ALLIANCE COHESION

1
ALLIANCE COHESION STRATEGY US-EUROPEAN
RELATIONS PAST AND PRESENT

• Donald Abenheim
• Hoover Institution
• Naval Postgraduate School
• X.2005

Note Opinions here are those of author and not
of the US Government and should be construed as
such.
2
BUZZ WORDS THAT CRY OUT FOR ELUCIDATION

• Chas Krauthammer, Unipolar Moment, ca. 1991
• Early 2002, SECDEF Rumsfeld DEPSECDEf Wolfowitz
• coalition of the willing
• The mission defines the coalition
• Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power

3
US STATECRAFT, ALLIANCES, IDEAS

• 1796- Washingtons Farewell Address
• 1823- Monroe Doctrine
• 1941- Atlantic Charter
• 1948/9- Washington Treaty
• 1999- Mission defines the Coalition
• 2001/2002- Coalitions of the Willing

4
IDEENGESCHICHTE HISTORY OF IDEAS

• Dominant ideas among strategic elites
• Making of strategy role of allies
• Democratic civil-military relations
• US-European relations as case study
• Baleful effect of polemics
• Desideratum of informed, historical-political
  reflection

5
QUESTION OF THE HOUR DOES THE MISSION REALLY
DEFINE THE COALTION?

• More here than merely isolationism vs.
  unilateralism, as visible in cock-eyed debate of
  2002-2004
• Interests versus Ideals
• New ideas or recycled ideas from a problematic
  past
• Freedom of national action vs. strategic efficacy
  of collective defense

6
COLLECTIVE SECURITY VS. NATIONAL DEFENSE

• 60 th Anniversary of D-Day, June 2004
• History Channel, Greatest Generation syndrome,
  fetish of tactics, good feeling
• Lack of context, lack of understanding of
  alliance cohesion in European campaign in its
  totality.
• No mention of 20 July 1944
• No understanding of Dwight Eisenhower as a figure
  of alliance cohesion
• Biography of Dwight Eisenhower as point of
  departure

7
24 JANUARY 1923 VS. 6 JUNE 1944

• US withdrawal from Rhineland in wake of failed
  peace settlement in 1919
• US unilateralism vs. co-victor of 1918
• Refutation of April 1917
• No to US balanced presence in Europe
• 1934-1942 Struggle over US grand strategy
• Role of US, UK USSR

8
ROLE OF US MILITARY IN ALLIANCE POLITICS,
1903-1947

• Origins of mission defines the coalition
• Reaction to experience of 1917-1931
• Inter service struggle over grand strategy
• Navy vs. Army
• Europe vs. Asia
• Stanley Embick, world historical figure,
  Anglophobe

9
GENERATIONAL CHANGES, COLD WAR EVENTS

• Eisenhower vs MacArthur
• Skepticism towards allies alliances
• Examples in the early-1950s
• MacArthurs firing, 1951
• France, Indo China, 1954
• Suez, 1956

10
POWER VS. VALUES

• How Atlantic alliance works?
• Contrast to buzz words Ideas, value as point of
  departure
• Values define the alliance
• Values, Rhetoric, burden-sharing/shifting
• Consultation and Consensus
• Influence of Europeans on US strategy
• Dean Acheson, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell

11
SO WHAT? THE PRESENT AND FUTURE OF ALLIANCES IN
GWOT

• Issues 11 March 2004 7 July 2005
• Coalition of the Willing in 2005/6
• Burden-shifting, impact on US forces
• Alliance cohesion in security building in Iraq
• Utility of ex-Yugoslav model as path not taken
  in Iraq
• Impact on international system of 2002/3
• Iran as the US/European problem of now.

12
SO WHAT? CONTINUED.

• Strategy vs. Polemics
• Disutility of Red-Blue follies as concerns
  collective defense in the 21st century
• Role of informed reflection about the past vs.
  breast-beating, tub-thumping, eye-gouging
• Values as basis of alliance are the US national
  interest.
• Questions of alliance cohesion too important to
  be left to polemics, historical half-truths.