Burden Sharing, Burden Shifting, and Strategy in the Nordic States

55 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2018 Last revised: 23 Nov 2022

See all articles by Jordan Becker

Jordan Becker

United States Military Academy, Department of Social Science; Free University of Brussels (VUB)-Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Institute for European Studies, Students; Chaire ECODEF - IHEDN; Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’Ecole Militaire (IRSEM - Institute for Strategic Research)

Date Written: April 20, 2018

Abstract

Do informal international agreements without coercive mechanisms affect states’ behavior? While scholars have long been interested in this question, answering it often poses empirical challenges, particularly in the arena of international security. By asking and answering a narrower question – is NATO’s Wales Pledge on defense spending working? – I can empirically test the extent to which states have adhered to a public agreement without formal or coercive enforcement mechanisms. I argue that the Wales Pledge has led to higher spending because NATO the organization uniquely enables allies to influence one another’s defense planning, publicly and privately. I find support for this argument by interrogating disaggregated defense expenditures of NATO and EU members, and by comparing NATO allies Denmark and Norway with non-allies Finland and Sweden. Although the Wales Pledge has been maligned, it served its purpose by encouraging allies to spend more on defense, particularly on equipment modernization.

Keywords: NATO, EU, Burden Sharing, Burden Shifting, Defense Spending, Transatlantic Security, Political Economy, Strategy, Defense Economics

JEL Classification: F52, F53, F55, H56, H62, H63, H87

Suggested Citation

Becker, Jordan, Burden Sharing, Burden Shifting, and Strategy in the Nordic States (April 20, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3165979 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3165979

Jordan Becker (Contact Author)

United States Military Academy, Department of Social Science ( email )

600 Thayer Rd
West Point, NY 10996
United States

Free University of Brussels (VUB)-Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Institute for European Studies, Students ( email )

Ixelles
Belgium

Chaire ECODEF - IHEDN ( email )

Institut de Recherche Stratégique de l’Ecole Militaire (IRSEM - Institute for Strategic Research) ( email )

École Militaire - case 38
1, place Joffre
Paris SP 07, 75007
France

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
108
Abstract Views
829
Rank
538,512
PlumX Metrics