| Why is such fanfare and diplomatic rigor attributed to international agreements when they are only to be broken? Being a scholar of European politics, and the transatlantic relationship, this theme has become all together redundant. The United States wishes to work together within the NATO alliance, which would seemingly create economies of scale and greater efficiency. The Europeans at the same time have been accused of turning the operational into the philosophical. While creating acronym after acronym from ESDP to CFSP, they have collectively failed to live up to 12 reform plans and 56 measurable goals since the end of the Cold War. Current struggles to cobble together a common Afghanistan policy with some semblance of burden sharing highlight growing rifts. Why do some NATO members agree to update lift capabilities and spend on defense yet fail to comply? NATO must now more than ever be thought of as more than just a military institution, but as a political one, so the answer can be found in political institutions, politicians' incentives in addition to national interest. The NATO framework on acceptable military spending levels is captured by international relations and economic theories of compliance and collective action. A novel contribution to the literature is the incorporation of public choice considerations into the debate. Through new public choice variables, strong conclusions are made about the relation between domestic institutions, politicians, and compliance with international agreements. Standard panel data regressions incorporate these new variables into existing models. Predicted probabilities and the Tobit model help to further demonstrate these relationships adding significantly to our understanding of burden sharing. |
