Preventing enemy coalitions: How wedge strategies shape power politics

International Security

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2011, Pages 155-189

  Crawford, Timothy W ^a  

^a BOSTON COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 79953807618     PISSN: 01622889     EISSN: 15314804     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/ISEC_a_00036     Document Type: Article

References (255)

1. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: Random House, 1979).
2. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).
3. Paul Schroeder, "Historical Reality versus Neo-realist Theory," International Security, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Summer 1994), pp. 108-148.
4. Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity," International Organization, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 137-168.
5. Randall L. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances: Tripolarity and Hitler's Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998).
6. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001).
7. John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman, eds., Realism and the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2003).
8. T.V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann, eds., Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004).
9. For an initial effort by this author, see Timothy W. Crawford, "Wedge Strategy, Balancing, and the Deviant Case of Spain, 1940-41," Security Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter 2008), pp. 1-38.
10. Other important recent studies include Yasuhiro Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall: Use of Coercion and Rewards as Alliance Balancing Strategy," Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, 2002.
11. Victoria Tin-bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
12. Stacie E. Goddard, "When Right Makes Might: How Prussia Overturned the European Balance of Power," International Security, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Winter 2008/09), pp. 110-142.
13. Daniel H. Nexon, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2009).
14. Michael Glosny, "The Grand Strategies of Rising Powers: Reassurance, Coercion, and Balancing Responses," Ph.D. dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011.
15. Key discussions are also found in Daniel H. Nexon, "The Balance of Power in the Balance," World Politics, Vol. 61, No. 2 (April 2009), pp. 340-347.
16. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s," International Security, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall 2008), pp. 148-181.
17. Daniel Byman and Matthew Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 171-172.
18. Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little, and William C. Wohlforth, eds., The Balance of Power in World History (Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
19. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, pp. 77-78
20. Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 188-191.
21. Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 337-338.
22. Richard Rosecrance and Chih-Cheng Lo, "Balancing, Stability, and War: The Mysterious Case of the Napoleonic International System," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4 (December 1996), pp. 479-500.
23. Frederick H. Hartmann, The Relations of Nations, 5th ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1978), pp. 333-337.
24. George Liska, Nations in Alliance: The Limits of Interdependence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968), pp. 42-60.
25. Ivo D. Duchacek, Conflict and Cooperation among Nations (New York: Holt Rinehart, 1960), pp. 372-377.
26. See also Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948), p. 134.
27. George Modelski, A Theory of Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1962), p. 132.
28. A.F.K. Organski, World Politics, 2d ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), pp. 278-279.
29. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 118.
30. For cross-disciplinary insights, see Eric A. Posner, Kathryn E. Spier, and Adrian Vermeule, "Divide and Conquer," Olin Working Paper, No. 467 (Chicago: University of Chicago Law and Economics, May 26, 2009), http://ssrn.com/abstract_1414319.
31. I discuss this case at length below.
32. See Boris Slavinsky, The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality Pact: A Diplomatic History, 1941-1945, trans. Geoffrey Jukes (New York: Routledge, 2004).
33. George A. Lensen, The Strange Neutrality: Soviet-Japanese Relations during the Second World War, 1941-1945 (Tallahassee: Diplomatic Press, 1974).
34. "It is possible," wrote Paul W. Schroeder, "that Russia was saved [in 1941] because Japan persisted in her refusal to launch an attack upon Siberia.".
35. Schroeder, The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations, 1941 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1958), p. 166; see also p. 48.
36. The Soviet redeployments from the Far East "played a vital role in the war in the west [and had] a significant role in halting German forces on the approaches to Moscow and in launching the Red Army's en suing counteroffensive.".
37. David M. Glantz, The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945: "August Storm" (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 5-6; for details of the transfers, see pp. 43-44 n. 11.
38. See Alexander L. George, Bridging the Gap: Theory and Practice in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1993), chap. 10.
39. See Geoffrey Blainey, The Causes of War, 3d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1988), pp. 108-127.
40. James D. Fearon, "Rationalist Explanations for War," International Organization, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Summer 1995), pp. 392-393.
41. Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson, Causes of War (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 64-65.
42. Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy have stressed the need for "more attention to the various sub-strategies and combinations of them, through which states pursue a larger strategy of balancing.".
43. Ripsman and Levy, "The PreventiveWar That Never Happened: Britain, France, and the Rise of Germany in the 1930s," Security Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (January-March 2007), p. 66.
44. On the importance of enriching "theories of balancing," see also Nexon, "The Balance of Power in the Balance".
45. Christopher Layne, "The Unipolar Illusion Revisited: The Coming End of the United States' Unipolar Moment," International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2 (Fall 2006), pp. 28-29.
46. Glenn H. Snyder, "Process Variables in Neorealist Theory," in Benjamin Frankel, ed., Realism: Restatements and Renewal (London: Frank Cass, 1996), pp. 167-192, especially p. 186.
47. See Vasquez and Elman, Realism and the Balancing of Power
48. See David A. Baldwin, "Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies," World Politics, Vol. 31, No. 2 (January 1979), pp. 162-163.
49. Although in relation to different questions, botched reinforcing attempts are also interesting, especially those that perversely strengthen ties between fractious parties.
50. Schroeder, The Axis Alliance and Japanese-American Relations, 1941, p. 112.
51. Norman Rich, Hitler's War Aims, Vol. 2: The Establishment of the New Order (London: Andre Deutsch, 1973), p. 68.
52. See also Michael I. Handel, The Diplomacy of Surprise: Hitler, Nixon, Sadat (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Center for International Affairs, 1981), chap. 3.
53. In principle, wedge drivers could rely exclusively on either carrots or sticks. Snyder, Alliance Politics, p. 338.
54. In practice, the key distinction is between dividers that mix carrots and sticks to discriminate among adversaries, and those that consistently confront them.
55. Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," p. 3.
56. I use the term "accommodation" instead of other possibilities, such as "incentives," because it has a conventional meaning in the statecraft literature essential to this subject. Accommodation is an act that a state undertakes for the benefit of an actual or potential adversary. It denotes the making of concessions, or the taking of steps that compensate or credit the adversary's interests, for the sake of improving relations or sidestepping conflict.
57. See Arnold Wolfers, "Peace Strategies of Deterrence and Accommodation," in Wolfers, ed., Discord and Collaboration: Essays on International Politics (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1962), chap. 9.
58. Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 243.
59. Alexander L. George, Forceful Persuasion: Coercive Diplomacy as an Alternative to War (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1991), pp. 73-75.
60. The term "selective incentives" is used in a similar sense by Kaufman, Little, andWohlforth, Balance of Power in World History.
61. See also Rosecrance and Lo's references to "side payments," "seductive blandishments," and "territorial plums." Rosecrance and Lo, "Balancing, Stability, and War," pp. 487, 491, 496.
62. British ambassador to France, quoted in Documents on British Foreign Policy [hereafter DBFP], 3d ser., Vol. 3 (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1953), p. 257.
63. The "pressure" wedge strategy that Dwight Eisenhower's administration used to try to fracture the Sino-Soviet alliance highlights this pattern. The strategy, in Lorenz M. Lüthi's words, coupled "confrontation toward the PRC and moderation toward the USSR.".
64. See John Lewis Gaddis, "The American 'Wedge' Strategy, 1949-1955," in Harry Harding and Yuan Ming, eds., Sino American Relations, 1945-1955: A Joint Reassessment of a Critical Decade (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1989), pp. 167-172.
65. Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 247.
66. Frederick H. Hartmann, The Conservation of Enemies: A Study in Enmity (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1982), p. 147.
67. See also Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, p. 75.
68. For related discussion, see Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," pp. 15-17.
69. See Kenneth Osgood, "The Perils of Coexistence: Peace and Propaganda in Eisenhower's Foreign Policy," in Klaus Larres and Osgood, eds., The Cold War after Stalin's Death: A Missed Opportunity for Peace? (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006), chap. 2.
70. On the 1955 Soviet peace offensive toward Japan, see Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," chap. 7.
71. This logic clearly translates into concepts of coercive diplomacy.
72. See Byman and Waxman, The Dynamics of Coercion, pp. 171-172.
73. The idea of a confrontational wedge strategy, however, should not be stretched to include the military imposition of a "separate peace" on a belligerent member of a hostile alliance. Thus, the Entente's policies to induce Italy to remain neutral in 1914, and then to attack Austria-Hungary in 1915, were wedge strategies. The Allies' forcing Italy to surrender and abandon Germany in 1943 was not.
74. German policy in the 1914 July Crisis reflected, at least partly, such calculations, with the challenge to Russia's protégé Serbia leading to a breakup of the Entente. According to Kurt Riezler's diary, Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg believed that Germany's hard line in the July Crisis offered "the prospect of splitting the entente... if the Tsar is unwilling [to defend Serbia] or France, alarmed, counsels peace.".
75. Quoted in Konrad H. Jarausch, "The Illusion of Limited War: Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg's Calculated Risk, July 1914," Central European History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (March 1969), p. 58.
76. See also Fritz Fischer, Germany's Aims in the First World War (New York: W.W. Norton, 1961), p. 60.
77. Thus, as some analysts said of the Sino-Soviet alliance, powers bound by a dogmatic revolutionary ideology are vulnerable to coercive pressures that raise the stakes of their internecine fights over the movement's leadership and doctrinal orthodoxy.
78. Walt, The Origins of Alliances, pp. 35-37.
79. Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," pp. 14-17.
80. This does not mean that confrontation will be likely. If the goal is to divide, selective accommodation is still a preferable approach, even when the situation gives more leeway for a coercive approach. When the danger and likelihood of adversaries combining their capabilities are perceived to be very low, the state should prefer to do nothing, unless the adversaries are so powerful that it must conciliate one to balance against the other.
81. On this latter contingency, see Daniel Treisman, "Rational Appeasement," International Organization, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Spring 2004), pp. 345-373.
82. This thinking runs counter to the "conflict expectations" model, which would posit that dividers will prefer to use coercion against adversaries they think are likely to unite and remain hostile, and save inducements for parties with whom they are and expect to remain friendly.
83. See Daniel W. Drezner, "The Trouble with Carrots: Transaction Costs, Conflict Expectations, and Economic Inducements," Security Studies, Vol. 9, Nos. 1-2 (Autumn 1999), pp. 188-218.
84. Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," is the first to raise and address this issue systematically, but see also Snyder, Alliance Politics; and Rosecrance and Lo, "Balancing, Stability, andWar." Astate may also opt for confrontation because it does not want to divide its adversaries.
85. For example, it may not want to allow a potential adversary the shelter of neutrality, if it represented an advantage for the state's enemies.
86. Walt, The Origins of Alliances, pp. 29-30.
87. Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 177.
88. David A. Baldwin, Paradoxes of Power (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 56, 69-71.
89. The proposition that dividers are more likely to try a confrontational approach against adversaries they perceive as fractious may subsume a variety of narrower, case-specific explanations.
90. See, for example, Robert Jervis, "Deterrence and Perception," International Security, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Winter 1982/83), p. 23.
91. Izumikawa, "United We Stand, Divided They Fall," p. 46.
92. See David A. Baldwin, "Success and Failure in Foreign Policy," Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 3 (June 2000), pp. 174-175.
93. This discussion does not imply that the outcomes of wedge strategies must reflect strategic intentions. Sometimes, a modest political separation will result from an attempt to achieve a much greater degree of division.
94. A fifth "preclusive" aim seeks to remove an uncommitted power from a pool of potential adversaries by making it an ally. Although it has a divisive aspect, this aim is so close to the straightforward logic of alliance making that I do not address it here. The paradigmatic example of a preclusive alliance is Germany's 1879 pact with Austria-Hungary, which Otto von Bismarck sought "primarily to prevent Austria from allying with France and Russia or France and Eng land.".
95. Quoted in Snyder, Alliance Politics, p. 14; see also p. 44.
96. In addition, see Frank Zagare, The Games of July: Explaining the GreatWar (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), pp. 87-88.
97. On the concept of alliance reputation, see Gregory D. Miller, "Hypotheses on Reputation: Alliance Choices and the Shadow of the Past," Security Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Spring 2003), pp. 40-78.
98. Douglas M. Gibler, "The Costs of Reneging: Reputation and Alliance Formation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 52, No. 3 (June 2008), pp. 426-454.
99. Frank W. Iklé, "Japanese-German Peace Negotiations during World War I," American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 1 (October 1965), pp. 62-76.
100. On this point, see Snyder, Alliance Politics, pp. 44, 353-357.
101. James D. Morrow, "Alliances: Why Write Them Down?" Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 3 (June 2000), p. 65.
102. As Fred Charles Iklé observed, the willingness to negotiate on equitable terms with one party but not others in an opposing group can "stir up fears" among those "left out" that "a deal might be made at their expense.".
103. Iklé, How Nations Negotiate (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 57.
104. There are other important implications. First, timing can matter. An inducement sufficient to maintain a target's neutrality may not be able to neutralize the target if it decides to join an opposing alliance, because the costs of its alignment change have increased. Second, a divider lacking the means to induce a dramatic change may nevertheless be able to induce division at lower levels. Third, even if a divider has the resources to pursue larger alignment changes, its strategic calculus may favor lesser relational aims: for example, the divider may be better off neutralizing an adversary than converting it to an ally.
105. Thus, compensation in this context represents a reversal of the more intuitive use of economic incentives as a tool to bolster one's alliances and position within them.
106. See Christina L. Davis, "Linkage Diplomacy: Economic and Security Bargaining in the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 1902-23," International Security, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Winter 2008/09), pp. 143-179.
107. On concessions and compensation, see James W. Davis Jr., Threats and Promises: The Pursuit of International Influence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), pp. 14-16.
108. On this distinction, see Randall E. Newnham, "More Flies with Honey: Positive Economic Linkage in German Ostpolitik from Bismarck to Kohl," International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 1 (March 2000), pp. 81-82.
109. Drezner, "The Trouble with Carrots," p. 189.
110. By "primary," I do not mean that the interests or assets are "vital" in the sense that the nation could not survive without them. Rather, they are highly valued and under the exclusive ("private") control of the state. An example of specific linkage appeasement is Israel's withdrawal from territory in the Sinai in exchange for a separate peace treaty with Egypt, which dealigned Egypt from the Arab rejectionist bloc.
111. On the distinction between "private" and "shared" rewards, see Davis, Threats and Promises, pp. 20-21.
112. On the general concept of appeasement, see Ripsman and Levy, "Wishful Thinking or Buying Time?".
113. Andrew Barros, Talbot C. Imlay, and Evan Resnick, "Correspondence: Debating British Decisionmaking toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s," International Security, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Summer 2009), pp. 173-198.
114. Stephen R. Rock, Appeasement in International Politics (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000).
115. First, because appeasement offers the target high-value rewards, it will be more likely to tip the target's cost-benefit calculus in favor of alignment change. Second, because it entails high-cost concessions, appeasement will be more likely to dispel perceptions of the divider as a threat that the target shares with other adversaries. Third, a prudently timed territorial transfer can reshuffle the target's strategic interests, putting the target into a position less compatible with the objectives of its erstwhile allies.
116. Secrecy is also likely to be an important component of the attempt, because the divider will not want its potential willingness to concede a primary interest to be more widely perceived as general weakness (and also because the target may not wish to rupture existing relationships prematurely). These wider reputational concerns prevent the frequent use of bad-faith appeasement bids as a disalignment stratagem.
117. See Quincy Wright, A Study of War, abridged (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 132-133.
118. For details of this episode, see Leo Valiani, "Italian-Austro-Hungarian Negotiations, 1914-1915," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 1, No. 3 (July 1966), pp. 113-136.
119. France's attempts in late May 1940 to perpetuate Italy's nonbelligerence through appeasement were similarly doomed.
120. William I. Shorrock, From Ally to Enemy: The Enigma of Fascist Italy in French Diplomacy, 1920-1940 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1988), pp. 283-284.
121. Rock, Appeasement in International Politics, p. 13.
122. In granting Pakistan's territorial claims, China also endorsed Pakistani claims against India.
123. See Timothy W. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 146.
124. M. Taylor Fravel, Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes (Princeton, N.J.: University Press, 2008), pp. 116-117.
125. D.G. Wright, Napoleon and Europe (London: Longman, 1984), p. 47.
126. R.B. Mowat, The Diplo macy of Napoleon (New York: Russell and Russell, 1971), p. 147.
127. The Hanover transfer had the added advantage of straining relations between Britain and Prussia.
128. On this point, see Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, pp. 77-78.
129. Crawford, "Wedge Strategy, Balancing, and the Deviant Case of Spain, 1940-41.".
130. Frank G. Weber, The Evasive Neutral: Germany, Britain, and the Quest for a Turkish Alliance in the Second World War (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1979), chaps. 2-3.
131. On these economic inducements, see Randall Newnham, Deutsche Mark Diplomacy: Positive Economic Sanctions in German-Russian Relations (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), pp. 98-101.
132. On territorial compensations, see Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 33-34.
133. See Colin Elman, "Extending Offensive Realism: The Louisiana Purchase and America's Rise to Regional Hegemony," American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (November 2004), pp. 567, 572, 574.
134. Gregory Mitrovich, Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 38.
135. William A. Renzi, In the Shadow of the Sword: Italy's Neutrality and Entrance into the Great War, 1914-1915 (New York: Peter Lang, 1987), pp. 9-10.
136. Walter B. Harvey, Tariffs and International Relations in Europe, 1860-1914 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), p. 213.
137. David French, British Strategy andWar Aims, 1914-1916 (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1986), p. 86.
138. Although the United States and the Carranza regime in Mexico were not allies in 1917, they did have friendly relations.
139. See Barbara W. Tuchman, The Zimmermann Telegram (New York: Ballentine, 1994).
140. Robert S. Ross, Indochina Tangle: China's Vietnam Policy, 1975-1979 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), especially p. 130.
141. See Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence, pp. 118-121.
142. See Glenn T. Seaborg, Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).
143. Gordon Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972 (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 249.
144. What Patricia Weitsman identifies as "tethering alliances"-alliances designed to manage conflict between two parties and contain the threats they pose to each other-are thus easy targets for endorsement wedge strategies.
145. See Weitsman, "Intimate Enemies: The Politics of Peacetime Alliances," Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Autumn 1997), pp. 156-193.
146. Thus, Lorenz Lüthi argues that the LTBT had a small effect on the breakdown of Sino-Soviet relations, because "in the end, Mao's renewed radicalism had prepared the ground for the Sino-Soviet rift; the [LTBT] treaty simply helped it to burst into the open.".
147. Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split, pp. 271-272.
148. For Angell, the godfather of early twentieth-century liberal internationalism, the statement reflected a late appreciation of realist prudence. Angell, quoted in Michael Howard, War and the Liberal Conscience (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), at p. 116; see also p. 94.
149. The bias is entrenched in equating external balancing with the making of alliances.
150. The literature on foreign policy substitutability also suffers from the additive bias noted above, which usually reduces the menu of responses to threat to a choice between more arms or more al lies.
151. See, for example, Benjamin Most and Harvey Starr, "Substituting Arms and Alliances, 1870-1914: An Exploration in Comparative Foreign Policy," in Charles F. Hermann, Charles W. Kegley Jr., and James N. Rosenau, eds., New Directions in the Study of Foreign Policy (Boston: Unwin and Hyman, 1987), p. 134.
152. Benjamin A. Most and Harvey Starr, "International Relations Theory, Foreign Policy Substitutability, and 'Nice' Laws," World Politics, Vol. 36, No. 3 (April 1984), p. 387.
153. James D. Morrow, "Arms versus Allies: Trade-Offs in the Search for Security," International Organization, Vol. 47, No. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 208.
154. See, however, Glenn Palmer and T. Clifton Morgan, A Theory of Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006), chap. 7.
155. On this point, see Jack S. Levy, "Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Designs," in Vasquez and Elman, Realism and the Balancing of Power, p. 138.
156. On the need to think about timing and degree in balancing assessments.
157. On this point, see also Barry R. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine: France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 170.
158. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, p. 75.
159. For a view of Britain as a sluggish external balancer, see Robert G. Kaufman, "To Balance or to Bandwagon?' Alignment Decisions in 1930s Europe," Security Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring 1992), pp. 417-447.
160. Christopher Seton-Watson, "The Anglo-Italian Gentleman's Agreement of January 1937 and Its Aftermath," inWolfgang J. Mommsen and Lothar Kettenacker, eds., The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), p. 268.
161. DBFP, 2d ser., Vol. 17, p. 462.
162. Similarly, in December 1936 Vansittart argued that British policy should try to "detach Italy from any extreme complicity with Germany," and "by moreover detaching her from Germany render her more improbable everywhere.".
163. Quoted in Aaron L. Goldman, "Sir Robert Vansittart's Search for Italian Cooperation against Hitler, 1933-36," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 3 (July 1974), pp. 129-130.
164. Seton-Watson, "The Anglo-Italian Gentleman's Agreement of January 1937 and Its Aftermath," p. 275 (emphasis in original).
165. Reynolds M. Salerno, Vital Crossroads: Mediterranean Origins of the Second World War, 1935-1940 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), pp. 49-51, 59-62.
166. See Donald Cameron Watt, "Britain, France, and the Italian Problem," in Les Relations Franco-Britanniques: DE 1935 A 1939 [French-British relations: 1935 to 1939] (Paris: Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975), pp. 282-283.
167. Mario Toscano, The Origins of the Pact of Steel (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967), p. 13.
168. Watt, "Britain, France, and the Italian Problem," pp. 293-294.
169. Dennis Mack Smith, "Appeasement as a Factor in Mussolini's Foreign Policy," in Mommsen and Kettenacker, The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, p. 265.
170. Italy's lack of readiness for war and Berlin's duplicity and failure to consult Rome in the lead-up to war in September 1939 were others reasons for Italy's defection.
171. Robert A. Pape, "Soft Balancing against the United States," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), p. 10.
172. Pape alludes to the role of wedge strategies when he argues that as soft balancing against the United States intensifies, it will "reduce the number of countries likely to cooperate with future U.S. military adventures.".
173. But his accounting of soft-balancing mechanisms, which "include territorial denial, entangling diplomacy, economic strengthening, and signaling of resolve to participate in a [hard] balancing coalition," omits wedge strategies.
174. Similarly, T.V. Paul argues that soft balancing "involves the formation of limited diplomatic coalitions or ententes... with the implicit threat of upgrading their alliances if the United States goes beyond its stated goals.".
175. T.V. Paul, "Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), at p. 47.
176. Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth define external balancing as states "aggregating their capabilities with other states.".
177. Brooks and Wohlforth, "Hard Times for Soft Balancing," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 76-77.
178. Likewise, Keir A. Lieber and Gerard Alexander claim that soft balancing against the United States has not occurred because states have not "sought to pool their efforts or resources for counterbalancing.".
179. Lieber and Alexander, "Waiting for Balancing: Why the World Is Not Pushing Back," International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), p. 109.
180. See Daniel Freifeld, "The Great Pipeline Opera," Foreign Policy, No. 174 (September/October 2009), pp. 120-127.
181. Robert Marquand, "Russia Tries to Exploit Divisions in Europe," Christian Science Monitor, September 3, 2008.
182. For in-depth analyses of Russia's recent efforts, and hindrances to them, see Alexander Cooley, "Behind the Central Asian Curtain: The Limits of Russia's Resurgence," Current History, October 2009, pp. 323-332.
183. Bobo Lo, Axis of Convenience: Moscow, Beijing, and the New Geopolitics (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), chap. 6.
184. See Jack S. Levy, "What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When?" in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 36-37.
185. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 37.
186. For recent works on this theme, see Goddard, "When Right Makes Might".
187. Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe.
188. Richard Rosecrance, "Is There a Balance of Power?" in Vasquez and Elman, Realism and the Balancing of Power, p. 159.
189. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 164-170, 196-198.
190. Posen, The Sources of Military Doctrine, pp. 63-64.
191. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, chap. 8.
192. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, pp. 73-74.
193. In his seminal discussion of the buck-passing problem, Waltz cites Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), at pages 36 and 45, and states that "whether or not [buck-passing occurs] depends on the size of the group and the inequalities within it, as well as on the character of the members." Note, here, that Waltz does not include the strategy of outsiders.
194. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, pp. 164-170, 196-198, quote at p. 165.
195. Glenn Hiram Stephens, "Sell Out, No Sell Out: The Politics of Artificial Social Traps," Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1992, pp. 12-13.
196. See also Posner, Spier, and Vermeule, "Divide and Conquer," pp. 11-13.
197. Thus, Mearsheimer's account of the failure of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union to form a balancing alliance against Germany in 1939 describes their efforts to shift the costs of confronting Germany onto others, but it says little about Hitler's efforts to reach accommodation with Moscow in the summer of 1939, when the three powers were deeply engaged in alliance negotiations.
198. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 305-315.
199. See also Stephen M. Walt, "Alliances, Threats, and U.S. Grand Strategy: A Reply to Kaufman and Labs," Security Studies, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Spring 1992), p. 458.
200. An important kind of neoclassical realist explanation of balancing failure-most forcefully expressed in Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Princeton, N.J.: University Press, 2006)-may be vulnerable to this line of criticism.
201. That approach emphasizes domestic political discord over the need to balance, or whom to balance against, which causes imperiled states not to build effective alliances.
202. This line of argument marginalizes offensive wedge drivers by obscuring their ability to act strategically to promote such conflicting views within the polities of their potential adversaries.
203. For recent works in the neoclassical realist school, see Steven E. Lobell, Norrin M. Ripsman, and Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, eds., Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
204. For a neoclassical work that looks at how a state can try to influence its adversaries' domestic political debates over grand strategy, see Steven E. Lobell, "The Second Face of Security: Britain's 'Smart' Appeasement Policy towards Japan and Germany," International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, Vol. 7, No. 1 (January 2007), pp. 73-98.
205. Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, The Balance of Power in World History.
206. Hui writes, "The inherently weak balance of power mechanism can be further weakened by the divide-and-conquer strategy." Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe, p. 27.
207. She continues, "The logic of domination is naturally advantaged over the logic of balancing. Because the balance-of-power mechanism involves the daunting collective action problem, it is quite questionable whether targets of domination can pursue effective balancing.".
208. See also Victoria Tin-bor Hui, "The Triumph of Domination in the Ancient Chinese System," in Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, The Balance of Power in World History, pp. 122-148.
209. Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little, and William C. Wohlforth, "Introduction: Balance and Hierarchy in International Systems," and "Conclusion: Theoretical Insights from the Study of World Politics," both in Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, The Balance of Power in World History, pp. 14, 19, 129.
210. According to Rosecrance and Lo, "'free riding' should be the characteristic practice, not the exception to the rule." They continue, "The game is Prisoner's Dilemma, which is the typical collective goods game [where] the rational result is for the balancers to disagree. This loads the dice in favor of the threatening aggressor.".
211. Rosecrance and Lo, "Balancing, Stability, and War," pp. 480-481 nn. 2, 3.
212. Christensen and Snyder suggest that "Hitler's strategy in the late 1930s" of "lightning campaigns against diplomatically isolated victims" is explained by "the buck-passing [diplomacy] of his opponents," which "meant that the easier, piecemeal route was available, so Hitler took it.".
213. Christensen and Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks," pp. 156-157.
214. For recent examples, see Louise Grace Shaw, The British Political Elite and the Soviet Union, 1937-1939 (New York: Routledge, 2003).
215. Michael Jabara Carley, 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II (Chicago: Ivan Dee, 1999).
216. G. Bruce Strang, "The Spirit of Ulysses? Ideology and British Appeasement in the 1930s," Diplomacy and Statecraft, Vol. 19, No. 3 (September 2008), pp. 513-514.
217. In the terminology of Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, the Soviet Union was induced by Germany to "boondoggle" instead of balance (or in Schweller's terms, "bandwagon for profit"). The point is that the Soviet grab for gains was brought about by a bargain initiated and elaborated by Germany, for the express purpose of detaching the Soviet Union from an alliance with Britain and France.
218. On boondoggles, see Kaufman, Little, and Wohlforth, Balance of Power in World History, pp. 14, 238-240.
219. On bandwagoning for profit, see Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, pp. 76-78, 191.
220. Keith Neilson, Britain, Soviet Russia, and the Collapse of the Versailles Order, 1919-1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 292-295.
221. Robert Manne, "The British Decision for Alliance with Russia, May 1939," Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 3 (July 1974), pp. 22-23.
222. Silvio Pons, Stalin and the Inevitable War, 1936-1941 (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 158.
223. Albert Resis, "The Fall of Litvinov: Harbinger of the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact," Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 52, No. 1 (January 2000), pp. 46-51.
224. As Jonathan Haslam puts it, given the record of "the Hitler regime's overt hostility... Stalin had no alternative" to the collective security option of western alliance, "until Hitler reversed his line against Moscow.".
225. Haslam, "Soviet-German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out," Journal of Modern History, Vol. 69, No. 4 (December 1997), p. 787.
226. Robert Manne writes: "Even if Stalin had throughout 1939 preferred a Nazi-Soviet pact to alliance with the west it would not have been possible to cease taking the negotiations with the west seriously until assured that Hitler wanted a pact with Russia.... German documents suggest that no such assurance could have been gained before August 1939 and perhaps even before mid-August.".
227. Manne, "Some British Light on the Nazi-Soviet Pact," European History Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 1 (January 1981), p. 97.
228. Geoffrey Roberts writes, "The story of Soviet-German relations between May and August 1939 is one of persistent wooing by Berlin.".
229. Roberts, The Soviet Union and the Origins of the Second World War (New York: St. Martin's, 1995), pp. 72-73.
230. See also Roberts, Stalin's Wars, p. 32.
231. D.C. Watt comments, "What made the [Nazi-Soviet pact] so unique was that its conclusion was from the Soviet viewpoint not a Soviet concession of Danegeld to Germany but a German offer to the Soviet Union, concluded at German initiative.".
232. Watt, "The Initiation of the Negotiations Leading to the Nazi-Soviet Pact," in Chimen Abramsky, assisted by Beryl Williams, eds., Essays in Honour of E.H. Carr (London: Macmillan, 1974), p. 158.
233. Jonathan Haslam sees Germany during this period pursuing the Soviet Union "with an eagerness bordering on desperation." Haslam, The Soviet Union and the Struggle for Collective Security in Europe, 1933-39 (New York: St. Martin's, 1984), pp. 225-226.
234. Ingeborg Fleischauser writes, "Up to... 15 August 1939, it cannot be said that the Soviet negotiators made a real attempt to agree to the German offers. The talks had been characterized by a onesidedness which frustrated the Germans.".
235. Fleischauser, "Soviet Foreign Policy and the Origins of the Hitler-Stalin Pact," in Bernd Wegner, ed., From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia, and the World, 1939-1941 (New York: Berghann, 1997), p. 36.
236. Gerald L. Weinberg remarks, "In his eagerness for a war on Poland, Hitler had been willing to make the most extensive concessions to the Soviet Union; more even than Stalin thought to ask for.".
237. Weinberg, The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany, Vol. 2: Starting World War II, 1937-1939 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), p. 629.
238. Manne, "Some British Light on the Nazi-Soviet Pact," p. 97.
239. For the argument that Stalin bandwagoned with Hitler because he doubted Anglo-French capabilities and resolve to confront Germany, see Mark R. Brawley, "Neoclassical Realism and Strategic Calculations: Explaining Divergent British, French, and Soviet Strategies toward Germany between the World Wars (1919-1939)," in Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro, Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy, p. 94.
240. For the claim that Stalin engaged in buck-passing because he overestimated the ability of Britain and France to resist German power, see Christensen and Snyder, "Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks," p. 159.
241. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, p. 166.
242. Thomas J. Christensen, "Perceptions and Alliances in Europe, 1865-1940," International Organization, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Winter 1997), p. 91.
243. Walt, "Alliances, Threats, and U.S. Grand Strategy," p. 458.
244. For the argument that expansionists will be better able to divide a balancing coalition that includes revisionist elements, because those elements can be bought off with prospective gains from aggression, see Schweller, Deadly Imbalances, p. 139.
245. Michael Glosny, "Access to U.S. Bases in Japan and the Defense of Taiwan: The Susceptibility of the U.S.-Japan Alliance to ChineseWedge Strategies," paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, August 29-September 2, 2007.
246. Thomas J. Christensen, "Posing Problems without Catching Up: China's Rise and Challenges for U.S. Security Policy," International Security, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Spring 2001), p. 11.
247. On these disputes, see Edward Wong, "Uneasy Engagement: China and India Dispute Enclave on Edge of Tibet," New York Times, September 3, 2009.
248. For this view, see Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), chap. 8.
249. John J. Mearsheimer, "Imperial by Design," National Interest, No. 111 (January/February 2011), pp. 18, 33.
250. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 181-182.
251. For Christopher Layne's response to this point, see Layne, "America's Middle East Grand Strategy after Iraq: The Moment for Offshore Balancing Has Arrived," Review of International Studies, Vol. 35, No. 1 (January 2009), p. 10.
252. Levy, "Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Designs," p. 138.
253. Colin Elman, "Introduction: Appraising Balance of Power Theory," in Vasquez and Elman, Realism and the Balancing of Power, pp. 11-12.
254. See Timothy W. Crawford, "The Endurance of Extended Deterrence: Continuity, Change, and Complexity in Theory and Policy," in T.V. Paul, Patrick M. Morgan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Complex Deterrence: Strategy in the Global Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), pp. 291-294.
255. Snyder, Alliance Politics, p. 44.