E-Notes
What Makes Alliances Tick?
The 7th Annual Robert Strausz-Hupé Lecture
An Address by the Hon. Dov S. Zakheim
October 1, 2004
Dov S. Zakheim, Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, was Under Secretary of Defense from 2001 until April 2004. He is also a newly elected Trustee of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. This E-Note is the text of the 7th Annual Robert Strausz-Hupé Lecture, delivered on September 27, 2004. Ambassador Strausz-Hupé founded FPRI in 1955 and is widely credited for having introduced “geopolitics” into the American vocabulary.
The state of America’s alliances are very much in the news these days; it has become a major campaign issue. Senator Kerry has asserted throughout the course of his presidential campaign that America’s prestige abroad is at low ebb and that our alliances are in tatters. He points to the reluctance of many allies to support the launching of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the reluctance of many more to send troops or other forms of assistance to Iraq.
As with most allegations that emerge in the course of a political campaign, Senator Kerry’s assertion contains a germ of truth, but not much more than that. America certainly finds itself at loggerheads with its French allies, to the point that many American opinion leaders no longer consider France to be an ally.
Difficulties with Germany have receded somewhat, but nevertheless the relationship between Washington and Berlin is hardly one of hearty conviviality. We have not fully mended our fences with Chile, a Rio Pact ally that was reluctant to support our position in the United Nations and has not provided much in the way of assistance over the past year.
Few, if any of our Arab allies — and recall that several of them are now classed as “major non-NATO allies”— have offered to deploy troops to Iraq, although it is not clear the Iraqis would accept them. Spain has withdrawn troops, as have three of our Central American allies— Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic— who formed part of the Spanish Brigade. Others may do the same.
There is, therefore, no denying that with respect to Iraq many of our alliance relationships are being sorely tested. One can even point to tensions that do not relate to Iraq. For example, relations with our South Korean allies, among others, have been rocky because of differing perceptions of how best to deal with the North.
So is Senator Kerry correct? Have we made a hash of our alliances? Or worse yet, is there a secular trend away from our formal alliances, notably NATO, as some analysts allege?
The fact that we are debating how to maintain alliances, as opposed to how to avoid them, is a sign that at bottom, the state of our international relations is fundamentally sound. Only shallow extremists of the right and left want to return full circle to George Washington’s ideal of avoiding “entangling alliances.” Given the desire of mainstream America to maintain a healthy alliance system, and given the fundamental attractiveness of American political, military and social power, there can be little doubt that we will be able to call upon the support of many allies in any future times of need.
This is not to say that we can expect the same roster of allies to support us in every contingency. In a recent op- ed piece, Charles Krauthammer asks, “of all our allies in the world, which is the only one to have joined the United States in the foxhole in every war in the past 100 years? Not Britain, not Canada, certainly not France,” he states. “The answer is Australia.”
But even Australia has not been with us in every foxhole. It was not in Beirut in the 1950s or in the 1980s. Nor did the Aussies fight alongside us in Haiti (where we have been frequent visitors), Grenada, or Panama. True, the latter three conflicts took place in our hemisphere. Yet other allies did participate in these operations or their aftermath. For example, Jamaica, Barbados and four smaller members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States participated in the Grenada operation and, as Caspar Weinberger recalled in his memoirs, “the contingents were small … but … those elements were [his emphasis] part of the force.” And — perish the thought — France sent forces to Haiti.
My intention is not to knock the Australians. They are as true an ally as we could hope for, although they might still reverse themselves if Labour’s Mark Latham takes office. Rather, I want to point out that the roster of our allies is constantly changing. Recall that Italy was our ally in World War I, our enemy in World War II, and then again our ally during the cold war. Indeed, our war planners continued to have contingency operations directed against the United Kingdom as late as the early 1900s. And Britain’s blockade of Germany was a source of friction with the neutral United States in the early years of World War I.
Our tensions with the British did not dissipate in the aftermath of the world war, or that of World War II for that matter. We disagreed with the British over Palestine, clashed bitterly with London (and Paris) over Suez, and sorely tested our ties over Vietnam. Many forget that a significant portion — if not a majority — of the British public was as resentful of Harold Wilson’s support of that war, which in any event was often lukewarm — as it is today over Tony Blair’s policies. Even Margaret Thatcher, she of the love affair with Ronald Reagan, she who penned a title of her memoirs with her immortal admonition to George Bush that it was “no time to go wobbly” over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait — even Mrs. Thatcher was ready to criticize the American liberation of Grenada — and that in the aftermath of the support she received from Washington in the Falklands War.
Does all this mean that “there are no alliances, only interests?” Not at all. The distinction is a false one. All states have interests, and when their interests converge often enough they will form alliances. Rarely, if ever, will interests converge all of the time, over years and decades. When some aspect of those interests diverge, the ties that bind alliances might fray, but are unlikely to come apart if underlying commonalities remain intact.
Perhaps the best example of this truism about alliances is Europe. Since the rise of Asian economic power, and the growth of non-Anglo-Saxon, non-European communities in the United States, many observers have argued that the importance of our European alliances will soon diminish. “Soon” obviously is a rolling term — it hasn’t happened yet. Nor is that dire prediction likely to materialize for some time.
To begin with, as Donald Rumsfeld, my former boss, would put it, there is “new Europe” as well as “old Europe.” “New Europe” — by which the secretary of defense means the democracies that emerged from the Soviet shadow and have joined NATO —has a fundamental strategic interest in cleaving to the United States. That interest simply will not go away for the foreseeable future. For the first time — ever — the small states sandwiched between Russia and Germany have a reliable ally that can come to their aid, unlike Britain and France, who proved incapable of protecting them before World War II.
But there are other Europes that have every incentive to remain close to America. “Old Europe” is not a monolith by any means. It includes Britain, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway and others who supported and continue to support the United States in Iraq, whether with votes in NATO, troops, financial contributions, or — when it functioned — personnel assigned to the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Then there is southeastern Europe. States like Romania and Bulgaria are not NATO members. Yet they have evinced a strong desire both to join NATO and to house American troops on their territory. Like the other emerging democracies, they too see the United States as a bulwark against more powerful neighbors.
And what of those recalcitrants — France and Germany? On my visits to Afghanistan I spoke with French trainers who work alongside our forces in developing a viable Afghan national army. I stayed with the German provincial reconstruction team in Kunduz. The much criticized NATO international force in Kabul is represented not only by all NATO members but by other European states as well.
And what of Spain? If they disagree with our Iraq policy, that makes Madrid no less an ally. For example, the Spanish have forces in Afghanistan. Moreover, for the first time in decades we have worked alongside Spain in Latin America — confounding those in that region who delight in playing our two countries off against each other. I personally joined my Spanish counterpart in successfully recruiting troops from four Central American states. The briefings were in Spanish. (luckily for me, by the way, they were in Castilian Spanish, which more closely resembles the French that I happen to understand.)
Several of these states have withdrawn their forces from Iraq. But El Salvador retains its troops there, as do many other states. And whether a country has ten troops, or ten thousand, every death, every battle wound, is felt by those of its citizens related to the victim.
I am not naive. Many countries joined the coalition because they expected some economic benefit from doing so. As Under Secretary of Defense, I had many visits from ministers and ambassadors who wanted contracts, or at least sub-contracts, for their domestic companies, in effect in exchange for their participation in some way in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I even was approached by states that would only send troops if we covered all their expenses, and others that wanted to be paid at United Nations rates, so that they could bolster their treasury coffers.
Yet these kinds of “offers to help,” if that is what they can be termed, are simply a reflection of the calculus that enters into every government’s decision whether or not to join a military conflict. Democracies in particular have a complex calculus; they ignore public opinion at their peril. It is all very nice to tell the leaders of a democratic nation to defy their publics, and often their legislatures as well. If they do so long enough, however, they will no longer be leaders — even if terrorists do not enter into the act, as they did in Spain.
Let me return to those economically based offers. We rejected any request to pay UN rates, or to cover the costs of personnel and their insurance. Still, dozens of states offered troops to the coalition. Dozens participated in the Coalition Provisional Authority’s activities. Dozens contributed funds — that have actually materialized as hospitals, training centers, schools in Iraq. Mongolians protected Hungarians when they came under fire (as the Hungarian ambassador to Washington told me, the last time those two countries interacted, in the days of Genghis Khan, it did not work out so well for Hungary). On one of my visits to Iraq I met with Japanese troops — the last place one would have expected to see a post-World War II Japanese military force. Jordanians have provided trainers; the United Arab Emirates have furnished hospitals and water purification equipment.
Americans may discuss alliances in the abstract, but we tend to be oblivious about the particulars. Our oldest allies are the Dutch, the Moroccans and the French. No American would classify them as our closest allies today. Our steadiest allies would include the Portuguese; again, few Americans take notice of that small country. Few people can list more than five allies who have contributed personnel and materiel in either Iraq or Afghanistan.
So, what makes alliances tick? I cannot speak for all alliances. Common interests, of course, is the basis of them all, from the days of ancient Greece’s Delian and Peloponnesian leagues onward throughout the centuries. Enduring common interests allow for something more than coalitions of the willing, and serve to ameliorate periodic disputes, as the NATO alliance has amply shown over the decades.
What are enduring common interests? Political culture may be the most important of these, though by itself, it does not determine alliances. All members of NATO are democracies. Not all democracies are members of NATO, however. Nor have all members of NATO been democracies, nor indeed, have all, or even most, been members of one of our less well known alliances, the Rio Pact.
A common cultural heritage is another component, but again, there are major exceptions. If by common cultural heritage we mean that of Europe, the origin of the majority of our citizens, then we do not share a common cultural heritage with Turkey, or with Japan, or South Korea, or with some of our major non-NATO allies such as Jordan or Morocco. Indeed, the latter two states cannot be termed democracies either.
What we do share in common with all our allies is a desire for stability, and a determination to prevent aggression by one state against another, and, more recently, by terrorist groups against innocent populations. Even in this case there have been exceptions — Argentina was an ally when it launched the Falklands War (and as a result leading officials in our government were initially divided over the proper us response to that conflict). In general however, the desire to maintain a peaceful and stable international system, within which people can move and trade relatively freely and securely, does unite us with our allies and separate us from our adversaries. When this common desire is coupled with some combination of political commonalities, cultural commonalities, historical ties and mutual economic interests, the ties that bind our alliances remain, in my view, quite healthy.
So, is Mr. Kerry right? Are our alliances crumbling? Not if you visit Afghanistan; or NATO headquarters; or Central Command, with its dozens of military liaison officers from states around the globe; or our joint command in Korea; or our joint headquarters in Japan; or, for that matter, the many foreign commands that continue to operate under fire in Iraq even as I speak.
It is worth noting that a very astute observer of the most “special” of relationships, the British journalist Geoffrey Smith, wrote about Reagan and Thatcher that, “it is hard to believe that there will ever again be an American president and a British prime minister who will form quite as close a personal association.” Yet Tony Blair managed to maintain a roughly equivalent relationship with such opposites as Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. One should always be careful about predicting that alliance relationships somehow have “peaked” and must inevitably decline in some way.
As I see it, our alliance “ticker” is quite healthy, and while Iraq may represent a little bit of a murmur, its heartbeat continues to be sound, and I predict will remain so for years to come.
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