When France and Germany sided with Russia against the Iraq War, it was a reminder that America’s allies do not always stand by the world’s preeminent military power. In this thoughtful analysis of the behavior of American allies during times of war, Stéfanie von Hlatky describes the varying behavior of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia in response to the American-led efforts in Afghanistan and later Iraq after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Von Hlatky provides three compelling case studies. As we know, the UK went all in on Iraq, taking the wind out of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sails at home when the war turned into a foreign policy disaster. The author has difficulty explaining the British behavior within her framework, ultimately settling on the prime minister’s ability to circumvent the usual foreign policy process. She provides some interesting detail on Blair’s need in the fall of 2002 for United Nations Security Council authorization to take action against Iraq, which in turn played a significant role in U.S. President George W. Bush’s calculations.
Canada meanwhile opted out of Iraq. The author writes, “As long as Canada is not seen as a security liability to the United States, it can get away with a lot in Washington” (p. 15). Canada took on a major role in Afghanistan, leaving it less capable of providing troops to Iraq but also giving it more leeway. Compared to Australia, which strategically considers what it wants from the United States in exchange for support, “[w]hat is striking about the Canada-US security relationship is how each issue is managed separately. There is no overarching approach to manage the bilateral relationship” (p. 92).
In her interview with John McCallum, who served as Canadian defense minister at the time, von Hlatky learned that the United States did not make a formal request for a Canadian commitment to the Iraq War. McCallum’s chief of staff, Eugene Lang, noted that the lack of such a request “caught us off guard” (p. 104). Domestically, however, the situation was perfect for the government in Ottawa: it could step up its support of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and avoid sending troops to Iraq.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard, meanwhile, strongly supported the United States in both the war in Afghanistan and in the run-up to the Iraq War. In return, von Hlatky writes, Howard was able “to push for items that were high on the Australian agenda, such as the [free trade agreement], the threat of North Korea, and the reinforcement of Australia-US security ties” (p. 135).
While the author provides three excellent empirical chapters, the theoretical contribution is more limited. As with many books that started as dissertations, she cannot shake the impulse to lead us through the pro-forma limitations of realism, liberalism, and constructivism in guiding our understanding of particular foreign policy decisions. It would be wonderful if dissertation committees encouraged students for whom this exercise is not necessary to avoid it, but if they do require such a review, then university presses should insist that unless it is relevant to the argument, authors must move on to what is important for their own work. We will know that the foreign policy field has really matured when young scholars writing about decision making skip the pro forma discussion of macro-level theories and straightaway get down to the business of producing insights about individual and group behavior in the face of difficult political and policy choices.
In this case, her goal is to demonstrate that high government cohesion and strong military capabilities will lead a state to make major military contributions, whereas low government cohesion and weak military capabilities will not. However, as noted, the UK response to the Iraq War did not fit the argument, as von Hlatky’s model expected a more limited contribution given the domestic politics of the time; she explains this finding by citing Blair’s circumvention of the normal policymaking process.
The virtue of the work lies in deepening our understanding of these three American allies and their responses to the U.S. decisions to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Von Hlatky also highlights certain historical lessons, such as those learned by Australia after its support for the U.S. war in Vietnam.
Although the case studies were chosen carefully, it is curious that in her concluding chapter, von Hlatky did not, at least briefly, address other cases, such as the French and German decisions to oppose the Iraq War, the constraints on German and Italian operations in Afghanistan, and the German abstention in the UN vote on Libya. There certainly has been a wide variety of alliance behavior within NATO over the past 15 years. Some new members like Poland have sought to prove how important an ally they can be to the United States, an impulse that is perhaps even more true for aspiring alliance members like Georgia. In addition, Australia is not the only American ally outside of NATO to face key decisions on Afghanistan and Iraq: South Korea and Japan, for example, faced both domestic and capabilities constraints and participated at different levels and in different ways.
Von Hlatky’s dissection of the politics and strategic approaches of three key American allies paves the way for future research in comparative foreign policy concerning these types of states and their relationship to the United States. By going beyond a simple domestic politics argument and showing us the importance of different types of strategic calculations, the author provides valuable insights for comparing the foreign policies of medium powers in their interactions with their dominant ally. Expanding the scope to a broader range of allies would allow us to consider a greater number of options that states have to make contributions to war efforts, particularly when their military capabilities are limited.
