Political Sovereignty, Leadership, and Cooperation

The political sovereignty of the member states of NATO and the leadership of the alliance by the United States of America on the basis of her superior political, economic, and military power were unequivocally the foundation of the Atlantic alliance at the beginning of the l950s. The synthesis of these factors made possible the collaboration of the member states which has become the functional principle of the alliance. For the sake of clarity, these three terms require a somewhat more detailed interpretation. The concept of sovereignty is complex and controversial. Its substance can be interpreted in a positive or negative sense in the negative as freedom from outward compulsion, in the positive as the very essence of national power. Sovereignty is both a political and a legal concept, and can be taken as absolute or relative. In this context, it is the negative content and the political aspect which arouse our interest rather than the legal aspect. Since we are concerned with states in the Western Hemisphere, states which have subordinated their legal order to international law, the term sovereignty must be taken as relative, not absolute.