection publications and standardization agreements have been subjected to qualitative content analysis, interpreted and evaluated. Although the environmental security was brought to NATO's scientific agenda at a relatively early period, the concept took place in the strategic concept documents only after the Cold War. The scope and content of environmental security has narrowed over the years, focusing only on eliminating or mitigating the impact of NATO military activities. It has been observed that the referent objects of NATO's environmental protection practice are 'limited environment' and 'its forces'; pollution and various environmental damages including damage to cultural heritage are specified as security threats, and many preventive tools are defined at administrative level. In addition, it has been seen that the policy implementation has a low level of binding, is constituted mostly from multi-lateral environmental regulations and is particularly suitable for peace time military activities. Financial and political reasons, opposition of member nations, and the formation of globally accepted international institutions on environmental issues explain the narrowing of NATO environmental security policy's scope.It has been concluded that NATO's environmental security scope and content has become narrower over the years and implementation of the studies within the globally accepted international institutions on environmental security will increase international cooperation on the subject.