Alliance cohesion theories predict NATO should have dissolved after the Soviet threat vanished
Evidence
These cautious public statements, however, did not match NATO’s internal threat assessments, which as early as 1988 had begun to question the ability of the Soviet Union to move its troops quickly through Eastern Europe and make effective use of still-numerous Warsaw Pact troops. … Both balance-of-threat and balance-ofpower theories on alliances predict the loss of cohesion in an alliance as, first, the threat posed by and, then, the capability of its adversaries diminish. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 40
Categorization
- XREF: The reader is investigating why NATO persisted when its founding enemy died; this passage supplies the baseline theoretical expectation (cohesion should fall) that persistence would contradict. — connects to: Analysts expected NATO to die once its Soviet enemy vanished. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 12; NATO has expanded rather than dissolved after the Soviet threat ended. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 15; NATO reoriented itself after the Cold War and stayed valuable without a compelling threat — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 29 (+10 more)
Broader Connections
- Alliance theory predicts collapse once threats vanish.
#expands(0.95) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 14 - NATO stayed cohesive despite neorealist predictions of its collapse
#corroborates(0.93) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 57 - NATO’s institutionalization beyond mutual defense explains its persistence after its founding threat vanished.
#responds-to(0.90) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 107 - Alliance cohesion rises and falls with the external threat it balances
#corroborates(0.88) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 36 - NATO officials reconceived the Soviet threat to justify continuing the alliance after its collapse
#corroborates(0.82) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 86 - The removal of the Soviet threat dissolved the Greece-Turkey NATO alliance.
#exemplifies(0.78) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 336