Introduction

The American-led Iraq war that began in 2003 has generated intense discussion about when it is legitimate to use force and what force can accomplish. Often this debate is portrayed as a breakdown in consensus, with the US charting a new unilateralist course that undermines existing multilateral understandings of how force should be used. Often, too, the debate is portrayed as a transatlantic one in which Europeans (notably France, supported by Germany) are leading the multilateralist defence against growing US unilateralism.

Both portrayals are overblown and simplistic. While the US is resisting current multilateral rules in some spheres, it is actively promoting more and more intrusive rules in others (such as trade). Further, the US has usually opposed multilateral rules it does not like, not with unilateralism, but with alternative forms of multilateralism. This has been true even of an administration as suspicious of the existing multilateral rules as the current Bush administration. Thus, if the UN will not approve military action in Kosovo, the US goes through NATO (under Clinton). If the US thinks the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is not working, it works through the Nuclear Suppliers Group or sets up a Proliferation Security Initiative (under Bush). Similarly, the perception of a large transatlantic gap in allies’ attitudes toward use of force is overstated. There has been transatlantic agreement on many uses of force in recent years. Europeans were active participants in the 1991 Gulf War, with the French among those patrolling the no-fly zone in Iraq in the years after the war, and the Kosovo action was supported by all members of NATO.