Was the US Invasion of Iraq NATO'S Worst Crisis Ever? How Would We Know? Why Should We Care?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the NATO-in-crisis literature, particularly the variant claiming that the Atlantic Alliance is facing its worst crisis ever. The paper argues that this approach is an analytical dead-end, incapable of producing new, cumulative knowledge about NATO in particular and alliances in general. It also suggests ways of getting out of the blind alley that the NATO-in-crisis literature has become.

Notes

1. Others have made this point too. See, for example, William Park, Defending the West: A History of NATO (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1986), p. vii; Paul Cornish, Partnership in Crisis: The US, Europe and the Fall and Rise of NATO (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1997), p. 2; Dieter Mahncke, Wyn Rees and Wayne Thompson, Redefining Transatlantic Security Relations (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), p. 105.

2. For overviews of the NATO-in-crisis literature, see Wallace Thies, ‘Crises and the Study of Alliance Politics’, Armed Forces and Society 15/3 (1989), pp. 349–369; Elizabeth Pond, Beyond the Wall: Germany's Road to Reunification (Washington: Brookings, 1993), pp. 276–278; Wallace Thies, ‘The “Demise” of NATO: A Post-Mortem’, Parameters 20/2 (1990), pp. 17–30; Lawrence Kaplan, NATO Divided, NATO United (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), pp. 151–155.

3. John Duffield, ‘International Regimes and Alliance Behavior: Explaining NATO Conventional Force Levels’, International Organization 46/4 (1992), pp. 819–955; John Duffield, ‘NATO's Functions After the Cold War’, Political Science Quarterly 109/5 (1994–1995), pp. 763–787; Robert McCalla, ‘NATO's Persistence After the Cold War’, International Organization 50/3 (1996), pp. 445–475; Celeste Wallander, ‘Institutional Assets and Adaptability: NATO After the Cold War’, International Organization 54/4 (2000), pp. 705–735.

4. Stanley Hoffmann, ‘NATO and Nuclear Weapons: Reasons and Unreason’, Foreign Affairs 60/2 (1981/1982), p. 327. See also Martin Hillenbrand, ‘NATO and Western Security in an Era of Transition’, International Security 2/2 (1977), p. 5.

5. Klaus Knorr, ‘The Strained Alliance’, in Klaus Knorr (ed.), NATO and American Security (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), p. 3. Walter Hahn uses the same term in ‘Does NATO Have a Future?’, International Security Review 5/2 (1980), p. 151.

6. Roger Hilsman, ‘NATO: The Developing Strategic Context’, in Knorr (ed.), NATO and American Security, p. 11.

7. Philip Windsor, Germany and the Western Alliance: Lessons from the 1980s Crises (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies, Adelphi Paper No 180, 1981), p. 1.

8. David Guess, ‘What the West Should Know About German Neutralism’, Commentary 75/1 (1983), p. 30. Walter Laqueur uses the term ‘general NATO crisis’, Europe Since Hitler (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 427.

9. Josef Joffe, ‘European–American Relations: The Enduring Crisis’, Foreign Affairs 59/4 (1981), p. 838.

10. Robert W. Tucker, ‘The Atlantic Alliance and Its Critics’, Commentary 73/5 (1982), pp. 63–64. See also Henry Kissinger, ‘A Plan to Reshape NATO’, Time, 5 March 1984, p. 20.

11. Laqueur, Europe Since Hitler, p. 132. See also Hillenbrand, ‘NATO and Western Security in an Era of Transition’, p. 20.

12. Henry Kissinger, ‘Role Reversal and Alliance Realities’, Washington Post, 10 February 2003, p. A21.

13. Elizabeth Pond, Friendly Fire: The Near-Death of the Transatlantic Alliance (Washington: Brookings, 2004), p. ix. For a similar judgment, see Andrew Moravcsik, ‘Striking a New Transatlantic Bargain’, Foreign Affairs 82/4 (2003), p. 74.

14. Philip Gordon, ‘The Crisis in the Alliance’, Iraq Memo (The Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, Memo No. 11, 24 February 2003), p. 1.

15. Zbigniew Brzezinski, ‘Why Unity Is Essential’, Washington Post, 19 February 2003, p. A29.

16. Ronald Asmus, ‘Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance’, Foreign Affairs 82/5 (2003), p. 20.

17. Pond, Friendly Fire, p. ix.

18. Charles Krauthammer, ‘A Costly Charade at the U.N.’, Washington Post, 28 February 2003, p. A23.

19. Christopher Layne, ‘America as a European Hegemon’, The National Interest 72 (2003), p. 17. See also Renewing the Atlantic Partnership, Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger and Lawrence Summers, Co-Chairs (New York, 2004); Asmus, ‘Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance’, p. 20.

20. For example, Ronald Steel, The End of Alliance: America and the Future of Europe (New York: Viking, 1964); Robert Kleiman, Atlantic Crisis: American Diplomacy Confronts a Resurgent Europe (New York: W.W. Norton, 1964); Earl Ravenal, NATO's Unremarked Demise (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Affairs, 1979); Irving Kristol, ‘Does NATO Exist?’, Washington Quarterly 2/4 (1979), pp. 45–53.

21. For a rare bit of candor in this regard, see Keith Dunn and Stephen Flanagan, ‘NATO at Forty: An Overview’, in Keith Dunn and Stephen Flanagan (eds), NATO's Fifth Decade (Washington: National Defense University Press, 1990), p. 5.

22. Pond, Friendly Fire, p. 72.

23. Michael Brenner and Guillaume Parmentier, Reconcilable Differences: U.S.–French Relations in the New Era (Washington: Brookings, 2002), p. 3.

24. Robert Strausz-Hupe, James Dougherty and William Kintner, Building the Atlantic World (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 42; Edmond Taylor, ‘This Long NATO Crisis’, The Reporter 24 (21 April 1966), p. 17.

25. Knorr, ‘The Strained Alliance’, p. 3.

26. Steel, The End of Alliance; Kurt Birrenbach, ‘The United States and Western Europe: Partners or Rivals?’, Orbis 17/2 (1973), p. 405.

27. Joffe, ‘European–American Relations’.

28. Stanley Hoffmann, ‘The Western Alliance: Drift or Harmony?’, International Security 6/2 (1981), p. 106.

29. Hans Binnendijk and Richard Kugler, ‘Dual-Track Transformation for the Atlantic Alliance’, Defense Horizons No. 35 (November 2003), p. 2.

30. David Yost, NATO Transformed (Washington: US Institute of Peace Press, 1998), p. 195. Richard Holbrooke (To End A War, rev. ed. [New York: Modern Library, 1999], p. 361) adds that, ‘By the spring of 1995 it had become commonplace to say that Washington's relations with our European allies were worse than at any time since the 1956 Suez crisis’.

31. Henry Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1958), pp. 201–206; Henry Kissinger, ‘The Search for Stability’, Foreign Affairs 37/4 (1959), pp. 550–551.

32. Henry Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership (New York: McGraw Hill, 1965); Henry Kissinger, ‘Central Issues of American Foreign Policy’, in Kermit Gordon (ed.), Agenda for the Nation (Washington: Brookings, 1968), pp. 594, 596.

33. As Secretary of State, Kissinger proclaimed 1973 the ‘year of Europe’, when the Alliance's troubles would finally be addressed.

34. Kissinger, ‘A Plan To Reshape NATO’, pp. 20–24. See also Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, ‘To Withdraw Missiles We Must Add Conditions’, Los Angeles Times, 26 April 1987, Part V, p. 1, which predicted ‘the most profound crisis’ in NATO history if a zero–zero agreement was reached on intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.

35. Henry Kissinger, ‘The End of NATO?’, Washington Post, 24 July 1990, p. A23. David Denoon first made the point about Kissinger's propensity for pronouncing the Alliance in crisis in ‘The Context’, in David Denoon (ed.), Constraints on Strategy (Washington: Pergamon-Brassey's, 1986), p. 9, footnote 62.

36. Krauthammer, ‘A Costly Charade at the UN’.

37. Charles Krauthammer, ‘The Bold Road to NATO Expansion’, Washington Post, 22 November 2002, p. A41.

38. Charles Krauthammer, ‘Re-Imagining NATO’, Washington Post, 24 May 2002, p. A35. See also Jeffrey Gedmin, ‘The Alliance is Doomed’, Washington Post, 20 May 2002, p. A21.

39. The exception that proves the rule is Francis Beer (Integration and Disintegration in NATO [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969], p. 281), who defined a NATO crisis as a ‘situation in which a significant segment of relevant political actors perceives that fundamental values of the system—or even its future existence—are seriously threatened’. I know of no study of crisis in the Alliance that even cites, much less attempts to build upon, Beer's work in this regard. Richard Neustadt (Alliance Politics [New York: Columbia University Press, 1970], pp. 56, 71–72) defines a crisis between allies in terms of four elements—muddled perceptions, stifled communications, disappointed expectations, and paranoid reactions—but his work deals with bilateral relationships rather than the Alliance as a whole. Citations to Neustadt are likewise conspicuous by their absence in the NATO-in-crisis literature.

40. Gordon, ‘The Crisis in the Alliance’, p. 1.

41. Council on Foreign Relations, Renewing the Atlantic Partnership, p. 1.

42. Pond, Friendly Fire, pp. x–xii.

43. NATO: A Critical Appraisal, A Report Prepared by Gardner Patterson and Edgar Furniss, Jr., On The Basis Of An International Conference Held at Princeton University, 19–29 June 1957 (Princeton: Princeton University Conference on NATO, 1957). Their lead sentence was: ‘The year 1957 finds the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in doubt’ (p. 1).

44. Cornish, Partnership in Crisis, p. 114.

45. Denis Healey, ‘Britain and NATO’, in Knorr (ed.), NATO and American Security, p. 221.

46. Sebastian Mallaby, ‘A Campaign For the Allies Too’, Washington Post, 22 March 2004, p. A21. See also Holbrooke, To End a War, p. 318.

47. See, for example, DeNeen Brown, ‘Canada's Prime Minister Seeks to Mend Fences’, Washington Post, 23 December 2003, p. A12; Keith Richburg, ‘French Defense Minister, Visiting U.S., Hopes to Improve Ties’, Washington Post, 16 January 2004, p. A12.

48. Aneurin Bevan, ‘Britain and America at Loggerheads’, Foreign Affairs 36/1 (1957), p. 65.

49. Paul-Henri Spaak, ‘Hold Fast’, Foreign Affairs 41/4 (1963), p. 619; Strausz-Hupe et al., Building the Atlantic World, p. 326; Stanley Hoffmann, ‘Discord in Community’, in Francis O. Wilcox and H. Field Havilland, Jr. (eds), The Atlantic Community (New York: Praeger, 1963), p. 4; William T.R. Fox and Annette Baker Fox, NATO and the Range of American Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), p. 16.

50. Council on Foreign Relations, Renewing the Atlantic Partnership, p. 1. For a similar approach, see Herman Kahn and William Pfaff, ‘Our Alternatives in Europe’, Foreign Affairs 44/4 (1966), p. 587.

51. Martin Walker, ‘Europe: Superstate or Superpower?’, World Policy Journal 17/4 (2000/2001), p. 11.

52. Ronald Asmus describes the 1990s as a ‘renaissance’ for NATO (‘Rebuilding the Atlantic Alliance’, p. 20); while Andrew Moravcsik (‘Striking a New Transatlantic Bargain’, p. 78) cites a ‘trend … toward transatlantic harmony’ during the two decades prior to the US invasion of Iraq.

53. Pond, Friendly Fire, p. x.

54. Gordon, ‘The Crisis in the Alliance’, p. 1.

55. Council on Foreign Relations, Renewing the Atlantic Partnership, p. 9.

56. Antony Blinken, ‘The False Crisis Over the Atlantic’, Foreign Affairs 80/3 (2001), p. 47.

57. Jessica Tuchman Matthews, ‘Estranged Partners’, Foreign Policy 127 (2001), p. 48.

58. Bradley Graham, ‘NATO: Changing Alliance’, Washington Post, 12 May 1980, p. A1; Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., ‘Tribulations of the Alliance’, Wall Street Journal, 22 May 1980, p. 20; Michael Getler, ‘Crises Put New Strains on Alliance’, Washington Post, 24 May 1980, p. A1; Stanley Hoffmann, ‘The Crisis in the West’, The New York Review of Books 27 (17 July 1980), pp. 41–48. See also Joffe, ‘European–American Relations’.

59. Richard Burt, ‘Baker Assails View of West Europeans’, and Leonard Silk, ‘Discord Stirs With Allies’, New York Times, 14 November 1980, pp. A7, D2; ‘Push Comes to Shove’, The Economist, 3 January 1981, p. 7; Bradley Graham, ‘U.S. Calls on Allies to Boost Defense Outlay’, Los Angeles Times, 22 February 1981, p. 1; Flora Lewis, ‘A Mature Alliance’, New York Times, 23 February 1981, p. A19; ‘Did You Say Allies?’ The Economist, 6 June 1981, pp. 11–13.

60. Hoffmann, ‘NATO and Nuclear Weapons’, p. 327; James Goldsborough, ‘The Roots of Western Disunity’, New York Times Magazine, 9 May 1982, pp. 48–49, 60; John Newhouse, ‘Arms and Allies’, The New Yorker, 28 February 1983, p. 64; Stephen Haseler, ‘The Euromissile Crisis’, Commentary 75/5 (1983), p. 28.

61. Flora Lewis, ‘France Defies Ban by U.S. on Supplies for Soviet Pipeline’, New York Times, 23 July 1982, p. 6; Hedrick Smith, ‘Pipeline Dispute: Reagan Aims to Punish Soviet’, New York Times, 24 July 1982, p. 5; ‘Sanctions Whipsaw Alliance’, Business Week, 9 August 1982, p. 20; Josef Joffe, ‘West's “Linkage” Policy Merely Unchains Soviet Power’, Wall Street Journal, 1 September 1983, p. 22. See also Jonathan Stern, ‘Specters and Pipe Dreams’, Foreign Policy No. 48 (1982), pp. 21–36; Josef Joffe, ‘Europe and America: the Politics of Resentment (Cont'd)’, in William Bundy (ed.), Foreign Affairs: America and the World 1982 (New York: Pergamon, 1983), pp. 570–576.

62. The former was not a NATO issue but did involve NATO members on both sides of the Atlantic, which raised the question whether military cooperation could continue in the midst of a trade war. See, for example, Clyde Farnsworth, ‘A Brisk Trade in Transoceanic Accusations’, New York Times, 25 December 1983, Sec. 4, p. 3; Clyde Farnsworth, ‘E.E.C. Nears Retaliation Over Steel’, New York Times, 11 January 1984, p. 23; Michel Fribourg, ‘An Agriculture “War” Would Be Disastrous’, New York Times, 7 June 1983, p. 27; Nicholas Butler, ‘The Ploughshares War Between America and Europe’, Foreign Affairs 62/1 (1983), pp. 105–122. On the EEC's problems, see Flora Lewis, ‘Economics Is Security’, New York Times, 3 June 1983, p. 27; Paul Lewis, ‘Common Market Chiefs in Crucial Parley Today’, New York Times, 4 December 1983, p. 3; Paul Lewis, ‘Common Market Ends Summit Talks in Total Deadlock’, New York Times, 7 December 1983, p. 1; Paul Lewis, ‘Common Market: Gravest Crisis Yet’, New York Times, 8 December 1983, p. 33; Paul Lewis, ‘“Crisis” in Common Market Could Ruin It, French Warn’, New York Times, 19 January 1984, p. 1.

63. See the articles by Bradley Graham, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Getler and Stanley Hoffmann in note 58, above.

64. Flora Lewis, ‘Alarm Bells in the West’, in William Bundy (ed.), Foreign Affairs: America and the World, 1981 (New York: Pergamon, 1982), p. 551; ‘Push Comes to Shove’, The Economist, 3 January 1981, p. 7; ‘Did You Say Allies?’, The Economist, 6 June 1981, p. 11.

65. See the articles by Flora Lewis and Hedrick Smith in note 61, above. See also Benjamin Cohen, ‘An Explosion in the Kitchen? Economic Relations with Other Advanced Industrial States’, in Kenneth Oye, Robert Lieber and Donald Rothchild (eds), Eagle Defiant (Boston: Little Brown, 1983), pp. 119–120, 125.

66. Harald Malmgren, quoted in Farnsworth, ‘A Brisk Trade in Transoceanic Accusations’. See also Robert Osgood, ‘The Atlantic Alliance, Then and Now: Functions, Performance, and Future’, in Alan Platt (ed.), The Atlantic Alliance: Perspectives from the Successor Generation (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corp., 1983), pp. 9–10.

67. Michael Howard, ‘A European Perspective on the Reagan Years’, in William Hyland (ed.), Foreign Affairs: America and the World 1987/1988 (New York: Pergamon, 1988), p. 479.

68. Theodore Draper, ‘The Western Misalliance’, Washington Quarterly 4/1 (1981), pp. 51, 63; Leslie Gelb, ‘NATO Is Facing a Paralysis of Will, Experts Contend’, New York Times, 12 July 1981, p. 6; Irving Kristol, ‘NATO at a Dead End’, Wall Street Journal, 15 July 1981, p. 20; Melvin Lasky, ‘Tremors on West Germany's Political Seismograph’, Wall Street Journal, 21 October 1981, p. 23; Wayne Biddle, ‘Neutron Bomb: An Explosive Issue’, New York Times Magazine, 15 November 1981, p. 56.

69. Tucker, ‘The Atlantic Alliance and Its Critics’, p. 72; Joffe, ‘Europe and America’, pp. 569, 589–590.

70. William Pfaff, ‘Reflections: The Waiting Nations’, The New Yorker, 3 January 1983, p. 58; Pierre Lellouche and Dan Smith, discussion comments in Platt (ed.), The Atlantic Alliance, pp. 40, 89.

71. Michael Elliott, ‘Europe's No-Nuke Left Could Mean the End of NATO’, Washington Post, 7 September 1986, p. C1; Karen DeYoung, ‘Labor's Gains Imperil British Role in NATO’, Washington Post, 29 September 1986, pp. A1, A22; Karen DeYoung, ‘Labor's Kinnock Leaves for U.S. To Bolster Image, Explain Policy’, Washington Post, 30 November 1986, p. A30; Stephen Rosenfeld, ‘Alliance Freeloaders’, Washington Post, 5 December 1986, p. A27.

72. Christopher Layne, ‘Atlanticism Without NATO’, Foreign Policy No. 67 (1987), pp. 22–45; Francois Heisbourg, ‘Can the Atlantic Alliance Last Out the Century?’, International Affairs 63/3 (1987), pp. 413–423. See also Nixon and Kissinger, ‘To Withdraw Missiles We Must Add Conditions’, p. 1; Jeanne Kirkpatrick, ‘An Arms Deal We Should Refuse’, Washington Post, 3 May 1987, p. B7; Jim Hoagland, ‘The NATO Crisis Is Reagan's Doing’, Washington Post, 9 May 1987, p. A23.

73. Alan Ned Sabrosky, ‘Alliances in U.S. Foreign Policy’, and Earl Ravenal, ‘Extended Deterrence and Alliance Cohesion’, both in Alan Ned Sabrosky (ed.), Alliances in U.S. Foreign Policy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 11, 23; William Safire, ‘The European Pillar’, New York Times, 7 April 1988, p. A27; Barry Blechman, ‘Strengthen the Alliance’, Washington Post, 1 May 1988, p. C7; James Adams, ‘Memo to NATO: Shape Up Before America Ships Out’, Washington Post, 15 May 1988, p. B1.

74. W.R. Smyser, ‘Present at the Destruction?’ Washington Post, 13 February 1989, p. A23; Rowland Evans and Robert Novak, ‘Germany's Slippery Slope’, Washington Post, 17 February 1989, p. A27; Robert McCartney, ‘West German Action, U.S. Inaction Trouble North Atlantic Alliance’, Washington Post, 8 May 1989, pp. A17, A20.

75. Complaints about inflated language were registered during the 1960s by Laurence Martin, ‘Europe and the Future of the Grand Alliance’, in Roger Hilsman and Robert Good (eds), Foreign Policy in the Sixties (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965), p. 18; during the 1970s by Miles Kahler, ‘The United States and Western Europe’, in Oye et al. (eds), Eagle Defiant, p. 273; and during the 1980s by Wichard Woyke, ‘A Crisis In U.S.–West European Relations?’, NATO Review 29/5 (1981), p. 14, but they obviously were not heeded.

76. Erik Jones, ‘Introduction’, International Affairs 80/4 (2004), p. 587.

77. Charles Hermann, ‘Threat, Time, and Surprise: A Simulation of International Crisis’, in Charles Hermann (ed.), International Crises: Insights from Behavioral Research (New York: Free Press, 1972), pp. 187–211. See also Glenn Paige, The Korean Decision (New York: The Free Press, 1968); Charles Herrmann, Crises and Foreign Policy: A Simulation Analysis (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969).

78. Oran Young, The Politics of Force: Bargaining During International Crises (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 6–15.

79. Hermann, ‘Threat, Time, and Surprise’, pp. 187, 207.

80. James A. Robinson, ‘Crisis Decision-Making’, in James A. Robinson (ed.), Political Science Annual, v. 2, 1969–1970 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), p. 112.

81. For example, Marion Doenhoff, ‘Bonn and Washington: The Strained Relationship’, Foreign Affairs 57/5 (1979), pp. 1052–1064, which discusses various ‘irritations’ in the US–West German relationship but without ever using the term ‘crisis’.

82. Meg Greenfield, ‘The European Blues’, Washington Post, 14 May 1980, p. A23.

83. For example, Hahn, ‘Does NATO Have a Future?’, pp. 151–154; Joffe, ‘European–American Relations’, pp. 835–838; Pierre Lellouche, ‘Europe and Her Defense’, Foreign Affairs 59/4 (1981), pp. 818–819; Draper, ‘The Western Misalliance’, p. 14; Andre Fontaine, ‘Transatlantic Doubts and Dreams’, in William Bundy (ed.), Foreign Affairs: America and the World 1980 (New York: Pergamon, 1981), p. 578; William Hyland, ‘The Atlantic Crisis’, Daedalus 110/1 (1981), p. 41; Karl Kaiser et al., Western Security: What Has Changed? What Should Be Done? (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1981), pp. 7–9; Tucker, ‘The Atlantic Alliance and Its Critics’, pp. 63–64; Joffe, ‘Europe and America’, pp. 568–569; Heisbourg, ‘Can the Atlantic Alliance Last Out the Century?’, p. 413.

84. See, for example, the divergent conclusions reported by the participants in a conference at the RAND Corporation in February 1983: Pierre Lellouche, Josef Joffe and Dan Smith argued that the Alliance was then in its worst state ever; Robert Osgood and Gregory Treverton agreed that there was a crisis but questioned whether it was more severe than previous ones; while Richard Haass and James Leach doubted there was a crisis at all, just routine differences among the members. Their arguments in this regard can be found in Platt (ed.), The Atlantic Alliance.

85. Exceptions include Kahn and Pfaff, ‘Our Alternatives in Europe’, p. 597, who describe the ‘Soviet bloc’ as ‘in crisis’ during the mid-1950s. Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow (Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, 2nd ed. (New York: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), p. 86) cite a ‘crisis’ in Soviet–Cuban relations in March 1962. See also the references in note 88, below.

86. In 1966 France withdrew from the NATO integrated military commands but did not renounce its obligations under the Treaty of Washington, thereby remaining a member in good standing of the Atlantic Alliance.

87. Robert Keohane, ‘Alliances, Threats, and the Uses of Neo-Realism’, International Security 13/1 (1988), p. 169.

88. For example, Elizabeth Gates, End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), p. 219, cites a ‘crisis’ in the Anglo-French alliance triggered by French Premier Reynaud's request on 15 June 1940 for British consent to a French inquiry into armistice terms with Germany. See also Mark Stoler, Allies and Adversaries: The Joint Chiefs of Staff, The Grand Alliance, and U.S. Strategy in World War II (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p. 211, who cites a ‘crisis’ in the US–Soviet alliance during World War II as a result of the Soviet refusal to aid the Polish Home Army's uprising against the Germans in August 1944.

89. During the Seven Years’ War, for example, the Russians abandoned their Austrian allies and concluded a separate peace with Prussia in May 1762. In June, the Russians concluded an offensive alliance with Prussia, and in August Russian troops helped the Prussians defeat the Austrians at Reichenbach. For more on this case, see J.O. Lindsay, ‘International Relations’, in J.O. Lindsay (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, v. 7, The Old Regime, 1713–1763 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), p. 212; Walter Dorn, Competition for Empire, 1740–1763 (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940), p. 377.

90. James Christoph, ‘The Suez Crisis’, in James Christoph (ed.), Cases in Comparative Politics (Boston: Little Brown, 1965), p. 90.

91. Robert Osgood, NATO: The Entangling Alliance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Alastair Buchan, NATO In the 1960s: The Implications of Interdependence, revised edition (New York: Praeger, 1963). John Mearsheimer's best-known work in this regard is his essay, ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security 15/1 (1990), pp. 5–56. See also Kenneth Waltz, ‘Structural Realism After the Cold War’, International Security 25/1 (2000), pp. 18–26; and Stephen Walt, ‘The Ties That Fray: Why Europe and America Are Drifting Apart’, The National Interest No. 54 (1998/1999), pp. 3–11.

92. The most prominent work here is Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser's famous essay, ‘An Economic Theory of Alliances’, Review of Economics and Statistics 48/3 (1966), pp. 266–279. For overviews of this by now very extensive literature, see Todd Sandler, ‘The Economic Theory of Alliances: A Survey’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 37/3 (1993), pp. 446–483; John Conybeare, James Murdoch and Todd Sandler, ‘Alternative Collective-Goods Models of Military Alliances: Theory and Empirics’, Economic Inquiry 32 (1994), pp. 525–542; Keith Hartley and Todd Sandler, ‘NATO Burden-Sharing Past and Future’, Journal of Peace Research 36/6 (1999), pp. 665–680.

93. Wallace Thies, Friendly Rivals: Bargaining and Burden-Shifting in NATO (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003).

94. Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order (New York: Knopf, 2003).

95. Robert Kagan, ‘A Decent Regard’, Washington Post, 2 March 2004, p. A21.

96. Martin, ‘Europe and the Future of the Grand Alliance’, p. 18.

97. Mearsheimer, ‘Back to the Future’; Walt, ‘The Ties That Fray’; Waltz, ‘Structural Realism After the Cold War.’

98. See the references in note 3, above. See also James Goldgeier, Not Whether But When: The U.S. Decision to Enlarge NATO (Washington: Brookings, 1999); Rachel Epstein, ‘NATO Enlargement and the Spread of Democracy: Evidence and Expectations’, Security Studies 14/1 (2005), pp. 59–98.

99. Struggle Against Atomic Death.

100. See, for example, Patricia Weitsman, Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004).

101. The only example that I know of is a suggestion that the US should try to provoke France into either leaving or publicly pledging fidelity to NATO, Kahn and Pfaff, ‘Our Alternatives in Europe’, pp. 591–592.