A Forward-Looking Partnership

Robert E. Hunter

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004

Article preview: first 500 of 2,281 words total.

Summary:  The recent U.S. experiment in unilateralism has shown the limitations of "coalitions of the willing." Washington should reaffirm its commitment to the Atlantic alliance and act with others when it can, alone only when it must.

Robert E. Hunter is a Senior Adviser to the Rand Corporation. From 1993 to 1998, he served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO.

Since the end of the Cold War, and particularly since September 11, 2001, the United States has been engaged in a slow but steady review of its international alliances. Skeptics question whether fixed relationships with traditional partners are really helpful in dealing with contemporary challenges; supporters argue that they continue to advance U.S. interests and are crucial components of a stable world order. The debate has touched on every element of the U.S. global alliance system, but it has focused on the transatlantic relationship in particular.

NATO has long been something more than the sum of its parts. Designed in part to transcend old-fashioned balance-of-power politics within Europe, it has evolved over the years into a deep-rooted institution with a commitment to democratic values and practices that, along with its unique, integrated military structure, sustains it even at times when its members' short-term strategic calculations diverge. In the wake of the bitter dispute over the war in Iraq, however, it is unclear whether the transatlantic partners are ready and willing to overcome their differences and reaffirm their basic common interests in security and other relations: the essence of the NATO alliance.

The United States, in recent years, has conducted a major experiment in foreign policy. The Bush administration, taking its cue from the country's unprecedented relative power position and lack of a major geopolitical rival, has sought to sally forth against its enemies largely alone. This approach looks less attractive in the aftermath of the war in Iraq, however, as the American people seem reluctant to embrace the diplomatic, financial, and psychological costs of a brusque unilateralism. They do not necessarily agree that the United States should do whatever it wants simply because it can, without embedding its actions in a framework of international institutions and law and without sharing burdens with others. Short of responding to a direct attack on the homeland, the American people are now less likely than before Iraq to support military action that does not demonstrably further their interests and values and that cannot attract a reasonable cross-section of other Western powers. Thus the value of the experiment in unilateralism, if it had a value, was that it showed the limits of such an approach. Although the United States still has the will and temper to meet important challenges, it has no taste for empire. This is an important lesson for whoever guides U.S. foreign policy. It applies particularly in the Middle East where, like it or not, the United States has to be engaged for the long haul and most Americans do not want to go it alone.

A further lesson is that there continues to be inestimable value in embedding what the United States does in a broader set of alliance relationships, both to gain added insurance against failure and to reduce risks and costs to the United States. No one can legitimately question the U.S. right to act on its own if its security is clearly threatened-as universal allied approval of ...

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