The hegemon's alliance security dilemma : US accommodation with Japan and the ROK from 1994 to 2004

Abstract

According to the logic of the offensive realism paradigm, the contemprary hegemon, the United States of America (US), ought to be coercing its junior allies to conform with the US security policies so that the US will retain its relative power in the international system. However, in dealing with the nuclear and conventional threats posed by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from 1994 to 2004, the US has showed more accommodation than coercion towards its junior allies, Japan and the Republic of Korea(ROK). Why? To analyze this puzzling behaviour by the US, I make some adaptions to the realist conceptual framework called the 'alliance security dilemma', which was originally proposed by Michael Mandelbaum and later refined by Glenn Synder. In many cases, Synder's model has been used to focus on the fear of junior partners in an alliance that the majority power will either abandon them in their hour of need or entrap them in conflicts that are harmful to there national interests, or perhaps even do both. In this thesis I argue that the alliance security delemma also applies to the major alliance partner. The explanation for the US's accommodation of Japan and the ROK is that the US fears that the junior allies may partially abandon the alliance framework, and in doing so, reduce its hegemonic status. Although the US accommodation is best demonstrated during the 1993-94 nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula while the Clinton administration was in power, this trend continues during the current Bush administration. The findings of this thesis contribute to the literature on alliance politics by suggesting that security dilemma continues to play a key role in alliance maintenance.