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ABSTRACT
It is commonly accepted that peace operations produce public goods. Informed by theories of collective action, the article tests the claim that middle powers were free-riders in NATO’s peace operations in the Balkans (IFOR, SFOR, KFOR) from 1995–2001. In so doing, we charge that calculating the level of defence spending as a share of a country’s GDP, which has become the standard index in the literature, is limiting. We suggest that the active military-duty force share index is a better index to use, and find that middle powers did not free-ride in NATO’s peace operations in the 1990s. Quite to the contrary: they contributed more to NATO’s public good of peacekeeping than countries like France or Germany, and more than expected based on their economic abilities measured in GDP. The article then asks what could be inferred from this analysis, and offers theoretical and methodological points of critique before suggesting new avenues for future research in this vibrant research programme.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to James Sperling, Fréderic Mérand, Martial Foucault, Asta Maskaliunaite, Marek Madej, Eoin McNamara and Philippe Lagassè as well as the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts. All errors, of course, remain mine.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
About the author
Benjamin Zyla is Assistant Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. Prior to that, he held a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Postdoctoral Fellowship at Queen’s University, and was a fellow at the Europe Center at Stanford University (USA), and the Centre for International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa. He also held visiting professorships at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (2012), and the University of Bielefeld (2013). His research focuses on questions of global governance, international peace operations, strategic culture and foreign and security policy analysis. His monograph Sharing the Burden: NATO and Its Second-Tier Powers was published with the University of Toronto Press this spring.
Notes
1 Ringsmose, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing Redux’, 329.
2 See also Lepgold, ‘NATO's Post-Cold War’, 95; Shimizu and Sandler, ‘NATO Peacekeeping’; Shimizu and Sandler, ‘Peacekeeping and Burden Sharing’.
3 Sandler and Hartley, Political Economy of NATO, 102–3.
4 Khanna et al., ‘Sharing the Financial Burden’, 181.
5 Cf. Olson, Logic of Collective Action; Olson and Zeckhauser, ‘An Economic Theory’.
6 The term middle power has gone through distinct cycles of popularity (see Ravenhill, ‘Cycles of Middle Power Activism’). It is used to refer to a group of states that rank below the great powers in terms of their material capabilities and ability to project their powers internationally. They have an impact either in specific regions or issue areas, as well as the ‘tendency to pursue multilateral solutions to international problems’, ‘to embrace compromise positions in international disputes’ and ‘to embrace notions of “good international citizenship” to guide diplomacy’ through international institutions (see Cooper et al., Relocating Middle Powers, 19; Keohane, ‘Lilliputians’ Dilemmas’, 298; Holbraad, Middle Powers).
7 Ringsmose, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing Redux’.
8 Ibid.
9 Zyla, Sharing the Burden?
10 Connolly, ‘Trade in Public Goods’.
11 For the latest account of this see Gaibulloev et al., ‘Personnel Contributions’ and Sandler and Shimitzu, ‘NATO Burden Sharing’.
12 I thank Todd Sandler for encouraging me to make this point stronger.
13 To be clear, this article does not contribute to the literature on international political economy as it does not employ economic theories of burden sharing, and thus does not speak the language of economists. For a discussion of economic theories applied to NATO burden sharing see Sandler and Hartley, Political Economy of NATO.
14 Kashmeri, NATO 2.0; Schreer and Noetzel, ‘Does a Multi-Tier NATO Matter?’.
15 Olson, Logic of Collective Action; Olson and Zeckhauser, ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’.
16 Sandler and Hartley, Political Economy of NATO, 29.
17 The primary data of NATO's defence spending is published in various reports and press releases, for example, by the Defence Planning Committee. A full list of the available data could be found here: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49198.htm (accessed 8 Apr. 2010).
18 Sandler and Hartley, Political Economy of NATO, 30.
19 Sandler and Hartley, Economics of Defense, ch. 2.
20 Domestic politics could also be a factor that may lead states to free-ride despite being dependent on the alliance for delivering a public good. Bennett et al., ‘Burden-Sharing’, 70; Bennett et al., Friends in Need.
21 Olson, Logic of Collective Action, 2, 49–50.
22 Olson calls this the ‘privileged group’. For a recent application of Olson see Ringsmose, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing Redux’.
23 Gilpin and Gilpin, Political Economy; Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration.
24 Russett, What Price Vigilance?, 109–10.
25 Sandler and Forbes, ‘Burden-Sharing’.
26 Hansen et al., ‘On Distinguishing the Behaviour’.
27 Betts, ‘Public Goods Theory’, 278–9.
28 A good overview of this variant of collective action theory can be found in Betts, ‘Public Goods Theory’ and Hartley and Sandler, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing’.
29 A number of scholars have built on this finding by noting a variation of purity in collective goods: Murdoch and Sandler, ‘Theoretical and Empirical Analysis’; Sandler, ‘Impurity of Defense’; Sandler and Cauley, ‘On the Economic Theory’; Sandler et al., ‘In Defence of’. A public good, for example, can be public within a country or private between countries, or it can be impure both within and between countries (Pauly, ‘Optimality, “Public” Goods’).
30 These assumptions include that states act rationally based on strict and narrow cost–benefit calculations.
31 Bennett et al., ‘Burden-Sharing’.
32 A more detailed theoretical and empirical analysis of this argument can be found in Zyla, Sharing the Burden?
33 The peace agreement was formally signed during an official ceremony in Paris on 14 December 1995.
34 Bennett et al., ‘Burden-Sharing’.
35 MacGregor, ‘The Balkan Limits’, 95.
36 The list of non-NATO countries participating in the IFOR mission includes states from NATO's Partnership for Peace programme: Albania; Austria; Czech Republic; Estonia; Finland; Hungary; Latvia; Lithuania; Poland; Romania; Russia; Sweden; and the Ukraine. Of particular note is that IFOR ground troops were augmented by a 2,200-strong Russian contingent serving under a NATO command. IFOR AFSOUTH Fact Sheet, 1 Mar. 1996.
37 Economists may discuss which NATO ally is the largest (in terms of size, population), and wealthiest (measured in GDP or GNP). It is, however, commonly accepted among scholars that the countries mentioned here (USA, UK, France and Germany) are among the biggest and wealthiest in the alliance.
38 This has become ear candy for some politicians, especially those of NATO's major powers like the United States who suggest that the more forces a country makes available to produce a public good (e.g. peace operation in the Balkans), the better its NATO burden sharing ratio (see Gates, ‘The Security and Defense Agenda’). Unfortunately, often times politicians do not have a comprehensive understanding of collective action theory and largely misinterpreted it for their own political gains. Perhaps the latest example in recent times is the farewell speech by former US Secretary of Defence, Robert Gates in June 2011 (ibid.). However, collective action theory does not utilize absolute force contributions to calculate burden shares; this is a misrepresentation of the theory by politicians. It has always examined the relative force contributions made by NATO members based on their ability to pay, which is commonly measured in GDP.
39 The period this study concentrates on is from 1995–2001, which excludes the years for SFOR after 2001. This also applies to the KFOR operation in the sections below.
40 E.g. Gates, ‘The Security and Defense Agenda’.
41 To be sure, the purpose here is to summarize rather than discuss the history of the Kosovo war in detail, which can be found in Judah, Kosovo and Judah, ‘Kosovo's Moment of Truth’.
42 Gnesotto, European Defence, 42–5; Kaplan, NATO Divided, 124–6; Marsh, ‘The United States’; United States, Report to Congress.
43 Roper, ‘NATO's New Role’, 53–4; Shea, ‘NATO’, 77–8.
44 Congressional Research Service, ‘Kosovo and Macedonia’, 1.
45 Zyla, ‘NATO and Post-Cold War’; Zyla, Sharing the Burden?
46 The obvious exception is its Airborne Warning and Control System planes. Data for NATO members’ defence budget was available (through SIPRI), and member state's ‘performance’ was ranked for the years 1990–2001. It was based on current US$.
47 Weber and Shils, Max Weber.
48 Baldwin, ‘The Concept of Security’, 5–26; Booth, New Thinking about Strategy and International Security.
49 Sandler and Shimizu, 'Peacekeeping and Burden Sharing: 1994–2000', 651–68.
50 Dorussen et al., ‘Sharing the Burden’.
51 At the Oslo Summit in 1992, NATO ministers announced that the alliance would acquire a role in international peacekeeping operations.
52 Terriff, ‘Déjà Vu All Over Again?’; Carpenter, Future of NATO.
53 Shea and Sherwen, NATO 2000.
54 Pouliot, ‘Logic of Practicality’.
55 Sandler and Shimizu, ‘NATO Burden Sharing’; Hynek and Marton, Statebuilding in Afghanistan; Davidson, America's Allies; Bennett et al., ‘Burden-Sharing’; Kupchan, ‘NATO and the Persian Gulf’; Snyder, Alliance Politics; Walt, Origins of Alliances.
56 These assumptions include treating states as unitary, cost–benefit calculating, rational actors in international politics.
57 Zyla, Sharing the Burden?
58 Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding in International Relations.
59 Ringsmose, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing Redux’.
60 Foucault and Mérand, ‘Challenge of Burden Sharing’; Risse, ‘Let's Argue!’.
61 Cf. Christiansen et al., Social Construction of Europe; Gheciu, NATO in the ‘New Europe’; Schimmelpfennig, ‘NATO Enlargement’.
62 Paul et al., Status in World Politics; Wood, ‘Prestige in World Politics’.
63 This line of thinking is especially prominent in realist theories of International Relations whose main tenets rest on the argument that the extent of national defence spending as a percentage of the country's total GDP automatically determines the degree of states’ international material capabilities and influence abroad. While this logic is based on ontological assumptions of an anarchic world, the pre-eminent role of states in international affairs, the need for security and the necessity of large military capabilities as a means of projecting power render those assumptions inconsistent in the context of a ‘new world order’.
64 Rosenau, ‘Governance, Order and Change’.
65 Norway, for example, has acquired a distinct reputation for successful local peacebuilding initiatives in, for example, Macedonia. See Kelleher and Ryan, ‘Successful Local Peacebuilding’.
66 Boyer, International Cooperation, 32.
67 Betts, ‘Public Goods Theory’.
68 While Sandler and Hartley point out in Economics of Defense that a joint products model exists when defence provision gives rise of multiple outputs, Boyer goes further and emphasizes that trading of these private benefits is possible.
69 Boyer, International Cooperation, 32.
70 Lis and Selden, NATO Burdensharing.
71 Most recently, NATO adopted the new concept of ‘smart defence’ encouraging specialization (Henius and MacDonald, ‘Smart Defence’), which suggests a trading of expertise among the allies.
72 The United States, for example as well as Britain and Canada service voluntary armies and do not rely on conscription; Turkey, on the other hand continues to rely on conscription as part of its national defence posture.
73 Hartley and Sandler, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing’, 669.
74 It also relates to the debate on the Revolution of Military Affairs (RMA), which holds that new technological developments have made the application and execution of military might more efficient. See, for example, Gompert et al., Mind the Gap; Gray, Strategy for Chaos.
75 See, for example, Kollias and Makrydakis, ‘Is There a Greek–Turkish?’; Kollias and Makrydakis, ‘Note on the Causal Relationship’.
76 Adler and Pouliot, International Practices.
77 March and Olson, ‘The Logic of Appropriateness'.
78 Keohane and Martin, ‘Promise of Institutional Theory’, 44–5.
79 Snidal, ‘Relative Gains’, 704.
80 March and Olsen, Rediscovering Institutions; Schatzki et al., The Practice Turn; Pouliot, ‘Logic of Practicality’.