bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1991) — Fall 1991 // Automne 1991, pp. 45–47
Pressure: How America Runs NATO by
Dan Smith, London: Bloomsbury , 1989,
276 pp., £16.95.
Who really runs NATO? That is the question that Dan Smith, associate director of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam, addresses in his book Pressure: How America Runs NATO. Smith’s argument is a more subtle variation of the conspiracy theories one finds in certain accounts of American foreign policy, but unlike many of these theories his treatment is subtle, nuanced, and on the whole tries to balance the evidence rather than force it into an artificial, pre-conceived ideological framework. His account is based on an in-depth examination of numerous case-studies of NATO decision-making and interviews with some of the principals involved in those decisions.
Smith’s main contention can be summarized as follows. He argues that “the USA is consistently able to prevail [in NATO], to win on policies which are unpopular with allied governments or their electorates, or both.” That the United States is able to do so lies in a number of factors including “the varied repertoire of means which [it] has developed over the years for getting its own way” such as speeches by the president or other senior administration officials, by coordinated lobbying visits, briefings, meetings, and by pressure directed at “those people who shape opinion and set the terms of debate — journalists, pundits, experts, politicians not in government.” At the same time, Smith argues, the United States has found an all-too-responsive and willing audience among the leaders of the NATO governments who, he asserts, “listen more attentively and responsively to US opinions than to others.” But the real explanation for American influence lies in power politics or what Smith calls “the simple strategic fact: the security policies of European NATO governments are predicated on the continuing US military commitment to NATO and Europe. It is a system of dependent partnership, sought by the western governments at its inception, for which they were prepared to make concessions on sovereignty and policy.”
Smith is willing to concede that the United States does not always get its way. For example, he observes that in the 1960s it was unsuccessful in its dealings in a longstanding series of disputes with French leader General de Gaulle — a conflict which culminated in France pulling out of NATO’s integrated military command (although not out of NATO itself). Similarly, when France, West Germany, and Italy sought to build a pipeline to import natural gas from the Soviet Union, the United States was unsuccessful in its bid to prevent construction of the pipeline. Smith does manage to find numerous instances where the United States did get its way such as: the neutron bomb controversy in the late 1970s; the debate over and the eventual deployment of ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) and the Pershing II intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe; the Montebello decision to restructure NATO’s tactical nuclear weapons arsenal; and European “compliance” with Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” or Strategic Defense Initiative.
Although Smith’s discussion of these and other examples of NATO decision-making is lively and spirited, his argument suffers from several serious conceptual shortcomings as well as a rather selective interpretation of the historical record. A serious problem with Smith’s argument is that he fails to define or to develop adequate tests for the question of “influence.” Influence is notoriously difficult to measure in any sort of social or political situation. If allied and American preferences on key policy issues in NATO converge is that because the United States has successfully pressured its allies or simply because the allies really do not disagree on fundamental matters of policy? To devise a convincing or meaningful test of American pressure and influence over its allies one would have to examine cases where preferences clearly diverged and then explain the processes whereby the dominant partner in the alliance coerced its weaker partners. Unfortunately, this sort of analytical rigor is missing from Smith’s argument.
Many of the political instruments or means by which the United States makes its presence felt in NATO that Smith discusses are not unique to the United States. Lobbying, pressure group tactics, seeking out key opinion leaders in foreign capitals, are tactics that all modern governments do. Moreover, Smith fails to point out that the allies are at a real advantage in pursuing these tactics when it comes to dealing with Washington. The division of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government in the American political system (what some have called a system of “checks” and “balances”) offers multiple points of access for domestic and foreign lobbyists to make their views known and their presence felt. Decisions are “made” in Washington only to be undone. For the allies, the major problem in their dealings with Washington is not so much American pressure (which admittedly can be overwhelming in some instances) but the incoherence of the American decision-making process which often leads to crossed signals, confusion, and a lack of clear-cut commitment. Weak or vacillating presidential leadership can also be a problem for the allies. The fiasco resulting from Jimmy Carter’s flip-flop over the neutron bomb decision is more a case of alliance mismanagement than the successful application of American pressure over its European allies.
Also missing from Dan Smith’s analysis are those instances when the allies have successfully prevailed on the United States to do things it otherwise might not have wanted to do. Regardless of what one thinks about who initially came up with the idea of deploying INF forces to counter the growing threat of Soviet SS-20s to Western Europe (whether it was Helmut Schmidt in his much-noted speech to the International Institute of Strategic Studies in October 1976 or someone else), the subsequent invention of the zero-option arms control proposal was a direct response to the strong domestic political backlash generated by INF deployments in Britain, West Germany, and the Netherlands. Although one can legitimately question the sincerity of the first Reagan administration’s commitment to arms control, there is little doubt that strong pressure
• from Britain’s Margaret Thatcher also helped
• bring the United States to the negotiating table much earlier than it had wanted. To the ques- I tion, “who has co-opted whom?” one might just as well ask, “who wagged the dog’s tail?” Perhaps the greatest weakness of Dan Smith’s book is his failure to address the impact of the relative decline of the United States (particularly in the economic realm) on its ability to continue to exercise effective leadership in the Atlantic Alliance. The implication of Smith’s argument is that, regardless of whether the United States is in decline or not, it is still a superpower and it will continue to call the piper’s tune in NATO. As he observes in the introduction to his book: “[The USA] wins on such issues because it is a superpower; it is a superpower because it wins.” If we overlook the tautology in Smith’s assertion, his proposition is highly questionable and ignores the major impact that the economic decline of the United States, the rise of the European Community and the earth-shaking changes that are occurring in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union are now having on alliance politics. As long as the Warsaw Pact posed a major threat to European security (as it did for most of the post-war period up to and including the 1970s), then it is perhaps not too surprising that American and Western European security interests converged. But as that threat diminishes, and new political and economic forces begin to restructure the map of Europe, the nature of American commitment is bound to change not only in response to changing pressures abroad but also to new fiscal and economic pressures at home. Admittedly some of these changes could not have been anticipated when Smith’s book went to press but some of them could have. If there is a lesson to be drawn from recent developments, it is that the new Germany and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev are the prime forces of change — not the United States. Though NATO is unlikely to disappear from the world stage, its role in Western security will surely change. This is more than likely to lead to a new division of labour in the trans- Atlantic partnership and to a diminished American military presence in Europe. This will surely lead to a decline in American influence or, at the very least, to a more equal partnership and sharing of responsibilities. Unfortunately this conclusion falls outside the scope of Mr. Smith’s analysis.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 8, No. 4 (1991) — Fall 1991 // Automne 1991, pp. 45–47. Read the rest of this issue →
