Through Thick and Thin: Security Interests and Asymmetric Alliance Durability

Abstract

This thesis examined the relationship between the security-autonomy tradeoff and the durability of international asymmetric alliances. The security-autonomy tradeoff is defined as a tradeoff between alliance partners in which the larger ally typically provides protection to the small ally to address the latter’s security concerns, in exchange for some combination of autonomy concessions of the small ally to further the great power’s larger foreign policy objectives. The central hypothesis is that when a great and small power are allied, the stronger the presence of said tradeoff, the more likely the alliance is to last through disputes over time. This increased durability is because the presence of such a tradeoff will provide direct incentives to both allies to persist through periods of tension, disagreements over policy, and other political difficulties. To test the theory, two cases studies are studied in depth, one with an apparently weak security-autonomy tradeoff and the other with an apparently strong one; the 1985 United States-New Zealand Nuclear Crisis and the 1975 United States-Israel Reassessment Crisis, respectively. Though this is not a large-n study, the findings of the thesis suggest that such a tradeoff will increase indeed alliance durability, as in the first case there were not strong enough strategic motivation for the partners to persist to a solution, whereas in the second case there was.