Abstract
Euro-American ties — and NATO — have been ruptured, and never again will be the same. Of course, as the historian Lawrence S. Kaplan correctly observed, ‘The idea of NATO being in a terminal state has been a topic for pundits since the 1950s’ (Kaplan, 1992, 16). It still is. However, today those who argue that the Alliance is in terminal decline have a very strong case to make. There are four reasons for this. First, the Cold War's end has deprived NATO of its essential raison d’être. Second, the European Union has not only taken huge strides toward attaining political and economic unity but now also has taken significant steps to creating the capacity to act independently of the United States in the security arena. Third, the structural effects of unipolarity are pushing the EU in the direction of counter-balancing American preponderance. Fourth, the Iraq war has highlighted the divergent geopolitical interests of the US and the EU.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
See, for example, Chace (1976), Steel (1977), Layne (1983, 1987), Ravenal (1985), and Carpenter (1990). Previously associated with strong support for NATO, Walt now concurs with the argument I advanced in the 1980s: that because NATO's dissolution is inevitable the best course of action is for the United States and Western Europe to begin a process of gradual disengagement rather than risking NATO's precipitous rupture in a future transatlantic crisis. For his previous support of the US commitment to NATO, see Walt (1989).
As Waltz puts it (p. 209), ‘Alliances are made by states that have some but not all of their interests in common. The common interest is ordinarily a negative one: fear of other states.’
For a similar argument, see Cox (2005).
A similar claim is that President Bush blundered by telling the rest of the world that after 9/11 it had but two choices: either to be with the US or against it. However, the administration hardly was the first to engage in such bullying tactics. During the height of the Cold War, for example, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles argued that it was ‘immoral’ for the Non-Aligned Bloc to remain neutral in the contest between the US and the Soviet Union.
Even during the 1950s — the supposed high-water mark of US multilateralism — key American policymakers made no secret of their unilateralist preferences. Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that, ‘US leadership of the free world is crucial.’ Although he believed consultation with the West Europeans would strengthen American leadership by enabling Washington to explain its policies and the rationales underlying them, the trick was to find a way to communicate with the allies ‘without limiting US freedom of action unduly’ (Acheson, 1952, 325). Similarly, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles stressed that the US could not allow its allies in NATO, SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization), or the OAS (Organization of American States) to have veto power over American foreign policy. As he told West German Foreign Minister von Brentano: ‘We cannot, for example, agree not to act without consultation in the North Atlantic Council…. We must sometimes act very quickly and, while we are anxious to see the North Atlantic Council develop into a useful consultative body, we do not wish to have our capacity for action destroyed’ (Dulles, 1957a). Dulles explained the US view on consultation to the National Security Council: ‘It was harder for the United states than for other NATO nations to agree to full consultation on all policy matters, because of the world-wide commitments and interests of the United States. However, we will agree to increase the exchange of policy information around the NATO council table. After all, as far as the United States is concerned, we have no policies which we seek to hide or are ashamed to acknowledge. All our policies are designed to protect freedom in the world. Nevertheless, we do not want to be in a position where we are unable to act promptly if necessary for the reason that we are obliged to consult with the NATO Council before taking action’ (Dulles, 1957b) (emphasis added).
The problem with the George W. Bush administration's Iraq policy is not that it was unilateral, but that it was unwise. And it would have been just as unwise even if pursued multilaterally.
Cox (2005) makes a similar argument.
Polish and Czech leaders and American conservative supporters of NATO enlargement frequently argued that expansion was needed as a hedge against a resurgent Russia. However, the Clinton administration officials responsible for the Alliance's first round of expansion regarded as remote the prospects of a future Russian security threat to East Central Europe. See Asmus (2002).
See Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe (1995). The most robust version of NATO expansion is Brzezinski (1997), which calls for transforming NATO into a Trans-Eurasian Security System (TESS) that would encompass all of Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus, and East Asia.
For statements of this thesis, see Mandelbaum (2005) and Ikenberry (1998/1999, 2002, 2003).
For Britain, living in a world dominated by the two superpowers was dangerous. As Hathaway (1981, 227, emphasis added) comments: “London officials were determined to resist any tendency to relegate Great Britain to a position of secondary rank or importance in international affairs. This consideration, more so than fear of Russia or any other country, led to the decision to obtain their own nuclear capability. To do otherwise would be tantamount to forsaking great power status. Years later Atlee was to explain the decision to build a bomb by referring not to the Soviet Union but to the Untied States. ‘It had become essential,’ he remembered. ‘We had to hold up our position vis-à-vis the Americans. We couldn’t allow ourselves to be wholly in their hands.’”
As Eden (accurately) observed in 1954 of the Americans, ‘They want to run the world.’ Quoted in Dimbleby and Reynolds (1988). During the war Washington increasingly treated Britain as a junior partner in the Grand Alliance, and, as London realized, was likely to continue doing so in the postwar world (Kent, 1983, 66–67). The literature on the wartime intensification of the Anglo-American rivalry over economic, and colonial issues — and the US goal of displacing Britain as the dominant world power — is extensive. For useful accounts, see Kolko (1968), Louis (1978), Thorne (1978), Hathaway (1981), Kimball (1991), Aldrich (2000).
The standard work on Bevin is Bullock (1983). Bullock's orthodox interpretation of Bevin's diplomacy — that his goal was not to create a Third Force, but rather was to draw the US into a long-term peacetime military commitment to Western Europe — has been challenged by more recent scholarship. On London's flirtation with forming a West European bloc as the foundation of Britain's Third Force ambitions, see Kent (1983, 118–125), Hogan (1987, 45–48), Greenwood (1996).
For two excellent recent discussions of De Gaulle's strategy vis-à-vis the United States, see Bozo (2001), Giauque (2002).
As University of Munich political scientist Ulrich Beck put it, ‘Kosovo could be our military euro, creating a political and defense identity for the European Union in the same way as the euro is the expression of economic and financial integration.’ Quoted in Cohen (1999).
For background on how ESDP evolved from the European Security and Defense Initiative (EDSP) — which was a classic transatlantic burden-sharing exercise designed to strengthen the Alliance's ‘European pillar’ — see Croft et al. (2000), Bozo (2002), Howorth and Keeler (2002).
The ‘Three D's’ — especially the non-duplication, and non-diminishment proscriptions — effectively would foreclose the EU from ever achieving strategic autonomy, and would ensure Europe's continuing security dependency on United States. This is because the US has a virtual monopoly on NATO military capabilities in such key areas as intelligence, advanced surveillance and reconnaissance systems, power projection, and precision guided munitions.
On NATO's role in Afghanistan, see de Nevers (2007, 48–52). Also see Dempsey (2006), Moore and Anderson (2006), Morarjee (2006), Anderson (2007), Fidler and Boone (2007).
On why NATO remained central to US strategy even after the Cold War, see Layne (2000).
Several factors suggest that the US commitment to NATO is waning. First, the primary focus of American strategy has shifted from Europe to the Middle East, East Asia, and Central Asia. Second, for both geopolitical and military reasons, the US has become less interested in operating through NATO and more disposed to ad hoc security cooperation based on bilateral relations or on ‘coalitions of the willing.’ Third, as an institution, NATO's contribution to the so-called War on Terror is minimal. For an excellent analysis, see de Nevers (2007).
Kissinger (1965, 40) first made this point in the mid-1960s, when he stated that a united Europe would ‘challenge American hegemony in Atlantic policy.’
References
Acheson, D. (1952) ‘Acheson to Bruce, September 19, 1952’, Foreign Relations of the United States [FRUS] 1952–54, V.
Albright, M. (1997) ‘Albright Press Conference at NATO Headquarters’, Brussels, Belgium, February 19.
Aldrich, R.J. (2000) Intelligence and the War Against Japan: Britain, America, and the Politics of Secret Service, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Anderson, J.W. (2007) ‘NATO Conflicted Over Afghanistan’, Washington Post, October 21.
Art, R.J. (2004) ‘Europe Hedges Its Security Bets’, in T.V. Paul, J.J. Wirtz and M. Fortmann (eds.) Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the Twenty-First Century, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Asmus, R.D. (1997) ‘Double Enlargement: Redefining the Atlantic Partnership After the Cold War’, in David C. Gompert and F. Stephen Larrabee (eds.) America and Europe: A Partnership for a New Era, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–50.
Asmus, R.D. (2002) Opening NATO's Door: How the Alliance Remade Itself for a New Era, New York: Columbia University Press.
Asmus, R.D., Klugler, R.L. and Larrabee, F.S. (1993) ‘Building a New NATO’, Foreign Affairs 74 (2): 28–40.
Bohlen, C. (1950) ‘Minutes of the Seventh Meeting of the Policy Planning Staff’, January 24, 1950, FRUS 1950, III.
Bozo, F. (2001) (trans. S. Emanuel) Two Strategies for Europe, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Bozo, F. (2002) ‘The Effects of Kosovo and the Danger of Decoupling’, in J. Howorth and J.T.S. Keeler (eds.) Defending Europe: The EU, NATO, and The Quest for European Autonomy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 61–77.
Brzezinski, Z. (1997) The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives, New York: Basic Books.
Bullock, A. (1983) Ernest Bevin: Foreign Secretary, London: Heineman.
Carpenter, T.G. (1990) ‘Competing Agendas: America, Europe, and a Troubled NATO Partnership’, in T.G. Carpenter (ed.) NATO at 40: Confronting a Changing World, Lexington, MA Lexington Books, pp. 29–44.
Chace, J. (1976) Atlantis Lost: US–European Relations After the Cold War, New York: New York University Press.
Clinton, W.J. President (1996) ‘Remarks to the People of Detroit’, October 22, 1996, http://clinton6.nara.gov/1996/10/1996-10-22-president-speech-on-foreign-policy-in-detroit-mi.html.
Clinton, W.J. President (1999) ‘Remarks on Foreign Policy’, San Francisco, February 26.
Cohen, R. (1999) ‘In Uniting Over Kosovo, A New Sense of Identity’, New York Times, April 28.
Cox, M.G. (2005) ‘Beyond the West: Terrors in Transatlantia’, European Journal of International Relations 11 (2): 203–234.
Croft, S., Howorth, J. and Teriff, T. (2000) ‘NATO's Triple Challenge’, International Affairs 76 (3): 495–518.
Dahlburg, J.-T. (1999) ‘Battle for Kosovo Shows Europe Still Needs US’, Los Angeles Times, April 20.
Dempsey, J. (2003a) ‘US Seeks Showdown With EU Over NATO’, Financial Times, October 17.
Dempsey, J. (2003b) ‘EU Leaders Unveil Plan for Central Military HQ’, Financial Times, April 30.
Dempsey, J. (2006) ‘After NATO Meeting, No New Troops for Afghanistan’, New York Times, September 14.
de Nevers, R. (2007) ‘NATO’S International Security Role in the Terrorist Era’, International Security 31 (4): 34–66.
Department of Defense. (1964–68) ‘Talking Paper Prepared in the Department of Defense’, undated, FRUS 1964–68, XII:728.
Department of State. (n.d.) ‘Paper Prepared in the, “Economic Benefits of European Integration”’, FRUS 1949, III.
Dimbleby, D. and Reynolds, D. (1988) An Ocean Apart: The Relationship Between Britain and America in the Twentieth Century, New York: Random House.
Dombey, D. and Spiegel, P. (2005) ‘Schroeder Proposes a Review of NATO's Role’, Financial Times, February 14.
Dulles, J.F. (1957a) ‘Memorandum of a Conversation, November 23, 1957’, FRUS 1955–57 IV: 191.
Dulles, J.F. (1957b) ‘Memorandum of Discussion, 348th Meeting of NSC, December 12, 1957’, FRUS 1955–57 IV: 216.
Fidler, S. and Boone, J. (2007) ‘Fields of Little Glory’, Financial Times, November 19.
Fisher, I. (2002) ‘In Vast Expansion of the European Union, Pluses but Also Perils Lie Ahead’, New York Times, December 13.
Fitchett, J. (2000) ‘EU Takes Steps to Create a Military Force, Without Treading on NATO’, International Herald Tribune, March 1.
Giauque, J.G. (2002) Grand Designs and Visions of Unity: The Atlantic Powers and the Reorganization of Western Europe, 1955–1963, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Graham, R. and Dinmore, G. (2003) ‘Paris Plays Down Threats From Washington’, Financial Times, April 24.
Greenwood, S. (1996) The Alternative Alliance: Anglo-French Relations Before the Coming of NATO, 1944–1948, London: Minerva.
Greenwood, S. (2000) Britain and the Cold War, 1945–91, New York: St. Martin's.
Hamilton, D. and Aldinger, C. (2000) ‘EU Force Could Spell NATO's End, Cohen Says’, Washington Post, December 6.
Hathaway, R.M. (1981) Ambiguous Partnership: Britain and America, 1944–47, New York: Columbia University Press.
Hogan, M. (1987) The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947–1952, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Holbrooke, R. (1995) ‘America, A European Power’, Foreign Affairs 74 (2): 38–51.
Howorth, J. and Keeler, J.T.S. (2002) ‘The EU, NATO, and The Quest for European Autonomy’, in J. Howorth and J.T.S. Keeler (eds.) Defending Europe: The EU, NATO, and The Quest for European Autonomy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ikenberry, G.J. (1998/1999) ‘Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of Postwar Order’, International Security 23 (3): 43–78.
Ikenberry, G.J. (2002) ‘Democracy, Institutions, and American Restraint’, in G.J. Ikenberry (ed.) America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 213–238.
Ikenberry, G.J. (2003) ‘Strategic Reactions to American Preeminence: Great Power Politics in the Age of Unipolarity’, report to the National Intelligence Council, http://www.din.gove/nic/confreports_stratreact.html.
Ikle, F.C. (1990) ‘The Ghost in the Pentagon’, The National Interest 19: 13–20.
Jones, S.G. (2005) The Rise of Europe's Defense Industry, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, US-Europe Analysis Series.
Jones, S.G. (2007) The Rise of European Security Cooperation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kagan, R. (2002) ‘Power and Weakness’, Policy Review 113: 3–28.
Kagan, R. (2003) Of Paradise and Power: American and Europe in the New World Order, New York: Knopf.
Kaplan, L.S. (1992) ‘After Forty Years: Reflections on NATO as a Research Field’, in Francis H. Heller and John R. Gillingham (eds.) The Founding of the Atlantic Alliance and the Integration of Europe, New York: St. Martin's.
Kennedy, J.F. President (1963) ‘Remarks of President Kennedy to the National Security Council, January 22, 1963’, FRUS 1961–63, XIII.
Kent, J. (1983) British Imperial Strategy and the Origins of the Cold War, 1944–1949, Leicester, England: Leicester University Press.
Kimball, W. (1991) The Juggler: Franklin Roosevelt as Wartime Statesman, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kissinger, H.A. (1965) The Troubled Partnership: A Reappraisal of the Atlantic Alliance, New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kissinger, H.A. (1982) Years of Upheaval, Boston: Little, Brown.
Kitfield, J. (2000) ‘European Doughboys’, The National Journal, February 26.
Kolko, G. (1968) The Politics of War: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1943–1945, New York: Random House.
Kolodziej, E.A. (1974) French International Policy Under De Gaulle and Pompidou: The Politics of Grandeur, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Layne, C. (1983) ‘Ending the Alliance’, Journal of Contemporary Studies 6 (3): 5–31.
Layne, C. (1987) ‘Atlanticism Without NATO’, Foreign Policy 67: 22–45.
Layne, C. (2000) ‘US Hegemony and the Perpetuation of NATO’, Journal of Strategic Studies 23 (3): 59–91.
Layne, C. (2006) The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Louis, W.R. (1978) Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941–45, New York: Oxford University Press.
Lugar, R.G. (1993) Out of Area or Out of Business: A Call for US Leadership to Revive and Redefine the Alliance, remarks delivered to the Open Forum of the US Department of State, August 2, 1993.
Mandelbaum, M. (2005) The Case for Goliath: How America Acts as the World's Government in the 21st Century, New York: PublicAffairs.
Mearsheimer, J.J. (1998) ‘The Future of America's Continental Commitment’, in G. Lundestad (ed.) No End to Alliance — The United States and Western Europe: Past, Present, and Future, New York: St. Martin's, pp. 221–244.
Mearsheimer, J.J. (2001a) The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W.W. Norton.
Mearsheimer, J.J. (2001b) ‘The Future of the American Pacifier’, Foreign Affairs 80 (5): 46–61.
Moore, M. and Anderson, J.W. (2006) ‘NATO Faces Growing Hurdle as Call for Troops Falls Short’, Washington Post, September 18.
Morarjee, R. (2006) ‘To a Second Front? How Afghanistan Could Again be Engulfed by Civil War’, Financial Times, November 22.
Nelson, A.K. (1983) The State Department Policy Planning Staff Papers, New York: Garland.
Posen, B. (2004) ‘EDSP and the Structure of World Power’, The International Spectator.
Ravenal, E. (1985) ‘NATO: The Tides of Discontent’, Policy Papers in International Affairs, No. 23 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Institute for International Studies).
Rusk, D. (1967) ‘Letter from Rusk to Senator Mansfield, April 21, 1967’, FRUS 1964–68 XIII: 562.
Sestanovich, S. (2005) ‘American Maximalism’, The National Interest 79: 13–23.
Slocombe, W. (1995) ‘Partnership for Peace and NATO–Russian Relations’, March 2, www.defenselin.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi?http.
Steel, R. (1977) Pax Americana, rev. edn, New York: Penguin.
Steiner, Z. (1994) ‘The Fall of Great Britain: Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy’, in G. Lundestad (ed.) The Fall of Great Powers: Peace, Stability, and Legitimacy, New York: Oxford University Press.
Thorne, C. (1978) Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945, London: Hamish Hamilton.
Trachtenberg, M. (1999) A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945–1963, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Vinocur, J. (2002) ‘The Big Winner in EU Expansion: Washington’, International Herald Tribune, December 9.
Walt, S.W. (1989) ‘The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing US Grand Strategy’, International Security 14 (1): 5–50.
Walt, S.W. (1998/1999) ‘The Ties That Fray: Why Europe and America are Drifting Apart’, The National Interest 54: 3–11.
Walt, S.W. (2005) Taming American Power: The Global Response to US Primacy, New York: W.W. Norton.
Waltz, K.N. (1979) Theory of International Politics, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Whitney, C. (1999) ‘Hey, Allies, Follow Me. I’ve Got All the New Toys’, New York Times, May 30.
Williams, C.J. (2000) ‘Conference Highlights Flaws of NATO's Kosovo Campaign’, Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2000 (online ed.).
Williams, W.A. (1962) The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, New York: Delta.
Zelikow, P. and Rice, C. (1995) Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Layne, C. It's Over, Over There: The Coming Crack-up in Transatlantic Relations. Int Polit 45, 325–347 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2008.6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2008.6