Alliance Expansion Research Articles

Finland’s approaches to joining NATO

For the region of Northern Europe the beginning of 2022 was marked by an important event — the application of Finland and Sweden for membership in the NATO military alliance. For both countries the move signified the end of decades of the neutrality policy, and the North Atlantic Alliance expansion would be relatively significant for the first time since 2009. One of the main features of Finland’s and Sweden’s process of joining NATO was the desire of both countries’ administrations to achieve the Alliance membership simultaneously. Due to certain difficulties that had risen on the international level and prevented Sweden from becoming a member of the organization swiftly, the Finnish administration made the ultimate decision to join NATO independently from Sweden. The decision was connected with the abandonment of the principle of “special relations” between Sweden and Finland. The approval of the NATO membership bill during its ratification in the Finnish parliament was not unanimous. Several lawmakers spoke out against the country’s integration with NATO. This and other factors testify to the controversial attitude to NATO in the Finnish society. “The Kurdish issue” was among the important aspects of Finland’s North Atlantic Alliance joining process. Prior to 2022 Finland along with Sweden adhered to the position of supporting various Kurdish groups that were recognized in Turkey as terrorist organizations. Finland also took in a lot of Kurdish refugees and provided political asylum to some of them. The Turkish authorities were dissatisfied with those actions hence in May 2022 Turkey blocked the NATO membership application of the Finnish republic. “The Kurdish issue” was not fully resolved, but the sides managed to reach a compromise.

Feminist solidarities: Theoretical and practical complexities

This article considers the resurgence of interest in feminist solidarity in theory and practice in the contemporary moment in the United States and UK. What does feminist solidarity mean, what forms is it taking, and how might it proliferate? We begin by mapping the changing inflections of solidarity in recent feminist cultural theory, highlighting the range of theoretical components, investments and emphases. Next, we consider the various forms of solidarity presented and created by the Women’s March and the Women’s Strike, analysing the differences in terms of the extent of their reach and their political economy. We argue that both phenomena can be understood as reactions to, firstly, several decades of neoliberal impoverishment, which have now exposed neoliberal iterations of feminism as fundamentally inadequate; and secondly, and relatedly, the arrival of misogynistic and reactionary forms of nationalism. Finally, we show that different approaches to feminist solidarity, as well as an expansion of alliances, are necessary in order to extend contemporary feminism as an effective and large‐scale project. We therefore argue that feminist solidarity needs to retain its genealogical roots in left politics whilst being as plural as possible in practice.

The sources of Russia's fear of NATO

The paper analyzes Russia's perception of NATO since the beginning of its eastern enlargement. Russia's reaction to the enlargement evolved from attempts to diffuse its potential damage through a limited cooperation to passive and then active policies of containment. The latter have resulted in a risky behavior with respect to the alliance and a concentration of Russian military on the Western border. Two factors can assist us in explaining Russia's evolving perception of NATO from a potential partner to a renewed military threat – the historical experience of viewing the alliance, and the West in general, as potentially threatening and the post-Cold war interaction with NATO that served to strengthen the historically developed perception. As of today, Russia has learned from its interaction with the alliance that NATO remains a principle threat to Russia's national security and that through the alliance's expansion the West seeks to exercise its cultural, economic, and political domination in Eurasia.

Too much of a good thing? Alliance portfolio size and alliance expansion

Drawing from the organizational learning, transactions costs and resource based theories, we argue that the larger the Alliance Portfolio Size (APS) of the partners, the lower the likelihood that the alliance will be expanded. We also argue for an interactive effect by proposing that high levels of experience will neutralize some (but not all) of the detrimental impact of a large APS on the likelihood of alliance expansion. We deploy the case-control methodology to select a sample of 182 alliances from the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries spanning the period 1980–2004. Results from logistic regression analyses support our predictions.

Beyond Afghanistan NATO's Partnership with Central Asia and South Caucasus: A Tangled Partnership?

This article examines how the Alliance's partnership policy has changed in Central Asia and South Caucasus since the 1990s and aims to clarify to what extent NATO's new partnership policy can affect its relations with these countries. NATO–Russian relations and the Afghanistan operation are evaluated as the main drivers of this process. The target date of the withdrawal of the ISAF combat mission in December 2014, set at the Lisbon Summit 2010, as well as the shifting of the focus of long-term US foreign policy to the Asia-Pacific region and the US aim of balancing China's influence in this region increase the necessity for the Alliance to redefine its future policy towards Central Asia and South Caucasus. The article claims these developments have caused the need to treat Russia more as a partner than a potential competitor in constituting the policy towards Central Asia and South Caucasus. Furthermore the article claims there is no possibility for new Alliance expansion in this part of the world in the short to medium term.

When more is not better: Simultaneous alliance commitments and alliance performance

In this study, we examine how two key elements of a firm’s alliance portfolio strategy influence the performance of a focal alliance. We propose alliance expansion or extension as a novel measure o...

NATO Enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia: Old Wine in New Bottles?

This article examines the question of possible NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia, although it will not venture to provide a firm answer as to its likelihood. The aim of the essay is to offer an accurate analysis of the aspiration of these two former Soviet republics to join the Alliance, with a primary focus on relations between the West (in this case, NATO) and Russia, the successor of the Soviet legacy. In the process, it will try to uncover the underlying principle of NATO enlargement as such. To this end, the article will use geopolitics as a theoretical background to explain the behavior of the parties involved, carefully taking into consideration the specific position of NATO as an alliance. Furthermore, it will elaborate the debates over each post-Cold War round of enlargement, with special focus on the first post-Cold War round of NATO enlargement, as this event established the fact of Alliance expansion and laid out the rules for future enlargement rounds. Studying the positions of Ukraine and Georgia in the context of cooperation with NATO, the article addresses the differences and similarities of the two countries, and examines separately their relations with NATO, Russia, and the United States. The overall conclusion is that the prospects for Ukraine and Georgia to accede to NATO membership are not bright, but at the same time they are not completely without prospects. Their ultimate outcome will depend on the terms—whether explicit or tacit— of the ongoing transatlantic bargain between the U.S. and Russia.

Bush Administration Policy Toward Beijing and Taipei

The George W. Bush Administration has carried out arguably the most significant rebalancing of US policy in the US-People's Republic of China (PRC)-Taiwan triangular relationship since the 1970s. Recent US relations with the PRC and Taiwan are within a broad one China framework, but they are unusual; never since the opening of relations with China has the United States so markedly increased its military and other support for Taiwan while seeing an improvement in US relations with Beijing. Credit for improved relations goes partly to the PRC leadership who have adjusted Chinese foreign policy toward US interests, strongly emphasizing the positive while eschewing pressure, confron tation and conflict. The reasons for the Chinese shift vary, but this article emphasizes the importance of an effective Bush Administration policy toward China. The Bush Government has foreclosed previous Chinese leverage over the United States and made clear that resorting to anti-American pressure would hurt China's interests much more than those of the United States. While remaining firm on substantive differences over Taiwan, weapons proliferation, missile defense, alliance expansion, human rights and other sensitive issues, it has responded positively and pragmatically to Chinese efforts to broaden common ground and improve relations, and sought to avoid provocations by either side in cross-strait relations. Recent trends suggest that Chinese leaders are likely to continue for the next year and possibly longer to seek improved US ties, muting pressure or threats regarding US actions that continue to improve military and other ties with Taiwan and other sensitive issues.

The evolution of American attitudes toward the Atlantic alliance: Continuity and change from the Washington treaty to NATO enlargement

This article contrasts the views of NATO expressed by American leaders in the 1998 debate over alliance expansion, with those expressed in the initial debate over the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1948 and 1949. A focused comparison of these cases is conducted primarily to illustrate the ways in which American attitudes toward the alliance have evolved since the years immediately following World War II, though more general conclusions about the ways in which US foreign policy adapts to meet the demands of new international conditions emerge as well. This study concludes that the American understanding of the transatlantic security relationship has changed significantly over time, and that traditional realist descriptions of the role of alliances in statecraft are no longer adequate to explain the US view of NATO.

Alliance Formation, Alliance Expansion, and the Core

This article presents a simple cooperative game theory representation of alliance formation and expansion to counter a conventional threat along the allies' borders. Mutual defense gains, derived from allying, arise from interior borders that no longer require protection. Spatial and locational attributes of the allies are crucial when identifying the gains from mutual defense and the distribution of these gains. The same number of allies can have vastly different cores depending on their spatial configurations. Extensions to the baseline case consider transaction costs, natural defenses, guerrilla warfare, and risk concerns. An application to the NATO alliance indicates that the theory has much to say about which additional Partnership for Peace countries are likely to join NATO after the three Visegrad countries.

The enlargement of NATO: The theory and politics of alliance expansion

Most studies of alliance behavior operate under realist assumptions, which maintain that the presence of an external threat and an understanding of state's national security interests are the most important factors in explaining alliance membership. While security concerns continue to provide some insight on NATO's recent enlargement, this article contends that realism does not capture the full dynamics of expansion. NATO's ability to enlarge occurred due to a complex interplay of political factors. The United States’ leadership within the alliance, coupled with very favorable domestic conditions in the United States and effective lobbying efforts by Visegrad states provide a more complete understanding of how NATO was able to add new members. The presence and importance of these political factors and their interplay demonstrate that the dominant paradigm of realism offers only a partial explanation for NATO's expansion.

Military professionals and the peace movement

One of the frequently ignored lessons of Vietnam was the prominent role played not only by G.I.s in the resistance, but also by disaffected commissioned officers. Because of their patriotic and professional credibility, the latter contributed disproportionately to broadening anti‐interventionist support among attentive public and opinion leaders. The importance of attracting such catalysts of peace movement appeal in the late 1990s is underscored not only by the seeming permanence of the “military industrial complex,” but also because alliance expansion, coercive intervention, and even war‐proneness have continued to symbolize the American “way of life” following the 1987 de facto end of the Cold War. Since then the peace dividend has proved illusory while the increasingly heterogeneous “peace movement” has become a marginal force in American politics. While attracting greater numbers of retired professional officers may not vitiate other sources of movement weakness, it would certainly enhance the legitimacy and appeal of the more instrumentally focused peace‐advocacy organizations. With this in mind, an effort was made to identify attributes that distinguish those officers most likely to respond favorably to outreach by peace‐advocacy organizations. The findings are based upon 40 returned questionnaires from a survey of 90 members of the Center for Defense Information's Military Advisory Council. The C.D.I., which was founded by Admiral Gene LaRocque near the end of the Vietnam War, has continued to function in Washington as a responsible opponent of non‐defensive military excess and interventionism. Most of the officers in question are still serving on the C.D.I.’s Advisory Council.