Suchergebnisse

The authors develop a model of alliances with outside options to study burden sharing in nonbinding alliance agreements. The analysis provides an explanation for the variation in ally contributions to NATO over time and why the post--Cold War period has seen an increase in the use of coalitions of the willing. Additionally, the analysis reveals something of an initiator's disadvantage in burden sharing--the initiator of an alliance action pays a disproportionate cost of the military burden. The authors' argument provides an alternative explanation for why the United States has been consistently the largest contributor to NATO. Adapted from the source document.

Motivated by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates' farewell address to NATO, this article investigates whether NATO burden-sharing behavior has changed during the last ten years. Based on a Spearman rank correlation test, we find almost no evidence that the rich NATO allies shouldered the defense-spending burden of the poor allies during 1999-2009. In 2010, there is the first evidence of the exploitation of the rich. When allies' defense burdens are related to defense benefit proxies, a Wilcoxon test finds that there is no concordance between burdens and benefits after 2002. This is indicative of a less cohesive alliance, in which allies are not underwriting their derived benefits. We also find that allies' benefits, which are tied to their exposed border protection and terrorism risk, motivate defense spending. Allies' benefits, based on economic base and population, are less of a driver of defense spending for most NATO allies. We devise a broad-based security expenditure burden that accounts for defense spending, UN peacekeeping, and overseas foreign assistance. In terms of this security burden, there is evidence of the exploitation of the rich by the poor beginning in 2004. Our findings indicate a two-tiered alliance that faces significant policy challenges. Adapted from the source document.

The authors develop a model of alliances with outside options to study burden sharing in nonbinding alliance agreements. The analysis provides an explanation for the variation in ally contributions to NATO over time and why the post—Cold War period has seen an increase in the use of coalitions of the willing. Additionally, the analysis reveals something of an initiator's disadvantage in burden sharing—the initiator of an alliance action pays a disproportionate cost of the military burden. The authors' argument provides an alternative explanation for why the United States has been consistently the largest contributor to NATO.

Benutzerkommentar

"Presenting a theoretical explanation for why great power patrons pursue burden-sharing and why such efforts succeed or fail, this book challenges recent domestic frustration against a seeming lack of allied burden-sharing and offers insights into contemporary US alliance politics forefronted by conflicts and tensions in Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and elsewhere."--

The Burden-Sharing Dilemma examines the conditions under which the United States is willing and able to pressure its allies to assume more responsibility for their own defense. The United States has a mixed track record of encouraging allied burden-sharing—while it has succeeded or failed in some cases, it has declined to do so at all in others. This variation, Brian D. Blankenship argues, is because the United States tailors its burden-sharing pressure in accordance with two competing priorities: conserving its own resources and preserving influence in its alliances. Although burden-sharing enables great power patrons like the United States to lower alliance costs, it also empowers allies to resist patron influence. Blankenship identifies three factors that determine the severity of this burden-sharing dilemma and how it is managed: the latent military power of allies, the shared external threat environment, and the level of a patron's resource constraints. Through case studies of US alliances formed during the Cold War, he shows that a patron can mitigate the dilemma by combining assurances of protection with threats of abandonment and by exercising discretion in its burden-sharing pressure. Blankenship's findings dismantle assumptions that burden-sharing is always desirable but difficult to obtain. Patrons, as the book reveals, can in fact be reluctant to seek burden-sharing, and attempts to pass defense costs to allies can often be successful. At a time when skepticism of alliance benefits remains high and global power shifts threaten longstanding pacts, The Burden-Sharing Dilemma recalls and reconceives the value of burden-sharing and alliances

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Original Title Page -- Original Copyright Page -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The historical background -- 3 The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan -- 4 The alliance dilemma -- 5 The Reagan Administration -- 6 Burden-sharing -- 7 Problems and prospects -- Tables -- Notes.