The Continent or the 'Grand Large?' Strategic Culture and Operational Burden Sharing in NATO

Abstract

Policy discussions on transatlantic security frequently focus on the topic of burden sharing, highlighting the imbalance between U.S. and European military expenditures. Alliance scholarship in the fields of international security and political economy offers plausible explanations for this imbalance, based on the perspectives of balance of threat, institutional adaptation, security communities, and collective action. We argue that the more states articulate their national security strategy in Atlanticist terms, the more likely they are to allocate resources to military operations. We find evidence for this argument by using a content analysis of 95 national security strategy documents of NATO allies, and assessing the correlation between Atlanticist language in states’ strategy documents and those states’ allocation of financial resources to military operations, as opposed to personnel, infrastructure, or equipment expenditures.

Keywords: burden sharing, strategic culture, NATO, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, operations, Atlanticist, Europeanist

JEL Classification: D74