Comment: Alliances. (1998, 20 Marks)
An alliance is a formal commitment between states to use force, or to consider using it, in specified circumstances against states outside the membership. George Liska caught its logic in Nations in Alliance (1962): alliances are made against, and only derivatively for, someone or something. For Hans J. Morgenthau, alliances are a necessary function of the balance of power in a multiple-state system, the main tool of external balancing. Kautilya’s mandala theory in the Arthashastra reached the same logic early: the neighbour is the natural enemy, and the state beyond it the natural ally.
What an alliance is, and is not
| Form | Basis | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Alliance | Treaty obligation to fight | NATO, Article 5 |
| Alignment | Informal expectation of support | India–USSR in the Cold War |
| Coalition | Ad hoc, for one operation | Gulf War, 1991 |
| Strategic partnership | Cooperation without a defence clause | The Quad |
Because the commitment is a promise about the future, credibility rather than capability is an alliance’s scarcest resource.
Why states ally
- Balance of power: aggregating capability against the strongest state, as the Triple Entente did against Germany.
- Balance of threat: Stephen M. Walt (The Origins of Alliances, 1987) showed that states ally against the greatest threat, a compound of power, proximity, offensive capability and perceived intentions. That is why Western Europe joined the stronger United States against the nearer Soviet Union.
- Bandwagoning: weak states may join the stronger side; Randall L. Schweller (1994) argued that revisionists bandwagon for profit.
- Restraint and status: binding a partner to gain a voice in its choices, as with West Germany in NATO.
Managing alliances
- Glenn H. Snyder’s alliance security dilemma (1984): allies fear abandonment and entrapment at once, and easing one fear worsens the other.
- Chain-ganging and buck-passing (Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, 1990): tight alliances dragged Europe into war in 1914; loose ones let states shift the burden in the 1930s.
- Free-riding: Mancur Olson and Richard Zeckhauser (1966) showed that the largest member pays disproportionately. NATO’s Hague summit (June 2025) answered with a target of 5% of GDP by 2035.
- Dissolution: alliances fade when the threat goes (the Warsaw Pact) or when members define it differently (SEATO, CENTO).
Alliances today
Nuclear weapons cut both ways. A secure second strike reduces the need for allies, and extended deterrence is always doubted; yet the US nuclear umbrella keeps Germany, Japan and South Korea non-nuclear. Classical alliances are reviving. NATO grew to 32 members after the invasion of Ukraine and reaffirmed Article 5 at Ankara in July 2026; Russia and North Korea signed a mutual-assistance treaty in June 2024; and the Saudi–Pakistan defence pact of September 2025 became the trilateral Mecca Joint Defence Agreement with Turkey in August 2026. Alongside them, minilaterals (AUKUS, the Quad) offer coordination without treaty obligation.
The Indian view
Jawaharlal Nehru rejected alliances as entanglement in others’ quarrels; non-alignment and later strategic autonomy kept India out of blocs. The exception proves the logic: the Indo-Soviet Treaty of August 1971 (Article IX) deterred outside intervention in the Bangladesh war. Today India practises alignment without alliance: the Quad, and the foundational agreements with the United States (LEMOA 2016, COMCASA 2018, BECA 2020), all short of a defence clause. S. Jaishankar calls this building “convergences and issue-based arrangements” (2019).
Conclusion
Alliances remain the commonest way states borrow power, but their purpose has shifted from aggregating divisions to signalling credibility. Liberals add that institutionalised alliances such as NATO can outlive their threat. For a large state such as India, informal, issue-based alignment captures most of the benefits at a lower cost in autonomy.