The US-China anti-Soviet alliance dissolved as Soviet threat perception eased
Evidence
No evidence has been presented that challenges the core neorealist understanding of ad hoc alliances that lose their threats. In such circumstances, the basic neorealist expectation about alliance erosion remains intact. The de facto U.S. alliance with the People’s Republic of China against the Soviets that emerged in the late 1970s evaporated as Chinese perceptions of the threat posed by the Soviets eased in the early 1980s. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 157
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Neorealist theories predict alliances collapse once their external threat fades. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 37
Related
- Neorealist theories predict alliances collapse once their external threat fades. (similarity 0.88)
- Threat-based alliance logic holds only for non-institutionalized arrangements. (similarity 0.88)
- Alliance theory predicts collapse once threats vanish. (similarity 0.83)
- Alliance cohesion theories predict NATO should have dissolved after the Soviet threat vanished (similarity 0.83)
- Alliance cohesion rises and falls with the external threat it balances (similarity 0.82)
- Costly alliances should dissolve when the threat justifying their costs disappears. (similarity 0.81)
- Alliance theory has neglected why alliances persist and what happens when they become obsolete (similarity 0.80)
- NATO officials reconceived the Soviet threat to justify continuing the alliance after its collapse (similarity 0.79)
- Explaining alliance persistence requires nonrealist unit-level theory. (similarity 0.79)
- Theoretical frameworks beyond realism are needed to explain NATO’s survival. (similarity 0.79)
- Alliance scholarship has neglected how alliances adapt to shifting strategic conditions. (similarity 0.79)
- An alliance persists when its founding enemy vanishes. (similarity 0.79)
- NATO stayed cohesive despite neorealist predictions of its collapse (similarity 0.79)
- Realism explains alliance behavior under threat but fails without one. (similarity 0.78)