Asymmetric Alliances Research Articles

The US National Security State and Big Tech: frenemy relations and innovation planning in turbulent times*

I analyze the relation between what Weiss (2014) dubbed the United States National Security State (US NSS) and US Big Tech focusing on artificial intelligence (AI). I argue that the US NSS was an innovation planner until the 1990s and advance the hypothesis that, amid that vacuum, this millennium has seen the emergence of AI planning by US Big Tech. This has resulted in tensions with the US NSS given the centrality of AI in the military–industrial complex and ultimately for buttressing American primacy, which has always been the US NSS’s main goal. Amid today’s global turbulence, this tension has leaned towards a strategic yet asymmetric alliance that I define as a frenemy relation. Beyond the tit-for-tat between the US NSS and Big Tech companies, their experiences as innovation planners open space for prefiguring an alternative, a democratic way of planning innovation for the common good.

박정희 정부의 전력증강 정책 추진에 대한 미국의 대응 분석

This article examines the response of the U.S. to the Korean government's power enhancement project in terms of alliance management. The Park Chung-hee administration resolved security concerns caused by increased threats from North Korea and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea, and promoted a policy to increase power for self-defense. A dual-path strategy was implemented by the Park Chung-hee administration's power enhancement policy, which combined the conventional power enhancement policy and the nuclear weapons development policy. The U.S. showed double-faced strategy to the Korea’s power enhancement policy. First, the U.S. was in a favorable position to Korea’s conventional power enhancement policy. Second, the U.S. thwarted Korea’s nuclear weapons development by checking and obstructing it. Through this study, it can be confirmed that the success or failure of an attempt to change power through the power enhancement of a weaker country in an asymmetric alliance system depends on the interests of the powerful countries. Therefore, in order to resolve the imbalance in alliance relations through the increase of its own power, weaker countries must consider and persuade the interests of powerful countries.

Technology transfer challenges in asymmetric alliances between high-technology and low-technology firms

Low-technology firms face an increasingly disruptive innovation landscape as new legislation and changing market demands force them to dramatically reduce emission levels to become more sustainable. However, successfully developing and implementing sustainable technologies frequently presupposes alliances between low-technology firms (such as process industry companies) and high-tech firms (such as their specialized technology providers). Such alliances are asymmetric and problematic because of differences in approaches to learning, knowledge bases, collaboration routines, and high cognitive distance between high- and low-technology firms. Against this background, we performed a multiple case study of six asymmetric alliances operating in the food and food packaging sectors in the UK. The analysis reveals that technology distance asymmetry, technology integration complexity, and innovation capability incompatibilities prohibit technology transfer effectiveness. By mapping these themes across three phases of technology transfer, we identified a total of nine unique problems that hamper technology transfer effectiveness and, therefore, risk delaying or distorting the implementation of novel sustainable technology. The paper provides theoretical implications for the literature on innovation in LMT firms and for the literature on sustainability alliances along with practical implications for improving technology transfer between high-tech and low-tech firms considering climate change.

To Assure and Conceal: Revisiting Secret Agreements (Mitsuyaku) in the U.S.-Japan Alliance

ABSTRACT Informed by the concept of plausible deniability and newly-declassified U.S. and Japanese documents, this study explores the interconnectedness between public and private security assurances made during the 1957-1960 revision of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty. The role of secret agreements is conceptualized as a form of covert operations in U.S.-Japan allied secret diplomacy. The revised security treaty and joint communiques announced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi were reinforced by secret agreements. Dual confidential arrangements enabled the transit of nuclear-armed U.S. vessels and warplanes into Japanese territorial waters and airspace, along with the free-use of U.S. bases in Japan for Korean contingencies. The U.S. employed overt and covert mechanisms to preserve its extended deterrent capabilities in East Asia as well as to meet Congressional and military requirements to preserve U.S. base rights in Japan. Japanese officials utilized covert strategies, including concealing the existence of secret agreements, thereby denying alleged public deception and ensuring their political survival for decades. In essence, secret agreements lay at the heart of the U.S.-Japan asymmetric alliance.

The rules of courtship: What drives a start-up to collaborate with a large company?

Collaboration between start-ups and large companies can accelerate innovation and improve the performance of all actors involved. This study aims to analyse the factors that push innovative start-up entrepreneurs to enter into this type of alliance. To do this, we built a conceptual model based on the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). We used a quantitative method and collected data from a sample of 145 Italian startups. The model was then tested, using a partial-least squares approach to structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The results confirm the predictions of the TPB, namely that perceived behavioural control, subjective norm, and above all attitude, influence the intention of the start-uppers to collaborate with large companies. These results provide a twofold theoretical contribution by: 1) extending the TPB to the case under examination and 2) helping to explain the formation mechanisms of asymmetrical alliances between young innovative firms and large consolidated companies. This study further provides a practical contribution by indicating the levers that encourage the involvement of start-ups in open innovation programs and, at the same time, make entrepreneurs more aware of the mechanisms activated to involve them.

The Struggle for Autonomy of Weak States under Asymmetric Alliances: Based on the Case Comparison Between Philippines and South Korea

The need for diplomatic autonomy of weaker states in asymmetric alliances rises as their power increases, leading to a struggle for autonomy. In the U.S. Asia-Pacific alliance system, both the Philippines and South Korea are advancing the struggle for autonomy, but the effects of the struggle are showing differences. So why is the Philippines struggle for autonomy relatively more effective while South Koreas struggle is less effective when it is the same U.S. Asia-Pacific ally? This study mainly applies the case comparison method to analyze the main factors that cause the different effects of the autonomy struggle between the two countries by comparing the autonomy struggle in the Philippines after Duterte came to power and in South Korea after Moon Jae-in came to power. This paper argues that the factors that contribute to the different effects of autonomous struggle are mainly strategic dependence and the degree of interest bundling and acquisition at the external level, the degree of sovereign security and domestic political preference at the internal level, and the effective conditions for the autonomous struggle of weak states are also related to this. This study will provide insights into the struggle for autonomy of weak states in asymmetric relations and offer new perspectives for predicting the direction of the U.S. alliance system and the positioning of Korean-Philippine policy.

Legitimizing Power Projection in the US Foreign Policy

International relations (IR) scholars have traditionally viewed military alliances as vehicles, serving to ensure the states’ survival under anarchy and to maintain the balance of power essential for the systemic stability. At the same time, alliances that include a dominant state are often employed by the latter as the means of attaining its core objectives and the tools of legitimizing its extraordinary might and ambitious policies. Apparently, this situation favors ambiguity and uncertainty in terms of developing proper theoretical understanding of the nature of alliances as the core institutions, which pattern the states’ interactions, sustain international order, and ensure smooth functioning of the power relations. Seeking to elaborate more comprehensive approach to studying “asymmetric alliances” as the tools of both wielding the dominant state’s influence and legitimizing its preeminence, the paper engages the insights borrowed from the theory of structuration that helps overcome methodological limitations conditioned by dual understanding of “power” as either “attribute” or “relationship”. Specifically, the paper examines the United States’ “asymmetric alliances” in Europe and East Asia as distinct social structures, comprised of “resources” and “rules” that sustain practices of U.S. engagement in regional affairs so as to ensure reproduction of inequitable relationships between the allies and to legitimize the United States’ hegemony. This approach allows to reach more integrative understanding of the role of these alliances as the tools of Washington’s influence and the means of reproduction of the inequitable relationships between the allies, as well as to identify contradictions inherent in these hierarchical arrangements, engendered by growing tension between “resources” and “rules” involved in the process of wielding and legitimizing the “American power”.

Explaining Russia’s Inertia in the Azerbaijan–Armenia Dispute: Reward and Punishment in an Asymmetric Alliance

Russia has been conventionally portrayed in the area studies literature as a close ally of Armenia, although the latter is a subordinate rather than an equal partner. More recent scholarship has focused on Armenia’s dilemma as to whether to align itself with the liberal West or to enhance ties with its former patron. The Armenian foreign policy establishment has demonstrated in political action and discourse a marked preference for Europe’s institutions and political vision. Russia’s neutrality in the recent escalation of tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite bilateral security arrangements with Armenia, showed the inherent fragilities of this asymmetric alliance. Drawing on asymmetric alliance literature, this article seeks to explain Russia’s reluctance to involve itself in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in favour of Armenia and identifies how Russia rewards or punishes its ally, based on its assessment of whether the ‘side payments’ attached to the alliance have been honoured.

Small states shelter diplomacy: Balancing costs of entrapment and abandonment in the alliance dilemma

Shelter theory has emerged as a promising but unrealized alternative to existing theories of bandwagon and hiding in the literature. It describes how small states can utilize the structural power of great powers to achieve political aims through the formation of asymmetric alliances. At present it is not clear exactly what shelter diplomacy aims to achieve, what type of costs it protects small states against and to what degree asymmetric shelters are useful when the preferences between the small state and the shelter partner widen. The article addresses these gaps. It develops a realist inspired model of shelter diplomacy that specifies when, how and with what effects small states can utilize the structural powers of great powers. It demonstrates how shelter diplomacy can help small states balance the costs of abandonment and entrapment in the alliance dilemma through construction of both asymmetric and symmetric shelters. The main contributions are to bring shelter diplomacy into the International Relations mainstream literature and develop a new theoretical middle position between the more well-described bandwagon and hiding strategies. The model is applied to a Danish case that demonstrates how small states have utilized and adopted dynamic shelter strategies in the European integration process.

Pakistan – Taliban: A Paradoxical Relationship

This article analyses the complex relationship between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban for over twenty years. The unresolved issue of recognition of the Durand Line as the Afghan-Pakistan state border has had a negative impact on the relationship. The author notes the divided nature of Pashtun society on both sides of the Durand Line and Islamabad's desire for a loyal government in Kabul that would not be strongly influenced by Pashtun nationalist ideas. The paper explores Pakistan's policy of combining support for the Taliban with US-Pakistan relations in an asymmetric alliance. The aim of the article is to show the extent to which Islamabad's policy of trying to please both the US and Afghanistan has been successful. The author concludes that Pakistan's Afghan policy is characterised by a lack of achievement on major bilateral issues. After the Taliban came to power, Islamabad's influence over Kabul diminished, the Pakistanis failed to persuade the Taliban to comply with international requirements in governing the country, the Pak-Afghan border was not recognised, Afghanistan's contacts with India intensified, Pakistan ceased to be an indispensable partner for the US in the Afghan track and Islamabad failed to persuade Kabul to withdraw support from the extremist Taliban Movement of Pakistan. In spite of all the setbacks, Islamabad still views its former Afghan allies as the primary means of maintaining Pakistan's position in Afghanistan, hoping to convince the Afghan Taliban to accept the changed international realities.

美 바이든 행정부의 ‘對中정책’과 ‘北中관계’ 동학

The Biden administration's policy toward China seems to presuppose military competition beyond diplomatic competition. The purpose of this paper is to predict what kind of “North Korea-China relations” will take when the “competition and conflict” between the US and China continues and deepens following the Trump administration. To this end, we will examine the past dynamics of North Korea-China relations, an asymmetric alliance, and examine what variables the North Korea-China alliance has changed.
 In conclusion, it can be said that North Korea-China relations have been most affected by 'China's relations with hegemony'. This paper will show that China has managed the North Korea-China alliance over the past 70 years, especially in the face of North Korea's six nuclear tests, mainly according to 'relationships with the hegemon of the time'. This is because the geopolitical value of North Korea, a weak ally of the asymmetric alliance, is largely proportional to the degree of 'conflict between China and the hegemon'. Therefore, if the 'competition and conflict' in the US-China relationship continues as it is now, China's 'alliance security dilemma' will increase, and it is highly likely that China will support the North Korean Kim Jong un regime and strengthen their alliance despite North Korea’s successive provocations.
 This can act as a difficulty in that the Yun Seok-yeol administration, which is supported by the right-wing conservatives, is increasingly demanding to strengthen the “US-South Korea-Japan” alliance, resulting in division of domestic public opinion and mutual pressure between China and the United States.

US–Afghanistan: the collapse of an asymmetrical alliance

This article reflects on the reasons for the collapse of the asymmetrical alliance between the US and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRA), which had existed for 20 years. Particular attention is paid to the roles of both countries within the alliance as senior and junior partners. The goals of the two players are not always the same, which are sometimes contradictory. The level of Afghan influence on American strategy and the cost to the U.S. of managing the alliance are demonstrated, as well as attempts by the Afghan side to manipulate the senior partner with a high degree of dependence on it. The legal basis for the US-IRA alliance is outlined. The author notes the initial lack of a clear U.S. strategy outlining overarching goals, the sequence of steps required to achieve these goals, and the resources allocated to carry out these actions. The rapidly changing political and military environment in Afghanistan has contributed to frequent changes in US strategies. The paper shows that, as a result, Washington was actually forced, along with security, to engage seriously in nation-building in Afghanistan, which was not part of its plans. The ignorance of US officials about the socio-cultural and political conditions in the IRA was an important factor contributing to failures at the strategic, operational and tactical levels. The complexity of implementing a state-building strategy was also due to the overly broad range of objectives and the large number of actors involved in Afghanistan. Complicating factors were the unrealistic timeline for reconstruction of the IRA, the endless infusion of funds into Afghan institutions to address insecurity and the corruption of the Afghan government. It is concluded that the foundation of the bilateral asymmetric alliance has been undermined by the US-Taliban arrangements, and Washington's decision to withdraw US troops from the IRA has led to its collapse.

Alliance Coordination: Explaining the Logic of Biden's Taiwan Policy†

The Biden administration is attempting to transform traditional US–Taiwan relations into a multilateralism‐based “US + alliance–Taiwan” interactional model, which can be conceptualized as alliance coordination. This article unpacks the logic of Biden's strategic thinking in the US Taiwan policy. Adopting an asymmetric alliance perspective, it argues that US allies' reactions to Biden's foreign policy and their ideological attitude toward China have interacted with the US placement of the Taiwan question on the agenda in the alliance system to produce different degrees of alliance coordination, which can be measured by the new typology constituted by seven approaches: all‐fields approach, pure high politics approach, high politics driven approach, half‐measures, low politics driven approach, pure low politics approach, and strategic inaction. Three cases, including the different reactions of Japan, European countries, and South Korea, are analyzed to demonstrate how the alliance coordination operates in realpolitik. Additionally, the assessment of this article reveals that Biden's alliance coordination would place growing strategic pressure on mainland China and introduces greater volatility into cross‐strait relations.

The Ruling Group Survival: Why Pakistan and Hungary Move Away from the US-led Order?

AbstractWhy do some smaller states signal to move away from the US-led liberal order? We look at the ruling group survival in smaller allies to answer this pressing puzzle. Despite accepting the merit of systemic explanations, we simply argue that the ruling groups in smaller states engage with revisionist powers in the international system to sustain and enhance their privileged positions in the domestic policy setting. Hungary, a NATO member, and Pakistan, a traditional ally of the United States, have long been showing signs of shifting toward the China/Russia axis. We explain the behavior of Hungary and Pakistan during the 2010s by focusing on the survival strategies of key ruling groups in those countries. We simply argue that relations of competing great powers with the ruling group in smaller states determine the fate of asymmetric alliance.

‘I know something you don’t know’: The asymmetry of ‘strategic intelligence’ and the great perils of asymmetric alliances

Given that South Korea is a reliant consumer of the United States’ ‘strategic intelligence’ concerning North Korea’s imminent threat, this article assumes an asymmetric market for trading such information between the two allied states. Based on the autonomy–security trade-off model, South Korea may purchase the United States’ strategic intelligence about North Korea’s threat at the cost of its political autonomy. When South Korea does not offer sufficient policy concessions, however, the United States has more incentive to transmit ‘low-quality information’ because the recipient cannot challenge its authenticity, and this information may bolster the opposition parties in South Korean politics by signalling the current Korean leadership’s poor performance in the national security arena. Given the United States’ control over strategic intelligence, South Korea faces the risk of being manipulated to make policy decisions that are at odds with its own interests, but may serve US interests.

Japan's Alliance-Enhancing Security Developments

executive summary: This article uses the case of Japanese security policy in the past decade to develop the Alliance-Enhancing Framework, which offers a way to understand the conditions in which security-dependent states can either trigger or escape their alliance dilemma with the U.S. main argument This article asks a question that is at the core of much of East Asia's security policy: how can a country that is dependent on the U.S. for its security enhance its policymaking options in ways that will not threaten its U.S. alliance but still provide avenues to develop its own leadership and broader security roles? The alliance dilemma is the possibility, on the one hand, of the weaker state being abandoned by its more powerful partner if it becomes too independent or powerful, among other reasons, and, on the other hand, of entrapment and alliance dependence if the weaker state does not strengthen itself. Through a careful examination of Japan's recent security policy, we develop the Alliance-Enhancing Framework to understand the conditions under which security-dependent states can transform their asymmetric alliances into ones that are more collaborative, with both sides making meaningful contributions to collective security. The framework reveals that alliance tension can be provoked by certain types of unilateral policy initiatives undertaken by the dependent ally, but that some unilateral, as well as bilateral, actions and regional initiatives generally enhance and improve the partnership. policy implications • If smaller allies like Japan pursue unilateral measures that disrupt or undermine their cornerstone alliance, they risk losing their alliance partner and potentially weakening their security standing in the region. However, security reforms that support both the ally's own national security and the alliance can be successful in knitting the partners closer together. • Beneficial security initiatives, such as co-development or co-production projects, can bolster a security-dependent ally's defense posture and simultaneously help transform an asymmetric bilateral alliance relationship into one that is more mutually dependent and reliant on shared capabilities. • Regional security initiatives linked to the U.S. alliance and its common values confer the biggest advantage for security-dependent countries like Japan. They allow the smaller country to exert geopolitical influence by extending the range and scope of ally-friendly networks alongside the U.S. while also exhibiting leadership and acting more independently.

Riding the tide: assessing South Korea’s hedging strategy through regional security initiatives

This article examines how South Korea has used the ASEAN Plus security platforms to hedge between the US and China and why it has not participated in the FOIP strategy. It argues that the platforms’ neutral guise, owing to ASEAN centrality and their global norms-based agenda has allowed Korea to passively voice its alignment with the US, thereby answering to the pressure for a higher commitment from the US and clearing the political risk of linking the alignment decision to its own views. It asserts, therefore, that access to effective multilateral security platforms allows higher leverage to the weaker ally in an asymmetric alliance relationship.

The Relationship between Intellectual Property Risk and Stability of Asymmetric Research and Development Alliance

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) establish asymmetric research and development (R&D) alliance with core enterprises to improve innovation efficiency. Unfortunately, the gap in the status and bargaining power between enterprises in such partnerships makes the intellectual property risk situation complicated. While gaining support and assistance from core enterprises, SMEs face the risk of exposing their core knowledge and key resources, which seriously affects the stability of R&D alliance and the sustainability of cooperative innovation. How to protect the intellectual property rights of SMEs in the asymmetric R&D alliance and improve the alliance’s stability is an urgent problem to be solved. Based on the theory of resource dependence and transaction cost, this study uses 260 high-tech companies participating in the asymmetric R&D alliance as a sample to conduct empirical research from the perspective of SMEs in a weak position. The purpose of this study is to sort out the types of intellectual property risks in the alliance and clarify the relationship between them and the stability of asymmetric R&D alliance. Furthermore, this study examines the moderating effects of contract governance mechanisms and relational contracts to explore effective governance mechanisms at the alliance level. Empirical results show that the intellectual property investment risk and the intellectual property loss risk have a significant negative impact on the stability of asymmetric R&D alliance. The contract governance mechanism negatively moderates the impact of intellectual property investment risk on the stability of the asymmetric R&D alliance. The relationship governance mechanism negatively moderates the impact of intellectual property loss risk on the stability of the asymmetric R&D alliance. The contract and relationship governance mechanism jointly negatively moderate the impact of intellectual property investment risk and loss risk on the stability of the asymmetric R&D alliance.

The Strength of Weak Firms: New Venture Organizing Flexibility

How do the strategies of startups differ from those of the established organizations? It is important to understand two fundamental liabilities of new ventures to find answers to this inquiry. First, because founders tend to have prior work experience from other companies in the same industry, and they are already encultured to the industry norm, it is difficult for entrepreneurs to differentiate their organizational form, culture and identity, and products and services from their potential competitors. Second, many new ventures start their businesses in the markets where established players dominate. The stability of new ventures is often questioned, and they also lack the status of larger established firms, so resource mobilization is extremely challenging. This symposium aims to investigate the strategies that startups can take to leverage these two fundamental burdens, so that they turn into advantages instead. To that end, we invite scholars whose respective work falls under one of the following two categories: startup strategies to (a) gain and create resources and (b) organize activities. Unlocking Value from Startups’ Ties to Established Firms: The Role of the Entrepreneurs’ Background Presenter: Sarath Balachandran; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Chasing Talent: Startup Hiring Through Firm-Driven Search Presenter: J. Daniel Kim; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Michael Pergler; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania When Do New Ventures Use a Clean Slate to Build Something Different? Presenter: Yeonsin Ahn; INSEAD Deference and Asymmetric Alliance Formation Between Ventures Presenter: Emily Cox-Pahnke; U. of Washington Presenter: Toby Li; Texas A&M U. Presenter: Michael Deane Howard; Texas A&M U., College Station Presenter: Leif Brändle; U. of Hohenheim Biased Sampling of Early Users and the Direction of Startup Innovation Presenter: Ruiqing Cao; - Presenter: Rembrand Michael Koning; Harvard Business School Presenter: Ramana Nanda; Imperial College London

The US–South Korea alliance: How the patron benefits from the protégé

Since the end of World War II, the US military has continuously deployed troops to South Korea. The alliance works as an asymmetrical alliance, where the US is a patron and South Korea is a protégé. While it is argued that this deployment has significant political, economic, and military effects on South Korea and the region, few studies have examined how the presence of US forces there enhances US military and economic power as well as national security interests. In this paper, we examine the costs and benefits of the US–South Korea alliance, specifically focusing on US troop deployment on the Korean Peninsula. In particular, we argue that the US military alliance with South Korea has significant benefits to both partners, but particularly for the sake of US national security interests. In this sense, the protégé state provides significant benefits to the patron state. We discuss the strategic importance of South Korea in US foreign policy in the region and emphasize the benefits of the US–South Korea alliance at the various levels.