2. A Theory of Alliance Restructuring
2.1. Definition of Terms
2.1.2. What is an “alliance restructuring”?
The past works describe the last stage of the alliance cycle in various terms as follows: disintegration,67 dealignment,68 realignment,69 dissolution,70 break or break up,71 abrogation,72 restructuring,73 collapse,74 and termination.75 Some works use these terms
67 Liska, Nations in Alliance, p. 90; A. M. Halpern, “The Emergence of an Asian Communist Coalition.”
Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 349 (1963): 117-129; Charles Burton
Marshall, “Détente: Effects on the Alliance,” in Arnold Wolfers, ed., Changing East-West Relations and
the Unity of the West (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1964): 17-54; John W. Burton, International Relations: A General Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965): 209; Herbert S.Dinerstein, “The Transformation of Alliance Systems.” The American Political Science Review 59, 3 (1965): 589-601; Andrew MacKay Scott, The Functioning of the International Political System (New York: Macmillan Co., 1967): 112; Holsti, Hopmann, and Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances: 59-60; D. Scott Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984,” American Journal of
Political Science 41, 3 (1997): 846-878.
68 Liska, Nations in Alliance: 42-55.
69 Liska, Nations in Alliance: 55-60; Bruce D. Berkowitz, “Realignment in International Treaty Organizations,” International Studies Quarterly 27, 1 (1983): 77-96.
70 Liska, Nations in Alliance: 168-201; Paul Y. Hammond, “Nonmilitary Instruments of Policy in a Disarming and Disarmed World,” in Arnold Wolfers, Robert E. Osgood, Paul Y. Hammond, Laurence W. Martin, Robert W. Tucker, Charles Burton Marshall, and Livingston T. Merchant, The United States in a
Disarmed World: A Study of the U.S. Outline for General and Complete Disarmament (Baltimore, MD:
The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966): 55-87; Michael F. Altfeld, “The Decision to Ally: A Theory and Test.”
The Western Political Quarterly 37, 4 (1984): 523-544.; Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry”: 923;
Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984”: 846-878; Stephen M. Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse,” Survival 39, 1 (1997): 156-179.
71 Osgood Hardy, 1919. “South American Alliances: Some Political and Geographical Considerations.”
Geographical Review 8, 4/5 (1919): 259-265; William J. Horvath and Caxton C. Foster, “Stochastic
Models of War Alliances,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution 7, 2 (1963): 110-116; Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry”: 923-925; Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984”: 846- 878.
72 J. David Singer and Melvin Small, “Formal alliances, 1815-1939: A Quantitative Description,” Journal
of Peace Research 3, 1 (1966): 1-31; Brett Ashley Leeds and Burcu Savun, “Terminating Alliances: Why
Do States Abrogate Agreements?” Journal of Politics 69, 4 (2007): 1118-1132.
73 Randolph M. Siverson and Harvey Starr, “Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances,” American
Journal of Political Science 38, 1 (1994): 145-161; Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance
Duration, 1816-1984”: 846-878.
74 Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse”: 156-179.
75 Singer and Small, “Formal alliances, 1815-1939”: 1-31; Russett, “An Empirical Typology of
28 interchangeably without a clear definition,76 while other works explicitly define the terms or categorize a mode of the last stage of alliance for their studies. This study uses the term “restructuring” and broadens the scope of “restructuring” beyond what is currently used in the literature in the following three ways. First, the ordinary meaning of
“restructuring” in the dictionary is “the action of giving a new or different structure to something.”77 This definition seems to have little problem when incorporating the various
modes of alliance termination which are currently identified in the literature.78 Second,
International Alliances: 59-60; Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry”: 907; Bennett, “Testing Alternative
Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984”: 846-878; Leeds and Savun, “Terminating Alliances: Why Do States Abrogate Agreements?”: 1118-1132; Brett Ashley Leeds, Michaela Mattes, and Jeremy S. Vogel, “Interests, Institutions, and the Reliability of International Commitments.” American Journal of Political
Science 53, 2 (2009): 461-476.
76 Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry,”; Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse,”; Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984.”
77 "restructuring, n.". OED Online. December 2013. Oxford University Press.
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/275588?redirectedFrom=restructuring (accessed February 04, 2014). 78 “Termination” is most commonly used in past quantitative works. One of the earliest works categorizes the three modes of alliance terminations: (1) formal abrogation occurred; (2) the treaty was formally renewed or extended; (3) informal abrogation occurred via an explicitly recognized violation of the
commitments, or via the assumption of new and incompatible obligations by one or more alliance members. Since then, one work further divides the mode of alliance termination into seven: (1) new alliance; (2) denunciation; (3) war between members; (4) one member ceased to be independent as a result of war; (5) expiration; (6) termination sanctioned by terms of treaty; (7) alliance still in effect, while the other work treats the alliance termination as a subcategory of alliance disintegration as mentioned earlier. See Singer and Small, “Formal alliances, 1815-1939”: 6.; Russett, “An Empirical Typology of International Military Alliances”: 268.; Holsti, Hopmann, and Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances: 59- 60.More recent works use a slightly simpler version by dividing four modes of alliance termination. One example identifies the following four modes of alliance termination: (1) the alliance was formally abrogated; (2) the alliance was extended; (3) the terms and commitments of the alliance were explicitly violated (e.g., by armed attack by one member on another); and (4) the loss of a state’s sovereignty. See Bennett, “Testing Alternative Models of Alliance Duration, 1816-1984”: 862.; Another example of the four modes of alliance termination categorizes as follows: (1) fulfillment (i.e., the goals of the alliance have been accomplished, or the value of the alliance has declined to one or more members, and the members decline to renew the alliance when it expires); (2) exogenous loss of independence (i.e., one or more members become incapable of conducting an independent foreign policy and the loss of independence is not attributable to interaction with the ally); (3) renegotiation (i.e., the allies mutually agree to continue to cooperate militarily, but on new or modified alliance obligation terms.); and (4) violation (opportunistic abrogation: i.e., a major provision of the alliance is violated and the allies indicate no intention to continue to recognize the alliance; or one or more of the allies specifically declares that it will no longer recognize or be bound by the alliance agreement even before the scheduled alliance termination date.). See Leeds and Savun, “Terminating Alliances: Why Do States Abrogate Agreements?”: 1124.
29 the cases of strengthening or upgrading the alliance security obligations can be much more easily incorporated in the modes of alliance restructuring. Lastly, the currently applied meaning of “alliance restructuring” describes the shifting of alliance obligations among defense, neutrality, ententes, and no alliance,79 but it excludes many other possible modes of restructuring such as the changes in alliance obligations without the shifts among the above four categories. It seems better and necessary to broaden the definition of “restructuring.”
To be clear, my research interest on the dependent variable explores whether an ally “restructures” unilaterally or mutually the current alliance obligations and under what conditions and what processes. I also define alliance restructuring in the following three modes: (1) dealignment (i.e., when an ally ends an alliance relation unilaterally); (2)
expiration (i.e., when an ally terminates it mutually at the end of the term or earlier); and
(3) renewal (i.e., when an ally renews the current alliance with new obligations).80 The first mode of alliance restructuring: dealignment includes such cases as: (1) an ally unilaterally secedes an alliance and remains independent from all other states; (2)
79 “Restructuring” is not so often used in the past works and is defined as changes in the alliance portfolio of a state, which is a combination of a state’s security commitment with other states. For example, if state A already had a defense commitment with state B and a neutrality commitment with state C at the time T1, and if state A changed its commitment with state B from defense to entente and/or a commitment with state C from neutrality to no alliance at the time T2, then it can be argued that alliance restructuring occurred. See Siverson and Starr, “Regime Change and the Restructuring of Alliances”: 151-152.
80 As a definition of alliance restructuring in this study, the following three cases in the category of alliance termination are excluded: (1) when an ally ceases to be an independent and sovereign state; (2) when an ally makes a formal military commitment outside the current alliance (i.e., new alliance); and (3) when an ally abrogates a formal military commitment with non-alliance members. This study examines the
processes of alliance restructuring by way of the state’s “decisions.” For the first case, lost independence is not a state’s decision. For the second and third cases, both the formation and termination of alliance with the outside states do not visibly change the current alliance obligations with the other alliance members. My definition of alliance restructuring therefore applies only to the cases when change to the current alliance obligations occurs.
30 an ally unilaterally secedes an alliance and forms an alliance with the other states (i.e., realignment); (3) an ally unilaterally secedes an alliance in accordance with the alliance treaty terms; (4) an ally unilaterally secedes an alliance in violation with the alliance treaty terms (i.e., abrogation, denunciation, one form of violation, etc.); and (5) an ally militarily attacks the other ally (i.e., one form of violation).
The second mode of alliance restructuring: expiration includes such cases as: (1) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and does not renew the current alliance relationship (i.e., one form of fulfillment); (2) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and ends the current alliance relationship prior to the end of the alliance treaty term (i.e., one form of fulfillment); and (3) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and ends the current alliance relationship forming a new security relationship agreement but not an alliance (e.g., neutrality pact, nonaggression pact and consultation pact).
The third mode of alliance restructuring: renewal includes such cases as: (1) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and strengthens or upgrades its alliance
commitments to new alliance obligations (one form of renegotiation); (2) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and weakens or downgrades its alliance
commitments to new alliance obligations (one form of renegotiation); and (3) an ally mutually agrees with the other allies and merges the alliance with another outside alliance.