NATO’s Transformation in an Imbalanced International System

This dissertation studies the functioning and management of NATO in the post-Cold War distribution of power. The core purpose is the articulation of a framework that enables coherent explanation of NATO’s transformation while at the same time binding together the invitation to new allies, the expansion of allied missions, and advancement of new capabilities. I explain these three aspects of NATO’s transformation through club goods theory and the concept of complementarities. The club goods framework originates from collective goods literature and is consistent with the theory of intergovernmental bargaining in integration studies. It suggests that NATO has features similar to heterogeneous clubs: voluntarism, sharing, cost-benefit analysis and exclusion mechanisms. Based on club good theory, I conceptualize complementarities as a relationship between military resources and transformational allied capabilities. The military resources considered include military personnel, army, navy, air force and defense spending. The alliance missions in terms of peacekeeping, crisis management and non-proliferation are key intervening variables in my model that shape the development of allied capabilities. Combined Joint Task Forces, NATO Response Force and different non-proliferation teams illustrate the advancement of new capabilities. This framework distinguishes between three groups of nations: the core NATO allies, the new members and the non-NATO nations that are members of the European Union (Austria, Finland, Ireland and Sweden).The study indicated that a strong relationship between resources and allied capabilities for the old NATO members, while for the new NATO allies this relationship is much less powerful and none of the observed variables is significant in the case of the non-NATO nations. Based on these findings the dissertation makes the argument that the United States as a hegemon has a key role in managing allied relations, while at same time influencing the decision to invite new allies and pushing forward NATO’s transformational agenda.The theoretical contributions of this research are twofold: First, it rests on a novel approach to study imbalance in international affairs from the perspective of military power. Second, it expands club goods theory as an analytical framework of studying contemporary alliance politics through the development of the concept of complementarities.