Henry, Iain Donald
Description
Throughout the Cold War, US officials feared that
Washington’s disloyalty to one ally would automatically cause
other allies to doubt America’s security reliability. These
doubts could prompt allies to adopt policies of neutrality, or
even defect to the Communist bloc. This dissertation challenges
the conventional wisdom—that alliance interdependence is
underpinned by loyalty—by proposing the “alliance audience
effect”. The alliance audience effect framework...[Show more] shows that
discrete alliance commitments can be practically interdependent,
but that this interdependence is not underpinned by loyalty.
Through an investigation of Cold War case studies, using a
process tracing methodology and archival research, this
dissertation argues that US allies in Asia were unconcerned about
whether America was loyal to other allied states. Instead, they
monitored America’s behaviour in order to reassure themselves
that the US was reliable: that their own alliance did not pose
risks of either abandonment or entrapment. When allies feared
abandonment, they encouraged America to solidify its presence in
Asia and adopt a more aggressive posture. But when allies feared
entrapment, they encouraged conciliatory US policies and worked
to restrain Washington, thus reducing the risk of conflict. In
some cases, American disloyalty to one ally was welcomed, or even
encouraged, by other allies, as this disloyalty better served
their own interests. Like the adage that “one man’s terrorist
is another man’s freedom fighter”, this dissertation shows
that one state’s disloyal ally can be another state’s
reliable ally. Because US allies have different interests, they
will have different views of American behaviour: one ally might
praise an instance of US disloyalty as proof of reliability,
while another ally might condemn Washington for unreliability. In
short, reliability is not synonymous with loyalty, and America
does not have a collective alliance loyalty reputation. Beyond
the allied perspective, this research also demonstrates how the
United States managed its alliances and used alliance
interdependence to achieve its own ends. This dissertation’s
findings have relevance for the alliance politics literature,
theories about international reputation, and the practical
management of alliances.
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