The creation of the Atlantic Alliance coincided with a veritable explosion in the demands made upon its member governments. In the post-1945 world, defense is one of many tasks that governments are expected to perform. Strength and national security are politically popular, but so too are lower taxes and the social safety net. Relations between governments and publics in the NATO countries are strongly influenced by the presence of powerful interests favoring conflicting goals: capable armed forces, but also generous welfare benefits; tax breaks for particular groups, but also lower rates for all; increased government spending, but also a balanced budget. 1

The task of reconciling conflicting demands from the mass public is complicated by the fact that elites in the NATO countries are simultaneously the target of pressures from their counterparts in other NATO capitals for a larger contribution to the collective effort. Demands from the public for more domestic spending, lower taxes, and deficit reduction serve as stimuli encouraging elites to urge other NATO members to do more in order to free their own state's resources to meet pressing needs at home. Too much pressure on allies, however, may only wreck the alliance that provides more security at lower cost than individual members could hope to achieve on their own. More important, the stratagems and maneuvers used by elites to induce their allies to do more can have the unwanted effect of undermining public support for the alliance-the same alliance that makes possible the pursuit of politically popular domestic welfare and fiscal policies by shifting a portion of the defense burden to other states. The resolution of these dilemmas is the subject of this chapter.