Asymmetric Interdependence of Burden Sharing in the North Atlantic Alliance

This paper is an interdependence theory-based analysis of burden-sharing in NATO. It demonstrates how the recent political focus on the two or five percent of GDP defense expenditure goals deviate from the historically grown more complex burden-sharing institution and process. The previous efficacy of defense and security cooperation gives way to the goal of distributive justice. Diffuse reciprocity is replaced by transactional specific reciprocity among allies. Member specific characteristics of the heterogeneously composed NATO alliance fade out in favor of harmonization of burden-sharing standards. To the extent this dynamic increases sensitivity or even vulnerability interdependence by changing entanglement and/or abandonment of allies it can weaken alliance cohesion.

This paper is part of a symposium commemorating Prof. Dr. Helga Haftendorn

Published in: Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 32 (2), pp. 94-116 (in German), doi: 10.5771/0946-7165-2025-2-94