Alliances can persist and expand purposes after their founding enemy disappears

Evidence

Members have also worked to expand NATO’s functions and purposes— something that neorealist theory would not expect of an alliance in the face of a declining threat. The creation of the NACC and the PfP are further signs that NATO members value its functions and want to extend its lifespan. As of early 1996, the pessimistic neorealist expectation about NATO has not been realized—in fact, NATO has been quite busy with an active new Secretary- General and a lively debate about where it should move in the future. NATO thus far has survived the end of the cold war with its general mission of providing security for its members intact. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 60

Categorization

• XREF: Directly parallels the reader’s stated puzzle about NATO persisting past the Soviet Union — this is the book’s core counterexample to neorealist alliance theory. — connects to: Explaining alliance persistence requires nonrealist unit-level theory. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 16; Alliance theory has neglected why alliances persist and what happens when they become obsolete — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 31; 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 (+12 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The formulation that members actively ‘extend the lifespan’ of an institution beyond rational threat-based calculation is a dense claim about how institutionalized identity outlives its material justifications.

Broader Connections

• Alliances with developed organizations survive threats long after they vanish #expands (0.93) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 153
• Alliances may persist through habit and precaution after threats recede #corroborates (0.92) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 61
• Alliance theory predicts collapse once threats vanish. #contradicts (0.90) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 14
• Cross-civilizational alliances persist from inertia and balance-of-power need #corroborates (0.88)
• Domestic political costs constrain alliance participation once the founding threat recedes #qualifies (0.80) — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 143
• A shared enemy cannot hold alliance partners whose ambitions conflict #complicates (0.78) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 881
• Cooperation sustained by despotism dissolves when the despotism ends #complicates (0.72) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 1655