Lecture 18 - Alliances

Objectives of this lecture?

Logic of alliances: balancing, bandwagoning, binding

Some important questions about NATO:

1. What holds NATO together, and what might push it apart?

2. Why did NATO Survive after the Cold War?

3. Is NATO likely to survive into the future?

What are the 3 logics of allainces?

1. Balancing 

   1. Cooperate against a common threat 

   2. Ex: NATO protecting member states from Russia

2. Bandwagoning

   1. Cooperate for opportunistic gains

   2. Mussolini cooperating with Hitler since Hitler was most likely to help him return Italy to a great power

3. Binding/Tethering 

   1. Ally with a powerful or threatening state to influence its behavior

What logics did NATO use in Cold War?

Balancing: cooperate to keep Russia out

Binding/Tethering: 

1. Got Americans involved to keep soldier in Europe and force US to remain interested in Europe

2. Kept the Germans down by making them behave as if they are a weaker country

What are the tensions with NATO?

1. Europe feels like US has all the influence

2. US feels like it does all the work/spending and others freeride

What are the anomalies of post-cold war world?

1. Why did NATO survive without a common threat?

2. Why was there no balancing against US?

3. Why does the US spend so much on defense?

Anomalies explained by US power being too dominant?

• No one balances against US because they are too powerful 

• US spends so much to remain powerful 

• Keep NATO so less powerful states can still be at the table

Anomalies explained by triumph of international institutions?

• US binds itself to institutions and these institutions constrain US actions so US is non-threatening

• US maintains large defense budget to make sure 3rd countries don’t step out of line and to pick up slack when others don’t pay (and other countries keep NATO to free-ride off of this)

• US gains power in these institutions and thus will maintain NATO

Anomalies explained by nukes limiting US power?

• US is not threatening because nukes create new rules in which US will not be tempted to conquer

• keep working with Americans through NATO because they are not threatening

Anomalies explained by shared liberal commitments?

• US norms and its liberal democracy reveal benign US intentions so be friends with them

• NATO survives because why wouldn’t an alliance of countries who see the world similarly and want to work together not survive?

• US is most powerful actor so they just naturally spend more to further NATO commitments

What is the future of NATO?

US power:

• Can’t fight everywhere and prioritizes China

• pull back from NATO since it can’t help with China

• NATO weakens

Institutions

• US no longer binds itself to them as much (including NATO)

• US and Europe split with NATO and Europe must decide NATO"‘s future

Limited by nukes

• US can afford to withdraw now since nukes dampen security threat

• US government happens to be interested in withdrawing from NATO

Shared Ideas

• Trump not committed to liberal ideals

• If shared ideas hold NATO together, and US doesn’t share ideas anymore, NATO will falter