Transatlantic Shakedown: Does Presidential ‘Naming and Shaming’ Affect NATO Burden-Sharing?

Does “naming and shaming” of allies by US Presidents work? More precisely, does publicly criticizing members’ financial commitments to NATO increase allies’ defense spending and improve burden-sharing, or is it counterproductive, leading to lower contributions? We argue that the answer is likely neither. At best, excessive public shaming of allies is mere “cheap talk.” At worst, it is counterproductive. To evaluate this claim, we conducted textual analysis on all executive declarations, remarks, written statements, and media related to NATO members’ defense spending, all drawn from the American Presidency Project. We find provisionally that the more negatively US presidents speak about transatlantic burden-sharing, the less allies spend on defense. This finding addresses a gap in the current literature by analyzing the effectiveness of public “shaming” of allies in an attempt to redress burden-sharing problems endemic to alliances. Such actions do not appear to be effective, and may even be counterproductive.