Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 351–362

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Communist and Post-Communist Studies

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Between willing and reluctant entrapment: CEE countries in NATO’s non-European missions

Péter Marton a,*, Jan Eichler b a Corvinus University of Budapest, Room 503, Kozraktar utca 4-6, 1093 Prague, Budapest, Hungary b Institute of International Relations, Prague, article info abstract

Article history: The article focuses on Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries’ experiences related to Available online 12 July 2013 Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, three non-European theatres of Western military operations, in predominantly Muslim lands, in the decade between 2001 and 2011. CEE countries Keywords: readily became involved in two of these foreign missions (Afghanistan and Iraq) because of Iraq their deep ties to Western politico-economic structures, without direct security interests Afghanistan compelling them to do so, but not without normative convictions regarding what were Libya seen by them as virtues of the two missions. In Libya, however, they were reluctant to join Intervention Military operations the Western intervention. In light of this, the article is interested in examining how po- Hungary litical elites within the region relate to the generally constrained security policy agency Foreign policy that they have. A key argument advanced is that such agency may be located in how Neorealism external hegemony is mediated in elite discourses of threat and legitimacy construction. Alliances This as well as the three case studies outlined in the article show that the seeming changes in CEE countries’ behaviour in fact boil down to a simple set of rules guiding their behaviour. Having identified this “algorithm” as an implicit pattern of CEE foreign policy behaviour, originating in the intra-alliance security dilemma within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the article formulates its conclusions about the alliance policy of these countries largely within a neorealist framework. Ó 2013 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. CEE countries in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya

Central and Eastern European countries1 supported the invocation of NATO’s Article V in the wake of the September 11 attacks in 2001. At the beginning of 2003 they declared their support to the United States against ’s regime in two waves; first representatives of , the Czech Republic and Hungary became signatories of the Letter of Eight document at the end of January (Lo8, 2003),2 and subsequently the rest of the countries of the region joined by signing the so- called letter (Vilnius, 2003).3 A decade later, in 2011, they supported NATO’s action in the enforcement of United

* Corresponding author. 1 In this article we are looking at Baltic, Visegrád and two Southeast European countries – , , , Poland, the Czech Republic, , Hungary, , and as post-communist CEE countries, thus excluding countries of the former Yugoslavia and from the inquiry. 2 This document called for transatlantic unity in the fight against terrorism and over the need to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. It stated that Iraq failed to comply with Security Council Resolution 1441 (on cooperation with weapons inspections), and that this required an appropriate response from the international community. 3 This document reiterated all of the conclusions of the Letter of Eight, and spoke of “compelling evidence” the United States presented in the Security Council about Iraq’s weapons programs and its material breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1441, along with the “clear and present danger posed by the Saddam Hussein’s regime” requiring a “united response from the community of democracies”.

0967-067X/$ – see front matter Ó 2013 The Regents of the University of California. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.postcomstud.2013.06.002 352 P. Marton, J. Eichler / Communist and Post-Communist Studies 46 (2013) 351–362

Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya. However, when it came to carrying through with these commitments, they offered meaningful contributions to military operations in only two of the three cases above. In Libya they were very reluctant to participate at all. Figs. 1 and 2 show the steady increase in CEE troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force/ Afghanistan coalition (ISAF), up until mid-2011, the official end date of the U.S. “surge” there and the official starting date for the beginning of troop withdrawals. Figs. 3 and 4 capture the CEE share of the burden in the Multinational Forces/Iraq (MNF-I) coalition, from different aspects, namely that of peak troop contributions and casualties suffered. Table 1 shows the time period in which CEE countries deployed their troops in Iraq. One shall take note of Polish forces’ presence already at the time of the invasion, in March 2003, as an exceptional contribution. The run-up to the war in Iraq and the early period of stabilisation operations there coincided with several CEE countries’ NATO accession process, including Romania, Bulgaria, , Slovakia and the Baltic Republics. Leaders of these countries, for whom the road even to the EU seemed to lead through Washington, such as the Slovak President Robert Schuster, readily adopted the rhetoric of the U.S. administration about a division of Europe into Europes “New” and “Old,” and about the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power (Lansford and Tashev, 2005: 229). The above data clearly demonstrate the resulting significant commitment and the generally reliable behaviour of CEE countries in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their contributions went beyond mere troop presence (Hynek and Marton, 2011:16–18). CEE countries provided important support to operations in the two countries, as well as to the larger in multiple ways, from providing trainers and training facilities, and military materiel support to fledgling Iraqi and Afghan security forces, to leading Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan. A major share of their emerging international development assistance programs has been calibrated to the needs of these missions. In Libya, NATO took over a Franco-British-initiated mission from a coalition of the willing, including the United States as a key contributor. In this case, CEE countries disappointed some observers by not voicing unambiguous support to the cause of the intervention. Some saw this as surprising change in their foreign policy after the 2003 war in Iraq and what they saw as CEE enthusiasm for spreading democracy to the Middle East (MacDonald, 2011). Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were believed by observers to be in a position to participate in air operations with their respective fourth-generation mul- tirole aircraft, F-16Cs in the case of Poland, and JAS-39C Gripens in the case of Hungary and the Czech Republic. Yet none of these countries was eager to join the coalition. Bulgaria and Romania were expected to provide naval assets, and they did so only grudgingly. This came after much criticism of the principles and the assumed motives behind the intervention (Basescu, 2011; IBT, 2011), views voiced by Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland as well (Tusk, 2011). The open questioning of the reasons behind the Libya intervention may appear on the surface as a puzzle: as atypical alliance behaviour on the part of generally loyal countries. The literature offers us contrasting interpretations of CEE countries’ alliance policy. Two distinct lines of reasoning may be identified; neo-realist and constructive framings of CEE foreign policy behaviour, focused on the role of interests and ideas, respectively. The former suggests that CEE countries, especially in terms of their economy’s size, are relative dwarves within the North Atlantic Alliance, and as such, can generally be expected to try and “free-ride” or save as much money as possible on defence. They are thus expected to commit a proportionally smaller share of their GDP for defence purposes, and thereby “consume security” or “exploit the alliance” of greater partners (Olson,1965; Ringsmose, 2009). Some take issue whether this is the right

CEE troop contributions in Afghanistan

8000

7000 Slovakia 6000 Romania Poland 5000 Lithuania 4000 Latvia Hungary 3000 Estonia Troop contributions Troop 2000 Czech Republic Bulgaria 1000

0 January 2007 February January 2009 February June 2011 2008 2010

Fig. 1. CEE troop contributions in ISAF, aggregate change, 2007–2011. Source: The authors’ own diagram, based on ISAF, 2011. Download English Version: https://daneshyari.com/en/article/1046484

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