Beyond 2%—NATO Partners, Institutions & Burden Management

 

 

This book advances North Atlantic Treaty Organization (henceforth, NATO) burden analysis through a decomposition of the political, financial, social, and defense burdens members take on for the institution. The overemphasis of committing a minimum of 2% of member state Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defense spending, as a proxy indicator of alliance commitment does not properly reflect how commitments reduce risks should Article V be invoked through attack (i.e., 2% is a political & symbolic target adopted by Defense Ministers in 2006 at Riga). Considering defense burdens multi-dimensionally explains why some members overcontribute, as well as, why burden sharing negotiations cause friction among 30 diverse members with differing threats and risks. In creating a comprehensive institutional burden management model and focusing on risks to members, the book explores the weaknesses of major theories on the study and division of collective burdens andinstitutional assets. It argues that member risks and threats are essential to understanding how burdens are distributed across a set of overlapping institutions within NATO’s structure providing its central goods. The importance of the USA, as a defense underwriter for some, affects negotiations despite its absence from research empirically; new data permit testing the argument (Kavanaugh 2014). This book contributes conceptual innovation and theoretical analysis to advance student, researcher, and policymaker understanding of burden management, strategic bargaining, and defense cooperation. The contribution is a generalizable risk management model of IO burden sharing using NATO as the case for scientific study due to its prominence.

“Rationalist studies on NATO burden sharing dominate the literature, but they elucidate very little on why a particular burden sharing practice or trend exists among certain allies (i.e. free-riding) and why it occurred at a particular point in time (or not). This is not surprising given their dominant deductive and hypothesis testing research designs that treat burden sharing as a static outcome. What the literature needs is to more carefully study non-material independent variables. This is the starting point for Kimball’s new book. It’s a welcome contribution to the literature and moves the burden sharing research program forward both theoretically and methodologically.” (Professor Benjamin Zyla, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada)

Anessa L. Kimball is Director of the Center for International Security at the École supérieur D’études Internationales and Professor in the Department of Political Science at Université Laval, Québec City. Professor Kimball is also the Co-Director of Security for the Canadian Defence and Security Network, a SSHRC partnership network.