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Strategic Studies Instituteand

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A TRANSATLANTIC BARGAINFOR THE 21ST CENTURY:

THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE,AND THE TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE

Ellen Hallams

September 2013

The views expressed in this report are those of the author anddo not necessarily reect the ofcial policy or position of theDepartment of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the U.S.Government. Authors of Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) andU.S. Army War College (USAWC) Press publications enjoy fullacademic freedom, provided they do not disclose classiedinformation, jeopardize operations security, or misrepresentofcial U.S. policy. Such academic freedom empowers them tooffer new and sometimes controversial perspectives in the inter-est of furthering debate on key issues. This report is cleared forpublic release; distribution is unlimited.

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FOREWORD

The North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO)

military operation in Libya in March 2011 reignitedconcerns over the health of the NATO Alliance thathas underpinned transatlantic relations for over 60years. As a decade of war and an era of economicausterity take their toll in both Europe and America,a consensus has begun to emerge on both sides of theAtlantic as to the need for a revised transatlantic bar-

gain that can accommodate the scal and geopoliticalrealities of the 21st century.Dr. Ellen Hallamss monograph explores the na-

ture of the bargain that has framed relations betweenthe United States and its NATO allies, and considerswhat the terms of a revised bargain might be. Debateover a revised bargain raises many important ques-tions: What are the sources of Washingtons frustra-

tion with the Alliance? What are the implications ofWashingtons increasing focus on the Asia-Pacic forEurope and NATO? What is the nature of Allianceburden sharing in the context of modern military op-erations? In what ways can Americas European alliesand partners generate greater burden sharing? Dr.Hallams proposes that a truly strategic partnership

between the United States, NATO, and the Europe-an Union should be at the heart of a revised bargain,one that casts aside Cold War constructs and ap-proaches transatlantic relations with a new maturityand pragmatism.

DOUGLAS C. LOVELACE, JR.DirectorStrategic Studies Institute and

U.S. Army War College Press


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ELLEN HALLAMS is a Lecturer in Defence Studiesat Kings College, London, based at the Joint ServicesCommand and Staff College of the United KingdomDefence Academy. From April-June 2012, she was aResearch Associate at the Norwegian Defense Insti-tute in Oslo. Dr. Hallams has published extensively onNATO, including The Transatlantic Alliance Renewed:The US & NATO Since 9/11 (Routledge, 2010). Her mostrecent book is NATO Beyond 9/11: The Transformationof the Transatlantic Alliance (eds. with Luca Ratti andBenjamin Zyla, forthcoming October 2013, PalgraveMacMillan). She has also published articles on NATOin theJournal of Transatlantic Studies, International Jour-nal, International Affairs,and RUSI Online. Dr. Hallamsis also the co-investigator on a major Economic and

Social Research Council-funded seminar series onNATO after Afghanistan, held in the United King-dom and Europe beginning in the autumn of 2012.


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SUMMARY

In the words of Aldous Huxley:

The charms of history and its enigmatic lessons consistin the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes andyet everything is completely different.

The same may be said of the transatlantic bargainthat has underpinned the North Atlantic Treaty Or-

ganization (NATO) since its founding and framedthe relationship between the United States and itsEuropean allies. A source of both enduring stabilityas well as perpetual discord, the transatlantic bargainhas always been a balancing act between a U.S. com-mitment to European security in return for a positionof U.S. leadership and dominance of NATO, and theexpectation that Europeans would accelerate efforts toprovide for their own defense. Such a balance remainsthe essence of the bargain in the 21st century, but thecontext within which the bargain must operate haschanged dramatically, and the nature of Americasrelationship with the Alliance is perhaps under morescrutiny than ever before.

In the context of the contemporary security en-

vironmentone characterized by the complexity ofmodern operations requiring a range of civilian andmilitary capabilities, and a changing world char-acterized by the diffusion of power and the rise ofChinathe Atlantic Alliance, as well as the transat-lantic bargain that underpins it, must reorient itself toits changing landscape. The combined experiences of

NATOs missions in the Balkans, a decade-long expe-ditionary operation in Afghanistan, and its most re-cent mission in Libya, coupled with a climate of scal


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austerity on both sides of the Atlantic, have placed thebargain under immense strain. During the rst Barack

Obama administration, it became evident that Wash-ington is increasingly less willing to tolerate what itsees as fundamental gaps within the Alliancein de-fense spending, capabilities, and military transforma-tion. As a result, Washington is signaling more force-fully than ever to its European allies, as well as NATOpartners, that they must take on a greater share ofAlliance burdens, accelerate efforts to generate capa-bilities and resources, and move away from a deeplyentrenched culture of dependency.

Revising the bargain requires new ways of think-ing, both in the United States and Europe. There aresigns, however, that not only is there a consensus onthe need to revise the transatlantic bargain, but thatthe outlines of what such a bargain might look like

are beginning to emerge. U.S. rebalancing toward theAsia-Pacic and a reduction in U.S. forces in Europein no way signal a turning away from Europe, onlyrecognition that the United States inhabits a changingworld; this is a process that essentially has been underway since the end of the Cold War, but has been accel-erated in the context of the challenges and demandsof a decade of war, a climate of austerity, and the riseof new centers of power. U.S. political and militaryleaders should continue to afrm NATOs enduringimportance and value for America. The United Stateshas already begun to signal a shift in mindset; the U.S.military is reconguring its force posture to reect thewider strategic rebalancing to the Asia-Pacic, but tooffset European fears over a reduced U.S. commitment

to Europe, the U.S. military should, and will, continueto support regular rotational deployments to conductjoint training with its European allies and ensure both


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sides are able to operate together on future missions.The U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR) will continue to

play a rolealbeit reduced in sizein building part-ner capacity and fostering interoperability throughongoing training and exercises with European allies.Continuing multinational Landpower exercises ofthe kind currently undertaken by USAREUR will beanother valuable tool in demonstrating the U.S. mili-tarys ongoing commitment to capacity building andpartnership in Europe.

At the same time, allies in Europe must learn tothink about transatlantic relations with a new matu-rity. While Europe has its own internal difculties thatcomplicate the challenge of revising the transatlanticbargain at a time when multinational defense collabo-ration is accelerating across Europe, there are signs atleast that European allies recognize and understand

the importance of more efcient and coordinated ef-forts to generate resources and capabilities. Such ef-forts can play an important role in reducing their de-pendency on Washington.

A revised transatlantic bargain for the 21st centurycannot simply be one between the United States andNATO, but must acknowledge and reect the grow-ing complexity of the European security architecture.Forging a truly strategic partnership among the UnitedStates, NATO, and the European Union (EU) may wellrequire a rethinking of the relationship between thesetwo institutions, based on a pragmatic understandingof how European security has evolved since the end ofthe Cold War. NATO may, at least in the short term,continue to be the primary mechanism for conducting

military operations, with the EUs Common Securityand Defence Policy (CSDP) playing a supporting roleor assuming only small-scale missions. However, the


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EUs growing competency in a range of issues fromclimate change and terrorism, to energy security, de-

velopment, and crisis management, make the EU acritical actor in transatlantic security affairs. It must,therefore, be at the center of a revised bargain.

Such a bargain requires a shift in thinking aboutEuropean security matters on both sides of the Atlan-tic. Washington should resist the tendency to com-partmentalize the U.S. and NATO and the U.S. andEU but endeavor to encourage a more integrated andnuanced approach to transatlantic security relations.In Europe, political will and a sounder scal basis arerequired if CSDP is to achieve its potential and the EUis to take its place at the center of a revised bargain.The transatlantic bargain was a Cold War constructsuited to its time; what is required now is a transat-lantic bargain that can balance hope and realism, and

generate a new culture of transatlantic partnership.


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A TRANSATLANTIC BARGAINFOR THE 21ST CENTURY:

THE UNITED STATES, EUROPE,AND THE TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE

The burdens of global citizenship continue to bind ustogether. A change of leadership in Washington willnot lift this burden. In this new century, Americansand Europeans alike will be required to do morenotless. Partnership and cooperation among nations is

not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to pro-tect our common security and advance our commonhumanity. That is why the greatest danger of all is toallow new walls to divide us from one another. Thewalls between old allies on either side of the Atlanticcannot stand.

Barack Obama, July 20081

INTRODUCTION

In a world characterized by ux and uncertainty,Americas relationship with the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO) is a constant, familiar, and reas-suring presence. It is a relationship that has been at thecornerstone of U.S. national security since 1949, when

the Washington Treaty brought together the UnitedStates, Canada, and 10 European nations into a formalpact, in what was a revolutionary commitment fora nation historically averse to entangling alliances.2It is a relationship that has ebbed and owed through-out its history, and one that has been shaped by com-peting impulses and dynamics. NATO has often beencharacterized in Washington as an Alliance beset by

structural weaknesses and imbalances in burden-sharing and military capabilities, which diminish itsstrategic utility to the United States. Throughout its


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lifetime, NATO has faced innumerable crises and,especially since the end of the Cold War, has been

doomed to irrelevance by critics and pundits quick towrite NATOs epitaph in a world far removed fromthe nuclear age into which it was born. For the Unit-ed States in the 21st century, the Alliance seeminglyhas less resonance and relevance in an era dened byfailing states, nonstate actors, amorphous terroristand criminal networks, and the shifting dynamics ofworld politics. In the context of U.S. strategic rebal-ancing toward the Asia-Pacic, the Wests economiccrisis, and a decline in defense spending on bothsides of the Atlantic, it would be easy to conclude thatNATO is a Cold War relic that will become ever moreirrelevant to U.S. strategic interests.

Such thinking is, however, a fallacy, for it obscuresthe very real and enduring value the Alliance contin-

ues to hold for the United States in a world in whichwe may be witnessing the end of certainty.3 NATOremains, for all its aws, the institutional manifesta-tion of a wider democratic security community, bind-ing the United States to its Canadian and Europeanallies, and a vehicle for promoting and advancingU.S. interests and values. Historically, NATOs valueto the United States has been premised on the ideaof a transatlantic bargain, a concept intrinsic to anunderstanding of U.S.-NATO relations, past, pres-ent, and future. The term was rst coined in 1970 byformer U.S. Ambassador to NATO Harlan Cleveland,who spoke of a:

glue that has held the allies more or less together . . .

a large, complex, and dynamic bargainpartly an un-derstanding among the Europeans, but mostly a dealbetween them and the United States of America.4


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This deal was the result of an invitation from

Western Europe to join a formal alliance that re-ected European fears and insecurities in the face ofthe growing Soviet threat.5 Accepting such an invi-tation was by no means ensured for Washington,however; the U.S. Senate remained wary of enteringinto a formal commitment and sought assurances thatthe Europeans would accelerate efforts at defense co-operation and integration. As a result, all signatoriesto the Alliance reached an agreement for self-helpand mutual aid, as expressed in Article III of theresulting Washington treaty. Such a clause reectedWashingtons understanding that while the UnitedStates would act as the principal guarantor for Euro-pean security, in return, Americas European allieswould endeavor to provide for their own defense. As

Dean Acheson put it, this would ensure that nobodyis getting a meal ticket from anybody else so far astheir capacity to resist is concerned.6 Thus, the es-sence of the bargain was a balancing act: balancingU.S. commitments against European contributions toEuropean defense.

During the Cold War, the United States consis-tently spent more on defense than did its Europeanallies, but the U.S. commitment was rewarded witha dominant leadership role within the Alliance, typi-ed by its occupation of the position of Supreme Al-lied Commander Europe (SACEUR). The bargain thusgave something to both sides: Europe was providedwith a U.S. security guarantee, while the United Statesestablished a position of authority and dominance in

an alliance that could serve as vehicle for advancingU.S. interests in Europe. However, in a post-Cold Warworld, the terms of the bargain have come under ev-


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er-closer scrutiny, as the Europeans have sought, butstruggled to, balance their end of the bargain. Two de-

cades of operational activity from Bosnia to Benghazihave exposed a growing capabilities gap between theUnited States and many of its allies, prompting grow-ing consternation in Washington over perceptions ofEuropean free-riding. The war in Afghanistan hasproven an unforgiving crucible within which burden-sharing dynamics have played out, and by the timeBarack Obama was elected to the White House in 2008on a wave of hope and optimism, an air of crisis andpessimism was pervading Alliance politics. AlthoughNATO is now preparing for its transition out of Af-ghanistan, the costs and consequences of a decade ofwar and the emergence of an age of austerity arecasting dark shadows over the health and vitality ofthe Alliance in the 21st century, prompting renewed

calls for a revised transatlantic bargain that can ac-commodate the economic and geopolitical realities ofthis century.

This monograph sets out to assess the currentstate of U.S.-NATO relations and, more specically,the ways in which the United States can help forgea new transatlantic bargain. Given ongoing debatesover the end of U.S. unipolarity and the rise of therest,7 the monograph aims to ask how importantthe U.S. leadership of NATO remains as a means ofhelping steer the Alliance through difcult times, orwhether, in the light of scal challenges confrontingboth sides of the Atlantic, deeply rooted patterns ofEuropean dependency on U.S. leadership represent afundamental threat to U.S. support for the Alliance.

Finally, the monograph considers the need for a dif-ferent kind of relationship between the United Statesand its NATO allies, one more attuned to the realities


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of the 21st century. It argues that a revised transat-lantic bargain must seek to move the Alliance beyond

an outdated Cold War model of U.S. leadership andEuropean followership. To that end, the monographexplores the idea of a post-American alliance. Suchan alliance does not mean a diminishing of Americascommitment to the Alliance, but it does mean one inwhich Americas European allies and partner nationstake on ever-increasing responsibility at a time whenAmerica will have to balance its ongoing commit-ment to Europe with the challenges and demands ofa changing world. As the United States increasinglylooks to the Pacic rather than the Atlantic, and a newgeneration of U.S. policymakers comes to power thatlacks the emotional commitment to NATO of its ColdWar predecessors, putting the U.S.-NATO relation-ship onto a new footing will be vital for the health of

the Atlantic Alliance in the years to come. Finally, thismonograph argues that despite the current economiccrisis aficting the European Union (EU) and concernover the future of the Common Security and DefensePolicy (CSDP), any revised transatlantic bargain must,by necessity, take into account the growing role andpower of the EU as a global actor, and work to forge amore effective U.S.-EU-NATO partnership.

SCOPE AND STRUCTURE

Part I aims to establish the importance of the trans-atlantic bargain as a means for thinking about thetransatlantic Alliance, and to distill enduring themesand issues that are central to understanding U.S.-NA-

TO relations. In particular, it explores the George W.Bush administrations relationship with the Allianceafter September 11, 2001 (9/11) and the war in Af-


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ghanistana time when U.S.-NATO relations deterio-rated sharply, generating concern on both sides of the

Atlantic as to the health of the transatlantic bargain. Inlight of the economic crisis and the coming to power ofObama, Part II explores whether the dynamics of U.S.leadership of NATO shifted during Obamas rst termin ofce, and how far ongoing operational challengesin Afghanistan, defense downsizing on both sidesof the Atlantic, and U.S. strategic rebalancing havefurther fueled the debate over the need for a revisedbargain. It asks what the administrations increasedemphasis on the Asia-Pacic means for transatlanticrelations, and examines whether NATOs operationin Libya appears to portend something of a shift inU.S. leadership of the Alliance, with the United Statesmoving to a more supporting or enabling role forsmaller-scale operations in which core U.S. interests

are not at stake.Finally, Part III aims to distill what the terms of

a revised transatlantic bargain should look like, andwhether a move toward a post-American allianceis both viable and likely, and what the implicationsof this may be for the United States and for the mili-taryas well as for NATO. Part IV offers conclusionsand recommendations.

PART I. DYNAMICS OF THE TRANSATLANTICBARGAIN

In July 2008, Democratic presidential candidateObama visited Berlin, Germany, and in a speech thatreached a global audience of millions, pledged to re-

vitalize the transatlantic relationship that had under-pinned U.S. foreign policy since 1945. His remarkscame at a time when, yet again, an air of crisis and


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pessimism pervaded the wider discourse on NATOand the future of transatlantic relations. Just 5 months

earlier, in February 2008, U.S. Undersecretary of StateR. Nicholas Burns had claimed the Alliance was fac-ing an existential crisis in Afghanistan;8 in the samemonth U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warnedNATO was becoming a two-tier Alliance character-ized by some allies willing to ght and die to protectpeoples security, and others who are not.9 Concernwas mounting, particularly within Washington, thatstructural weaknesses and imbalances within theAlliance were impeding operational efcacy in Af-ghanistan. Commander of the International SecurityAssistance Force (ISAF) General James Jones declaredin 2005 that national restrictions and caveats on troopdeployment among some European allies had reachedthe theater of the absurd.10

Such debates were nothing new to Alliance poli-tics. The burden-sharing issues that are today all toofamiliar in Alliance discourse were established earlyon in NATOs history, as a result of the transatlanticbargain that was central in framing relations betweenthe United States and its European allies. As noted inthe introduction of this study, the essence of the bar-gain was a balancing act between the United Statesand Europethe United States committing to providea security guarantee for Europe and, in return, beingrewarded with a dominant leadership position withinthe Alliance, while Europe was expected to accelerateefforts to provide for its own defense. Yet, much of thebargain was implicit, rather than explicit, resting onshared understandings and assumptions between the

United States and its allies. As a report by the Carn-egie Endowment for International Peace observes,Each side of the Atlantic had different expectations


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about how interests, values, and obligations related toeach other. Where Washington viewed the bargain as

a contract implying something in return, many Eu-ropean countries tended to view it in less rigid terms,as a compact that did not necessarily translate intospecic commitments.11

As early as 1954, U.S. frustrations with what itperceived as unequal burden sharing were evident;following the European failure to meet force goalsagreed upon at the Lisbon summit, President DwightEisenhower bemoaned:

I get weary of the European habit of taking our money,resenting any slight hint as to what they should do,and then assuming, in addition, full right to criticizeus as bitterly as they may desire.12

In its role as the principal guarantor for Europeansecurity, the United States has not only maintained alarge U.S. military presence in Europe, but has alsoconsistently spent more on defense as a percentage ofgross domestic product (GDP) than its NATO allies,fueling notions of unfairness in the burden-sharingdebate.13 Still, despite persistent congressional scru-tiny of Alliance burden sharing and calls for reduc-

tions in the U.S. force presence in Europe, Washingtontolerated such unfairness partly because the bargainwas also premised on a large degree of self-interestfor Washington.

Both during the Cold War and in the post-ColdWar years, NATO has had an enduring value to Wash-ington as an indispensable mechanism for promotingand securing its strategic interests in Europe. In addi-tion, the bargain lay at the heart of a wider AtlanticCommunity, a term rst given expression by NATO


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in 1956, when the report of the Committee of Three onNon-Military Cooperation recognized that the found-

ing of NATO reected not only the immediate threatposed by the Soviet Union, but also a growing sense ofan Atlantic Community.14 The political scientist KarlDeutsch gave further expression to this in 1957 whenhe spoke of NATO as an Atlantic security commu-nity, characterized by binding forces within theAlliance and possibilities for cooperation beyond therealm of military security.15

Thus, while tensions and disputes did arise overburden sharing through the Cold War, the underlyingsense of values and shared identity that bound mem-bers together helped to ensure such disagreementsdid not lead to any fundamental or irreparable rup-tures within the Alliance. Indeed, the communityprovided the wider context within which the bargain

evolved. As Karl-Heinz Kamp and Kurt Volker note,the bargain was never ofcially codied as a trans-actional quid pro quo arrangement; rather, it was pre-mised on a set of unwritten rules that were based onshared interests, values and expectations. What mat-tered, however, was the way in which these unwrit-ten rules were interpreted over time, for each side ofthe Atlantic had different expectations about how in-terests, values and obligations related to each other.16Thus, the bargain is perhaps best understood as onebased on bargaining, calculation, and a combinationof shared and dissimilar values, in which the UnitedStates was the dominant power.17 Still, the end of theCold War injected a new dimension into the bargain:gone was the existential threat facing the Alliance, and

thus the very reason that the Americans had been in-vited to provide a European security guarantee.


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Some saw NATOs preservation as a reectionof Americas ongoing self-interest, with the Alli-

ance viewed as little more than the instrument formaintaining Americas domination of the foreign andmilitary policies of the European states.18 Others em-phasized that NATO provided the United States withan existing security architecture that could serve as amechanism for promoting stability across the Euro-Atlantic zone, and that the degree of cooperation andintegration among Alliance members generated aninstitutional logic to NATOs preservationonethat served well the interests of its hegemonic state.19 Inaddition, although U.S. troop numbers in Europe diddecline after the end of the Cold War,20 this was not ac-companied by a more fundamental review of Allianceburden sharing, partly because of the high transac-tional costs involved. Washington was concerned that

a review of this particular burden-sharing bargainmight lead to unravelling rather than reallocation.21

Importantly, the nature of the burden-sharing de-bate also began to shift. As Jens Ringsmose notes, dur-ing the Cold War the emphasis was on inputs, withburden sharing measured in terms of the percentageof GDP spent on defense. The transition to a post-ColdWar security environment, however, necessitated arethinking of how burden sharing was measured,prompting a greater emphasis on inputs, rather thanoutputs, and on how money was spent.22 This rethink-ing was premised on the belief that NATO had evolvedinto a wider collective-security institution committedto crisis management, in which member states weretaking on a range of tasks and responsibilities. The

comprehensive nature of modern military operationsrequired a greater emphasis on contributions to thecivilian dimension of operations, such as policing


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and economic reconstruction. Although the UnitedStates dominated many aspects of NATOs operation

in Kosovo,23

Operation ALLIED FORCE (OAF), a U.S.Department of Defense (DoD) report noted that the 13other NATO allies that contributed to OAF provided:

virtually all the basing facilities, air trafc coordina-tion, and supporting elements to keep [the] air ar-mada of over 1,000 aircraft functioning throughoutthe conict.24

According to James Sperling and Mark Webber,European members of NATO contributed 88 percentof KFOR [Kosovo Forces] forces, while the UnitedStates contributed less than 12 percent. The NATOextraction force in Macedonia was also largely Euro-pean in personnel, and remained so once deployed asKFOR in Kosovo.

Still, a perception existed in many quarters thatEuropean members of NATO were too dependent onU.S. leadership and military capabilities. It was NA-TOs Balkans missions that gave added impetus to Eu-ropean intensions to accelerate efforts to provide fortheir own defense, initially through the European Se-curity and Defense Identity (ESDI). Theoretically, such

a process might have allowed for the reconguring ofthe transatlantic bargain, generating a more coherentand capable Europe willing and able to take responsi-bility for its own security. This was wishful thinking,however. Not only was ESDI undermined by diver-gent intra-European perspectives on how far and fastsuch a process should develop, but the United Statesalso sought to maintain the dominant position and in-uence the bargain had given it within Europe, and,as a result, was often openly hostile and suspicious


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toward ESDI. Thus, while the United States sought topromote and encourage European defense transfor-

mation, it aimed to do so through NATO and mea-sures such as the 1999 Defense Capabilities Initiative(DCI), which sought to improve and enhance Europe-an capabilities in a number of areas. Limited progresswas made in meeting the goals of the DCI, however,and by the end of the 1990s, concern was mounting inWashington as to the nature and pace of Europeanmilitary transformation.

Such concerns had a direct impact on U.S. attitudesto NATO in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on NewYork and Washington. After the attacks the George W.Bush administration chose to bypass the Alliance as amechanism for conducting operations in Afghanistan,accepting contributions on a bilateral basis and seek-ing to pick and choose what it wanted from the Alli-

ance collectively. Although the Alliance made somecrucial contributions, notably its maritime surveil-lance operation in the Mediterranean, Operation AC-TIVE ENDEAVOR, the perception that arose in manyparts of Europe was that of an alliance snubbed by itsleading member and a sense of deation at the Bushadministrations attitude and response.25 Althoughsuch attitudes in part reected the lack of expedition-ary capabilities of many NATO allies, they were alsoindicative of a wider climate of frustration with theAlliance generated by its two Balkans campaigns. Afurther issue was the way in which the war on ter-ror served to expose the contrasting lenses throughwhich the United States and many in Europe viewedthe threat from international terrorism. The events of

9/11 brought together two parallel, yet distinct, ap-proachesthe United States linking Afghanistan tothe wider war on terror and expansion of democracy,while many in Europe tended to view Afghanistan


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through the lens of state-building.26 As Michael Wil-liams notes:

The allies interpreted the acts of September 11, 2001,differently, and the policies that would follow ulti-mately would contribute to NATOs deployment inAfghanistan and the subsequent strains the Alliancesuffers today.27

The decision that NATO would take over com-

mand of ISAF in August 2003 appeared, initiallyat least, to be advantageous to both NATO and theUnited States. Not only did it offer NATO an oppor-tunity to demonstrate its utility and relevance in the21st century and move beyond the fractious disputesof the previous 2 years; this decision also served U.S.interests, given the resistance of the Bush administra-tion to nation-building, and provided a means by

which the cost of operations could be sharedthuspotentially alleviating U.S. concerns over inequitableburden sharing within the Alliance.28 The reverse,however, proved to be true, as NATOs ISAF mis-sion merely served to magnify existing dynamics inAmericas relationship with NATO, notably imbal-ances in burden sharing and capabilities. Moreover,

as the mission in Afghanistan evolved into a broadercounterinsurgency operation, so the contrasting lens-es through which the United States and many of its al-lies viewed the conict became ever more apparent.29Since the end of the Cold War, NATO had increas-ingly sought to remodel itself by adopting a narrativeof risk management as a means of hedging against theuncertainty and unpredictability of the changed stra-

tegic landscape.30 This was, however, an inherentlyproblematic concept, and it was NATOs mission inAfghanistan that served to expose most forcefully thereality that, as Christopher Coker puts it, It is in the


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nature of risks . . . that everything is contestedsomesocieties take more risks than others.31

As noted earlier, the burden-sharing debate be-came more complex in the context of modern militaryoperations; particularly in Afghanistan, it involvedan increased emphasis on the fair sharing of risk.Member states adopted different risk thresholds thatbecame evident in the caveats and restrictions somenations placed on the deployment and use of forces.These ensured that, although U.S. allies in the Alliance,notably Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), Holland,France, Italy, Poland, and Germany, were all makingsignicant contributions, the operation did nothingto suggest that a more equitable burden-sharing rela-tionship between the U.S. and its European allies hademerged.32 As ISAF expanded its mission in 2005-06,the strategic incoherence and disparities in capabili-

ties that were already evident became further magni-ed. As Bird and Marshall noted:

A combination of the alliance principles that costs liewhere they fall . . . and the embryonic recognition of agrowing insurgency threat ensured that the perennialproblem of turning promises into forces on the groundasserted itself.33

Yet, while much of the criticism focused on Euro-pean contributions to ground operations in Afghani-stan, there was also a feeling in some quarters thatU.S. leadership of NATO had been found wanting,not least because the war in Iraq had occupied muchof the administrations political energy.34

As President Bush prepared to leave ofce, schol-

ars and commentators debated whether the transat-lantic bargain would endure beyond his administra-tion. G. John Ikenberry suggested that the crisis in


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transatlantic relations would result either in the break-down of the Atlantic order, the transformation of that

order leading to major restructuring and a new set ofarrangements, or adaptation of the order, involvingneither complete breakdown nor major restructuring,but rather a reworking of the bargain to accommodatenew realities, with basic arrangements left intact.35Thomas Risse also suggested the imperatives of adap-tation for the Alliance, which would seek to enhanceNATOs relationship with the EU, as well as foster arevised transatlantic bargain involving fundamen-tal change to norms and institutions.36 Although theshock of 9/11 neither ruptured the bargain nor ren-dered it irrelevant, it did serve to expose and magnifyexisting fault lines and cleavages within the Alliance,placing them under immense strain. New fault linesand ssures arose in the context of operations in Af-

ghanistan and Iraq, all of which generated a height-ened sense of crisis within the Alliance, and a grow-ing consensus in Washington that imbalances withinthe Alliance and its increasing fragmentation werebecoming unsustainable. By 2009, NATO was beingconceptualized as a multi-tier alliance in which co-alitions of like-minded allies nd it increasingly hardto agree on, let alone execute, strategy.37

In response to the deterioration in transatlantic re-lations, Bushs second term saw a change in approach,as key ofcials such as Condoleezza Rice, Kurt Volker,and Daniel Friedman made a concerted effort to reachout to European allies and engage in cooperation ona range of issues. The replacement of Donald Rums-feld with Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense in 2006

also signaled a shift in approach, with the polarizingrhetoric of the rst term largely dissipating, replacedwith far greater efforts at consensus-building. Still,


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by the time Obama took ofce, Americas relation-ship with NATO appeared mired in a repetitive and

frustrating cycle, playing out recurring themes andarguments like a broken record, but with little senseof clarity or resolution to the underlying issues andconcerns. In short, the transatlantic bargain that hadunderpinned the Alliance since 1949 appeared irrevo-cably weakened by the events and challenges of thepost-Cold War era.

PART II: PARTNERSHIP AND PRAGMATISM:OBAMA AND THE TRANSATLANTICALLIANCE

Obamas candidacy appeared, in the rst instance,to offer a glimmer of hope that a new spirit of coopera-tion and harmony could be restored to transatlantic re-

lations. Obama sought a clear and decisive break fromthe policies and approach of the Bush administration,believing that under Bushs leadership, Americas in-ternational reputation, credibility, and legitimacy haddiminished. Obama had positioned himself during hisearly political career as an opponent of the Iraq War,and he rejected what he saw as the administrationsintolerance of international institutions. In numerousspeeches and policy statements, Obama repeated thecore themes of his world view, at the heart of whichwas the notion of renewed American leadership and anew era of global cooperation. During the campaign,Obama pledged to restore our moral standing so thatAmerica is once again that last best hope for all whoare called to the cause of freedom. . . .38 In an article

for Foreign Affairs in July 2007, Obama stated his goalto renew American leadership in the world throughrebuilding international alliances and institutions.39


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However, it was Obamas Berlin speech that trulygalvanized European and international public opin-

ionby outlining his vision of a world that standsas one. Acknowledging the differences that had ledEurope and America to drift apart, he argued that thethe burdens of global citizenship continue to bind ustogether, requiring allies who would listen to eachother, learn from each other and, most of all, trusteach other.40 It was Obamas Berlin speech that alsoarticulated most forcefully the cosmopolitanism thatappeared to be at the heart of Obamas world view,centered on his dual identity as an American citizenand a citizen of the world.41 Cosmopolitan thinkinggarnered renewed emphasis after 9/11 as part of awider, reective debate within U.S. society as to thecausation and meaning of the attacksparticularly inlight of the strong sense of nationalism and patriotism

they generated. Some put forward ideas for cosmo-politan citizens and calls for a shift away from an ag-gressive nationalism to a softer humanism that couldinform Americas response.42

Obama saw himself occupying a post-ideologi-cal world, one which required new global initiativesand arrangements, including a revitalized NATO.43He described the essence of foreign policy as forginga new relationship with the world based on mutual re-spect and mutual interest.44 His was a cosmopolitanworld-view based on an:

intuitive understanding that the United States was un-able to impose its own moral and historical narrativeon the rest of the world. Obama asserted the Americannarrative and was unabashedly proud of it; he was anauthentic American nationalist. But he did not imaginethat he could make progress with the rest of the worlddependent on the world sharing that narrative.45


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Yet, nor did Obama reject the dominant leitmo-tifs of U.S. foreign policy; he continued to assert the

importance of U.S. global leadership and made clearhis willingness to use military force when necessary.What he did reject was the ideologically chargedzeal for democracy promotion of his predecessor. Inthis regard, he positioned himself as a rare birdademocratic foreign policy realist,46 someone who un-derstood the limitations on U.S. power in the world,and preferred a foreign policy based on hard-headedcalculations of what was in Americas national inter-est. In many ways, Obama deed easy categorization,appearing to combine youthful idealism and a cosmo-politan world view with a sober realism and schol-arly intellect. The latter ensured a tendency to assesseach problem on its merits, giving rise to perceptionsof the new President as a pragmatist. According to

Charles Kupchan, Obamas pragmatism was guidedby a set of questions: Whats the problem? How dowe x it? Who will help the United States x it?47 Itwas through this lens that Obama viewed NATO. Assomeone unencumbered by the baggage of NATOshistory, Obama saw the organization in functionalistterms, as an instrument that could serve Americas in-terests in an interconnected world, and as a vehicle forenhanced burden sharing and partnership.

Obamas War.

One of the principal challenges Obama inheritedin taking ofce was the war in Afghanistan. As notedearlier, Obama took ofce at a time when discourse

over the Alliance was dominated by notions of cri-sis, with both Nicholas Burns and Robert Gates hav-ing made scathing criticisms of the Alliance in Feb-


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ruary 2008. Still, Obama had made clear during thecampaign he believed the Bush administration had

taken its eye off the ball in switching the focus ofU.S. efforts from Afghanistan to Iraq. Once elected,the President thus set about attempting to distancehimself from his predecessor, rejecting the Bush ad-ministrations sweeping rhetoric of democratizationand favoring instead a refocusing of the mission onnarrower objectives. In March 2009, Obama stated, Iwant the American people to understand that we havea clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and de-feat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Obamaordered 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, the largest in-crease since the war began in 2001. But this was alsocoupled with a call for a dramatic increase in our ci-vilian effort and a pledge that he would seek civil-ian support from our partners and allies.48

The refocusing of the war in Afghanistan did notrepresent a radical departure from Bushs policy, butrather a more subtle change in strategy, and it was onewith which Obama was entirely comfortable.49 Obamaalso made a concerted effort to reach out to Ameri-cas NATO allies and repair what the administrationfelt was a signicant degree of damage wrought byhis predecessor to the transatlantic alliance; ObamasNational Security Advisor General James Jones sug-gested that the administration aimed to rebalance therelationship, make people feel like they are contribut-ing even a small amount, but to make them feel liketheyre valued and respected.50

This shift in strategy and approach was an im-portant one for NATO. Although Obama hoped that

European allies would respond to the troop commit-ments with their own increase, he also grasped thatcontinuing to lecture European allies on the issue was


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not a viable long-term option. As a result, the Obamaadministration placed far more emphasis in early-2009

on asking European nations to focus on what theycould doincreasing funding and resources for civil-ian reconstruction. Jeremy Shapiro, a State Depart-ment adviser on Europe, commented that the tone ofthe messages he is giving is a specic and intendedsharp break with the past.51

In February 2009, Vice-President Joseph Bidengave a speech to the 45th Munich Conference on Secu-rity Policy in which he made clear the new tone thatthe Obama administration intended to set in its rela-tions with Europe. However, Biden also claried thatin return for the new tone and approach of the Obamaadministration, the United States would expect morefrom its partners.52 In one sense, here was at least apartial attempt on the part of the new administration

to recalibrate the bargain; Obama recognized that U.S.leadership of the Alliance required a more nuancedapproach than to simply berate European allies overburden sharing, and that, in the context of modernmilitary operations, Europeans had valuable contri-butions to make. At the same time, he was remind-ing Europeans that the bargain had always implied aquid pro quo and that in return for a more nuanced U.S.leadership, he expected Europeans to respond in kind.

Only 2 weeks later, U.S. aspirations of a moreequal partnership were shattered when Gates wastold at a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Kra-kow, Poland, that additional Europeans troops forISAF would not be forthcoming. This announcementled one commentator to suggest that the administra-

tions message had been lost in translation.53 De-spite this setback, the Obama administration contin-ued to promote its new strategy for Afghanistan to


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NATO, centered on a more comprehensive approachthat fused troop increases with more funding and

resources for promoting better governance, policetraining, the rule of law, and economic development.This shift in thinking had begun during the Bush ad-ministration, with the publication in 2006 of the U.S.militarys new manual Field Manual (FM) 3-24, Coun-terinsurgency (COIN), co-authored by General DavidPetraeus. Still, it was the Obama administration thatfound itself largely responsible for developing andimplementing the new approach. Its commitment towhat it termed smart power, combining militarypower with the softer tools of diplomacy, negotiation,and statecraft to achieve U.S. goals and objectives, alsomeshed well with an emerging consensus in Washing-ton. Such a consensus held that achieving security andstability in the region depended upon a more holistic

approach, coupled with increasing engagement withAfghanistans neighbors, including Iran and Paki-stan. It was also music to the ears of many Europe-ans who had been frustrated by what they perceivedas an excessive focus on military power by the Bushadministration.

As a result, by the time Alliance leaders gatheredin Strasbourg, Germany, for NATOs 60th anniversarysummit, Obama had managed to extract promises oftroops, military trainers, and civilian experts fromAmericas European allies in what The WashingtonPost called a sweeping demonstration of support forthe new administrations leadership.54 French Presi-dent Nicholas Sarkozy welcomed the new approach,commenting:

It feels really good to work with a U.S. president . . .who understands that the world doesnt boil down tosimply American frontiers and borders.55


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NATO pledged to establish a NATO Training Mis-sion in Afghanistan (NTM-A) to help train the Afghan

National Army and Police. But tensions and disagree-ments refused to disappear as it became evident thetroop increases Obama had hoped for would not beforthcoming, puncturing the otherwise celebratoryatmosphere at Strasbourg.56 Sarkozy dismissed a re-porters comment that the United States was send-ing in more troops while the Europeans were not, bysuggesting that It is the European vision that is tri-umphing, a reference to the long-standing Europeandesire to focus on civilian reconstruction, rather thanmilitary force.57

Obamas decision in December 2009 to commit afurther 30,000 troops to Afghanistan further fueledtensions in the Alliance. The decision was the resultof the most detailed presidential review of a national

security decision since the 1962 Cuban Missile Cri-sis.58 Although General Petraeus sought an additional10,000 U.S. troops, Obama warned him to Be carefulhow you characterize our NATO allies. We need them.They will be useful in this coalition.59 Nevertheless,the 3 months that Obama took to reach his decisionbecame a source of concern, especially in London, UK,and Paris, France, where reports suggested both theBritish and French governments were growing impa-tient with what U.S. Republicans had already labeledObamas dithering. Bernard Kouchner, the Frenchforeign minister, suggested a lack of leadership fromWashington was hampering the Afghan mission andasked, What is the goal? What is the road? And in thename of what? Where are the Americans? It begins to

be a problem.60


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According to Heather Conley of the Center for Stra-tegic and International Studies, the reaction in Europe

to the eventual decision to implement a surge wasWait. Youre going to do this again? Youre goingto ask for more?61 This was exactly what the Obamaadministration did as it made clear that it expectedNATO allies to play their part. At a meeting of NATOdefense ministers, the Alliance pledged in the regionof 7,000 troops, but the response from individual na-tions was muted; only Britain and Poland offered toincrease their troop numbers immediately, while oth-ers, including France, Germany, and Italy, were non-committal. The Germans responded to Obamas de-liberations by stating We will take our own time toassess what he said and discuss this with our allies.62

Although Secretary of State Hillary Clintonclaimed she was extremely heartened63 by the dem-

onstration of Alliance solidarity, the problem for theadministration was that the shift in strategy, althoughwelcomed by many in Europe, could not overcomedeeply embedded opposition to the war among Eu-ropean populations. A PEW survey of May-June 2009found that in Germany, a country with the third larg-est contingent of Allied troops in Afghanistan, nearly6-in-10 people favored withdrawal. In most of theother countries surveyed, including France, Britain,Poland, and Spain, the survey found majorities or plu-ralities opposed to NATOs Afghan mission. While 57percent of Americans surveyed wanted U.S. troops tostay in Afghanistan, opinion was more evenly dividedin Britain, France, and Germany.64

In the face of domestic political realities confront-

ing many European allies, Obamas change in toneand approach had only a limited impact. Followingthe London Afghanistan conference in January 2010,


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NATO did conrm that it would commit a total of7,000 extra troops for ISAF;65 still, the European fail-

ure to respond more positively to Obamas overturesleft some observers questioning not only the utility ofthe Alliance for the United States, but also Obamasleadership. Kori Schake, a former Bush ofcial andHoover Institution fellow, claimed the coolness inthe European response has come as a surprise. Andit does matter. For Schake, the explanation for thisresponse lay not in Obamas perceived lack of Atlanti-cism, but in the overinated expectations he had ofwhat Europe would be able to deliver. She observedthat President Obamas expectations for the kind ofpartners Europeans were going to be were far granderthan Europe was prepared to deliver.66

The resistance the Obama administration en-countered led Gates to launch a withering attack on

Americas European allies at a February 2010 meetingof NATO ofcials, lamenting what he saw as the de-militarization of Europe.67 Even Clinton joined thefray in calling for an honest discussion and warnedNATO that it risked becoming a talking shop.68Gatess remarks, although scathing in their criticism,were not new, but reected deep-seated U.S. frus-trations with NATO that had been evident since thedawning of the Cold War. Gates would repeat thesefrustrations in his nal speech to NATO in June 2011,where he reminded NATO defense ministers that hewas only one in a long line of U.S. Defense Secretariesexasperated at the failure of some members of theAlliance to meet agreed-upon NATO benchmarks forspending. He also warned the Alliance that if it did not

establish a more equitable burden-sharing arrange-ment, it faced the very real possibility of collectivemilitary irrelevance.69


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Gatess comments were clearly intended to injecta sense of urgency into debates over Alliance burden

sharing for a European audience; they did not, how-ever, paint an entirely fair or accurate picture. Asnoted earlier, the comprehensive nature of modernmilitary operations has required a greater emphasison contributions to the civilian dimension of the op-erations, such as policing and economic reconstruc-tion. When it comes to ISAF, NATOs European alliesaccounted for almost 60 percent of the armed forcescommitted, with Canada contributing 33 percent, andthe United States less than 2 percent. In addition, Eu-ropean NATO Allies have made major contributionswhen it comes to aid and development assistance.70Although such contributions are recognized and ac-knowledged in Washington, the tendency to focus onmore traditional measures of burden sharing, notably

defense spending, can obscure the very real and im-portant contributions European allies make.

In this regard, NATO Secretary General AndersFogh Rasmussen was right when he noted that U.S.claims that Europeans do too little simply do notpaint the full picture.71 Moreover, one might argue thatthe more normative and holistic approach to securityof many in Europe provides a critical counterpointto the militarism that has tended to typify U.S. atti-tudes to defense.72 Making sweeping generalizationsabout the pacication of Europe is also inherentlyproblematicnot least because Europe is not a ho-mogeneous entity, but a coming together of a myriadof different strategic cultures, all with differing viewson the use of military force. Some European nations,

notably Britain, have greater synergy with an Ameri-can way of thinking, while the Obama administrationput a renewed emphasis on soft (or smart) power


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and civilian tools and capabilities, as reected in therelease of the rst Quadrennial Diplomacy and Develop-

ment Review (QDDR) in 2010.73

A New Urgency.

Despite the nuances and complexities injected intothe transatlantic bargain in a post-Cold War world, thebargain continues to be undermined, as far as Wash-ington is concerned, by a number of interrelated gapsthat have emerged within the Alliance over the past 2decades. With U.S. defense spending increasing in thecontext of the war on terror and sharp cuts to manyEuropean defense budgets prompted by the 2008 eco-nomic crisis, a defense spending gap had emergedby 2010 that was, in turn, fueling a growing capabili-ties gap within the Alliance. As defense expert Hans

Binnendijk noted in testimony to Congress ahead ofNATOs 2012 Chicago summit, in 2011 NATOs Eu-ropean members averaged just 1.6 percent of GDP or$282.9 billion spent on defense while the United Statesspent 4.8 percent of GDP or $685.6 billion on defense,equating to 69 percent and 28 percent of total NATOdefense spending for European NATO members andthe United States, respectively.74 Across the board,the defense expenditure of the European NATO Alliesis forecast to decline by 2.9 percent (after adjusting forination) between 2010 and 2015.75

By contrast, between 2001-12 U.S. defense spend-ing was on an upward trajectory, thus ensuring botha widening defense spending gap between the UnitedStates and Europe, as well as a growing capabilities

gap; while the United States had continued to investin high-end technology and expeditionary capabili-ties, many European nations had made only modest


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improvements.76 Added to this is a transformationgap; while the U.S. military undertook a major pro-

cess of transformation after the end of the Cold War,European militaries have lagged behind. Despite thetransformation agenda instituted at the 2002 PragueSummit, there have been signicant disparities acrossEurope in the pace and scope of transformation, due tothe different time scales Allies have adopted, nationaldomestic politics, and the different ways in which theAllies have interpreted the transformation agenda.77

However, U.S. frustration with the Alliance be-came more sustained after 9/11, imbalances in capa-bilities and burden sharing, although unpalatable andfrequently lamented, were begrudgingly tolerated be-cause: a) Americas dominant position within the Al-liance continued to serve U.S. interests; and, b) therewas no urgent economic imperative to scale back Alli-

ance spending or contributions. This was the essenceof the transatlantic bargain that underpinned the Al-liance through the Cold War and into the post-ColdWar years. As noted earlier, the bargain underwentminor adjustments in the 1990s; U.S. troop levels inEurope saw some reductions, and Europe acceleratedefforts to forge closer integration in the security anddefense realm. Calls for a more substantive revision ofthe transatlantic bargain in the absence of the Sovietthreat were offset, however, by instability in Europeand a U.S. foreign policy agenda that gave primacyto the core task of preserving and advancing stability,security, and democracy across an expanding Europe.In the light of limited progress in European defenseintegration and transformation, which left NATO as

the principal mechanism for guaranteeing Europeansecurity, as well as of a decade of relative prosper-ity, Washingtons interests continued to be served


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by maintaining its role as primus inter pares withinthe Alliance.

Obama, however, was elected at a time when aconuence of factors served to cast doubt on the ongo-ing value, and sustainability, of America retaining itshegemonic role within the Alliance. In broader terms,the nature of U.S. global leadership and the central-ity of Europe as a whole to U.S. strategic thinkingwere being called into question. Obama entered ofceacutely aware of the limitations of American powerand of its willingness and ability to continue to act as aglobal policeman in the face of enormous economicchallenges at home. Obama intuitively grasped thesignicance for the United States of Chinas increas-ingly prominent role on the world stage. With concerngrowing among Americas allies in the Asia-Pacicover Chinas rising power, and with concern growing

within Washington over challenges to U.S. primacy inthe region, the Obama administration was naturallyless focused on Europe as a region.78

This strategic rebalancing was part of an evolu-tionary process that had been under way since theend of the Cold War. Both the Clinton and George W.Bush administrations had accorded a high priority tothe Asia-Pacic; indeed, a perennial debate in foreignpolicy circles through the 1990s and 2000s was the rel-ative merits of containment versus engagementwith a rising China. The strategic signicance of theGreater Middle East was also heightened in the post-Cold War years, in the context of ongoing instabilityand turmoil and the ever-increasing domestic demandfor the free ow of energy supplies from the region.

As regional stability in the Asia-Pacic and MiddleEast took on greater signicance for the United States,Europe conversely undertook a gradual process of ex-


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pansion and, over the last decade in particular, a moresustained effort to forge a European security and de-

fense capability. The events of 9/11 only served to fur-ther shift Americas strategic focus away from Europeand toward what Zbigniew Brzezinski had more than2 decades earlier termed an arc of crisis.79

Unlike Presidents Clinton and Bush, however,Obama had to contend with an economic crisis thelikes of which America had not experienced since theGreat Depression; originating in the U.S. subprimemortgage market, this crisis served to expose thefragility of the American economy and was a pain-ful reminder of Americas vulnerabilityand of theurgent need to set Americas house in order. As aresult, the need to both reduce U.S. defense spendingand continue Americas strategic reprioritization wasparamount during Obamas rst 2 years in ofce. This

was simply a pragmatic response for the United Statesto a world in which Europe is no longer an object ofsecurity concern as it was during the Cold War and itsimmediate aftermath.80 With the United States seek-ing to scale back its global commitments and furtherrebalance toward the Asia-Pacic, it naturally lookedto Europe to take on greater responsibility for secu-rity in its own backyardand especially for crises orconicts in which the United States had only minimalstrategic interests at stake.

It was against this backdrop that the Alliance founditself having to confront the prospect of yet anothermilitary operation, this time in Libya. Unlike in Af-ghanistan, however, the conict was on the Europeanperiphery, and vital U.S. national interests were not at

stake. During the 1990s, conicts in the Balkans hadproven beyond the capacity of Europe to deal withalone, with the United States playing a major role in


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terms of both military contributions and political lead-ership. By 2011 and the eruption of another violent

conict on Europes periphery, the context was verydifferent: the United States was war-weary, sufferingfrom military overstretch, and facing a challengingdomestic economic contextall of which mitigatedagainst the United States playing a leading role andbrought into even sharper focus the need for a rethink-ing of the transatlantic bargain.

Leadership from Behind?

With the Obama administration acutely aware ofthe toll two major military engagements in Afghani-stan and Iraq had taken, as well as of the damage toits international reputation and standing in the Arabworld, and with the administration forced to confront

the most challenging economic crisis since the GreatDepression, the political and public appetite for U.S.involvement in Libya was limited, at best. The crisisin Libya, taking place in the heart of the Europeanneighborhood, represented an opportunity for Eu-ropean members of the Alliance to step up anddemonstrate their ability and willingness to assumea greater leadership role. Despite his initial reluctanceto intervene, as the situation on the ground deterio-rated and with Britain and France pushing forcefullyfor a no-y zone, Obama began to call for a broaderresolution that would authorize military force againstMuammar Qadafs forces. The result was Opera-tion ODYSSEY DAWN, a series of air strikes com-mencing on March 19, 2011, carried out by the United

States, the UK, and France but under U.S. strategiccommand. The United States then handed over com-mand and control to NATO for Operation UNIFIEDPROTECTOR on March 31.


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The operation was, in many ways, a perfect dem-onstration of the Obama administrations broader ap-

proach to foreign policy, one centered on the conceptsof partnership and pragmatism.81 Despite the lack ofan overwhelming strategic rationale for U.S. militaryengagement, it was hard for the Obama administra-tion to turn a blind eye to the moral imperatives foraction, particularly in the context of earlier efforts toreach out to and engage the Arab world. But with do-mestic support limited and defense cuts looming onthe horizon, the administration also could not play thekind of dominant role it had done in previous Allianceoperations. Thus, Obama was keen to make clear that,while the United States would focus our unique ca-pabilities on the front end of the operation, it wouldthen move to a supporting role. It would seek totransfer responsibility to our allies and partners to

ensure that the risk and cost of this operationto ourmilitary and to American taxpayerswill be reducedsignicantly. Obama also maintained that real lead-ership created the conditions and coalitions for othersto step up as wellto work with allies and partners sothat they could bear their share of the burden and paytheir share of the costs.82 In this regard, the U.S. ap-proach to the campaign . . . reected Americas logicof a new transatlantic burden-sharing model in thelight of a changed grand strategy.83 Still, despite thepragmatism that drove such logic, the Obama admin-istration was accused of eschewing its indispensiblerole of leadership84 within the Alliance, in what wasunatteringly depicted as leadership from behind.85

This criticism came about partly because the Unit-

ed States withheld some critical capabilities, such asthe A-10 Thunderbolt IIand AC-130 Spectergunships,but also because, while such logic made perfect sense


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in theory, it proved harder to implement in practice.Although Britain, France, and a handful of other Eu-

ropean allies provided the bulk of combat sorties, theUnited States was forced to step in and supply keyenabling assets, including the U.S. joint surveillancetarget attack radar system (JSTARS) and airbornewarning and control system (AWACS) aircraft.

Yet, even this fact could not hide what appeared tobe a stepchange in U.S. attitudes to the Alliance. As amajor RUSIstudy of the operation argued:

Despite its established history of leading coalitionsof the willing, with commitments elsewhere andresource challenges of its own, the Libya campaignwas a clear example of the U.S. seeking to play adifferent role.86

Americas NATO allies also demonstrated that

there were indeed possibilities for a new transatlan-tic bargain, one in which European members of theAllianceas well as NATO partnerswould take onincreasing roles and responsibilities.

As Binnendijk pointed out to Congress in testi-mony prior to the 2012 Chicago Summit, 90 percentof all ordinance dropped on Libya was delivered by

Europeans.87

Moreover, not only did France and Brit-ain demonstrate their willingness to step up, butso, too, did a number of smaller European nationsthat contributed vital niche capabilities, includingNorway, Belgium, Italy, and Denmark. Qatar, theUnited Arab Emirates, Morocco, Jordan, and Swe-den also played key operational roles. As one U.S.commentator conceded:

Libya shows Americans that Europe and Canada arenot denuded, post-modern pacists. In this battle,


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Europeans took the lead, demonstrating that they canand will use force when they have the political will todo so.88

Although it is unwise to portray the Libyan opera-tion as a harbinger of future trends, it is also hard notto conclude that it does mark a shift in the dynamicsof U.S. leadership of the Alliancenot least because,as one U.S. ofcial conceded, Our ability to carry theburden is being called into question.89

Still, the reliance of many European nations onthe United States for critical assets gave rise to theview that:

The Europeans were counting too heavily on theUnited States for their security at a time when Ameri-cans were increasingly preoccupied with advancingtheir strategic interests in Asia and the Pacic. In

short, the perception grew that the trans-Atlantic linkwas weakening.90

Secretary Gates further fueled such perceptionswhen he warned, in the midst of Operation UNIFIEDPROTECTOR, that in the context of ongoing imbal-ances in burden sharing and capabilities the Alliancefaced the prospect of increasing irrelevance.91 Suchwarnings were followed by more tangible signs thatthe mood in Washington was rmly shifting. In Janu-ary 2012, the United States released its Defense Strate-gic Guidance (DSG), which conrmed an expected re-duction in U.S. forces in Europe and a strategic focuson the Asia-Pacic, as well as announcing substantialdefense cuts of a projected $487 billion over the next

decade.92

As a result, U.S. defense spending is set todecline for the rst time in 13 years. Although this willreduce the defense spending gap with many Allies, it


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is also a clear signal that the United States will be lesswilling and able to contribute to European security to

the same degree as in the past.The DSG was released against a backdrop of grow-

ing congressional disquiet over Alliance disparities.Congressional skepticism of the Alliance has alwaysbeen a key dynamic inuencing U.S.-NATO relations.This is particularly true today, at a time when con-gressional scrutiny and criticism of Americas com-mitment to NATO has intensied, and is taking on anew salience in the context of the campaign in Libya,the global nancial crisis, and U.S. defense cuts. Ac-cording to one U.S. congressman:

Were ghting at this level and theyre at another leveland that comes down to investment, hardware, train-ing, personnel and making it a priority. And to someextent my constituents, those who pay attention tosuch issues, I think theyre troubled by the free-rideraspect of this.93

As previously noted, such claims do not paint awholly accurate picture. Although there had been awidening spending gap between the United Statesand many of its Allies prior to 2012, some analysts

did indeed question whether it is not really a matterof the United States spending too much on defense,rather than the Europeans spending too little. Fur-thermore, while the capabilities gap may also havewidened, this pales in signicance when one consid-ers they are allied with each other, are qualitativelycompatible, and have capabilities that complementthe others shortfalls.94 Still, this has not prevented

Congress from demanding more equitable burdensharing. In 2012, Congress called on Europe not onlyto shoulder a larger share of NATOs missile defenseprogram, but also:


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to reduce the defense gap with the United States

by equipping themselves with capabilities that aredeemed to be critical, deployable, and sustainable;to meet the agreed upon benchmark of spending atleast 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ondefense; and to demonstrate political determination toachieve these goals.95

Although the United States pays a share ofNATOs commonly funded budget proportionate toits Gross National Income (GNI), only three NATO al-lies meet the 2 percent agreed-upon benchmark of de-fense spending as a percentage of GDP.96 Yet, as notedearlier, this is not a particularly fair or accurate way ofmeasuring burden sharing within the Alliance, a pointcaptured by former Secretary General Jaap de HoopScheffer in 2008:

How does one decide what is a fair contribution froma country of 50 million against a contribution from acountry with a population of only 4 million? How canyou evaluate a contribution of light infantry againstthe provision of critical enablers such as helicoptersor air-to-air refuellers? And over what time period?97

Even so, the transformation gap evident betweenthe United States and many European allies is of in-creasing concern to Washington. In Norfolk, Virginia,in 2003, as part of NATOs post-9/11 transformationagenda, the Allied Command Transformation (ACT)was posited to be the forcing agent for change withinthe Alliance and to act as the focus and motivatingforce to bring intellectual rigor to the change pro-

cess.98 Part of the purpose of ACT was to acceleratethe transformation of member-state forces from be-ing rooted in a conventional Cold War mindset, into


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lighter, faster, and more rapidly deployable forcescapable of conducting expeditionary operations

alongside U.S. forces. ACT was originally co-locatedwith the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM),and, as Cornish notes, many of the intellectual, tech-nological and doctrinal roots for the military trans-formation agenda are derived specically from theUS experience.99

In practice, however, Alliance transformation hasnot proceeded at the pace nor the scope that the Unit-ed States had hoped. By the mid-to-late-2000s, keyofcials were expressing concern that ACTs transfor-mation process lacked a wider strategic framework togive it coherence and an understanding of the prob-lem that needed to be solved.100 In addition, the paceof transformation varied across European capitals;some countries, like Britain and France, had already

begun transforming their militaries in the early-1990s,but many had not. In practice, it proved harder totransfer U.S. concepts and practices into an allianceframework. In September 2009, France took over com-mand of ACT, while in 2011, the United States dises-tablished the USJFCOM. Although efforts have beenmade to tailor ACTs transformation more speci-cally to the requirements of member states, the resulthas been a failure to close the transformation gap inthe way the United States had hoped and envisagedin 2003.101

Although the United States recognized that Al-liance transformation is an ongoing process ratherthan an end in itself, its decision to reduce its owndefense spending has further added to the uncer-

tainty over how such gaps can be closed. In January2012, Obamas Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalderwarned that, If there ever was a time in which the


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United States could always be counted on to ll thegaps that may emerge in European defense, that time

is rapidly coming to an end.102

Yet, neither shouldsuch criticism be seen as evidence that the UnitedStates is in danger of turning its back on the Alliancenor that there is a growing and irreparable rupture inU.S.-NATO relations. Thomas Ries wrongly paints apicture of NATO as a sinking ship whose captainhas already jumped overboard.103 Such views fail toacknowledge that persistent U.S. criticism of the Alli-ance is not only nothing new, but is also possible onlybecause of the underlying strength of the transatlan-tic bargain, which allows for an honest and frank ex-change of views. When Gates gave his farewell speechto the Alliance in June 2011a speech that containedsome forthright and robust criticisms of NATOhetook pains to point out that:

I share these views in the spirit of solidarity andfriendship, with the understanding that true friendsoccasionally must speak bluntly with one another forthe sake of those greater interests and values that bindus together.104

A Transatlantic Bargain for the 21st Century.

On both sides of the Atlantic, however, there is agrowing consensus concerning the need for a revisedtransatlantic agreement.105 In his seminal piece on thetransatlantic bargain, Cleveland wrote that Whilethe bargain changes, the constant is a consensusamong the allies that there has to be a bargain. Thisremains as true today as it did then. But as Cleveland

also acknowledged:

Unless the Europeans have a lively interest in theirown defense, it becomes politically impossible


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for a government in Washington to represent toits own people that we are partners in a collectivesecurity mission.106

As noted earlier, European integration has acceler-ated since the end of the Cold War, and a lively inter-est in European defense has clearly been in evidence.But Washington has not always made it easy for itsEuropean allies, at times remaining suspicious of Eu-ropean integration in security and defense matters.

Although those suspicions are waning, Washingtoncontinues to view NATO as the principal mechanismfor transatlantic security affairs.

Moreover, while Washington wantsand indeedexpectsgreater burden sharing within the Alliance,with European members playing a greater role bothin terms of political will and military capabilities, it

is not willing to relinquish its dominant leadershiprole entirely. U.S. ofcials continue to view Americasrole within the Alliance as that of the indispensiblenation.107 Such a label is not entirely misplaced; U.S.leadership of the Alliance remains vital for its overallhealth and endurance, and, if Libya proved anything,it was the reality that at present, European air forcesare incapable of conducting a major strategic air cam-

paign without U.S. help. Moreover, for larger-scaleconicts farther aeld, the Alliance will invariablyneed to rely on more signicant American supportthan was the case in Libya.108 However, the UnitedStates will also not continue to tolerate the culture ofdependency that has aficted the Alliance throughoutits history. The withdrawal of two U.S. Army combat

brigades from Europe may raise concerns over theability of U.S. and European forces to sustain levelsof interoperability,109 but it should be regarded as an


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opportunity for the dynamics of leadership within theAlliance to shift toward a more post-American al-

liance. It is important to note that this shift does notmean an absence of U.S. leadership, or even a dimi-nution of it, but rather, as Damon Wilson describesit, the right mix of U.S. leadership, European ambi-tion, and stronger global partnerships.110 It requiresboth the United States and its NATO allies in Europeand Canada to address transatlantic relations with aclearer eye and a harder head,111 wherein the UnitedStates encourages and facilitates a substantive processof European members more consciously steppingup, and NATO partners becoming more visible andinuential players.

The term post-American may not be a comfort-able one for some Americans; it brings with it notionsof the limits of U.S. power and leadership, and of a

world in which U.S. global hegemony is challenged.It is certainly a far cry from the American Centuryproclaimed by Henry Luce in 1945.112 However, the21st century will surely not be dominated by Americanpower in all its forms in quite the same way as the sec-ond half of the 20th century was. America, then, has toadapt to new real

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A Transatlantic Bargain for the 21st Century: The United States, Europe, and the Transatlantic...

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