Introduction
In his April 12, 1949 message transmitting the North Atlantic Treaty to the US Senate, President Harry Truman wrote eloquently about the shared values and interests which had led the United States and its European allies to form NATO:
For decades, Truman’s conception of the US role in NATO – wherein US membership and leadership was taken as a given – was an unquestioned cornerstone of US grand strategy. However, in recent years a number of factors have called this consensus into question. The most prominent example is US President Donald Trump’s ambivalence about NATO: he has interfered in the domestic politics of other member states, called the Alliance obsolete, and complained that its European members are taking advantage of the US by underpaying for defense and pursuing unfair trade policies.
Yet, Trump is an extreme symptom of a broader set of problems that are changing how many Americans think about the world. Beyond US borders, the international system is moving toward multipolarity; the American “unipolar moment” has ended. The decline of the US relative to other major powers has contributed to increasing geopolitical competition. In response to the rise of China and the phenomenal economic growth in the region, the United States has been in the process of attempting to “pivot” to East Asia – and, to an extent, away from Europe and the Middle East.
Against the backdrop of this evolving geostrategic landscape and a changing relationship with the US, Europe is pursuing a project of strategic autonomy (ESA). The meaning of this concept is contested, and some countries are more enthusiastic about it than others, but the broader point is difficult to miss – most Europeans want to develop a more independent and coherent security and defense policy.2 This need not damage the transatlantic relationship. In fact, at least a degree of strategic autonomy likely will be necessary for the long-term health of the transatlantic relationship. However, for some European policymakers and analysts, the quest for ESA is not driven primarily by a desire to develop a better transatlantic relationship. Instead, they are seeking to protect European interests from a US that appears increasingly nationalistic and unreliable. Meanwhile, US policymakers question the willingness of its European partners to challenge China and Russia, both of which regularly transgress international law and western values. Instability on the southern (and, in Europe’s case, southeastern) borders has contributed to domestic political challenges in NATO member countries on both sides of the Atlantic. In particular, the rise of radical right-wing populism and so-called illiberal democracy has undermined the notion that the Alliance is based upon a shared set of values.
In the case of the US, internal cultural, economic, and political problems directly threaten the country’s leadership in NATO. In recent years, a growing minority of Americans have expressed ambivalence about key aspects of international engagement, including participation in alliances. Partly, this reflects longstanding trends. Anti-Europeanism, anti-elitism, and unilateralism are powerful impulses in US political culture. Though they were mostly held in check during the Cold War, they have resurfaced, especially among downscale conservative whites. In part, this recrudescence has been catalyzed by inexorable changes in the US economy, such as growing inequality and the downsides of globalization, and cultural life, such as the backlash against multiculturalism and the country’s growing diversity.
NATO cannot exist in its present form without the United States and an effective internationalist US foreign policy is impossible without a robust set of alliances. Each side needs the other. But as the international system and US political culture evolve, the country’s relationship with its European security partners is also changing. The focus of this chapter is the nature of that transformation. First, it recaps the history of US–NATO ties, giving particular attention to the origin of long-term challenges that have complicated the relationship and the role that NATO has played in pivotal national security challenges for the US. The second section examines the state of relations today. It takes stock of how NATO is perceived among the US public and policymakers. It evaluates the role NATO plays in US national security strategy, especially when it comes to how policymakers perceive the external security environment. It provides an overview of the US role in debates about defense spending and NATO’s budget. In the final section, the chapter discusses the most likely trajectory for relations between the United States and NATO. This includes sketching two potential scenarios. One is mostly positive and includes the US following geopolitical and domestic political logic – a majority of the US public and most US policymakers support NATO – to embrace a more equal and constructive relationship with its European allies, including their ambitions to develop ESA. The second potential outcome is a muddled future in which the US will become a more inconsistent, less engaged, and less reliable partner. As it spends more time and resources on China and East Asia, the United States will become more reluctant to take the leading role in security challenges in Europe and in Europe’s backyard. Depending on the political party of the US President, it will also periodically act in ways that undermine the rules-based international order, which Europeans consider a vital interest. Though US withdrawal remains unlikely in this scenario, internal and external factors intensify differences, rather than assuaging them, sapping NATO’s effectiveness and pushing the US and Europe to address their security needs more often outside the parameters of the alliance. Whether this version of the US–NATO relationship would be sustainable in the long run remains an open question.
The US and NATO in historical context
When the United States signed and ratified the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, it broke a longstanding tradition. For the first time since the late 18th century, the US entered into a long-term military alliance. Several factors drove this fundamental shift in strategy. In spite of the World War II alliance, policymakers and the public had come to perceive the USSR as an existential threat. To be sure, the Soviets laid in ruins after World War II – more than 20 million citizens died during the conflict and their industrial base was shattered – so, there was no possibility that they could attack the US homeland. (This changed after the Soviets began to develop an atomic weapons program, beginning with their first successful nuclear test in August 1949.) However, the outlook in Western Europe after World War II was also bleak; the miserable conditions bolstered domestic communist parties, which Washington assumed would be at least indirectly supportive of Moscow’s policies. In addition, Eastern Europe had quickly oriented itself politically and economically toward Moscow, furthering weakening the trade outlook for Western Europe.
In spite of Soviet economic weakness, they maintained a significant edge in conventional military forces in Europe. US policymakers worried that if the Soviets and their allies extended their sway over Western Europe (and Japan), they could prevent the emergence of a viable international economy and US exports would dramatically shrink. This would endanger the health of the US free market economy and political institutions. Hence, the decision to pursue a long-term security alliance was not fueled by some lofty concern for upholding democracy and human rights overseas; it was motivated largely by national self-interest. As Melvyn Leffler writes, US officials “were driven less by a desire to help others than by an ideological conviction that their own political economy of freedom would be jeopardized if a totalitarian foe became too powerful.”3
The future of Germany also played a role in US thinking. In order for Western Europe to be a viable industrial center, the zones of Germany occupied by the Britain, France, and the US after World War II would need to be revived economically. Furthermore, in order for Western Europe to contribute meaningfully to a transatlantic security alliance – the Western Union, a military alliance between Belgium, Britain, France, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands was established in 1948 – German troops would be needed. Yet, all sides were nervous about the prospect of a militarily and economically revived Germany so soon after the horrors of the war. Meanwhile West Germany, which was founded in May 1949, began to assert itself. It did not want to reunite with East Germany as a neutral country, it demanded an end to the practice of dismantling West German industry to pay for the war, and would soon begin to agitate for independent military forces that would contribute to a broader Western European security arrangement.4
In addition to concerns about a reinvigorated Germany, France and other countries were worried that the US would reject a central role in the postwar European security architecture. Though Washington was willing to make vague assurances about military support, Europeans wanted concrete commitments. Meanwhile, US policymakers were determined to force the Western Europeans to develop substantial military capabilities, partly to ensure that the burden of European defense did not fall only on US shoulders, and partly for domestic political reasons, as influential members of Congress remained leery of a long-term security commitment.5
Though the US was in the process of transitioning to a firmly internationalist foreign policy, influential voices fought back. On the left, Henry Wallace, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second Vice President, warned that NATO would undermine the UN and prevent peaceful existence with the USSR. Among conservatives, the most prominent critic was Robert Taft, the Republican Senator from Ohio. Ever since 1945, Taft, a staunch nationalist, had offered the most compelling critique of the burgeoning internationalist orientation of US foreign policy. He had opposed creation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and only reluctantly voted in favor of the European Recovery Program. He was skeptical about the North Atlantic Treaty from the outset. He worried that it would lead to long-term entanglements in far-off countries in which the US had no vital interests, that Article 5 of the treaty would give the President the power to engage in hostilities without the consent of Congress, that the Europeans would require substantial military aid, and that the pact would stoke Soviet perceptions that the West posed a threat.6
Taft’s anti-treaty forces lost the fight. In July 1949, the Senate voted to ratify 83-13. The treaty played a crucial role in forging a bipartisan consensus around a version of US internationalism that valued multilateralism and viewed European security as a vital national interest. To put it simply, joining NATO helped lock in a relatively constructive version of US internationalism. This was important, because a significant strain of unilateralist sentiment persisted among US policymakers and the public through the mid-1950s. Even though Taft lost the short-term fight over the future of US foreign policy, aspects of his worldview contributed to the emergence of a perspective that was more unilateralist, more concerned with East Asia – especially China – and more responsive to populist impulses than was the mainstream bipartisan internationalism. Senator Joseph McCarthy served as an early leader in promoting what would eventually be recognizable as a form of conservative internationalism; he voted for the North Atlantic Treaty but was a leading voice in the “Asia First” campaigns of the 1950s.7
In spite of Taft’s lingering influence, vigorous participation in NATO remained a cornerstone of US national security strategy for the remainder of the Cold War. To be sure, there was always tension in the US–NATO relationship. The status of West Germany was a constant source of friction. In the early years of NATO, US policymakers had to reconcile the necessity of creating a West German military with stubborn French resistance to rearming what had been, until recently, an existential threat. Later, the divided city of Berlin emerged as a focal point for US–Soviet confrontation. Washington was skeptical of West Germany’s policy of Ostpolitik, including improving relations with the Soviet bloc and the establishment of diplomatic relations with East Germany. France was never comfortable with the predominant role of the US and partially disengaged from the Alliance in 1966 (and only fully rejoined in 2009). The Vietnam War angered both sides, as the US resented the lack of European support while the Europeans were horrified by the disastrous US intervention. In the 1980s, against the backdrop of a renewed Soviet–US arms race, the stationing of US Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe sparked massive protests and fueled anti-Americanism. The connective threads to all of these disagreements was, in Washington, frustration that the Europeans were not doing enough to defend themselves and, in Europe, that the US was domineering – though also occasionally neglectful – and that its aggressive behavior would drag them into a war with the USSR and its Warsaw Pact allies.8
The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet thre...
