Speaker
Description
Following the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, most research examining NATO's response has focused on member state pledges to increase defense spending to at least two percent of GDP. Far less attention has been paid to whether and how NATO members' \textit{military capabilities}--the outputs of defense investment--changed in response to threats from Russia. We address this gap by examining this case to understand how external security threats shape state military capabilities. Using a difference-in-differences research design and leveraging data on NATO military capabilities from 2008–2022, we evaluate how proximity to Russia influenced post-2014 capability adjustments among 29 European NATO allies. We find that NATO allies bordering Russia significantly increased capabilities relative to more distant allies, consistent with expectations that vulnerability drives internal balancing. While existing research shows that overall NATO defense spending increased after 2014, we show that this did not uniformly translate into more military equipment and personnel across the alliance. These findings reflect enduring challenges with burden sharing and the influence of domestic political economies over defense matters, but they also suggest that countries faced with direct military threats can achieve efficiencies in converting spending to capabilities.
| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | Yes, I have included all required information (see below). |
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| Would you like to be considered for travel funding through the NetSec COST Action? | Yes |
| Are you a member of the NetSec Management Committee? | No |
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | Political Science |
| Which of the following best describes your stage of the career? | Assistant Professor |
| In which country is your home institution? | United States |
| What is your gender? | Male |