Jussi Hanhimäki, Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute, introduces his book project to engage in current debates about the meaning of transatlantic relations after the end of the Cold War. It is meant to provoke discussion about existing narratives and the relevance of Euro-American relations in shaping contemporary international politics.
Professor Hanhimäki makes two central assumptions in this project. The first one is the idea of a transatlantic community that was a marked feature of the Cold War. The second one is a dominant narrative of “crisis” or internal conflict afflicting this community after the Cold War in academic and popular debates, which needs to be seriously examined as the book fundamentally seeks to do. In simple terms, the concern about crisis translates to the ideal of the “Western” world and the discourse that it is “finished” while there is an argument about the “divergence” of global power to other places. This project seeks to bring caution about such debates in scholarship and popular discourse and their implications for democracy and what it represents. He points out two pertinent, basic questions: What does the transatlantic connection as representing a dominant variant of the “West” mean after the Cold War? And why is it relevant?
The above issues are quite visible, for instance, in the realm of security represented by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After the Cold War, one would assume that the raison d’être for NATO or its role would diminish. On the contrary, Professor Hanhimäki argues that it has not only continued, but actually expanded in membership size and scope of activities, including a much more aggressive presence in the conflicts since the 1990s like in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya. In the War on Terror that was launched after the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001, Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty regarding collective security was invoked. This article provides that if one NATO member faces armed attack, this will be considered as an act of violence against all members, consequently prompting collective responses from every member. However, the Iraq War can be used as a case to problematise the assumption about a much more aggressive presence and the actions taken to perpetuate warfare, as it provides indications towards inner workings of transatlantic mutual security and economic interests.
Another point of entry is to address the basic questions above through the idea of some shared “core” values, particularly that of political organisation, which in this case is represented via democratic systems of governance. Professor Hanhimäki’s new book will argue that the existential threat to the political culture of transatlantic relations is unlikely to be founded on real political conditions and indicates rather a shared concern for maintaining a normative political order through the arguments for “protecting” democracy. In the context of the marked rise of populist movements across this Euro-American as well as other parts of the world, much of the political culture seems to be articulated more in shared ways rather than in what has been largely perceived of as a point of difference across the Atlantic. Even in economic issues, a narrative of “American decline” and “rise of the rest” obscures many aspects of the transatlantic relationship and the global power asymmetries. The region still remains the richest agglomeration of wealth, while supported by some of the largest transnational flows of capital across the Atlantic. In the US current political climate with its talk of “isolationism”, trade investments – at least for the time being – have not diminished. There seems to be a political backlash against horizontal globalising flows in favour of more vertical means of democratic engagement like the increase in nationalist fervour. In this context, there is a rhetoric of “crisis” where such transatlantic connections are presented as threatened by trends of nationalist and isolationist politics. The book argues that what has been framed as a “crisis” is not a sign of weakness, but rather a consequence of sharing similar interests, motives and political objectives.
The examination of transatlantic security, economics, political organisation and values is a way to respond to some current debates on these narratives. Professor Hanhimäki’s methodology for achieving this examination differs from that of previous research projects which relied mostly on archival sources. Due to the time, frame and nature of issues covered, the research uses other methods of inquiry for investigating “contemporary” history, yet in a way that historicises these issues thematically without a strong insistence on narrative. For instance, instead of delving into the NATO Archives in search of “new secrets” about their workings and history, it is much more productive to follow NATO’s public relations discourse while at the same time mapping its logic and practice of expansion. Transatlantic economic data is probably easier to get hold of than political culture and value systems, which are more challenging to map because they involve reading anecdotal information in a particular way. Yet attempts to map public discourse elsewhere, like in survey, polls and media debates, are one way to identify how political culture is identified and mobilised across both sides of the Atlantic.
Professor Hanhimäki’s book will be a follow-up to his former work Transatlantic Relations since 1945 (with Benedikt Schoenborn and Barbara Zanchetta, Routledge, 2012) as the issues become topical in light of recent trends such as Brexit and the furore over the last US presidential election, and the continuing investments of Euro-America in warfare in other regions of the world. It is due to come out in 2019, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of NATO and possibly the culmination of Brexit.
By Aditya Kiran Kakati , PhD Candidate in International History
Illustration: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan with US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry during the NATO Summit in Newport, 5 September 2014. By US Department of State from United States [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.