Better Burden Sharing With Allies

Chris, Melanie, and Zack discuss several recent articles focused on alliance burden sharing. Should America want Europe to be dependent on it for Europe’s defense? Is the leverage the United States obtains over European allies because of their dependence worth the cost? Is it even possible for Europe to have collective defense? Should the American public accept that U.S citizens will have to defend Europe because European governments won’t defend themselves? Will the United States inevitably be drawn into intra-European fights?

Grievances toward the U.S. mission in Syria, the Biden administration’s next Summit of Democracies, and Tik Tok. Attas for Gen. Mark Milley, Israelis protesting a judicial reform proposal that lacks wide popular support, and to a group of Ukrainians who have just completed training in Oklahoma on the Patriot air defense system.

Episode Reading:

• Nathalie Tocci, “The Paradox of Europe’s Defense Moment,” Texas National Security Review, January 19, 2023.
• Max Bermann and Sophia Besch, “Why European Defense Still Depends on America: Don’t Believe the Hype—the War in Ukraine Has Led to Little Change,” Foreign Affairs, March 7, 2023.
• Logan, Justin. “Uncle Sucker: Why U.S. Efforts at Defense Burdensharing Fail,” Policy Analysis no. 940, Cato Institute, Washington, DC, March 7, 2023.
• Kelly A. Grieco, “Engagement Reframed #3: Appoint a European SACEUR,” Atlantic Council, February 14, 2022.
• Dalibor Rohac, “Now Is No Time to Abandon Our Allies,” The Bulwark, March 13, 2023.
• Jason Davidson, “No ‘free-riding’ here: European defense spending defies US critics,” New Atlanticist, Atlantic Council, March 13, 2023.
• James Siebens and Charles Meier, “Commitment Creep: The Danger of Treating U.S. Contractors as a ‘Tripwire’,” The National Interest, January 23, 2020.
• Brian Finucane, “An Unauthorized War: The Shaky Legal Ground for the U.S. Operation in Syria,” Foreign Affairs, January 11, 2022.
• “Episode 14: How the War in Ukraine Ends: A Conversation with General Mark Milley,” None of the Above, March 21, 2023
• “Annual Student Competition: Build a Better US Foreign Policy,” Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program, Stimson Center

Image: U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. John Schoebel