Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How Wedge Strategies Shape Power Politics
TL;DR: The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation (concessions, compensations, and other inducements) to detach and neutralize potential adversaries.
Abstract: States use wedge strategies to prevent hostile alliances from forming or to disperse those that have formed. These strategies can cause power alignments that are otherwise unlikely to occur, and thus have significant consequences for international politics. How do such strategies work and what conditions promote their success? The wedge strategies that are likely to have significant effects use selective accommodation—concessions, compensations, and other inducements—to detach and neutralize potential adversaries. These kinds of strategies play important roles in the statecraft of both defensive and offensive powers. Defenders use selective accommodation to balance against a primary threat by neutralizing lesser ones that might ally with it. Expansionists use selective accommodation to prevent or break up blocking coalitions, which isolates opposing states by inducing potential balancers to buck-pass, bandwagon, or hide. Two cases—Great Britain's defensive attempts to accommodate Italy in the late 1930s a...
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that battle-eld circumstances heavily inuence the likelihood of defection from coalitions during war, and that coalitions are more likely to collapse when it appears less likely that the coalition will triumph in the war as a whole.
Abstract: When do countries abandon coalition partners during war? Prominent arguments about alliance dissolution focus on peacetime, yet the ability of alliances to inuence international politics ultimately hinges on their cohesion or dissolution during war. In this paper, I argue that battleeld circumstances heavily inuence the likelihood of defection from coalitions. First, countries ghting independently from their partners make attractive candidates for wedge strategies and hence are more likely to defect. Second, coalitions are more likely to collapse when it appears less likely that the coalition will triumph in the war as a whole. I test hypotheses about wartime developments statistically using new time-varying data on both front-level troop contributions and battle deaths. Consistent with theoretical predictions, countries are more likely to abandon coalition partners if they are ghting alone and when the coalition has fared worse in recent ghting.
21 citations
Cites background from "Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How We..."
...Crawford (2011) notes that wedge strategies are frequently successful, especially when the coalition’s opponent adopts selective accommodation on secondary political issues toward a member of the opposing coalition....
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20 citations
TL;DR: The so-called hub-and-spokes alliance system emerged in East Asia after World War II instead of a multilateral alliance as discussed by the authors, and realists and constructivists offer various explanations, pointing to...
Abstract: Why did the so-called hub-and-spokes alliance system emerge in East Asia after World War II instead of a multilateral alliance? Realists and constructivists offer various explanations, pointing to ...
19 citations
01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: Kang et al. as mentioned in this paper explored how a regional state could improve its security during the time of its patron's strategic retrenchment, and proposed a theory of a region state's security-promoting behaviors during the period when its patron is retrenching.
Abstract: Kang, Seok Ryul. Ph.D., Purdue University, August 2016. US Strategic Retrenchment and Security-Seeking Behaviors of the US Allies in Northeast Asia. Major Professor: Keith L. Shimko. This research is planned to explore how a regional state could improve its security during the time of its patron’s strategic retrenchment. It introduces a theory of a regional state’s security-promoting behaviors during the time of its patron’s retrenchment. According to this theory, it is hypothesized that there is covariation between the level of a regional state’s security concern and the scope of its domestic drives to increase societal contribution to autonomous defense posture. It also hypothesizes the existence of covariation between the level of a regional state’s security concern and the level of its commitment to the pursuit of a military policy against its patron’s strategic interests. Empirical findings from the case study of the security-seeking behaviors of the US allies in Northeast Asia support the two research hypotheses. A reader may want to test the validity of the theory against another context of a superpower’s strategic retrenchment .
17 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that the United States uses reassurance to discourage its allies from seeking outside options and reducing their dependence on the alliance, and test the theory using a new cross-national dataset of US. statements of reassurance from 1950 to 2010.
Abstract:
The United States frequently reassures allies of its protection by stationing troops abroad, visiting allied countries, and making public statements. Yet the causes of reassurance in asymmetric alliances—those between a great power patron and its weaker allies—are understudied in the academic literature. Indeed, many scholars argue that reassurance can be counterproductive as it invites allies to free ride or provoke their adversaries, knowing that they have their patron's support. Despite the drawbacks, I argue that the United States use reassurance to discourage their allies from seeking outside options and reducing their dependence on the alliance. Patrons such as the United States thus face a dilemma wherein they trade-off between withholding reassurance for short-term leverage and using reassurance to preserve their long-term influence. I test the theory using a new cross-national dataset of US. statements of reassurance from 1950 to 2010, and the results provide stronger support for my hypotheses than for the competing explanations of deterrence, strength from desperation, and shared preferences. The findings have implications for understanding how great powers manage their alliances, and suggest a pathway through which weaker states can shape great powers’ foreign commitments.
17 citations
Cites background from "Preventing Enemy Coalitions: How We..."
...In the case of mutual adversaries, any seeming discrepancy in the alliance’s posture can give the appearance of weakened cohesion, and thus diminish the alliance’s deterrent power and tempt adversaries to drive a wedge through it (Crawford 2011)....
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References
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a theory of interdependent decision based on the Retarded Science of International Strategy (RSIS) for non-cooperative games and a solution concept for "noncooperative" games.
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TL;DR: In this paper, a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy. But this theory does not consider the role of women in international politics.
Abstract: Offers a theory of international politics, describes the struggle for political power, and discusses balance of power, international law, disarmament, and diplomacy.
3,179 citations
TL;DR: The authors show that there will exist negotiated settlements that rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight under very broad conditions, under the assumption that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it.
Abstract: Realist and other scholars commonly hold that rationally led states can and sometimes do fight when no peaceful bargains exist that both would prefer to war. Against this view, I show that under very broad conditions there will exist negotiated settlements that genuinely rational states would mutually prefer to a risky and costly fight. Popular rationalist and realist explanations for war fail either to address or to explain adequately what would prevent leaders from locating a less costly bargain. Essentially just two mechanisms can resolve this puzzle on strictly rationalist terms. The first turns on the fact that states have both private information about capabilities and resolve and the incentive to misrepresent it. The second turns on the fact that in specific strategic contexts states may be unable credibly to commit to uphold a mutually preferable bargain. Historical examples suggest that both mechanisms are empirically plausible.
3,062 citations