Starr: Coalitions and Future War

Harvey Starr, Coalitions and Future War: A Dyadic Study of Cooperationand Conflict (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage Publications, 1975). War is a driver and not only a driven variable. Countries that have been allies during war are more likely to be allies in the future. “This hypothesis propose that war coalition partners will comprise dyads that in future mutual war involvement are more likely to be allies and much less likely to be enemies. In testing this hypothesis we will also be testing the assumption that the war coalition experience is important and ‘unique’. If the war coalition experience, as will be tested below, does not produce future patterns of behavior different from other contemporary and comparable forms of experience then we should not be focusing on war coalitions but upon some other, broader, experience. The assumption, implicit so far, is that the war coalition, as a form of international cooperation, is in some way a unique experience. Thus, in testing the above hypotheses we are testing two things: that war coalitions produce a special type of international experience; and that this experience is unique by producing future patterns of war involvement which tend heavily towards continued allied behavior” (8-9). “Our working hypothesis may now be refined. We may propose that War Coalition Participant dyads will produce ‘t+k’ that are unique—that are statistically different from the patterns produced by Belligerent dyads and Non-Participant dyads. Moreover, War Coalition Participant dyads will be more likely to be come Allies at ‘t+k’, and less likely to become Enemies at ‘t+k’ than Belligerent dyads or Non-Participant dyads” (13). “The most compelling result we have produced so far—the strongest influence—is that of simply being a war coalition partner. That fact is related to an overwhelmingly non-belligerent set of future relationships with one’s war coalition partners. After that we find a variety of tendencies, albeit weak ones, which explain to some degree why 28.3% of the War Coalition Participant dyads that do become involved in future war become involved as Enemies (Or, why 13.5% of all War Coalition Participant dyads ‘go bad,’ and become Enemies in the future)” (50). This quote is from this publication: Skjelsbaek, K (1971): “Shared membership in interngovernmental organizations and dyadic war, 1865-1964” pp31-61 in E H Fedder [ed] The United Nations: Problems and Prospects. St Louis: Center for International Studies ‘The probability of a pair of nations becoming involved in war may be compared to the probability of persons getting lung cancer. In absolute terms both probabilities are very low. However, if a person smokes cigarettes, and a pair of nations substantially reduces its number of shared IGO memberships, the probabilities of getting lung cancer and fighting on opposite sides in a war, respectively, are relatively much higher than they would otherwise have been” (51). “Finally, the very striking difference in groups based on different Major Power-Minor Power composition was revealed. Simply, dyads composed of two major powers were more likely to become Enemies in the future. Of the total 624 War Coalition Participant dyads, 84 were composed of two major powers. Of these Major/Major dyads, a full 36% became Enemies at t+k…Above analyses clearly indicate that major/major dyads are more likely than other dyads to become Enemies. However, after this there is very little that can be said for major/major dyads. They differ from minor/minor dyads across almost every hypothesis, and do so by producing no relationships with most of the variables” (52). “If we look at three of the four best discriminatory variables—major power/minor, border, lastwar—we may be understandably pessimistic in observing that they offer a gloomy picture indeed. None of these variables are truly manipulable in the policy relevant sense that they can be altered easily by the conscious actions of officials. This argues for war as being a heavily ‘systemic’ phenomena, built into the status hierarchy of the international system via the major power/minor power dimension and relationships” (59).

Gowa: Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade

Gowa, J., 1994. Allies, Adversaries, and International Trade, Princeton University Press.

“In this book, I develop what I hope is an intuitively appealing and analytically rigorous explanation of the impact of power politics on inter-state trade. In order to do so, I construct a very simple game-theoretic model to address the question of substantive importance.. That question is whether free trade is more likely within than across alliances. More precisely, I address this question: Under what, if any, conditions does it make sense for states to trad3e more freely with their allies than with their adversaries?” (5-6).

“…I analyze the impact of the anarchic structure of international politics on the exchange of goods and services among states. Prior to doing so, I argue that hegemonic stability theory, the preeminent system-level theory of the relationship between power politics and free trade, does not resolve the question of the political correlates of open international markets…Here, I* summarize the core argument of this book. I contend that the play of power politics is an inexorable element of any agreement to open international markets, because of the security externalities that trade produces. These externalities arise because the source of gains from trade is the increased efficiency with which domestic resources can be employed. As a consequence, trade frees economic resources for military uses. Thus, trade enhances the potential military power of any country that engages in it. The anarchic structure of the international system…compels its constitute states to attend closely to the military power and potential of both prospective and actual allies and adversaries. It does so because the absence of any supranational authority in the international system enables a state either to threaten or to actually resort to force at any time to achieve its goals. The probability that a state will do so depends in part upon its power. The latter, in turn, depends partially upon its real income. As a consequence, the real-income gains that motivate free trade are also the source of the security externalities that can either impede or facilitate trade: Trade with an adversary produces a security diseconomy; trade with an ally produces a positive externality. In either case, agreements to open international markets create a divergence between the private and social costs of trade…In other words, because trade generates security externalities adherence to a policy of free and non-discriminatory trade may not be optimal for states in an anarchic international system…I consider these external effects explicitly. Doing so leads me to two conclusions: (1) free trade is more likely within than across political-0miliitary alliances; and (2) the evolutionary prospects of alliances vary: those that are the products of bipolar systems are more likely to evolve into free-trade coalitions than are their mutipolar counterparts” (6-7).

Kindleberger is seen as the father of hegemonic stability theory, though he preferred to use the word “leader” to “hegemon”, as the later connoted control and coercion. The argument went something like this: international trade is a public good, and in order to have this public good be freely available, there had to be a hegemon to support its diffusion. Public goods are non-rival and non-excludable (the examples given by Gowa are nuclear deterrence and clean air). With public goods, there is obviously the problem of free riders in rationalist models.

Gowa then explores alliances from a rationalist perspective. He defines an alliance as, following Holsti, Hopmann and Sullivan, “a formal agreement between two or more nations to collaborate on national security issues” (32). Gowa points out three kinds of alliances: defense pacts, nonaggression pacts and ententes mandating cooperation in war (32). Alliances can make sense from a realist perspective when they successfully balance.

“Trade with an ally produces a positive externality; trade with an adversary creates a security diseconomy. A s a result, ceteris paribus, free trade is more likely within than across political-military alliances” (120).

Walt: Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power

Walt, S.M., 1985. Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power. International Security, 9(4), 3-43.

This article, clearly from a Cold War perspective, explores alliances in relation to balance of power. Alliances form in response to threats. These alliances can cause bandwagoning or balancing practices.

“First, states risk their own survival if they fail to curb a potential hegemon before it becomes too strong. To ally with the dominant power means placing one’s trust in its continued benevolence. The safer strategy is to join with those who cannot readily dominate their allies, in order to avoid being dominated by those who can” (5). Also, if they join “the more vulnerable side”, the new state’s relative influence is greater (6).

The literature on balancing and bandwagoning is not clear in its dissemination of the different forms of power. It is a certain kind of power that states will bandwagon or balance with/against and that is threatening power.

States also must consider aggregate power as well as proximate power, offensive power.

He then explores the conditions under which states will either bandwagon or balance, and the effects that this will have on the character of the international system. For example, a heavily bandwagoning world is very competitive. A world of heavy balancing is less so, and states attempt not to be the chicken with the long neck.

There is a discussion of the role of ideology in alliance formation. Also, the role that international aid (referred to as bribery) plays in alliance formation.

“The analysis above may be summarized as follows. First, states form alliances to balance against threats rather than bandwagon with them. Threats, in turn, are the product of several different sources. Second, ideology is a weaker cause of alliance formation, and ideological movements that strive for tight central authority are more likely to lead to conflict than cooperation. Third, the instruments of ‘bribery’ and penetration are by themselves weak determinants of alignment; they make existing alliances more effective, but rarely create them in the absence of common interests” (33).