Abstract
The Trump administration’s insistence that the European NATO countries need to increase their defense contribution, while casting doubt on America’s NATO-commitment in case they do not, has put a severe strain on transatlantic relations. While the outspoken uncertainty of the American NATO commitment is new, the burden sharing debate at the heart of current transatlantic tensions is not. This paper will focus on the role of private diplomatic actors in mediating transatlantic tensions amidst the burden sharing debate of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when American frustration about asymmetric transatlantic defense spending led to the introduction of Congressional amendments proposing a reduction of American troops permanently stationed in Europe, meant to induce the Europeans to pick up a greater share of the defense burden. This happened as anti-Americanism was on the rise in Europe while public support for defense spending waned as citizens’ experience of the perceived Soviet threat decreased in the context of detente. Meanwhile, citizens on both sides of the Atlantic demanded to have a greater say in matters of defense and foreign policy, making them an important force to be reckoned with. These developments did not only lead to serious transatlantic tensions and a major public diplomacy challenge for NATO, but also to an increasingly complex transatlantic diplomatic space. As this paper will show, the diplomatic playing field that developed also opened up new avenues for private actors to play diplomatic roles in mediating transatlantic tensions while pursuing their own transnational agendas. This will be demonstrated through a case study of the unofficial diplomatic role played by the Dutch Atlanticist Ernst van der Beugel, based on research in both public and private archives, including personal correspondence made available by Henry Kissinger following an interview by the author.
Panel: The Past, Present and Future of Transatlantic Security
Cite this presentation
@inproceedings{eiss-2019-private-diplomacy-and-transatlantic-burden-sharing-during-detente-a-view-from-th,
author = {Albertine Bloemendal},
title = {Private Diplomacy and Transatlantic Burden Sharing During Detente: A View from the Netherlands},
booktitle = {European Security Studies Conference 2019},
year = {2019},
url = {https://eiss-europa.com/papers/2019-private-diplomacy-and-transatlantic-burden-sharing-during-detente-a-view-from-th.html}
}