CIAO DATE: 09/04

International Affairs

July 2004

• Debating the transatlantic relationship: rhetoric and reality  Erik Jones

  The rhetoric surrounding the crisis in transatlantic relations is overcharged. Although the United States and Europe have reached a turning point, the changes that they need to make are neither fundamental nor controversial. No matter how you polarize the debate, the solution combines more flexibility and more cooperation. Moreover, this solution has been known for some time. Hence the real questions to consider are not about how this crisis came about, but why it persists. At least part of the answer lies in the structure of interdependence. Although both sides in the Atlantic alliance have an interest in flexible cooperation, the United States is much more central to the countries of Europe than 'Europe' is to the United States. Because of this asymmetry, a crisis that started from real misunderstanding has been extended as Americans appear neglectful and Europeans oversensitive. Part of the answer also lies in our expectations of the relationship. Some observers suggest that the crisis will only end when both sides realize that it is time to grow up. Perhaps they already have.

• America as a European power: the end of empire by integration? John Peterson

  Is the postwar partnership between Europe and America now a historical artefact? Much depends on whether the notion of America as a 'European power' still holds. The US attained this status through a strategy of 'empire by integration', extending its postwar 'empire' through negotiation and support for European integration, and envisaging a collectively powerful Europe as fundamental to the health of its most important security alliance. The election of George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the war in Iraq are often seen as producing deep ruptures both in American policy towards Europe and the transatlantic alliance. Yet, the embrace of a new US policy of 'disaggregation' of Europe is unproven, and in any event unlikely to mark a permanent shift. The US and Europe are surprisingly close to agreement on ends for the international order. Conflict over Iraq has obscured a significant increase in policy cooperation and convergence of strategy in the war on terrorism.

• From crisis to catharsis: ESDP after Iraq  Anand Menon

  For many observers, the Iraq crisis spelled the end for EU ambitions in the defence sphere. The profound public and bitter divisions that emerged were seen as illustrative of the insuperable problems confronting ESDP. This article argues, however, that the reverse is in fact the case. Far from sounding the death knell for ESDP, the crisis has had a cathartic effect in compelling the member states to face up to and resolve the major ambiguities that had always threatened to undermine EU defence policies. Consequently, these member states have, in the months following the war, laid the basis not only for a more modest but also for a more effective ESDP.

• The Atlantic crisis of confidence  Dana H. Allin

  As the ultimate enforcer of such international rules and order as can be said to exist, the United States will often find itself in tension with those rules, and at times may be to stand outside them altogether. Yet for this sort of dispensation to have any international acceptance whatsoever depends on a high level of international confidence that American power will be exercised prudently, wisely and benevolently. Such confidence is precisely what the Bush administration has squandered, a loss that is far more damaging and vital than abstract arguments about force and legitimacy, or contending visions of international order. Confidence will not be restored by continued ideological argument. Rather, the transatlantic alliance needs to concentrate pragmatically on the key issues of international security: fighting terrorism, controlling WMD proliferation, and strategically selective state-building. If this focused cooperation can survive further probable setbacks in Iraq, then there is hope for reversing a deepening transatlantic alienation.

• The ultimate test case: can Europe and America forge a joint strategy for the wider Middle East?  Steven Everts

  The call for a common US-European approach to the multiple problems of the wider Middle East region has become the latest truism of the transatlantic circuit. But the Middle East is also the region that has historically most divided Americans and Europeans. Steven Everts argues that, despite the different reflexes and assumptions, a joint transatlantic effort is both necessary and feasible. But it will only work if both sides are prepared to adjust policies, allocate sufficient resources and, most of all, take political risks. He sketches a joint strategy based on four pillars: a new international bargain for Iraq; keeping the two-state solution alive in Israel-Palestine; preventing the next transatlantic bust-up over Iran; and with regard to the crisis of governance, taking concrete steps to promote political reforms throughout the region. The author concludes that in the Middle East, Europe must be more strategically daring while America must be more politically astute.

• On the identity of NATO  Helene Sjursen

  Although we may well be missing the point about NATO if we conceptualize it as just another military alliance, defining NATO as a community of liberal democratic values and norms is problematic. A distinction must be made between a community of values linked to particular experiences and a particular context and a community based on democratic principles. What has kept NATO together beyond the Cold War is a sense of shared history and fate. If such a 'value-hypothesis' about NATO is correct, the continued survival of the organization does not depend only on the marginal costs of maintaining it continuing to outweigh those of creating a new organization. The future of NATO will also depend on the extent to which it is possible to restore (or reestablish) a sense of shared fate and mutual confidence across the Atlantic.

• The US Nuclear Posture Review and the NATO allies  David S. Yost

  The 2001 US Nuclear Posture Review called for reducing operationally deployed US strategic nuclear warheads by almost two-thirds over the decade ending in 2012; emphasizing the development and/or improvement of capabilities other than nuclear forces, including missile defences, non-nuclear strike forces, and a responsive infrastructure; and placing nuclear and other capabilities within the framework of new concepts such as dissuasion and capabilities-based planning. The reductions foreseen in the NPR furnished the basis for the May 2002 Moscow Treaty. Allied observers have welcomed this treaty as a political substitute for the ABM Treaty and START negotiations, but have found it disappointing as an arms control measure. While allied observers have expressed reservations about combining nuclear and non-nuclear strike forces in a single notional leg of the 'New Triad' and about increasing readiness for possible nuclear testing, they have endorsed unprecedented steps in the defensive area, notably with respect to ballistic missile defence. Some new US concepts have been relatively uncontroversial because they represent continuity, but others (such as dissuasion and deterrence by denial) have evoked scepticism.

• Transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation  Richard J. Aldrich

  Despite recent advances in transatlantic intelligence and security cooperation, significant problems remain. The bombings in Madrid in March 2004 have demonstrated how terrorists and criminals can continue to exploit the limits of hesitant or partial exchange to dangerous effect. Intelligence and security cooperation remain problematic because of the fundamental tension between an increasingly networked world, which is ideal terrain for the new religious terrorism, and highly compartmentalized national intelligence gathering. If cooperation is to improve, we require a better mutual understanding about the relationship between privacy and security to help us decide what sort of intelligence should be shared. This is a higher priority than building elaborate new structures. While most practical problems of intelligence exchange are ultimately resolvable, the challenge of agreeing what the intelligence means in broad terms is even more problematic. The last section of this article argues that shared NATO intelligence estimates would be difficult to achieve and of doubtful value.

• Review article: Engagement or empire? American power and the international order  Ewan Harrison

  Three recent surveys of American foreign relations lie at the intersection of topical academic and policy debates. Robert Lieber's Eagle rules? makes a case for American primacy as a precondition for global stability, and in so doing reflects an agenda for US foreign policy that is broadly associated with the current Bush administration. By contrast, Joseph Nye's The paradox of American power argues against US unilateralism, and may be read as an implicit critique of the apparent recent shift in American strategy. Nevertheless, both Lieber and Nye make a case for extensive American engagement with the world as a basis for international stability. By contrast, Chalmers Johnson's Blowback views America's global 'engagement' as a thinly disguised diplomatic veil for imperialism. Although they make very different arguments, these three books are usefully considered together. Nye's stress on the importance of soft power, multilateral diplomacy and wider structural changes in the nature of world politics is a useful corrective to Lieber's emphasis on US primacy. But Johnson is right to criticize the excessive and ultimately counter-productive level of military involvement of the United States around the world. In the absence of a more effective global balance of power, the preconditions for a robust system of international diplomacy as well as the management of globalization will not be satisfied.

• Book Reviews: Online publication date: July-2004

  Books reviewed in this article:

  International Relations theory

  Taming the sovereigns: institutional change in international politics. By K. J. Holsti.

  International ethics

  Glimmer of a new leviathan: total war in the realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. By Campbell Craig.

  International law and organization

  The politics of international law. Edited by Christian Reus-Smit.

  International justice and the International Criminal Court: between sovereignty and the rule of law. By Bruce Broomhall.

  Enemy aliens: double standards and constitutional freedoms in the war on terrorism. By David Cole.

  The UN Security Council from the Cold War to the 21st century. Edited by David M. Malone.

  Foreign relations

  An alliance at risk: the United States and Europe since September II. By Laurent Cohen-Tanugi.

  Friendly fire: the near-death of the transatlantic alliance. By Elizabeth Pond.

  The Middle East's relations with Asia and Russia. Edited by Hannah Carter and Anou-shiravan Ehteshami.

  A dictionary of diplomacy. 2nd edn. By G. R. Berridge and Alan James.

  Conflict, security and armed forces

  Allies: the US, Britain, Europe, and the war in Iraq. By William Shawcross.

  Politics, democracy and social affairs

  Revolutionary and dissident movements of the world. 4th edn. Edited by Bogdan Szajkowski.

  Ethnicity and cultural politics

  The search for Arab democracy: discourses and counter-discourses. By Larbi Sadiki.

  International and national political economy, economics and development

  Transatlantic economic disputes: the EU, the US, and the WTO. Edited by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann and Mark A. Pollack.

  Behind the scenes at the WTO: the real world of international trade negotiations. By Fatoumata Jawara and Eileen Kwa.

  In defense of globalization. By Jagdish N. Bhagwati.

  La mondialisation et ses ennemis. By Daniel Cohen.

  History

  Britain and Europe since 1945: historiographical perspectives on integration. By Oliver J. Daddow.

  Democracy and US policy in Latin America during the Truman years. By Steven Schwartzberg.

  Europe

  Toward a European army: a military power in the making? By Trevor C. Salmon and Alistair J. K. Shepherd.

  Inescapable questions: autobiographical notes. By Alija Izetbegovic.

  The demise of Yugoslavia: a political memoir. By Stipe Mesic.

  The future of Turkish foreign policy. Edited by Lenore G. Martin and Dimitris Keridis.

  Russia and the former Soviet republics

  Russia in search of itself. By James H. Billington.

  Russland und der postsowjetische Raum. Edited by Olga Alexandrova, Roland Götz and Uwe Halbach.

  Russian foreign policy and the CIS: theories, debates and actions. By Nicole J. Jackson.

  Middle East and North Africa

  Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf: power politics in transition. By Faisal bin Salman al-Saud.

  Sub-Saharan Africa

  Accounting for horror: post-genocide debates in Rwanda. By Nigel Eltringham.

  Politics in South Africa: from Mandela to Mbeki. By Tom Lodge.

  Beyond the miracle: inside the new South Africa. By Allister Sparks.

  Asia and Pacific

  Le voile et la bannière: l'avant-garde féministe au Pakistan. By Christèle Dedebant.

  China's techno-warriors: national security and strategic competition from the nuclear to the information age. By Evan A. Feigenbaum.

  Kim Jong-Il: North Korea's Dear Leader. By Michael Breen.

  North Korea: another country. By Bruce Cumings.

  Latin America and Caribbean

  Latin American and Caribbean foreign policy. Edited by Frank O. Mora and Jeanne A. K. Hey.