NATO, the EU, the G7 and Venn Diagrams
Dears,
The recent meetings of the different international organisations made me remember my distant days at school when we had to study Set Theory in the maths classes.
There were all these blobs (sorry, circles) on top of one another and they told us that they were Venn diagrams and that they explained everything there was to know about union and intersection.
Somebody mentioned that the name came from the English mathematician John Venn (was it me?) but presumably the maths teacher did not enjoy the doubtful advantages of a classical education and replied this was not important. It did not matter whether Venn's first name was John or not, and his nationality was irrelevant. What was important was the diagrams. Touché!
So, a union is when you add the contents of several sets ... that is, all the blobs. Conversely, an intersection includes only the common members of all sets, so a small section overlapping the blobs. Umm ... neat.
On coming home from work this afternoon, I decided to do my set analysis of NATO, the EU and the G7. Using Wikipedia and Excel, I built myself a list of all countries belonging to these bodies and then produced the enclosed Venn diagram. Yes, I should get myself a dog or start a more exciting hobby.
If you look at the data, what you get is:
G7: Six NATO countries and Japan (a US ally). Of the six NATO countries, three are also members of the EU (Germany, France, Italy) and the United Kingdom is a former member.
The EU and NATO have a very strong overlap, which helps explaining why the idea of a European Defence Community never got very far. Oversimplifying matters, this community has existed for a very long time, but it also includes Canada and the United States, and is inevitably led by the United States.
领英推è
If you look at the EU, you will realise that 21 of its 27 members are also part of NATO. Those who are not are Austria, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Malta and Cyprus. The first four are neutrals. Austria and Finland became neutral as a result of treaties with the former Soviet Union. It is argued that Irish neutrality was a reaction to a long history of enmity with Britain. Hence De Valera's decision to remain neutral in the Second World War and Dublin's refusal to join NATO when the organisation was established in 1949. A truly independent Eire couldn't possibly join NATO, an alliance in which the United Kingdom played such a paramount role.
NATO, with 30 countries, consists of the United States, Canada, 21 EU members and 7 European non EU members. The 7 European Non-EU members are the United Kingdom (who left the EU), Iceland and Norway (who do not want to join the EU because they are too rich to bother), Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia (who want to join EU as soon as they are allowed) and long-suffering Turkey (who wanted to join the EU but met with so much opposition that seems to have given up in desperation).
Turkey qualifies for EU membership because it has a foothold on the Balkans (Eastern Trace, including part of Istanbul) but the EU kept telling her that she wasn't ready. What the EU did not say, but right-wing populists did, was that a large Muslim country with most of its territory in the Middle East should not be ... err ... part of the club. What others thought, including myself, was that it was much better to have such an important nation on our side when the chips were down.
In short, you can say that the G7 are NATO + Japan. You can also say that the EU is essentially NATO, with a few exceptions ... and that NATO is North America, plus most of the EU and several European non-EU countries.
This shows that NATO, the EU and the G7 are not separate groups of nations, but organisations in which basically the same countries address different issues. For several nations of Eastern Europe, entry into NATO has been a preliminary step towards entry into the EU ... and belonging to both organisations is often seen as complementary.
In 1997, the G7 became the G8 when Russia joined the group, and in 2002 a NATO-Russian Council was established. Cooperation between the West and their huge eastern neighbour proved short-lived and we are now back into familiar "Cold War" territory where the G7, the EU and NATO are different aspects of what is in many respect the same alliance: that of the Western democracies.
at ? Restructuring Advisory
2 å¹´Adding the obvious teaser(s) to your diagram consider the intriguing case of Switzerland, the Free Rider, where much of what you said about Iceland and Norway applies, and then there is the issue of everlasting neutrality, which was imposed by the Great European powers back in1815. The latter does provide a good excuse for staying out of disputes, wars .... and alliances such as Nato, though there's hardly a country which does profit more from the security the alliance does provide .... As for EU interna; Turkey is considered to be Asian, Israel despite being in Asia proper would be considered a viable candidate, somewhat European in spirit, but probably more American yet, and Marocco, which once did indicate its interest becoming a EU MS is African and thus illegible by definition (the Romans did not bother with such distinctions, but that was 2000 yrs ago).