An alliance is a political, military or economic agreement, negotiated and signed by two or more nations. Meanwhile, NATO would have to guard against opportunism by Russia. . The UAE has become the most important ally of France in the Middle East: Paris committed itself to participate in the defense of the security, the sovereignty, the territorial integrity, and the independence of the State of the United Arab Emirates, and may engage its forces to deter or repeal any aggression conducted by one or several States.56Rpublique franaise, Dcret n 2012-495 du 16 avril 2012 portant publication de laccord entre le Gouvernement de la Rpublique franaise et le Gouvernement des Emirats arabes unis relatif la coopration en matire de dfense, sign Abou Dabi le 26 mai 2009, et de laccord sous forme dchange de lettres relatif linterprtation de laccord de coopration en matire de dfense, signes Paris le 15 dcembre 2010, Journal officiel de la Rpublique franaise, April 18, 2012, https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000025705803. Washington went on to say, though, that sometimes we must form alliances. Two additional arguments will make this clearer. Warsaw Pact (1955-91). Sweden to Join NATO Response Force and Exercise Steadfast Jazz, NATO, Newsroom (website), October 14, 2013. The same problem exists with major cyberattacks, which could qualify as armed attacks warranting self-defense only if attribution could be ascertainedsomething which may be extremely difficult. The official list of formal US collective defense commitments includes treaties signed with countries of the American continents (Rio, 1947), Europe and Canada (Washington, 1949), Korea (1951), Australia and New Zealand (1951), the Philippines (1951), Japan (1951, 1960), and members of the largely forgotten but still valid South-East Asia Treaty (the Manila Pact of 1954).16US Department of State, US Collective Defense Arrangements, (Treaty Affairs, Archived Content 2009-2017, https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/l/treaty/ collectivedefense/index.htm). one country would declare war on another but an ally wouldn't like it so he would declare war of the other. Moreover, defensive alliances often operate by consensus.85This is the case for two of the most important ones: NATO and the CSTO. Assuming that America can avoid a nuclear war with Russia, the American people would be well-served to ponder and reflect on some of the good founding principles of our country. Ash Jain, Matthew Kroenig, and Jonas Parello-Plesner. In 2020, Greece and the UAE signed a security agreement that reportedly contained a mutual defense clause.60Vassilis Nedos, Greece, UAE Commit to Mutual Defense Assistance,Ekathimerini, November 23, 2020, https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/259450/ greece-uae-commit-to-mutual-defense-assistance/. Less known is the fact that sixteen UN members (including seven NATO countries) also remain committed to the defense of Korea through a 1953 declaration stating that they would again be united and be prompt to resist should the armistice break down.18Declaration of the Sixteen Nations Relating to the Armistice, July 27, 1953, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-8100/CBP-8100.pdf. Yet this fear too seems overblown. To this list can be added Taiwan, the Gulf States, as well as Israelcountries that do not benefit from treaty-based commitments but for which repeated and explicit statements by US presidents amount to de facto security guarantees.17Neither Israel nor the United States was ever interested in forging a true defense pact. The consolidation of the Western system of alliances in Asia was made even stronger in 2021, when Australian and Japanese officials made it clearer that their countries would support the United States in a conflict over Taiwan.43Reuters, Inconceivable Australia Would Not Join US to Defend Taiwan: Australian Defence Minister, November 13, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/ world/asia-pacific/inconceivable-australia-would-not-join-us-defend-taiwan-australian-defence-2021-11-12/; Reuters, Japan Deputy PM Comment on Defending Taiwan if Invaded Angers China, July 6, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japans-aso-peaceful-solution-desirable-any-taiwancontingency-2021-07-06/; and Jeffrey W. Hornung, Taiwan and Six Potential New Years Resolutions for the US-Japanese Alliance, War on the Rocks, January 5, 2022, https://warontherocks.com/2022/01/taiwan-and-six-potential-new-years-resolutions-for-the-u-s-japanese-alliance/. Additionally, Paris and London have recognized since 1995 that their own vital interests are nearly identical, paving the way for mutual nuclear defense.37Bruno Tertrais,Entente Nuclaire: Options for UK-French Nuclear Cooperation, Discussion Paper 3, Basic Trident Commission, British-American Security Information Office, June 2018, https://basicint.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/entente_nucleaire_basic_trident_commission.pdf. Nationalism in the Balkans helped contribute to the outbreak of WWI. The Article 5 language was a compromise between the language of the Rio and Brussels treaties. EMAIL. Modern alliances are defensive in nature and, as a result, are more resilient and durable than aggression-oriented pacts of the distant past. This contributes to the freedom of action of guarantors. The dawning multipolar world, featuring an increasingly dense network of security arrangements, uncomfortably reminds us of the years 1912- 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I. The Washington Treatys Article 5 reads: . It is also noteworthy that the US nuclear umbrella has been discreetly expanded in the past decade. Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members signed a joint defense agreement in 2000, and since then have operationalized their Peninsula Shield common force. America's Entangling Alliances offers a corrective to long-held assumptions about US foreign policy and is relevant to current public and academic debates about the costs and benefits of America's allies. Just because they are nations that might align with our values doesn't mean we have to be militarily committed to them. And as with madness, it's unendurable alone. [i] Security treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States (1951). Davidson's definition of neoclassical realism is that the theory "argues that in an anarchic international system, states' behavior is driving by the distribution . significance: a cause of WWI. Three of them (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden) have agreed in 2021 to enhance operational cooperation.63Swedish Ministry of Defense, The Defense Ministers of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden Sign Statement of Intent on Enhanced Operational Cooperation, September 24, 2021, https://www.government.se/press-releases/2021/09/the-defence-ministers-of-denmark-norway-and-sweden-sign-a-trilateralstatement-of-intent-on-enhanced-operational-cooperation/. The alliances did not entangle us; either life itself did it, or we did it to ourselves. A definitive answer may be impossible to arrive at, but evidence suggests that the current proliferation of alliances is, on balance, more stabilizing to world order than not. There is more to it than that, though. Collective Security Treaty, Collective Security Treaty Organization. Analysts worry that the impenetrable web of obligations may put us on a conveyor belt to conflict.7See Roger Cohen, Yes, It Could Happen Again,Atlantic, August 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/08/yes-it-could-happenagain/373465/; Ja Ian Chong and Todd H. Hall, The Lessons of 1914 for East Asia Today: Missing the Trees for the Forest,International Security39, no. No threat to your Kingdom could occur which would not be a matter of immediate concern to the United States. See President Truman to King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia, 711.56386A/103050,Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950, V, The Near East, South Asia, and Africa, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/ frus1950v05/d658. Michael Beckley as quoted by Adam Taylor, Map: The US is Bound by Treaty to Defend a Quarter of Humanity,, See Jeffrey Lewis and Bruno Tertrais, Beyond The Red Line: The United States, France, and Chemical Weapons in the Syrian War, 2013-2018,. such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force. The TEUs Article 42.7 reads: shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power. Note also that the former refers to armed attack and the latter to armed aggression. Whether this is a production of the French translation or a deliberate broadening is debated. Since the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Seas entered into force in 1994, many states have made irreconcilable claims regarding their territorial waters as well as economic exclusion zones (EEZs, which are not part of national territories but where national forces are often present). They show goodwill by siding with their protectors on contested issues. This is known as the Irish clause and is designed to accommodate the specific policies of Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Malta, and Sweden. These countries are thus now protected by concentric circles of alliances resembling a set of matryoshka dolls. The same goes for concepts such as an alliance of democracies once promoted by US President Joe Biden.11Joe Biden, Democracy in an Age of Authoritarianism, Remarks by then-Vice President Biden, Copenhagen Democracy Summit, June 22, 2018, https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/speech-by-joe-biden/. This is the case for Gulf countries, for instance, or for the aforementioned Greece-France security partnership. There is little evidence of a true clash of alliances in the Pacific that would pit what an author calls a JAUKUS (Japan and AUKUS countries) bloc against a RUCNDPRK (Russia, China and North Korea) one.120Artyom Lukin, JAUKUS and the Emerging Clash of Alliances in the Pacific,PacNet Commentaryno. Those forged by the Soviet Union have disappeared. The overall cause of World War was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In 2005, the 54 members of the African Union signed an all-African Nonaggression and Common Defense Pact. Regional cooperation is also on the rise in other parts of the world. In 1902, Italy negotiates a secret treaty with France in which it was agreed that Italy would remain neutral in the event that Germany attacked France. Author Jason W. Davidson examines these alliances to shed light on their nature and what they reveal about the evolution of American power. The new AUKUS trilateral security partnership set up in September 2021 brings together Canberra, London, and Washington. 3. to make complicated; confuse. Using Quad to Build Indo-Pacific NATO,, Ash Jain, Matthew Kroenig, and Jonas Parello-Plesner, Atlantic Council US-India Digital Economy Task Force. Contrary to common belief, the phrase "entangling alliances" was turned by Thomas Jefferson , not George Washington . Dec 7, 2021, By 2023 Atlantic Council Ensuring stability also requires that governments take a closer look at how their burgeoning security partnerships are perceived by potential adversaries. As early as 1991, NATO allies declared that the consolidation and preservation throughout the continent of democratic societies and their freedom from any form of coercion or intimidation are therefore of direct and material concern to us.31Partnership with the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Statement, North Atlantic Council Meeting in Ministerial Session in Copenhagen, June 6-7, 1991, NATO Online Library, https://www.nato.int/docu/comm/49-95/c910607d.htm. There are a number of European alliances that contributed to the broad scope of World War I. Generally speaking, defense cooperation agreements have proliferated since 1990, from less than one hundred to more than six hundred.71Brandon J. Kinne, Defense Cooperation Agreements and the Emergence of a Global Security Network,International Organization, August 15, 2018, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/defense-cooperation-agreements-and-the-emergence-of-a-global-security-net work/76662383DB9CA3D26BE4FA883E5C95A2. That said, its important to remember that the thickening web of contemporary alliances is probably more stabilizing than destabilizing. Yet the same allies could also serve as a restraining factor, fearing that their own regional interests would then be less protected (a classic case being Europeans concerned about Vietnam).112Allies can also play a restraining role on enlargement, as demonstrated by the French and German refusals to offer a NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine in 2008 and more recently in 2022 with Turkeys opposition to Finland and Swedens accession to NATO. Ultimately, security guarantees may work as reassurance, but fail not only at deterrence but also at collective defense. A Russian attack against a non-NATO EU member would trigger Article 42.7 of the TEU, but how would Southern European NATO members react? 1907. For a good balance sheet of US alliances, see Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, What Are Americas Alliances Good For?, Parameters 47, no. The China-Russia relationship has turned into a near alliance, or at least a non-aggression pact la the Treaty of Rapallo (1922). Mounting tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, and war in Vietnam determined U.S. foreign policy in the 1960s. military access (bases), capabilities, and legitimacy for common operations.81See Olivier Schmitt,Allies That Count: Junior Partners in Coalition Warfare(Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2018). ensnare. That is unreasonable. Yet alliances will increasingly be tested. China or North Korea could warn US allies to stay out by reminding them of the vulnerability of their countries to cyberattacks and missile strikeswhich, in turn, would force Paris or London to counter Bejings threats through deterrence. Walt calls an alliance a formal or informal arrangement for security cooperation between two or more sovereign states.13Stephen M. Walt,The Origins of Alliances(Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1987), 12. 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