New Patterns of Transatlantic Security: The Challenge of Multipolarity

Abstract

Transatlantic relations are in flux: NATO's struggle for self preservation; the diminished importance of Europe in American geopolitics; the semi-failure of European foreign policy integration; and the absence of a grand bargain among Europe's leading powers. These four trends are making the current transatlantic order unsustainable. But if the international system becomes multipolar, will the “West” be one of the poles? These developments can be assessed by applying the “transatlantic bargain” as a conceptual lens through which to select and assess information. The result is that the dynamics of multipolarity could spell the end for the “transatlantic West”.

Notes

¹ Lundestad, “‘Empire’ by Invitation?”, 263–77.

² Cleveland, NATO: The Transatlantic Bargain, 3–9. The term was later developed and applied by Stanley Sloan, NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community, 3.

³ Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848–1918, xix.

⁴ Captured in the Vandenberg Resolution (1948), the Brussels Treaty (1948) and the North Atlantic Treaty (1949).

⁵ Betts, “Political support system for American primacy”, 1–14.

⁶ Sloan, NATO, the European Union and the Atlantic Community, 6.

⁷ See Lundestad, Just another major crisis?, 9–12.

⁸ For a list of relevant works, see Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy, 12.

⁹ Toje, America, the EU and Strategic Culture, 143–52.

¹⁰ A point stressed in Kissinger, Diplomacy, 394–422.

¹¹ See Pond, Friendly Fire, 76.

¹² See Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO United, 133–51; Duignan, NATO: Past, Present, Future, 156–89.

¹³“Eingreifgruppe am Ende”, Der Spiegel, 17 September 2007; J. Mark, “NATO scales down plans for rapid reaction force”, International Herald Tribune, 25 October 2007, 3.

¹⁴ Yost, NATO and International Organizations, 102–11.

¹⁵ The term is associated with the “Princeton project on national security”, led by G. John Ikenberry and Anne-Marie Slaughter.

¹⁶ Witney, “The death of NATO”, 2–6.

¹⁷“Gates faults NATO force in southern Afghanistan”, Los Angeles Times, 16 January 2008, 21.

¹⁸ Brimmer, Seeing blue, 11–14.

¹⁹ Truman et al., Foreign relations of the United States.

²⁰ See fn 15; Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads.

²¹ SIPRI, SIPRI yearbook 2008, 44.

²² See Holbrooke, “America, a European Power”, 38–51; Peterson, “America as a European Power”, 613–29.

²³ Obama, “Renewing American Leadership”, 24–46.

²⁴ Quote, Albright Interview on “The Today Show”, NBC-TV, 19 February 1998.

²⁵ The German Marshall Fund's 2007 survey of transatlantic trends shows that only 36% of Europeans view American leadership in the world as “desirable”. This figure is more or less unchanged since 2004.

²⁶ Keohane, “Ironies of sovereignty”, 743–65; see also Posen, “ESDP and the Structure of World Power”, 5–17

²⁷ G. Parker, “Poll finds 44% think life worse in EU”, Financial Times, 18 March 2007.

²⁸ Hill, “Closing the Capability-Expectations Gap”, 18–38.

²⁹ For assessments of these efforts, see Cornish and Edwards, “The Strategic Culture of the European Union”, 814–15.

³⁰ Lindström, “The Headline Goal”.

³¹ Smith, Europe's Foreign and Security Policy, 22–42.

³² Heisbourg, “Europe's Strategic Ambitions: Limits of Ambiguity”, 5–15.

³³ Whitman, “Foreign, Security and Defence Policy and Lisbon Treaty”, 1–4.

³⁴ Kissinger, A World Restored.

³⁵ On the history of the directoire in EU foreign policymaking, see Nuttall, “Coherence and Consistency”, 26–59.

³⁶ Patten, Not Quite the Diplomat, 159.

³⁷ As was indeed illustrated by the failed Polish attempt to hold out against an electoral structure in the Council favouring Germany in the EU constitutional treaty. See P. Anderson, “Depicting Europe”, London Review of Books, 20 September 2007, and Brummer, The big EU-3 and ESDP.

³⁸ An overview is provided in Howorth, “Britain, France and the European Defence Initiative”, 33–55.

³⁹ Joint Declaration on European Defence, British French Summit, St Malo, 3–4 December 1998.

⁴⁰ Hyde-Price, European Security in the Twenty-First Century, 163–73.

⁴¹ Quoted in Menon, “From Crisis to Catharsis”, 632–48.

⁴² Waltz, “The emerging structure of international politics”, 44.

⁴³ As illustrated in the debates leading up to the EU Constitutional Treaty in 2002/03.

⁴⁴ Brummer, The big EU-3 and ESDP, 35.

⁴⁵ J. Thornhill, “Sarkozy in drive to give EU global role”, Financial Times, 27 August 2007, 24.

⁴⁶ Rosencrance, “Multipolarity, and the future”, 315–17.

⁴⁷ Matlary, Dynamics of EU Security Policy in the New National Interest, 12.

⁴⁸ Fareed Zakaria offers a lengthy discussion of the relative power balance of the United States versus the rest, ranging from military might to economic weight and from industrial capacity to education and engineering before finally settling on symbols such as the highest building as the best indicator (Zakaria, The post-American world).

⁴⁹ SIPRI, SIPRI yearbook 2008.

⁵⁰ National Intelligence Council, “Global trends”.

⁵¹ Kagan, “Power and Weakness”, 3–28; Cooper, The Breaking of Nations.

⁵² Haass, “The Age of Nonpolarity”, 44.

⁵³ Zakaria, The post-American world, 208; Kupchan, The end of the American era, 12. See the article by Davidson and Menotti in this issue, 13.

⁵⁴ Mearsheimer, “Back to the future”, 54–6.

⁵⁵ Waltz, Realism and International Politics, 60–2; Morgenthau, Politics among nations, 14; Aron, Peace and war; 12–17; Carr and Cox, The twenty years' crisis, 27–31.

⁵⁶ Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry”, 5–7; Schweller, “The Problem of International Order Revisited”, 163–7; Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion Revisited”, 36–41.

⁵⁷ Waltz, “The emerging structure of international politics”, 44–79.

⁵⁸ Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics”, 461–95; see also Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 125–6 and Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 1–17.

⁵⁹ Mearsheimer, “Back to the future”, 54–6.

⁶⁰ These questions are explored in Jervis and Snyder, Dominoes and bandwagons, 20–51.