The Unchanging Western Alliance

One of my students this semester is doing an original project on the balance-of-payments crisis between the U.S. and Western Europe of the early 1960s, which in large part was about burden sharing in the defense of common interests. To say the least, the burdens back then were shared unevenly, to the considerable frustration of several U.S. administrations, not to mention Congress. Two other students are looking at the Middle East War of 1973, when European actions (or lack thereof) caused Henry Kissinger to comment: "I don't care what happens to Europe--I'm so disgusted." (This during what he himself had proclaimed as The Year of Europe). The Western Alliance is still here, bigger than ever, but as the Wall Street Journal argues today, not too much has changed in the burden sharing department. The paper talks about "the Continent's free-riding on U.S. security while criticizing the way that security is provided ..." That's fine as far as it goes, but in order really to sort out the issue today, one would have to take a closer look at the alleged common interests. They're there, just like during the Cold War, but exactly what they are (and how they ought to be promoted) seems much more complicated than it used to be. In proper academese: it's significantly more contested and contingent.