Veto Powers and Political Distance in the Western Alliance
Joshua William Busby
In 2002 and 2003 in the run-up to the war in Iraq, the U.S. and Europe experienced the
most jarring deterioration in the transatlantic partnership since perhaps the Suez crisis of 1956 or
France’s withdrawal from NATO in 1966. When attempting to diagnose the causes for the recent
spate of ill will, the temptation is to look for the obvious, particularly by attributing diplomatic
disputes to the current inhabitants of elective office. Unfortunately, for those who followed disputes
over landmines, climate change, the International Criminal Court and other issues, it is clear
problems go beyond George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, and Gerhard Schroeder. The degree of
disagreement is puzzling because Europe and the U.S. share similar interests in liberal democracy,
the promotion of human rights and trade.
To better understand why relations went off the rails, we need both to understand the extent
to which problems are a function of contingent developments and go beyond the present cast of
characters in governments to understand the deeper foundations of recent difficulties. A number of
authors have identified those deeper sources by looking to differences in underlying material
conditions and cultural values. However, these explanations typically are far too deterministic
and/or overstated. As I argue below, the end of the Cold War and material differences in military
capabilities do not determine a country’s choice of unilateral or multilateral policy approaches.
Similarly, while values differences between the U.S. and Europe may be real, these should not
obscure the commonalities of culture and interest that remain strong, particularly in light of vast
differences between the democratic West and the authoritarian rest of the world. Materialist and
cultural arguments miss or minimize the importance of “domestic” political systems and the ways in
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I thank students from the Free University of Berlin and staff from the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS)
in Brussels for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I also thank Alexander Ochs for collaborating with me on
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Convention