What do we mean when we talk about the transatlantic relationship?
- NATO
- US/UK special relationship
- Outside of Europe
- Security
- Economic relations between EU-US
- Canada
What did alliances look like during the Cold War and what is article 5?
Alliance of equals?
- NATO Main: What is article 5?: NATO as the main collective security alliance whereby if one country was under threat from non-aligned state, all or many MS of NATO would/should come to aid and so provided guarantees of defence if deterrence fails
- Equals?: Not an alliance of equals as post-WW2 many European states were not able to defend themselves let alone others so turned to U.S. to aid in rebuilding and providing security against Soviet threat
What did alliances look like at the end of the Cold War?
- Central: NATO remained central security architecture in Europe
- Rearmament: NATO prompted Warsaw Pact and saw rearmament of west and east Germany occurred
- Insecurity: NATO a source of insecurity? (whether during the cold war through proxy wars, who can/cannot be a member, and calls into question whether Europe has any substansive influence over NATO)
- USSR: Questioning of NATO’s need once USSR dissipation
What did NATO do to adapt to a world without the USSR and stay relevant after the ending of the Cold War?
New modes of cooperation beyond NATO?
Conclusion of NATO then?
- New challenges: New security challenges presented themselves on NATO members borders (Balkans and beyond)
- PfP: Partnership for Peace (PfP) (involved states within Europe who did not want to join NATO but strove for peace and realised where IR were headed, e.g. Russia)
- TTIP: The transatlantic relationship beyond NATO (new modes of cooperation beyond military, such as TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership)…
- Good: So yes, NATO is changing as must reinvent itself, but everything in terms of relations between US and Europe seemed good going in to the 1990s.
What events occurred that portrayed an ending of ‘America’s Europe’ and a focus more on bilateral cooperation?
- 9/11 saw immediate solidarity of condolences but ‘war on terror’ meant a U.S. stance of ‘if you are not working how we wish this to work you are against us’ struck deeply toward european states, especially regarding Afghanistan and NATO movements
- ‘Coalition of the willing’ whereby Iraq was considered a bad move by many, and only close bilateral alliances followed e.g. UK, (France strongly against)
What recent events have transpired with regards to international security and how does this affect transatlantic relations (e.g. NATO)?
- Germany on Libya: Germany showed absolute certainty over its position not to intervene within Libya and yet was overruled (strange as biggest player within EU but on a global sphere is ignored?)
What is the main outline of Howorth’s piece on ‘Operation Harmattan in Libya: a paradigm shift in French, European and transatlantic security arrangements?’?
- Libyan crisis produced decisive turning point in 3 interconnected dimensions of
transatlantic relationship - CSDP proved to ineffective in facing up to Libyan crisis and needs rethought
- US preferred back seat in handling crisis and forced leading European powers to face up to their regional responsibilities
- NATO demonstrated that it is less of an alliance and more of a mechanism for the willing
- Key to resolving these issues were the apparent leadership from the bilateral role of France and UK.
What are the two overarching lessons from Libya as portrayed by Howorth? (2 Scenarios)
Scenario 1:
Coalition of the willing: NATO no longer an alliance in any meaningful sense of the word and is more a coalition of the willing. This agency would be led by the US with the hope of fulfilling the interests of the international community as defined by the West.
- Unlikely: Extremely unlikely for US to always pull off. Europeans, especially after Afghanistan, do not favour a global alliance, and will be unlikely to be an automatic support system for US global strategy just because US for socio-political reasons does not wish to intervene personally somewhere
Scenario 2:
Integrate with CSDP: NATO will in fact merge with or integrate the CSDP. In this scenario, the US will actually take a backseated role with Europeans MUST take a leading stance. Europeans must do the vast amount of heavy lifting in their own backyard, with the US acting largely as force enablers and support systems.
- CSDP useable: This second position would allow the CSDP to be a genuinely useable force, one which the US may on occassions partner with.
- Relationships very unlikely to be the same post-Libya.
What is the objectives of Cottey’s piece ‘The European neutrals and NATO: Ambiguous partnership’?
- to show that the 5 neutral states have followed broadly similar patterns of partnership with nato since the end of the CW.
- Particular difference between Finland and Sweden whom have adopted maximalist policies of everything bar membership
- other 3 more cautious (Switzerland, Austria, Ireland)
What does Cottey outline that realists, constructivists and historical institutionalises preach as to why neutral states did not join NATO?
- Realists: chose not to join nato mostly due to the geo strategic circumstances of each neutral state as being close to Russia and further from US
Constructivists: Neutrality was deeply ingrained in most of these states and is nothing new
Historical Institutionalism: neutrality became itself an institution whereby it was reinforced by powerful domestic processes of social construction which made neutrality part of the country national identity
Is NATO a coalition of the willing or collective security?
is this a bad thing?
- More of a coalition of the willing and not so much how article 5 portrays it
- Is it bad?: US no longer sees Europe/EU as a whole as a partner due to fragmentations within Europe and so enacts coalition of a willing
What is Risse core argument?
-Transatlantic “ties that bind” are getting weaker. This trend is particularly visible among the elites in Germany, which has become the most important ally of the US in the EU
Increased alientation between the US and its most important allies with regard to the fundamental nature of the transatlantic order.
What four broad categories does Risse with which the state of the transatlantic community can be assessed? (Called Risse scorecards)
1) Interests- expressions of preferences held by actors over states of the world or mean to achieve goals.
2) Interdependencies- interactive relationship that are costly to break.
3) Institutions- are persistent rule structures that prescribe appropriate behaviour and enable or constrain behaviour
4) Identities- collective expression of what is special about a particular group; iots core values, social habits and more broadly anything that contributes to the identifying the group as distinct from others.
Risse- interests scorecards
- Still US/EUR Cooperation on Russia and trans. Threats: On one hand, there remains plenty of room for transatlantic cooperation in various issue areas e.g. US and Europe continue to cooperate in many areas related to core security interests- from dealing with an Assertive Russia to the fight against transnational threats.
- HR/DEM PROMO: US/EU are in principle in agreement with regard to HR and democracy promotion, including on prioritising stability over human rights whenever the goal clash.
Dealing with Russia: On the other hand, there are divisions between interests. With regard to security, the transatlantic consensus on how to deal with Russia seems fragile.
- Regional or Global?: Moreover lack of agreement on whether core mission of the transatlantic alliance has been unable so far to whether its core mission should be global (as US wants) or rather regional with some global implications (europpean stance).
In sum the picture remains mixed with regard to core interests.
Risse score card- interdependence
Economic: If there is one area in which many observers still paint a rosy picture of the transatlantic community, is their economic relationship.
Largest: The US and EU remain the two largest economics in the world with a combined GDP of almost 36 trillion and
a bilateral relationship second to none.
Investments: US investments in Europe are three times higher than in all of Asia, while European investments in the USA are about 8 times EU investments in India and China combined.
Risse score card- institutions
- NATO remains the institutional linchpin of the transatlantic relationship.
- 9/11+Article 5: yet after Article 5 was enacted for the first time after 9/11 little happened. It was not NATO that intervened in Afghanistan. It was the US and a coalition of the willing.
- Coalition on ‘War on Terror’: If mutual consultation and collective decision making are constitute norms governing NATO, they were both severly violated in the 2000s e.g. Bush administrations for coalitions of the willing was hardly compatible with the decision making rule of a multilateral alliance that require consultation and sees as joint decisions.
- Lacking Leadership: Can observe a lack of leadership on either side of the Altantic in using the institutional framework provided by NATO and other instiutions both to steer the transatlantic relationship through crisis and to utlisie them for formulating Western responses to global order issues.
Risse score card- identities
Dem/HR Identity: American and European citizens certainly belong to the same Western civilisation when it comes to supporting democracy, HR and a market economcy in general.
Social/Economic: However, major difference between European and Americans persist concerning issues, such as social and economic rights, and the role of the state in the economy.
Hands off/on: Americans tend to support liberation ideas, such as hands off approach to the national economy. In contast, a majority of Europeans prefer a stromh welfare state providing social equality and solidarity.
