Alliance cohesion rises and falls with the external threat it balances

Evidence

An alliance’s cohesion can be nearly as important as its existence because alliances are costly in terms of lost freedom of action (agreeing to let external events commit states to action and some degree of policy alignment) and actual resources (troops and material) committed to alliance needs. Without a sense that alliance participation is valuable, members will be unlikely to subordinate individual interests to group interests, reducing alliance cohesion and longevity. Put simply, the greater the threat or power to be balanced, the greater the cohesion of the alliance. What, then, happens when threats go away, either through a shift in the balance of power or a change in the allies’ perception of threat? The neorealist answer is unambiguous: a clear diminution in the danger to an alliance should weaken or break up the alliance. It does so by weakening the forces holding the alliance together and therefore members’ resolve to make necessary sacrifices. As Holsti, Hopmann, and Sullivan concluded from their review of the literature, “Probably the most widely stated proposition about alliances is that cohesion depends upon external danger and declines as the threat is reduced.” In short, an alliance that sees its primary threat shrink or disappear will be less cohesive, leading to eventual irrelevance or breakup. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 36

Categorization

• XREF: Directly frames the reader’s stated purpose — the neorealist prediction NATO should have dissolved after the Soviet threat vanished is the foil the rest of the book presumably argues against. — connects to: Explaining alliance persistence requires nonrealist unit-level theory. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 16; All realists hold that external threats are necessary for alliances to form and persist — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 33; Groups internalize external threat as an oath to preserve cohesion after danger recedes — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 509 (+16 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Condenses the entire dominance-of-threat paradigm into one dense, quotable formulation that any subsequent argument about alliance persistence has to answer.

Broader Connections

• Alliances may persist through habit and precaution after threats recede #complicates (0.85) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 61
• Alliances with developed organizations survive threats long after they vanish #complicates (0.85) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 153
• Alliances can persist and expand purposes after their founding enemy disappears #complicates (0.85) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 60
• An alliance persists when its founding enemy vanishes. #complicates (0.85) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 57
• Groups internalize external threat as an oath to preserve cohesion after danger recedes #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 509
• Alliance theory predicts collapse once threats vanish. #corroborates (0.80) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 14
• Realism explains alliance behavior under threat but fails without one. #corroborates (0.80) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 157
• A common external threat does not reliably unite polarized publics #contradicts (0.80) — Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry, The Flag and the Cross, 125
• Cross-civilizational alliances persist from inertia and balance-of-power need #complicates (0.78)
• External threat and technical progress weld capitalist society into unprecedented cohesion #corroborates (0.78) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 160
• Alliance theory has neglected why alliances persist and what happens when they become obsolete #responds-to (0.75) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 31
• A shared enemy cannot hold alliance partners whose ambitions conflict #qualifies (0.75) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 881
• Common external threats can reduce prejudice among ordinary outgroups #corroborates (0.75) — Walter G. Stephan, Oscar Ybarra, Kimberly Rios Morrison, Intergroup Threat Theory, 24
• Group cohesion grows from networked personal bonds, not mere shared categories #qualifies (0.72) — Scott Atran, The Devoted Actor, 52