Burden-sharing in NATO
Radu Alexandru CUCUTA
April 24, 2009
Radu Alexandru CUCUTA
April 24, 2009
Joel R. Hillison’s of the Strategic Studies Institute recent study –“New NATO Members: Security Consumers or Producers” tackles the problem of burden sharing among NATO members. Concurring with one of the study’s opening arguments - that burden-sharing has been a major theoretical and political issue only when dealing with the USA/Rest of NATO members divide, the perspective of comparing the contributions of the new members against the share burdened by the old members of the Alliance is more than intriguing.
The study draws its influence from the major neo-realist contributions of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, but also from the socio-economic perspective of collective social action of Mancur Olson. The hypotheses of the study are that new NATO members contributed more to the Alliance’s resources pool than older members of the organization. At the same time, the second point to be followed was that larger states (in terms of populace and geographical size) would tend to contribute more than smaller members of NATO. Burden sharing is defined as “the distribution of costs and risks among members of a group in the process of accomplishing a common goal”. Size therefore is measured in terms of the area and the populace of the state, whereas burden sharing is measured as a military expenditures/GDP ratio.
The study draws its influence from the major neo-realist contributions of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, but also from the socio-economic perspective of collective social action of Mancur Olson. The hypotheses of the study are that new NATO members contributed more to the Alliance’s resources pool than older members of the organization. At the same time, the second point to be followed was that larger states (in terms of populace and geographical size) would tend to contribute more than smaller members of NATO. Burden sharing is defined as “the distribution of costs and risks among members of a group in the process of accomplishing a common goal”. Size therefore is measured in terms of the area and the populace of the state, whereas burden sharing is measured as a military expenditures/GDP ratio.
At this point, there are several arguments to be made against the author’s assumptions. On the one hand, the title is somewhat misleading. Burden sharing is not necessarily a proper tool of measuring the security input (if one chooses to analyze whether the new members consume or rather produce security). Secondly, the only argument in favor of measuring burden sharing as the expenditure vs. GDP ratio given by the author is that this is the dominant ratio in literature dealing with this field. Even if taking a realist perspective, one could look not only at defense expenditure, but also at military infrastructure. Of course, there are several good arguments for which the study of these ratios may prove insightful, but I very much doubt that even within realist assumptions using this instrument may prove adequate as to whether the new members states produce or rather consume security. If one agrees to Herz’s security dilemma, the unilateral increase of a member’s defense expenditure may not necessarily mean that the state is sharing a larger part of the common burden, but that it’s threat capacity has increased, thus resulting in a decrease of security for the whole alliance.
The author chooses to monitor the contributions made by Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary during their initial period as members of NATO and compares their “output” against that of comparable older members (Belgium, Portugal and Spain) over the course of the interventions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The conclusions of the study are not only do recent members of the Alliance contribute more, but that surprisingly, richer members contribute less than the poorer members of NATO. Several other conclusions are drawn by the study. The initially smaller contributions of the new members were caused not by a free-riding tendency that diminished in time, but by their initial lack of resources. Consequently, the main reasons behind the newer members’ larger contributions were the need to modernize their armed forces and the impetus to prove themselves as reliable members of NATO.
Several questions are left unanswered by the study. Although the author acknowledges a possible free-riding tendency developing amongst the newer members of the Alliance, he is confident that the recognition of their contribution and a wise incentive scheme may prove useful on the long run. This however does not shed light into one of the problems NATO confronts itself on a regular basis – the incapacity of the member states to meet the requirement of spending at least 2% of their national budget on defense. When only six member states meet this condition (the USA, the UK, France, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria) and only one of them is a newcomer, the problem is not really one of sharing the burden, but rather one of passing it over. At the same time, the limits of the ratio used are eloquent for the matter at hand – adding the burden-share of the US to the burden share of the other members, while might seem a useful comparison, leaves the observer pondering as to what the total represents: a burden or a share. Nevertheless, the study brings light into a field only seldom analyzed by IR scholars, showing the necessity of an extensive study of the newer members’ transformation of the security environment in Eastern Europe.
The author chooses to monitor the contributions made by Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary during their initial period as members of NATO and compares their “output” against that of comparable older members (Belgium, Portugal and Spain) over the course of the interventions in Kosovo, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The conclusions of the study are not only do recent members of the Alliance contribute more, but that surprisingly, richer members contribute less than the poorer members of NATO. Several other conclusions are drawn by the study. The initially smaller contributions of the new members were caused not by a free-riding tendency that diminished in time, but by their initial lack of resources. Consequently, the main reasons behind the newer members’ larger contributions were the need to modernize their armed forces and the impetus to prove themselves as reliable members of NATO.
Several questions are left unanswered by the study. Although the author acknowledges a possible free-riding tendency developing amongst the newer members of the Alliance, he is confident that the recognition of their contribution and a wise incentive scheme may prove useful on the long run. This however does not shed light into one of the problems NATO confronts itself on a regular basis – the incapacity of the member states to meet the requirement of spending at least 2% of their national budget on defense. When only six member states meet this condition (the USA, the UK, France, Greece, Turkey and Bulgaria) and only one of them is a newcomer, the problem is not really one of sharing the burden, but rather one of passing it over. At the same time, the limits of the ratio used are eloquent for the matter at hand – adding the burden-share of the US to the burden share of the other members, while might seem a useful comparison, leaves the observer pondering as to what the total represents: a burden or a share. Nevertheless, the study brings light into a field only seldom analyzed by IR scholars, showing the necessity of an extensive study of the newer members’ transformation of the security environment in Eastern Europe.
