Between willing and reluctant entrapment: CEE countries in NATO’s non-European missions

Abstract

The article focuses on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ experiences related to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, three non-European theatres of Western military operations, in predominantly Muslim lands, in the decade between 2001 and 2011. CEE countries readily became involved in two of these foreign missions (Afghanistan and Iraq) because of their deep ties to Western politico-economic structures, without direct security interests compelling them to do so, but not without normative convictions regarding what were seen by them as virtues of the two missions. In Libya, however, they were reluctant to join the Western intervention. In light of this, the article is interested in examining how political elites within the region relate to the generally constrained security policy agency that they have. A key argument advanced is that such agency may be located in how external hegemony is mediated in elite discourses of threat and legitimacy construction. This as well as the three case studies outlined in the article show that the seeming changes in CEE countries’ behaviour in fact boil down to a simple set of rules guiding their behaviour. Having identified this “algorithm” as an implicit pattern of CEE foreign policy behaviour, originating in the intra-alliance security dilemma within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the article formulates its conclusions about the alliance policy of these countries largely within a neorealist framework.

National Behaviour in Multilateral Military Operations

“…In line with expectations of the collective action hypothesis, France and the UK – the NATO-allies with the second and third largest military budgets – picked up the slack and flew more than half of the campaign’s strike missions (Chivviss, 2014: 190). Moreover, according to Marton and Eichler (2013: 10), the NATO members did not perceive the United States to attach ‘great importance to significant contributions’ to the Libya campaign, suggesting that dependence on the US did not constitute an important incentive to participate. In sharp contrast to the conclusions of the reviewed books, hypotheses based on alliance politics do not seem to explain much of the burden sharing dynamics of the Libya operations, while collective action theory could possibly account for contributions of other states than the United States.…”

NATO Burden Sharing in Libya

“…supra). According to Marton and Eichler (2013, 10), the NATO allies did not perceive the United States to attach “great importance to significant contributions” to the Libya campaign because Washington did not take the lead of the operation. However, Jakobsen and Møller (2012, 109, 112) argue that Denmark considered the war in Libya as an opportunity to demonstrate its “relevance and trustworthiness to its great power allies in NATO, especially the United States.” Dicke et al (2013, 52-53), in turn, found mixed support for the relevance of the NATO-allies political culture with regard to NATO, which provided a good indicator for the eventual contributions of Spain and Norway but failed to explain Poland’s unwillingness to participate.…”