Ideological Conflict and Alliances of Convenience in International Politics1

Abstract

The most volatile and dangerous security partnerships in international politics are “alliances of convenience,” defined as security cooperation between two states that are geopolitical and ideological adversaries to balance against a third party that the states view as a greater immediate danger. This definition permits a typological distinction between alliances of convenience and “special relationship alliances” in which the partners are neither ideological nor geopolitical adversaries, and “ambivalent alliances” in which the partners are either ideological or geopolitical adversaries. Neorealist alliance theory holds that the bargaining advantage in any alliance will be possessed by the state that is less dependent, less committed, and more interested in the outcome. I advance a rival neoclassical realist theory of alliance bargaining that proposes that the outcome of bargaining is additionally a function of the internal extractive strength of the systemically-advantaged partner and the type of ally with which it is bargaining. I test these competing theories in two cases drawn from the universe of post-1945 U.S. alliances, the U.S. alliance of convenience with Pakistan (1981–88) and the U.S. special relationship alliance with the United Kingdom during the Korean War (1950–53), demonstrating that neoclassical realism better accounts for those cases’ dynamics and outcomes.