Alliance Behaviour, the Absentee Liberator and the Influence of Soft Power: Post-communist State Positions over the Iraq War in 2003

Abstract

Thirteen post-communist governments gave diplomatic support to the Anglo-American position on Iraq in 2003; many also gave military assistance to the war itself and most contributed to post-war operations. However ‘small states’ may be defined, none of these 13 actors can be considered a major power in international relations. This article assesses the reasons for their support of the United States. It first considers what material gains they expected and gained, and applies their support of the US against expectations of alliance behaviour. It then contrasts the behaviour of those Central and East European states with that of Belarus and of Serbia. The article then argues that an important explanation for post-communist state behaviour over Iraq comes from an expression of existential values that can be understood through the notion of ‘soft power’.

Notes

¹I would like to thank the journal's editors for their assistance and the journal's referees for their comments. Space prevents accommodation of all of their suggestions, but I hope this paper goes some way in meeting these.

²The focus here is on these 13 states, which will be referred to as ‘signatories’, and on state policy, and hence supporters of the war are taken to be those states whose senior officials signed the two letters.

³Czech President Klaus also asked that his country be removed from the list.

⁴Interview with Czech officials, February 2004; interview with US official, June 2005.

⁵The US State Department explains Article 98 Agreements and the International Criminal Court accordingly: ‘The Political–Military Bureau at the State Department leads the United States’ worldwide campaign to secure bilateral non-surrender (“Article 98”) agreements protecting American citizens from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and provides the public with information in order to clarify the United States' position on the ICC.' See < http://www.state.gov/t/pm/art98/>.

⁶Interview with former and current Macedonian officials, February 2006.

⁷FOXNews Cable, interview with President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, 19 February 2003.

⁸Arguably the Council of Europe also has substantially bent the entry requirements for several post-communist states, in part because of its ethos of trying to effect change by including states.

⁹Interview with Czech officials.

¹⁰Interview with Macedonian officials. One Macedonian official noted the impact the EU had on the country after EU accession talks began. One can infer that governments that were outside the accession process in 2003, such as Macedonia's, underestimated the EU's influence, which further underlines the pressure the 2004 hopefuls may have felt.

¹¹Comments on an earlier version of this paper at the annual conference of the British International Studies Association, 20 December 2005.

¹²In its assessment of Havel's presidency, the Slovak newspaper wrote that by signing the letter Havel left a ‘foul’ for his successors.

¹³One may be sceptical of the US's role in gaining EU membership for Latvia, or any other post-communist state; the point of the statement is to illustrate official Latvian perception of American influence.

¹⁴Interview with US official, June 2005.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rick Fawn

1 1I would like to thank the journal's editors for their assistance and the journal's referees for their comments. Space prevents accommodation of all of their suggestions, but I hope this paper goes some way in meeting these.