The Myth of Entangling Alliances

The Myth of
Entangling Alliances
Reassessing the Security
Risks of U.S. Defense Pacts

Michael Beckley

For the ªrst 165 années
of its history, the United States did not form any alliances besides the one it
signed with France during the Revolutionary War. Plutôt, U.S. leaders fol-
lowed George Washington’s advice to “steer clear of permanent alliance with
any portion of the foreign world,”1 a recommendation subsequently enshrined
in Thomas Jefferson’s inaugural pledge: “Peace, commerce, and honest friend-
ship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”2

Since World War II, cependant, U.S. leaders have dramatically reversed this
policy and signed defense pacts with more than sixty countries.3 As a result,
the United States is legally obligated to defend a patchwork of nations that
spans ªve continents, contains 25 percent of the world’s population, and ac-
counts for nearly 75 percent of global economic output. To what extent does
this massive commitment entangle the United States in wars it would other-
wise avoid?

This is a pivotal question for U.S. foreign policy. For sixty-ªve years, le
United States has maintained a global network of alliances, and President
Barack Obama reafªrmed U.S. commitments to defend allies during recent cri-
ses between North and South Korea,4 Iran and Israel,5 Russia and Ukraine,6
and China on the one hand and Japan and the Philippines on the other.7 A
growing number of prominent scholars, cependant, argue that such commit-

Michael Beckley is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tufts University.

For comments on earlier drafts,
the author thanks Brendan Rittenhouse Green, Jonathan
Markowitz, Daryl Press, Andrew Radin, Stefano Recchia, Sebastian Rosato, Jeffrey Taliaferro, Ste-
phen Walt, William Wohlforth, and the anonymous reviewers.

1. Quoted in David Fromkin, “Entangling Alliances,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 48, Non. 4 (Juillet 1970),
p. 688.
2. Quoted in ibid.
3. A defense pact is an alliance in which allies pledge to assist each other in the event that one is
attacked. For a formal deªnition, see Brett Ashley Leeds, “Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provi-
sions (ATOP) Codebook,” ver. 3.0, Juillet 12, 2005, p. 4, http://atop.rice.edu. In this article, I use the
terms “defense pact” and “alliance” interchangeably.
4. Matt Spetalnick and Mark Felsenthal, “Obama Reminds North Korea of U.S. ‘Military Might,’”
2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/26/us-korea-north-usa-
Reuters, Avril
idUSBREA3P02U20140426.
5. Edmund Sanders and Christi Parsons, “Obama Offers Assurances during Israel Visit,” Los An-
geles Times, Mars 20, 2013, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/20/world/la-fg-obama-israel-
20130321.
6. Colleen McCain Nelson, “Obama Pledges NATO Backing for Baltic Allies,” Wall Street
Journal, Septembre 3, 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-pledges-nato-backing-for-baltics-
1409754226.
7. Geoff Dyer, “Barack Obama Says Disputed Islands Covered by Japan Pact,” Financial Times,

26,

International Security, Vol. 39, Non. 4 (Spring 2015), pp. 7–48, est ce que je:10.1162/ISEC_a_00197
© 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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International Security 39:4 8

ments are dangerous and should be abandoned. In this view, U.S. alliances
are not valuable assets but rather “transmission belts for war”8 that “risk rop-
ing the United States into conºicts over strategically marginal territory”9 and
“ensnaring the United States in wars that it otherwise need not ªght against
nuclear-armed adversaries.”10 One study even compares the U.S. alliance net-
work to the tangled web of European security commitments that helped cata-
lyze World War I.11 According to these scholars, the United States should
reduce its entanglement risk by revising,12 scaling back13 or scrapping alto-
gether its alliance network14—measures that if implemented would constitute
the biggest shift in U.S. grand strategy in two generations.

Despite this deep policy interest in entanglement, cependant, there are few

Avril 23, 2014, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/cf6f8304-cb2e-11e3-ba9d-00144feabdc0.html
#axzz3OprgNaOP; and Mark Felsenthal and Matt Spetalnick, “Obama Says U.S. Commitment to
Defend Philippines ‘Ironclad,’” Reuters, Avril 29, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/
04/29/us-philippines-usa-obama-idUSBREA3S02T20140429.
8. This phrase is often attributed to Earl C. Ravenal, but appears in numerous works. Voir, for ex-
ample, Ravenal, “Can Non-Intervention Survive Afghanistan?” CATO Policy Analysis No. 3
(Washington, D.C.: CATO Institute, Juin 1, 1980), http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa00b.html;
Christopher Layne, The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006), p. 169; Eric A. Nordlinger, Isolationism Reconªgured: Américain
Foreign Policy for a New Century (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 16; and Ted
Galen Carpenter, A Search for Enemies: America’s Alliances after the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Cato
Institut, 1992), p. 77.
9. Barry R. Posen, “Pull Back: The Case for a Less Activist Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92,
Non. 1 (January/February 2013), p. 122.
10. Jennifer Lind, “Keep, Toss, or Fix? Assessing U.S. Alliances in East Asia,” paper presented at
the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, August 28–
Septembre 1, 2013, p. 20.
11. Ja Ian Chong and Todd H. Hall, “The Lessons of 1914 for East Asia Today: Missing the Trees
for the Forest,” International Security, Vol. 39, Non. 1 (Été 2014), pp. 19–26; Steven E. Miller,
“The Sarajevo Centenary—1914 and the Rise of China,” in Richard N. Rosecrance and Miller, éd.,
The Next Great War? The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.-China Conºict (Cambridge, Mass.:
AVEC Presse, 2014), chap. 1; and Richard N. Rosecrance, “Allies Overbalance, and War,” in
Rosecrance and Miller, The Next Great War? chap. 5.
12. Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 2014); Stephen M. Walt, Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy
(New York: W.W. Norton, 2005), chap. 5; and Joseph M. Parent and Paul K. MacDonald, “The Wis-
dom of Retrenchment: America Must Cut Back to Move Forward,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 90, Non. 6
(November/December 2011), pp. 32–47.
13. Paul V. Kane, “To Save Our Economy, Ditch Taiwan,” New York Times, Novembre 11, 2011; John
J.. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 2007); and Hussain Haqqani, “Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do: Why the U.S.-
Pakistani Alliance Isn’t Worth the Trouble,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 92, Non. 3 (March/April 2013),
pp. 64–76.
14. Eugene Gholz, Daryl G. Presse, and Harvey M. Sapolsky, “Come Home, America: The Strategy
of Restraint in the Face of Temptation,” International Security, Vol. 21, Non. 4 (Spring 1997), pp. 5–48;
Layne, The Peace of Illusions, chap. 8; Ted Galen Carpenter, Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign
Policy for America (Washington, D.C.: CATO Institute, 2008); and Benjamin H. Friedman, Brendan
Rittenhouse Green, and Justin Logan, “Correspondence: Debating American Engagement—The
Future of U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 38, Non. 2 (Fall 2013), pp. 183–192.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 9

rigorous studies on the subject. Most studies on alliances examine issues only
partially related to entanglement, such as the design of alliance agreements,15
the reliability of allies in wartime,16 the causes of alliance formation,17 et le
effect of alliances on the likelihood of international conºict.18 The few studies
that focus on entanglement engage primarily in theory building, plutôt que
theory testing, and analyze, at most, a handful of cases.19 As a result, scholars’
hunches about the security risks of the United States’ alliances remain largely
just that—hunches.

To address this shortcoming, this article tests two competing perspectives on
entanglement. The ªrst, which I call “entanglement theory,” holds that alli-
ances drag states into wars by placing their reputations at risk, socializing their
leaders into adopting allied interests and norms, and provoking adversaries
and emboldening allies.20 The other perspective, which I call “freedom of ac-
tion theory,” maintains that great powers can avoid entanglement by inserting
loopholes into alliance agreements, sidestepping costly commitments, main-

15. Brett Ashley Leeds et al., “Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions, 1815–1944,” Interna-
tional Interactions, Vol. 28, Non. 3 (Juillet 2002), pp. 237–260; and Michaela Mattes, “Reputation, Sym-
metry, and Alliance Design,” International Organization, Vol. 66, Non. 4 (Octobre 2012), pp. 153–172.
16. Brett Ashley Leeds, “Alliance Reliability in Times of War: Explaining State Decisions to Violate
Treaties,” International Organization, Vol. 57, Non. 4 (Autumn 2003), pp. 801–827.
17. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987); Douglas
M.. Gibler, “The Costs of Reneging: Reputation and Alliance Formation,” Journal of Conºict Resolu-
tion, Vol. 52, Non. 3 (Juin 2008), pp. 426–454; and Mark J.C. Crescenzi et al., “Reliability, Reputation,
and Alliance Formation,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 56, Non. 2 (Juin 2012), pp. 259–274.
18. David H. Bearce, Kristen M. Flanagan, and Katharine M. Floros, “Alliances, Internal Informa-
tion, and Military Conºict among Member-States,” International Organization, Vol. 60, Non. 3 (Juillet
2006), pp. 595–625; Brett V. Benson, Constructing International Security: Alliances, Deterrence, et
Moral Hazard (Cambridge: la presse de l'Universite de Cambridge, 2012); Jesse C. Johnson and Brett Ashley
Leeds, “Defense Pacts: A Prescription for Peace?” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 7, Non. 1 (Janvier
2011), pp. 45–65; Ronald R. Krebs, “Perverse Institutionalism: NATO and the Greco-Turkish
Conºict,” International Organization, Vol. 53, Non. 2 (Spring 1999), pp. 343–377; Jeremy Pressman,
Warring Friends: Alliance Restraint in International Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
2008); and Patricia A. Weitsman, Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War (Redwood
City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004).
19. Tongª Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle but Seldom Entrap States,” Security Studies, Vol. 20,
Non. 3 (Juillet 2011), pp. 350–377; Victor D. Cha, “Powerplay: Origins of the U.S. Alliance System in
Asia,” International Security, Vol. 34, Non. 3 (Hiver 2009/10), pp. 158–196; and Stephen M. Walt,
“Alliances in a Unipolar World,” World Politics, Vol. 61, Non. 1 (Janvier 2009), pp. 94–95.
20. Many studies make these arguments. Voir, Par exemple, Gholz, Presse, and Sapolsky, "Viens
Home, America,” pp. 5–48; Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 163–172; Robert J. McMahon,
“Credibility and World Power: Exploring the Psychological Dimension in Postwar American
Diplomacy,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 15, Non. 4 (Octobre 1991), pp. 455–472; Krebs, “Perverse
Institutionalism,” pp. 343–377; Robert O. Keohane, “The Big Inºuence of Small Allies,” Foreign Pol-
icy, Spring 1971, pp. 161–182; Nikolas K. Gvosdev and Travis Tanner, “Wagging the Dog,” National
Intérêt, Fall 2004, pp. 5-dix; Gibler, “The Costs of Reneging,” pp. 426–454; Friedman, Vert, et
Logan, “Debating American Engagement,” pp. 181–199; Harvey Sapolsky et al., “Restraining Or-
der: For Strategic Modesty,” World Affairs, Vol. 172, Non. 2 (Fall 2009), pp. 84–94; and Carpenter,
Smart Power.

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International Security 39:4 10

taining a diversiªed alliance portfolio that generates offsetting demands from
different allies, and using explicit alliance commitments to deter adversaries
and dissuade allies from initiating or escalating conºicts.21

I test these competing perspectives by analyzing the extent of U.S. dans-
tanglement in all postwar U.S. military conºicts. Speciªcally, I examine every
militarized interstate dispute (MID) in which the United States participated
depuis 1948, the year it signed its ªrst standing alliance, à 2010 and ask a
basic question: To what extent was U.S. involvement driven by formal alli-
ance commitments?

Admittedly, this is a limited ambition, as I evaluate only the frequency of
past cases of U.S. entanglement, not the current level of U.S. entanglement
risk. De plus, I do not account for other potential costs of maintaining alli-
ances, such as higher levels of military spending or poorer diplomatic relations
with non-allied countries. Nevertheless, entanglement is arguably the most
important cost of alliances, and providing a systematic account of past cases
is an important step in gauging the United States’ current level of entangle-
ment risk.

The results of this analysis strongly support freedom of action theory. Over a
sixty-two-year period in which the United States maintained more than sixty
alliances, I ªnd only ªve ostensible episodes of U.S. entanglement—the 1954
and 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crises, the Vietnam War, and the interventions in
Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Even these cases are far from clear-cut, être-
cause in each there were other important drivers of U.S. involvement; U.S.
policymakers carefully limited support for allies; allies restrained the United
States from escalating its involvement; the United States deterred adversaries
and allies from escalating the conºict; or all of the above.

To be sure, the United States has intervened on the side of allies on numer-
ous occasions. In most cases, cependant, U.S. actions were driven by an align-
ment of interests between the United States and its allies, not by alliance
obligations. En fait, in many cases, U.S. policymakers were the main advocates
of military action and cajoled reluctant allies to join the ªght.

En outre, there are many cases in which alliances restrained the United
États, or in which the United States restrained its allies or sidestepped costly

21. Voir, Par exemple, Stephen G. Brooks, G. John Ikenberry, and William C. Wohlforth, “Don’t
Come Home, America: The Case against Retrenchment,” International Security, Vol. 37, Non. 3 (Win-
ter 2012/13), pp. 7–51; Robert J. Art, A Grand Strategy for America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University
Presse, 2003), pp. 139, 143–144, 196; Michael Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath : How America Acts as
the World’s Government in the Twenty-ªrst Century (New York: PublicAffairs, 2005), chap. 2; Johnson
and Leeds, “Defense Pacts,” pp. 45–65; Walt, “Alliances in a Unipolar World,” pp. 94–95; Presse-
man, Warring Friends; Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle”; Cha, “Powerplay”; and Benson, Con-
structing International Security.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 11

commitments. I examine only cases of military conºict and therefore cannot
evaluate fully the prevalence of such cases of nonconºict. Even within my bi-
ased sample, cependant, there are at least four cases in which alliances pre-
vented U.S. escalation, and another seven cases in which the United States
reneged on security commitments, restrained an ally from attacking a third
party, or both

At worst, donc, alliances have had a mixed effect on U.S. involvement in
military conºicts—some alliances at some times have encouraged U.S. military
involvement; others have discouraged it; and some have simply been ignored
by U.S. policymakers. The only way to build a powerful case for entanglement
theory is to commit serious methodological errors. Par exemple, one could
spin correlation as causation by characterizing cases in which the United States
backed allies for self-interested reasons as cases of entanglement. One also
could select on the dependent variable by highlighting evidence of entangle-
ment while ignoring instances in which the United States shirked alliance
commitments or in which alliances restrained the United States or prevented
conºicts from breaking out in the ªrst place. Such practices are common in the
existing literature, but they are ºawed and feed an exaggerated fear of entan-
gling alliances in American society.

The ªnding that U.S. entanglement is rare has important implications for
international relations scholarship and U.S. foreign policy. For scholars, it
casts doubt on classic theories of imperial overstretch in which great pow-
ers exhaust their resources by accumulating allies that free ride on their
protection and embroil them in military quagmires.22 The U.S. experience
instead suggests that great powers can dictate the terms of their security
commitments and that allies often help their great power protectors avoid stra-
tegic overextension.

For policy, the rarity of U.S. entanglement suggests that the United States’
current grand strategy of deep engagement, which is centered on a network of
standing alliances, does not preclude, and may even facilitate, U.S. military re-
straint. Since 1945 the United States has been, by some measures, the most mil-
itarily active state in the world. The most egregious cases of U.S. overreach,
cependant, have stemmed not from entangling alliances, but from the penchant
of American leaders to deªne national interests expansively, to overestimate
the magnitude of foreign threats, and to underestimate the costs of military in-

22. Robert Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics (New York: la presse de l'Universite de Cambridge, 1981),
pp. 156–157, 169; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military
Conºict from 1500 à 2000 (New York: Vintage, 1989), chaps. 7–8; and Mancur Olson Jr. and Richard
Zeckhauser, “An Economic Theory of Alliances,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 48, Non. 3
(Août 1966), pp. 266–279.

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International Security 39:4 12

tervention. Scrapping alliances will not correct these bad habits. En fait, disen-
gaging from alliances may unleash the United States to intervene recklessly
abroad while leaving it without partners to share the burden when those inter-
ventions go awry.

A better route to a disciplined defense policy would be to bolster domestic
constraints on the president’s ability to send U.S. forces into battle while re-
taining allies, who can provide U.S. leaders with a second opinion on the
merits of potential interventions; political cover when U.S. leaders decide not
to intervene; and troops, supplies, intelligence, and money when the United
States does intervene. In short, military restraint is best pursued through al-
lied engagement, burden sharing, and domestic reform—not retrenchment.
Americans tend to blame their military misadventures on foreign allies, mais
the blame for these debacles, and the responsibility for avoiding future ªascos,
lies at home.

The rest of this article proceeds as follows. D'abord, I deªne entanglement.
Deuxième, I discuss entanglement theory by explaining how alliances drag states
into military conºicts. Troisième, I present freedom of action theory by discussing
how great powers can avoid entanglement. Fourth, I examine the empirical re-
cord, summarizing the ªndings from all of the MIDs in the sample (188 dans
total) and then discussing the 5 ostensible cases of entanglement individually.
Enfin, I discuss the implications of the results for U.S. foreign policy.

What Is Entanglement?

Entanglement occurs when a state is dragged into a military conºict by one, ou
plus, of its alliances. The essence of entanglement, alors, is that loyalty trumps
self-interest: a state is driven by moral, legal, or reputational concerns to up-
hold an alliance commitment without regard to, and often at the expense of, its
national interests.

Many studies call

this phenomenon “entrapment,” following Glenn
Synder’s pioneering work on alliance politics.23 Tongª Kim, cependant, persua-
sively argues that the term “entrapment” should be used only when an ally
instigates a conºict with a third party in order to drag its alliance partners into
the dispute.24 For example, some scholars warn that Taiwan could entrap the
United States in a war with China by declaring independence.25 The term “en-

23. Glenn H. Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997).
24. Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle,” p. 355.
25. Voir, Par exemple, Ted Galen Carpenter, America’s Coming War with China: A Collision Course over
Taiwan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 13

trapment” is thus a subset of a broader phenomenon that Kim calls “entangle-
ment,” which encapsulates a variety of situations in which a formal alliance
encourages a state to participate in or escalate a conºict in a manner not dic-
tated by its national interests.

There are four general types of entanglement. D'abord, there are cases of direct
defense in which a state is compelled by an alliance obligation to back an ally
in a ªght. This form of entanglement includes cases of entrapment as well as
cases in which a state defends an ally that is attacked despite refraining from
provocative behavior. Par exemple, if Taiwan made no moves toward inde-
pendence, but China attacked it anyway and the United States defended
Taiwan to uphold the Taiwan Relations Act, such a case would constitute en-
tanglement but not entrapment.

A second form of entanglement involves cases in which a state ªghts to
maintain its credibility as a security guarantor even when its allies are not in-
volved in the conºict. Dans de tels cas, a state ªghts not to defend its allies, but to
reassure them of its resolve to use force on behalf of others. Par exemple, quelques
scholars argue that the United States intervened in the Bosnian War in 1995 à
demonstrate its commitment to NATO.26

A third form of entanglement involves cases of co-optation in which the ex-
istence of an alliance causes a state to expand the scope of its interests. Pour
example, some scholars claim that the formation of the U.S.-Japan alliance
caused U.S. policymakers to develop an interest in securing Southeast Asian
resources and markets for Japan and ultimately spurred U.S. military involve-
ment in Vietnam.27

Enfin, there are cases in which an alliance makes a state a target of an-
other country. Par exemple, some scholars claim that America’s de facto
alliance with Israel places the United States in the cross-hairs of some Middle
Eastern countries and thereby increases the likelihood that U.S. forces will
be attacked.28

The common theme among these various forms of entanglement is that, dans
chaque, an alliance drags a state into a military conºict against its national inter-
ests. To spot instances of entanglement, donc, analysts ªrst must identify

26. Voir, Par exemple, Christopher Layne, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America’s
Future Grand Strategy,” International Security, Vol. 22, Non. 1 (Été 1997), pp. 99–102.
27. Voir, Par exemple, Layne, The Peace of Illusions, p. 129. See also Michael Schaller, “Securing the
Great Crescent: Occupied Japan and the Origins of Containment in Southeast Asia,” Journal of
American History, Vol. 69, Non. 2 (Septembre 1982), pp. 392–414; Andrew J. Rotter, The Path to Viet-
nam: Origins of the American Commitment to Southeast Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,
1987), chap. 6; and Lloyd C. Gardner, Approaching Vietnam: From World War II through Dienbienphu,
1941–1954 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988).
28. Voir, Par exemple, Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

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International Security 39:4 14

a state’s national interests and then distinguish actions intended to serve
those interests from those intended to uphold an alliance. Autrement dit, être-
cause entanglement is deªned as a form of suboptimal behavior, identify-
ing cases of entanglement requires a clear standard of optimal behavior, lequel
the entanglement literature generally deªnes as the strict pursuit of predeªned
national interests.

The concept of entanglement also relies on a distinction between alignments
and alliances. An alignment is a conºuence of interests among states. An alli-
ance, on the other hand, is a formal agreement among states to cooperate mili-
tarily. Whereas alignments emerge and dissolve as states’ interests change,
alliances often outlive the conditions that initially spawned them and persist
in the face of clashing interests. Par exemple, the United States and Pakistan
remain bound together by an alliance even though their interests are decidedly
unaligned on numerous issues.29 By contrast, Saudi Arabia and the United
States are not formal allies, but they share an alignment based primarily on the
exchange of weapons for oil. This distinction between alliances and align-
ments is central to the concept of entanglement, because entanglement occurs
only when a state ªghts to uphold a formal alliance commitment and not to
capitalize on an alignment of interests.

Entanglement is thus distinct from chain-ganging, which occurs when a
state backs an ally because the defeat or defection of that ally would threaten
its own vital interests.30 In cases of chain-ganging, states support allies out of
self-interest, and formal alliance obligations are causally insigniªcant. In cases
of entanglement, by contrast, alliances are of overriding signiªcance; they drag
states into conºicts against their interests.

Entanglement Theory: How Alliances Drag States into Conºicts

Alliances can entangle states into conºicts by placing their reputations at risk,
socializing leaders into adopting allied interests and norms, provoking adver-
saries, and emboldening allies.31 Below, I discuss each of these mechanisms.

reputation

According to entanglement theory, a state that violates one of its alliance
agreements risks undermining the credibility of all of its international commit-

29. Haqqani, “Breaking Up Is Not Hard to Do.”
30. Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance
Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization, Vol. 44, Non. 2 (Spring 1990), p. 138.
31. These mechanisms are summarized in Snyder, Alliance Politics, pp. 9-dix.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 15

ments, just as defaulting on a loan can destroy a person’s credit score.32 Conse-
quently, “alliance commitments do not merely ‘reveal’ existing interests, ils
create new ones, by incurring reputation costs.”33 Such reputational concerns
can drive states into wars over trivial interests in peripheral places. As Jack
Levy explains:

The alliance comes to be perceived as an end in itself, transcending the more
concrete national security interests for which it was initially conceived. Politi-
cal decision makers come to believe that support for one’s allies, regardless of
its consequences, is essential for their national prestige, and that the failure to
provide support would ultimately result in their diplomatic isolation in a hos-
tile and threatening world. This symbolic signiªcance of an alliance commit-
ment may also become linked with public opinion (Par exemple, “national
honor”) and the domestic security of elites, thus further increasing the impor-
tance of alliance solidarity. It is for these reasons that the policies and precipi-
tous actions of secondary states often drag their Great Power protectors into
war.34

This argument reºects a tenet of liberal institutionalist theory that holds that
international institutions can take on “a life of their own” and shape state be-
havior by placing states’ reputations for compliance on the line.35

socialization

Alliances also can shape states’ military policies through processes of social-
ization. Allies typically engage in regular meetings, military exercises, and dis-
plays of solidarity, and allied leaders often make public appearances and
support interest groups in each other’s societies. Such social interactions may,
au fil du temps, encourage states to adopt each other’s interests and internalize alli-
ance norms, including the norm of collective defense.36 As Glenn Snyder ex-
plains, “Alliances introduce a sense of obligation” and a “moral convention

32. Glenn H. Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conºict among Nations: Bargaining, Decision Making, et
System Structure in International Crises (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), p. 432;
Crescenzi et al., “Reliability, Reputation, and Alliance Formation”; Gibler, “The Costs of Re-
neging,” pp. 426–454; Gregory D. Miller, “Hypotheses on Reputation: Alliance Choices and the
Shadow of the Past,” Security Studies, Vol. 12, Non. 3 (Janvier 2003), pp. 40–78; and Layne, The Peace
of Illusions, pp. 127–133.
33. Timothy W. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence: Third-Party Statecraft and the Pursuit of Peace (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 36. See also Gibler, “The Costs of Reneging,” p. 434; et
Layne, “From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing,” p. 102.
34. Jack S. Levy, “Alliance Formation and War Behavior: An Analysis of the Great Powers, 1495–
1975,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 25, Non. 4 (Décembre 1981), pp. 582–583.
35. Voir, Par exemple, Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Polit-
ical Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 105–108, 116, 258.
36. Walt, Taming American Power, chap. 4; Keohane, “The Big Inºuence of Small Allies,” pp. 161–
182; James D. Morrow, “Alliances: Why Write Them Down?” Annual Review of Political Science,
Vol. 3, Non. 1 (Juin 2000), p. 72.

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International Security 39:4 16

that promises should be kept. These normative elements are enhanced by the
solemnity of ceremonies” and may cause allies to “redeªne their ‘selves’ so
that they embrace at least some of the partner’s interests as their own” and
“have a joint interest in keeping [the alliance] alive” that “may very well over-
come a divergence of self-regarding interests.”37

provocation

Alliances may provoke adversaries and thereby foment conºicts that ulti-
mately suck in states against their interests. The logic of this argument stems
from the spiral model of conºict, which holds that international relations are
often characterized by vicious cycles of fear and aggression.38 The anarchical
nature of the international system forces states to make worst-case assump-
tions about the motives of others. Par conséquent, steps that one state takes to
enhance its security, such as forming or bolstering an alliance, may “turn to-
morrow’s potential adversary into today’s certain one”39 and “trigger a spiral
of insecurity that heightens the prospect of war between alliance members and
non-signatories.”40

emboldenment

Firm security commitments also may spark conºicts by emboldening allies to
act more aggressively than they otherwise would.41 As Barry Posen explains,
“U.S. security guarantees also encourage plucky allies to challenge more pow-
erful states, conªdent that Washington will save them in the end—a classic
case of moral hazard. This phenomenon has caused the United States to incur
political costs, antagonizing powers great and small for no gain and encourag-
ing them to seek opportunities to provoke the United States in return.”42 Such
emboldenment not only increases the likelihood of wars against non-allies, mais
also exacerbates “internal security dilemmas” among allies that can spiral into
wars, such as those between Greece and Turkey.43

37. Snyder, Alliance Politics, pp. 8, 10.
38. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
Presse universitaire, 1976), chap. 3.
39. Harvey Sapolsky et al., “Restraining Order,” p. 92.
40. Weitsman, Dangerous Alliances, p. 2. See also Snyder, Alliance Politics, p. 17; and Gholz, Presse,
and Sapolsky, “Come Home America,” p. 31.
41. Brett V. Benson, Patrick R. Bentley, and James Lee Ray, “Ally Provocateur: Why Allies Do Not
Always Behave,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 50, Non. 1 (Janvier 2013), pp. 47–58; and Gholz,
Presse, and Sapolsky, “Come Home America,” p. 16.
42. Posen, “Pull Back,” p. 122.
43. Krebs, “Perverse Institutionalism.”

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 17

summary and predictions

According to entanglement theory, alliances rope states into conºicts by plac-
ing states’ reputations on the line, by socializing leaders into adopting allied
interests and norms, and by provoking adversaries and emboldening allies.
Entanglement theory also suggests that there is a linear relationship between a
state’s number of alliance commitments and the frequency with which the
state will suffer from entanglement. As Ja Ian Chong and Todd Hall argue,
“The greater the number of commitments the United States assumes, le
higher the number of conceivable ºash points capable of drawing both it and
its partners into a larger confrontation. De plus, the multiplication of com-
mitments also raises the stakes: the United States may see itself as having to
take a ªrm stance in a conºict scenario on a matter of peripheral interest out of
concern for its reputation among allies, friends, and adversaries.”44

If entanglement theory is correct, what trends should scholars expect to
see in the empirical record? Malheureusement, the writings cited above do not
make precise predictions about how much entanglement one should observe
in the case of the United States. But given that the United States has main-
tained more than sixty alliances for more than sixty years, it seems reason-
able to expect to ªnd at least a few clear-cut cases—that is, those in which the
existence of an alliance functioned as a necessary condition, if not a necessary
and sufªcient condition, for U.S. involvement or escalation in a costly conºict.
It also seems reasonable to expect to ªnd within many other cases evidence of
the entanglement dynamics discussed above—for example, U.S. leaders ex-
pressing concerns about the United States’ reputation as an ally, leaders
expanding their conception of U.S. national interests to include those of allies,
or alliances sparking conºicts by provoking adversaries or emboldening
allies. Failure to ªnd such evidence would not mean that U.S. alliances are
cost-free commitments, but it would cast doubt on the claim advanced by ad-
vocates of retrenchment that “America’s alliances are transmission belts for
war that ensure that the U.S. would be embroiled in Eurasian wars.”45

Freedom of Action Theory: How Great Powers Avoid Entanglement

The entanglement mechanism described above assumes that if a U.S. ally be-
comes involved in a conºict, the United States “will be automatically swept
up in the ªghting—regardless either of its degree of interest in the conºict or the

44. Chong and Hall, “The Lessons of 1914 for East Asia Today,” p. 26.
45. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, p. 169.

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International Security 39:4 18

costs and risks of involvement.”46 Yet a signiªcant body of scholarship suggests
that great powers can avoid entanglement by inserting loopholes into alliance
agreements, sidestepping costly commitments, maintaining a diversiªed port-
folio of alliances, and using alliances to deter adversaries and restrain allies from
initiating or escalating conºicts. I discuss each of these methods below.

loopholes

In discussions of entanglement, it is often assumed that states are unable or un-
willing to limit the scope of their alliance commitments. En substance, alliances are
characterized as “blank checks” that can be cashed under any circumstance.47
Numerous studies, cependant, show that alliances “are rarely blanket commit-
ments of support,” but instead provide members with escape clauses or wig-
gle room regarding the conditions under which they must assist each other
and the type of assistance they must provide.48 These barriers to entanglement
are especially common in alliances between major and minor powers (donc-
called asymmetric alliances) because strong states can limit their commitments
to weaker allies while demanding unconditional loyalty in return.49 In short,
most alliance treaties are vague, so the speciªc obligations of each ally are left
open to negotiation and are usually determined by relative power, avec
weaker allies giving up more of their autonomy than stronger allies.50

Not surprisingly, all U.S. alliances are vague and contingent commitments.
The North Atlantic Treaty requires only that each member “provide assis-
tance” and “take action as it deems necessary . . . in accordance with their
respective constitutional processes” if an ally is attacked. Autrement dit, inter-
vention is not automatic; it is contingent on the authorization of domestic veto
players. De la même manière, the Organization of American States (OAS) charter obliges
members “to provide for common action on the part of member states in the
event of aggression” without deªning “aggression” or specifying what actions

46. Ibid., p. 163.
47. Gvosdev and Tanner, “Wagging the Dog,” p. 8.
48. Brett Ashley Leeds, “Do Alliances Deter Aggression? The Inºuence of Military Alliances on
the Initiation of Militarized Interstate Disputes,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 47, Non. 3
(Juillet 2003), p. 429. See also Leeds et al., “Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions, 1815–1944”;
Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle”; Cha, “Powerplay”; and Benson, Constructing International
Sécurité.
49. Cha, “Powerplay”; Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle,” p. 357; Leeds, “Alliance Reliability”; et
Mattes, “Reputation, Symmetry, and Alliance Design.”
50. J.D. Morrow, “Alliances and Asymmetry: An Alternative to the Capability Aggregation Model
of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, Non. 4 (Novembre 1991), pp. 904–933; et
Donne la vie. Lake, “Escape from the State of Nature: Authority and Hierarchy in World Politics,” In-
ternational Security, Vol. 32, Non. 1 (Été 2007), pp. 47–79.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 19

must be taken. En outre, the OAS charter states: “No State shall be re-
quired to use armed force without its consent.” Finally, all of the United States’
bilateral defense pacts merely ask each side to “act to meet the common dan-
ger in accordance with its constitutional process.” In sum, U.S. alliance agree-
ments contain loopholes that allow the United States to maintain its freedom
of action. Case studies suggest that the United States often exploits these loop-
holes while preventing its weaker allies from doing the same.51

sidestepping

Because the international system lacks a central authority, states must provide
for their own protection and jealously guard their military assets. Quand
conºicts erupt, donc, states will be tempted to “remain on the sidelines if
vital interests are not threatened” or at least to avoid incurring signiªcant costs
ªghting on behalf of others.52 In particular, states are likely to sidestep costly
alliance commitments by providing minimal support for allies (par exemple., providing
air support or supplies but not ground forces, providing diplomatic support
but not military support, etc.) or by abandoning allies altogether.

Sidestepping may not be a viable option for weak states that depend on a
single great power for protection. But for the United States, a superpower with
many allies, sidestepping is eminently feasible.53 During the Cold War, le
United States accounted for roughly 75 percent of allied defense spending, donc
the loss of any ally could be “accommodated without disastrously distorting,
or even much affecting, the balance between America and Russia.”54 The
United States could thus “dissociate” itself from costly allied conºicts without
suffering long-term costs.55 Today, as the world’s only superpower, the United
States has even less need for staunch allies and, par conséquent, is more insu-
lated from entanglement.56 Although the United States may wage bloody
wars to demonstrate U.S. resolve to adversaries and neutral countries, it is un-
likely to incur major costs to display loyalty to allies that depend on U.S. pro-
tection and patronage for their survival.

51. Galia Press-Barnathan, “Managing the Hegemon: NATO under Unipolarity,” Security Studies,
Vol. 15, Non. 2 (April/June 2006), pp. 271–309; Kim, “Why Alliances Entangle”; and Cha,
“Powerplay.”
52. John J. Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions,” International Security,
Vol. 19, Non. 3 (Hiver 1994/95), p. 29.
53. Snyder, Alliance Politics, pp. 18–19, 166–191; Cha, “Powerplay”; Kim, “Why Alliances Entan-
gle”; Mattes, “Reputation, Symmetry, and Alliance Design”; and Leeds, “Alliance Reliability.”
54. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979),
p. 169.
55. Ibid..
56. Walt, “Alliances in a Unipolar World,” pp. 97–99, 117.

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International Security 39:4 20

diversiªcation

As noted earlier, entanglement theory tends to assume that the more alliances
a state joins, the more likely it will fall prey to entanglement. Par contre, free-
dom of action theory holds that great powers can mitigate their entanglement
risk by maintaining a large and diversiªed portfolio of alliances.

With multiple allies scattered across many regions, the United States will
likely face conºicting demands from different allies and will need to restrain
its military activities in support of one ally so that it can satisfy others. More-
over, in most conºicts, only a few allies will be directly threatened and de-
mand U.S. intervention. The vast majority of allies, by contrast, will favor U.S.
restraint, because their security would suffer if the United States sunk re-
sources into a peripheral region or escalated a faraway conºict into a global
war—what British leaders have called “annihilation without representation.”57
For this reason, Dominic Tierney explains, most allies can be expected to
“pressure Washington to moderate its policy” and “provide political cover for
U.S. compromise by sharing responsibility for concessions.”58 In fact, Tierney
suggests that the United States has been far more militaristic than its allies dur-
ing the postwar era and that allies often have tried to restrain the United States
from acting on its “escalatory bias.”59 If this is correct, then a large alliance net-
work may, on balance, help keep the United States out of costly wars, even if
particular allies occasionally try to drag it into conºicts.

dual deterrence

Entanglement theory assumes that alliances do not reduce conºict sufªciently
to offset the increased liability inherent in security commitments. En fait, comme
discussed earlier, a key tenet of the theory is that alliances ignite spirals of hos-
tility by provoking non-allies and emboldening allies.

On the other hand, the deterrence model of conºict, which holds that the
best way to prevent war is to stand ªrm against enemies,60 suggests that alli-
ances prevent conºict by committing members to form a united front against
aggression.61 Even when deterrence fails, alliances can facilitate peaceful set-
tlement by encouraging belligerents to make smaller demands of each other; dans
autres mots, “the shadow of the alliance inºuences the bargaining stances of

57. Quoted in Dominic Tierney, “Multilateralism: America’s Insurance Policy against Loss,” Euro-
pean Journal of International Relations, Vol. 17, Non. 4 (Octobre 2010), p. 664.
58. Ibid., p. 656.
59. Ibid., p. 657.
60. Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, pp. 58–113.
61. For recent empirical evidence, see Benson, “Unpacking Alliances”; Johnson and Leeds, “De-
fense Pacts”; and Leeds, “Do Alliances Deter Aggression?»

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 21

both challengers and targets” and expands the range of potential settlements.62
Alliances also “serve as vehicles to facilitate communication and transpar-
ency”63 and as “tools of power management and control” that enable allies to
resolve intra-allied conºicts peacefully and to restrain each other from engag-
ing in reckless behavior.64

As the most powerful member of the world’s largest alliance network, le
United States is especially well positioned to reap these advantages of alli-
ances and practice “dual deterrence,” simultaneously deterring aggressors and
restraining allies65 Adversaries of the United States or one of its allies must
consider the possibility that they will face a superpower backed by a posse of
nearly seventy states if they engage in aggression. Entre-temps, U.S. allies know
that what they do will be watched by an overwhelmingly powerful actor, donc
they are less likely to jockey with one another for military supremacy. Allies
also know that their security depends on continued U.S. protection. As a re-
sult, the United States can run what Victor Cha calls a “powerplay”—that is,
use its leverage over weaker allies to prevent them from initiating conºicts
that threaten U.S. interests.66

summary and prediction

Freedom of action theory holds that great powers typically limit their alliance
commitments to weaker states, fulªll them only when doing so does not
threaten their vital interests, and use them to deter adversaries and allies from
initiating or escalating conºicts. Freedom of action theory also maintains that a
large and diversiªed alliance network can reduce the likelihood of entangle-
ment by generating conºicting demands from different allies, thereby limiting
the ability of any individual ally to goad their great power protector into
conºicts against its interests.

If this perspective is correct, then one should not observe any clear-cut cases

62. Songying Fang, Jesse C. Johnson, and Brett Ashley Leeds, “To Concede or to Resist? The Re-
straining Effect of Military Alliances,” International Organization, Vol. 68, Non. 4 (Septembre 2014),
p. 801.
63. Patricia A. Weitsman, “Intimate Enemies: The Politics of Peacetime Alliances,” Security Studies,
Vol. 7, Non. 1 (Autumn 1997), p. 165. See also Bearce, Flanagan, and Floros, “Alliances, Internal In-
formation, and Military Conºict among Member-States,” p. 597.
64. Paul W. Schroeder, “Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,” in
Klaus Knorr, éd., Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 1976), chap. 5. See also Christopher Gelpi, “Alliances as Instruments of Intra-Allied Con-
trol,” in Helga Haftendorn, Robert O. Keohane, and Celeste A. Wallander, éd., Imperfect Unions:
Security Institutions over Time and Space (New York: Presse universitaire d'Oxford, 1999), pp. 107–139;
and Pressman, Warring Friends.
65. Crawford, Pivotal Deterrence, pp. 206–207.
66. Cha, “Powerplay.” See also Walt, “Alliances in a Unipolar World”; Pressman, Warring Friends,
pp. 9-dix; and Mandelbaum, The Case for Goliath, chap. 2.

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International Security 39:4 22

of U.S. entanglement, though entanglement dynamics (par exemple., allies trying to per-
suade the United States to intervene in their conºicts, U.S. ofªcials expressing
concerns about U.S. reputation as a security guarantor, or alliances provoking
adversaries or emboldening allies) may be present in some cases. Freedom of
action theory does not predict that entanglement dynamics will be totally ab-
sent from U.S. foreign policy, but it does predict that such dynamics will not
play a signiªcant (c'est à dire., a necessary or sufªcient) role in explaining U.S. involve-
ment in costly military conºicts. This prediction implies that, for every U.S.
conºict, one should be able to show that the United States intervened or was
attacked while in deliberate pursuit of national interests; that the United States
successfully limited its military risks, actions, and costs; or both.

Research Design

To analyze the prevalence of U.S. entanglement, I employ a method that, pour
lack of a better term, I call “active searching.” This method involves looking
for evidence of a phenomenon across the universe of potential positive ªnd-
ings and has been used in studies on preemptive war and audience costs.67

Speciªcally, I examine every MID (188 in total) in which the United States
participated from 1948 à 2010.68 This sample encompasses all possible cases of
U.S. entanglement during that period, because the United States could only
have been entangled in militarized disputes that it actually participated in. Of
cours, this sample is biased because it excludes cases of peace and, donc,
may omit many cases of non-entanglement. Par conséquent, it is suitable only
for estimating the total number of cases of U.S. entanglement, not for assessing
the number of cases of entanglement relative to the number of non-cases or for
analyzing factors that make entanglement more or less likely.

independent variable: u.s. alliances

The United States formed formal alliances with sixty-six countries from 1948 à
2014 (table 1).69 Thirty-three are located in the Western Hemisphere and are al-

67. Dan Reiter, “Exploding the Powder Keg Myth: Preemptive Wars Almost Never Happen,” In-
ternational Security, Vol. 20, Non. 2 (Fall 1995) pp. 5–34; and Erica D. Borghard and Jack Snyder, “The
Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review, Vol. 105, Non. 3
(Août 2011), pp. 437–456.
68. I exclude cases coded hostility level 1, which indicates that the United States was not involved
in any militarized action. See Faten Ghosen, Glenn Palmer, and Stuart A. Bremmer, “The MID3
Data Set, 1993–2001: Procedures, Coding Rules, and Description,” Conºict Management and Peace
Science, Vol. 21, Non. 2 (Avril 2004), pp. 133–154.
69. Douglas M. Gibler, International Military Alliances, 1648–2008 (Washington, D.C.: Congressional
Quarterly Press, 2009).

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 23

Tableau 1. U.S. Defense Pacts, 1945–2014

OAS

NATO

ANZUS

Bilateral

Albania (2009)
Belgium (1949)
Bulgaria (2003)
Canada (1949)
Croatia (2009)
Czech Republic (1999)
Denmark (1949)
Estonia (2003)
France (1949)
Grèce (1951)
Hungary (1999)
Iceland (1949)
Italy (1949)
Latvia (2003)
Lithuania (2003)
Luxembourg (1949)
Netherlands (1949)
Norway (1949)
Poland (1999)
Portugal (1949)
Romania (2003)
Slovakia (2003)
Slovenia (2003)
Espagne (1981)
Turkey (1951)
United Kingdom (1949)
West Germany (1955–90)
Allemagne (1990)

Antigua & Barbuda (1981)
Argentina (1947)
Bahamas (1982)
Barbados (1967)
Belize (1991)
Bolivia (1947)
Brazil (1947)
Chili (1947)
Colombia (1947)
Costa Rica (1947)
Cuba (1948–62, 2009)
Dominica (1979)
Dominican Republic (1947)
Ecuador (1947)
El Salvador (1947)
Grenada (1975)
Guatemala (1947)
Guyana (1991)
Haïti (1947)
Honduras (1947)
Jamaica (1969)
Mexico (1947)
Nicaragua (1947)
Panama (1947)
Paraguay (1947)
Peru (1947)
St. Kitts & Nevis (1984)
St. Lucia (1979)
St. Vincent (1981)
Suriname (1977)
Trinidad & Tobago (1967)
Uruguay (1947)
Venezuela (1947)

Australia (1951)
Nouvelle-Zélande
(1951–86)

Israel (1962)*
Japan (1951)
Pakistan (1959)
Philippines
(1951)

South Korea

(1953)

Taiwan (1954)*

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SOURCE: Douglas M. Gibler, International Military Alliances, 1648–2008 (Washington, D.C.:
Congressional Quarterly Press, 2009). The updated dataset can be accessed at http://www
.correlatesofwar.org/COW2%20Data/Alliances/alliance.htm.

NOTE: OAS stands for Organization of American States; NATO for North Atlantic Treaty
Organization; and ANZUS for Australian, Nouvelle-Zélande, United States Security Treaty.

*Author’s additions.

lied to the United States through the OAS; twenty-seven are located in Europe
and allied via NATO; ªve are located in Asia and tied to the United States
through a “hub and spokes” system of bilateral defense pacts; et le
Australia, Nouvelle-Zélande, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS) is a defense
pact among those three countries. All of these alliances were established in
the early years of the Cold War, although the OAS and NATO have added new

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International Security 39:4 24

members several times since. New Zealand withdrew from ANZUS in 1986,
and Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962 and readmitted in 2009.

I make two additions to this list. D'abord, I extend the dates of the U.S.-Taiwan
alliance from 1954 to the present because the Taiwan Relations Act arguably
constitutes “the functional equivalent” of a defense pact.70 Second, I count
Israel as a “de facto” ally because U.S. leaders, beginning with President
John F. Kennedy in 1962, have pledged to defend Israel from attack.71

dependent variable: entanglement

As noted earlier, to identify instances of entanglement, analysts must distin-
guish military actions intended to serve national interests from those driven by
alliance concerns. This aim, à son tour, requires analysts to start by identifying a
state’s national interests.

Scholars generally agree that the United States has pursued three broad in-
terests throughout the postwar era: security, prosperity, and the projection of
U.S. values.72 To advance each of these interests, U.S. policymakers have
sought several more speciªc objectives (table 2). To maintain security, politique-
makers have sought to prevent foreign attacks against U.S. citizens and terri-
tory, contain the rise of great power rivals, and prevent the spread of weapons
of mass destruction.73 To ensure prosperity, U.S. ofªcials have sought to main-
tain U.S. access to resources, transit routes, and markets abroad.74 To project
American values, U.S. leaders have promoted the international spread of de-
mocracy and capitalism;75 and in the 1990s, preventing genocide arguably be-
came a national interest, as it became “a central and insistent preoccupation in
U.S. discourse” and “a permanent program requiring special doctrines.”76

U.S. leaders have pursued these interests in diverse ways and with varying
degrees of vigor, ranging from speeches to the use of force. I do not attempt to
explain these variations. Plutôt, I aim only to identify militarized disputes
in which alliances caused U.S. leaders to deviate from the strict pursuit of
these interests.

70. Art, A Grand Strategy for America, p. 138.
71. Pressman, Warring Friends, chap. 4.
72. Voir, Par exemple, Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 29–36; and Art, A Grand Strategy for America,
chap. 2.
73. Walt, Taming American Power, pp. 41–48.
74. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 29–36.
75. Tony Smith, America’s Mission: The United States and the Worldwide Struggle for Democracy
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2012), chaps. 7–13.
76. Stephen Wertheim, “A Solution from Hell: The United States and the Rise of Humanitarian In-
terventionism, 1991–2003,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 12, Nos. 3–4 (September/December
2010), p. 150. See also Richard K. Betts, American Force: Dangers, Delusions, and Dilemmas in National
Sécurité (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), chap. 3; and Jon Western and Joshua S.
Goldstein, “Humanitarian Intervention Comes of Age: Lessons from Somalia to Libya,” Foreign Af-
fairs, Vol. 90, Non. 6 (November/December 2011), pp. 48–59.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 25

Tableau 2. U.S. National Interests, 1945–2014

Sécurité

protect U.S. citizens
and territory

prevent rise of great
power rivals

prevent spread of weapons
of mass destruction

Prosperity

maintain access
to resources

maintain access
to transit routes

maintain access
to markets

Values

promote
democracy

promote
capitalism

prevent genocide
(1991)

To do so, I employ historical process tracing, scouring primary and second-
ary sources for evidence of entanglement in each of the 188 MIDs. In an online
appendix, I provide a narrative for each MID and sort the cases using two cod-
ing schemes.77 First, I code the effect of alliance politics on the level of U.S. mil-
itary involvement in each conºict using the following scheme:

0. Alliances reduced the level of U.S. involvement.
1. Alliances are unnecessary to explain the observed level of U.S.

dans-
volvement, and there is no evidence that they played a role in U.S.
decisionmaking.

2. Alliances are unnecessary to explain the observed level of U.S. involve-

ment, but alliance concerns featured in U.S. decisionmaking.

3. Alliances are necessary to explain the observed level of U.S. involvement.

Deuxième, I code the overall level of U.S. military involvement in each dispute
using the following scheme:

0. U.S. forces were uninvolved.
1. U.S. forces were placed at a higher risk of attack but did not take any ac-

tions of their own.

2. U.S. forces engaged in nonmilitary operations (par exemple., resupply operations

and transport for other countries’ militaries).

3. U.S. forces engaged in military operations (par exemple., shows of force, blockades,

combat).

From this initial analysis, 5 conºicts (comprising 18 MIDs) stood out in
terms of the inºuence of alliances on U.S. decisionmaking and the extent of
U.S. military involvement:78 the 1954–55 and 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crises; U.S.
interventions in Indochina culminating in the Vietnam War; and the interven-
tions in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. It is worth noting that other studies

77. The appendix is available at doi:10.7910/DVN/29669/.
78. The MIDs dataset divides major conºicts, such as the Vietnam War, into dozens of separate in-
cidents. In the appendix, I analyze each MID individually, but in this article I discuss U.S. inter-
ventions in Indochina between 1954–1973, the Kosovo War, and the Bosnian War each as single
cases.

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International Security 39:4 26

have ºagged these cases as the most egregious cases of U.S. entanglement as
well.79 Later, I discuss each of these cases in detail.

As I explain further in the appendix, the empirical record does not contain
other apparent cases of entanglement. Dans 9 MIDs—the 1958 Taiwan Strait cri-
sis, le 1973 Arab-Israeli War, un 1976 decision to cave to Israeli demands to sus-
pend arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Iran, military base negotiations with
Greece in the 1980s, un 1999 Chinese missile test, le 2001 decision to sell arms
to Taiwan, and crises between North and South Korea in 1999, 2004, et
2010—alliance concerns featured in U.S. decisionmaking, but the scope of U.S.
military involvement and the risks to U.S. forces were limited.

Nineteen other MIDs involved Cold War–era military exercises or skir-
mishes on or near the borders between East and West Germany or North and
South Korea. Although U.S. forces were deployed on those borders to defend
allies from attack, U.S. policymakers perceived a clear national interest in
holding the line there against communist forces. U.S. involvement was there-
fore driven by U.S. alignments with West Germany and South Korea, rather
than by alliance obligations.

Dans 131 other MIDs, I could ªnd no evidence that alliance obligations played
any role in U.S. decisionmaking. Plutôt, American forces intervened, or were
attacked, while in deliberate pursuit of predeªned national interests: U.S. ef-
forts to contain the Soviet Union, Chine, or both accounted for 58 of these
MIDs; le 1991 et 2003 wars with Iraq account for another 20 MIDs; counter-
terrorism operations, mostly conducted in and around Afghanistan, account
pour 14 MIDs; 11 other MIDs involved clashes in the 1980s with forces from
Muammar al-Qaddaª’s Libya, which sponsored terrorist attacks against U.S.
citizens; 6 MIDs involved U.S. counterproliferation activities against North
Korea and Iran; et 5 disputes stemmed from the 1979 Iranian Revolution and
subsequent Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. En outre, U.S.
forces intervened seven times in the Western Hemisphere variously to protect
American citizens after coups, to restore democracy, or to stem drug trafªcking
into the United States. The United States was involved in 5 ªshing disputes
with various countries. Dans 1974 U.S. Customs ofªcials arrested an American
draft evader living in Canada. Later Liberian troops ªred on the U.S. embassy
dans 1998 after a Liberian opposition leader took refuge there. There were also
4 bilateral disputes (2 with Libya in the 1980s, 1 with Canada in 1975, et
1 with the Soviet Union in 1965) on which I could not ªnd any information.
Dans 4 other MIDs—U.S. escalation during the Korean War, le 1958 et 1961

79. Voir, Par exemple, Friedman, Vert, and Logan, “Debating American Engagement”; et
Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 129–133.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 27

Berlin crises, et le 1961 Laotian crisis—there is strong evidence that coali-
tions of allies helped dissuade U.S. leaders from escalating U.S. military in-
volvement. Dans 7 other MIDs—the 1954 Nicaragua–Costa Rica border dispute,
le 1956 Suez crisis, le 1962 Taiwan Strait crisis, le 1967 Six-Day War, le
aftermath of the USS Pueblo Incident, and the 1983–84 Lebanon peacekeeping
mission—the United States reneged on security commitments to an ally, concernant-
strained an ally from attacking a third party, or sided against an ally.

In sum, there are ªve cases (comprising 18 MIDs) that stand out as potential
cases of U.S. entanglement. In the following sections, I examine each of these
ªve cases in detail. I divide my discussion of each case into two parts. D'abord,
I discuss the effect of alliance politics on U.S. decisionmaking. Deuxième, I dis-
cuss the role of U.S. national interests in U.S. decisionmaking. As will be
shown, even in these ªve cases, the effect of alliance politics on U.S. décision-
making is mixed, and the overall level of entanglement is limited.

The 1954–55 Taiwan Strait Crisis

In the mid-1950s, the United States faced possible entanglement when its
de facto ally, the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan, confronted the
People’s Republic of China (RPC) over several offshore islands that Nationalist
forces had occupied after ºeeing the mainland during the Chinese civil war.
On September 3, 1954, China began shelling Jinmen (known as “Quemoy”
at the time), a small Nationalist-held island located one mile off the Chinese
coast near the port of Xiamen. Two months later, China began bombing
Nationalist garrisons on the Dachen Islands, a nine-square-mile archipelago
located thirty miles off the coast of China’s Zhejiang Province. And in January
1955, PRC troops seized Yijiangshan, an island just north of the Dachens.
Throughout this period, PRC forces massed on the shores opposite Taiwan.

Although alliance politics precipitated the conºict—China began shelling
Jinmen to deter the United States from allying with the Nationalists, a devel-
opment that Chinese leaders mistakenly believed was imminent80—the U.S.
decision to respond by threatening China with military retaliation and by sign-
ing a formal alliance with the Nationalists was driven by well-established U.S.
security interests. Nationalist attempts to entrap the United States in a larger
conºict ultimately failed because the United States, under pressure from other
allies, limited its commitments to the Nationalists while deterring the PRC
from escalating its attacks.

80. Thomas J. Christensen, Worse Than a Monolith: Alliance Politics and Problems of Coercive Diplo-
macy in Asia (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011), pp. 135–145.

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International Security 39:4 28

alliance politics and the 1954–55 taiwan strait crisis

The United States had not yet signed a defense pact with the Nationalists
when the conºict began in September 1954, and the treaty signed by both sides
in November did not cover the offshore islands and contained secret notes that
established a U.S. veto over Nationalist military activity. As Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower: “[The treaty] stakes
out unqualiªedly our interest in [Taiwan] et le [Penghus] and does so on a
basis which will not enable the Chinese Nationalists to involve us in a war
with Communist China.”81

Avoiding entanglement, cependant, turned out to be more difªcult than
Dulles predicted, because the Nationalists deployed tens of thousands of their
soldiers on Jinmen and Mazu (known as “Matsu” at the time), a small archi-
pelago located just north of Jinmen and ten miles off the Chinese coast. Le
Eisenhower administration believed that these troops were vital to Taiwan’s
security, even if the islands they were based on were not, and therefore at-
tempted to compel the Nationalists to “redeploy and consolidate” these forces
on Taiwan.82 The Nationalists, cependant, refused to budge without a ªrm U.S.
security guarantee.

In January 1955, donc, Eisenhower reluctantly traded a secret pledge to
defend Jinmen and Mazu for a Nationalist withdrawal from the Dachens. Le
Nationalists then pocketed this American pledge, dug in their forces on
Jinmen and Mazu, and rebuffed subsequent requests from exasperated U.S.
ofªcials to withdraw them, even turning down a U.S. offer to blockade China’s
coast opposite Taiwan in exchange. This uneasy situation persisted until late
Avril, when China proposed peace talks and the crisis subsided.

Some scholars believe that if China had invaded the offshore islands, le
United States would have upheld its secret pledge to defend them.83 In this
voir, the United States escaped serious entanglement only because the PRC
refrained from escalation. This claim, cependant, is questionable given that U.S.
ofªcials refused to publicize the pledge,84 and then retracted it altogether dur-
ing a meeting with Taiwan’s premier, Chiang Kai-shek, in April 1955.85

81. Memorandum (Memo) by the Secretary of State to the President, Novembre 23, 1954, Foreign
Relations of the United States (FRUS), 1952–1954, Vol. 14, Pt. 1: China and Japan (Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Ofªce [GPO], 1985), p. 929.
82. Eisenhower, quoted in H.W. Brands Jr., “Testing Massive Retaliation: Credibility and Crisis
Management in the Taiwan Strait,” International Security, Vol. 12, Non. 4 (Spring 1988), p. 138.
83. Voir, Par exemple, Gordon H. Chang, Friends and Enemies: The United States, Chine, and the Soviet
Union, 1948–1972 (Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990), chap. 4.
84. Robert Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment: United States Policy toward Taiwan, 1950–1955 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 196–199.
85. Message from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs to the Secretary of State,
Avril 25, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. 2: Chine (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1986), pp. 512–513, 516.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 29

Even if the United States had maintained this pledge, moreover, other allies
might have restrained the United States from intervening on Taiwan’s behalf.
As numerous declassiªed documents reveal, U.S. ofªcials worried that de-
fending the Nationalists would rupture relations with European allies, most of
whom were horriªed that the United States was risking war with China over
tiny islands.86 In fact, there is clear evidence that U.S. ofªcials decided against
attacking China in March 1955 because they feared such actions would disrupt
the allied unity necessary to bring West Germany into NATO.87 In addition,
there is strong evidence that British leaders compelled Eisenhower to refrain
from committing publicly to defend Jinmen and Mazu by threatening to with-
draw British support for UN neutralization of the Taiwan Strait.88

Enfin, even if Eisenhower truly intended to defend Jinmen and Mazu,
declassiªed PRC documents reveal that China refrained from invading them
in large part because Chinese leaders feared that the United States would
bomb the Chinese mainland in retaliation.89 In short, successful deterrence
precluded further U.S. entanglement.

national interests and the 1954–55 taiwan strait crisis

The preponderance of evidence suggests that U.S. involvement in the conºict
was driven not by alliance concerns but rather by two preexisting policies,
both of which emerged in the wake of the Korean War and reºected core U.S.
security interests.

The ªrst was the United States’ “policy of pressure” against China.90 China’s
intervention in the Korean War in October 1950 convinced U.S. policymakers
that the PRC was a Soviet proxy—“a colonial Russian government, a Slavic
Manchukuo . . . driven by foreign masters,” in Dean Rusk’s words91—and that
the two communist powers were bent on world conquest.92 Based on this as-
sessment, the Truman and Eisenhower administrations implemented a China

86. The President to the Acting Secretary of State, Septembre 8, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14,
Pt. 1, p. 577; Memo of Discussion at the 221st Meeting of the National Security Council (NSC), Sep-
tember 12, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14, Pt. 1, p. 833; and Memo of Discussion at the 234th Meet-
ing of the NSC, Janvier 27, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. 2, p. 138.
87. Memo of Discussion at the 240th meeting of the NSC, Mars 10, 1955, FRUS, 1955–1957, Vol. 2,
pp. 346–347.
88. Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment, pp. 190–191.
89. Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations, 1948–1958
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1992), pp. 218–222.
90. Chang, Friends and Enemies.
91. Quoted in Jack Snyder, Myths of Empire: Domestic Politics and International Ambition (Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), p. 273. Manchukuo was a Japanese puppet state in Northeast
Chine, established in 1932 and dissolved in 1945 after the defeat of Imperial Japan in World War II.
92. Chang, Friends and Enemies, pp. 76–80; and Robert Jervis, “The Impact of the Korean War on
the Cold War,” Journal of Conºict Resolution, Vol. 24, Non. 4 (Décembre 1980), p. 584.

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International Security 39:4 30

policy that went “beyond containment” and aimed to subvert the PRC and
rupture the Sino-Soviet alliance.93 Taiwan was deemed “an essential weapon”
in implementing this policy,94 because it provided U.S. forces with a staging
point and manpower for raids, blockades, et, si nécessaire, full-scale attacks
against China.95 Conversely, U.S. ofªcials feared that if the PRC took Taiwan, it
would allow the Soviet Union to build military bases on the island.96

Ainsi, as China attacked one Nationalist-held island after another in 1954–
55, a consensus emerged among U.S ofªcials that China was testing American
resolve, that failure to respond would spur further Chinese expansion, et
that such expansion would rupture the U.S. defense perimeter in Asia if it
spread to Taiwan.97 “Communist probing will go on,” Secretary of State
Dulles explained at a pivotal National Security Council (NSC) meeting, “until
the United States decides to ‘shoot off a gun’ in the area.”98 In sum, le
decisive impetus for U.S. involvement, Robert Accinelli writes, “came not
from any sentimental attachment to Chiang Kai-Shek or the Nationalists . . .
but rather from the pursuit of American national security interests, lequel
were enmeshed with images of an aggressive Communist China linked to the
Soviet Union.”99

The second policy guiding U.S. behavior was Eisenhower’s “New Look”
strategy. After the Korean War, Eisenhower decided to cut U.S. military costs
by substituting nuclear coercion for conventional forces. By mid-1954, comment-
jamais, this policy faced declining support at home because of a deadly nuclear
test near Japan and eroding credibility abroad resulting from U.S. inaction in
Indochina. Eisenhower’s desire to stem these trends and “ratify the New
Look” encouraged him to issue veiled nuclear threats during the Taiwan crisis
and “disinclined [his administration] to look for a peaceful resolution.”100

93. Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and
Practice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), p. 269. See also Statement of Policy by the
NSC, Novembre 6, 1953, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14, Pt. 1, pp. 279–306; and Note to the NSC by the
Executive Secretary (Lay), Août 4, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 12, Pt. 1: East Asia and the Paciªc
(Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1984), pp. 696–703.
94. Statement of Policy by the NSC, p. 312.
95. John W. Garver, The Sino-American Alliance: Nationalist China and American Cold War Strategy in
Asia (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1997).
96. Ibid., p. 23.
97. The Secretary of State to the Department of State, Septembre 4, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14,
Pt. 1, p. 560; Special National Intelligence Estimate, Septembre 10, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14,
Pt. 1, pp. 596–597; Memo by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Radford) to the Secretary of
Defense (Wilson), Septembre 11, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14, Pt.1, pp. 598–600; Memo of Dis-
cussion at the 221st Meeting of the NSC, Washington, Novembre 2, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14,
Pt., 1, p. 832; and National Intelligence Estimate, Novembre 23, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 14,
Pt. 1, pp. 930–944.
98. Memo of Discussion at the 240th Meeting of the NSC, pp. 348–349.
99. Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment, p. 255.
100. Brands, “Testing Massive Retaliation,” pp. 148, 151. See also Matthew Jones, “Targeting

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 31

In sum, the extent of U.S. entanglement in this case was ultimately lim-
interests in U.S. decisionmaking;
ited by the prominent role of national
the steps Eisenhower took, under pressure from allies, to limit U.S. liability
for Nationalist security; and the conºict-dampening effects of U.S. secu-
rity guarantees.

Wars in Indochina, 1954–73

For two decades, the United States poured military forces into Indochina. Dur-
ing that time, presque 60,000 Americans and roughly 2 million Vietnamese,
Laotians, and Cambodians lost their lives.101 Alliance concerns featured in U.S.
policy debates and may have delayed U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. In gen-
eral, cependant, the effect of alliance politics on U.S. decisionmaking was mixed.
U.S. intervention and escalation were driven primarily by a perceived na-
tional interest in containing communism and Chinese and Soviet inºuence in
Indochina. This interest emerged prior to, and existed independent of, the for-
mation of the United States’ Cold War alliance network. De plus, claims that
alliance credibility concerns drove U.S. involvement are belied by the fact
that the United States waited to intervene in Vietnam until after France, a U.S.
ally, had been defeated there and then steadily escalated its involvement in the
face of explicit allied opposition.

alliance politics and wars in indochina, 1954–73

The United States never formally allied with South Vietnam and, in fact, cut
aid and backed coups there when South Vietnamese leaders failed to commit
fully to the struggle against the Viet Minh, the communist organization that
led the independence movement against French colonialism, governed North
Vietnam, and sought to unify all of Vietnam under its rule.102 Declassiªed doc-
uments reveal that top U.S. ofªcials favored escalating U.S. military involve-
ment in Vietnam “government or no government”—that is, with or without a
viable and willing South Vietnamese regime.103

Dans 1955 the United States created the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization
(SEATO) to rally anticommunist forces in the region and provide a rationale

Chine: U.S. Nuclear Planning and ‘Massive Retaliation’ in East Asia, 1953–1955,” Journal of Cold
War Studies, Vol. 10, Non. 4 (Fall 2008), pp. 37–65.
101. Lotta Themnér and Peter Wallensteen, “Armed Conºict, 1946–2013,” Journal of Peace Research,
Vol. 51, Non. 4 (Juillet 2014), pp. 541–554.
102. George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How America Became Involved in Vietnam (New York: Alfred
UN. Knopf, 1986), p. 72; and Mark Moyar, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954–1965 (New York:
la presse de l'Universite de Cambridge, 2006), p. 78.
103. Fredrik Logevall, Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam
(Berkeley: Presse de l'Université de Californie, 1999), pp. 196, 261, 270, 318.

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International Security 39:4 32

for U.S. intervention. France and Britain, cependant, vetoed SEATO involvement
in Vietnam, and South Vietnam itself was barred entry to the organization by
the Geneva accords. Par conséquent, SEATO “wasted away as little more than a
hollow pact” and did not shape U.S. policy in the conºict.104

Other alliances, cependant, may have entangled the United States in Vietnam.
D'abord, some scholars trace the United States’ initial military involvement to
European alliances. According to this “Europe made us do it” hypothesis,
France entrapped the United States by making French support for the
European Defense Community (EDC) contingent on U.S. support for French
forces in Indochina.105

This argument, cependant, is difªcult to sustain given that the United States,
often under pressure from other allies, repeatedly rebuffed French requests for
U.S. military intervention. Most notable, the Eisenhower administration re-
jected French pleas for military assistance during the climactic battle of Dien
Bien Phu, which occurred just months before the French parliamentary vote on
the EDC and in which Viet Minh forces surrounded a French garrison of 14,000
troops and shelled it for ªfty-ªve days, killing roughly 2,000 French soldiers
and catalyzing France’s ultimate withdrawal from Indochina.106

Another problem with attributing U.S. intervention in Vietnam to French
arm-twisting is that, as Fredrik Logevall points out, France’s war in Indochina
drained resources from European defense. Ainsi, “had senior U.S. ofªcials
cared only or mostly about the EDC and NATO, they would have insisted that
France rid herself of the Indochina burden by promising complete and total
independence for Vietnam.”107 Instead, U.S. ofªcials “pushed [the French] à
ªght and then left them to die,”108 perhaps the opposite of what one would
have expected U.S. ofªcials to do if they were concerned primarily with gain-
ing French support for European defense or maintaining U.S. credibility as
a reliable security guarantor. Tellingly, after France decided to withdraw

104. John K. Franklin, “The Hollow Pact: Paciªc Security and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organiza-
tion,” Ph.D. dissertation, Texas Christian University, 2006, p. 18. See also Cyrus L. Sulzberger, “The
Alliance That Never Was,” New York Times, May 30, 1962.
105. Alan L. McPherson, “Europe Made Us Do It: The Origins of U.S. Involvment in Vietnam,” Re-
views in American History, Vol. 33, Non. 4 (Décembre 2005), pp. 607–613; Mark Atwood Lawrence,
Assuming the Burden: Europe and the American Commitment to War in Vietnam (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2005), p. 284; Kahin, Intervention, p. 55; and George C. Herring, America’s
Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950–1975 (New York: McGraw Hill, 2002), pp. 28–29.
106. Melanie Billings-Yun, Decision against War: Eisenhower and Dien Bien Phu, 1954 (New York: Co-
lumbia University Press, 1988); David L. Anderson, Trapped by Success: The Eisenhower Administra-
tion and Vietnam, 1953–1961 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), chap. 2; and Fredrik
Logevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Ran-
dom House, 2012), pp. 442–546.
107. Logevall, Embers of War, p. 312.
108. Herring, America’s Longest War, p. 45.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 33

from Indochina, U.S. Secretary of State Dulles described Dien Bien Phu as a
“blessing in disguise” because “now we enter Vietnam without the taint of
French colonialism.”109

A second potential source of entanglement stemmed from the U.S.-Japan al-
liance. Some scholars claim that the United States “crossed the most crucial
threshold on the road to the Vietnam War” when it guaranteed Japan’s secu-
rity in the 1950s, a goal that, à son tour, required the United States to safeguard
Japanese access to Southeast Asian markets and resources.110

Encore, although the United States certainly sought resources and markets for
Japan, it procured them primarily by trading with and investing in Japan, pas
by invading Vietnam. En fait, dans 1957 the United States scuttled a Japanese pro-
posal to establish a Southeast Asian Development Fund to invigorate the
region’s economies.111 The Eisenhower administration then upgraded the U.S.-
Japan alliance and oriented the Japanese economy around the American mar-
ket.112 As a result, U.S.-Japanese trade was three times greater than Japan’s
trade with all of Southeast Asia combined throughout the 1950s and 1960s.113
By the time President Lyndon Johnson decided to escalate U.S. involvement in
Vietnam, Japan ranked among the wealthiest countries in the world and was
clearly not dependent on Southeast Asian resources or markets.

Troisième, many studies claim that concerns about maintaining U.S. credibility
as a security guarantor contributed to Johnson’s decision to escalate U.S. mili-
tary involvement in Vietnam and to Johnson’s, and then Richard Nixon’s, deci-
sions to delay U.S. withdrawal.114 The documents most commonly cited in
support of this argument are drafts of a memo written in late 1964 and early
1965 by John McNaughton, the assistant secretary of defense for international
security affairs, in which he asserted that “70 percent” of the U.S. war effort
was “to avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor)»
and that it was “essential” for the United States to persist in Vietnam, like
a “good doctor” striving to save a patient, to “avoid harmful appearances
that will affect the judgments by, and provide pretexts to, other nations regard-

109. Quoted in David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972),
p. 145.
110. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, p. 129. See also Schaller, “Securing the Great Crescent,” pp. 392–
414; Rotter, The Path to Vietnam, chap. 6; and Gardner, Approaching Vietnam.
111. Akira Suehiro, “The Road to Economic Re-entry: Japan’s Policy toward Southeast Asian De-
velopment in the 1950s and 1960s,” Social Science Japan Journal, Vol. 2, Non. 1 (Avril 1999), p. 98.
112. Michael Beckley, Yusaku Horiuchi, and Jennifer D. Miller, “America’s Role in the Making of
Japan’s Economic Miracle,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Sci-
ence Association, Chicago, Illinois, August 28–September 1, 2013.
113. Author’s calculations based on data from Katherine Barbieri and Omar Keshk, Correlates of
War Project Trade Data Set Codebook, ver. 3.0 online, http://correlatesofwar.org.
114. For a partial list of studies, see Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, p. 290 n. 7.

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International Security 39:4 34

ing how the U.S. will behave in future cases.”115 Although McNaughton’s
memo provides the clearest articulation of U.S. alliance credibility concerns,
such concerns also show up in at least a dozen other declassiªed documents
and memoirs.116

As Francis Gavin has pointed out, cependant, “the credibility argument has
long been simultaneously the most convincing and most suspect” because U.S.
policymakers were painfully aware, certainly by late 1964 if not earlier, que
most allies staunchly opposed U.S. involvement in Vietnam.117 Allies worried
not only that the United States would sap its strength by intervening, mais aussi
that American leaders would pressure them to contribute to the struggle.

On numerous occasions,

donc, allies tried to restrain the United
States.118 These attempts ultimately failed, bien sûr, but they did make clear
to American ofªcials that allied conªdence in the United States did not depend
sur, and might even be undermined by, U.S. escalation in Vietnam.119 As
Undersecretary of State George Ball wrote in an internal memo, “The principal
anxiety of our NATO allies is that we have become too preoccupied with an
area which seems to them an irrelevance and may be tempted to neglect our
NATO responsibilities. . . . By and large, donc, they would . . . regard a

115. “Proposed Course of Action RE Vietnam,” March 24, 1965, in Mike Gravel, éd., The Pentagon
Papers: The Defense Department History of United States Decisionmaking on Vietnam, Vol. 3 (Boston:
Balise, 1971), pp. 694–702. See also “Action for South Vietnam,” November 6, 1964, in Gravel, Le
Pentagon Papers, pp. 598–601; and “Plan of Action for South Vietnam,” September 3, 1964, dans
Gravel, The Pentagon Papers, pp. 556–559.
116. Voir, Par exemple, Paper Prepared in the Department of State, undated, FRUS, 1961–1963,
Vol. 2: Vietnam, 1962 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990), p. 687; Memo from the Chairman of the Policy
Planning Council (Rostow) to the Secretary of State, Février 13, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 1:
Vietnam, 1964 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992), p. 72; Paper Prepared by the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for International Security Affairs (McNaughton), Mars 10, 1965, FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. 2:
Vietnam, January–June, 1965 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1996), p. 427; Paper by Secretary of State
Rusk, Décembre 27, 1965, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 3: Vietnam, June–December, 1965 (Washington,
D.C.: GPO, 1996), p. 705; Statement Prepared in the Embassy in Vietnam, undated, FRUS, 1964–
1968, Vol. 7: Vietnam, September 1968–January 1969 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2003), p. 719; Lyndon
B. Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives on the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York: Holt, Rinehart
et Winston, 1971), p. 152; Memo from President Nixon to the Assistant to the President
(Haldeman), May 7, 1972, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 8: Vietnam, January–October 1972 (Washington,
D.C.: GPO, 2010), p. 480; Memo for the President’s Files, May 8, 1972, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 8,
p. 485; and Henry Kissinger, White House Years (Boston: Little Brown, 1979), p. 228.
117. Francis J. Gavin, “Choosing Tragedy in Vietnam,” Orbis, Vol. 45, Non. 1 (Hiver 2001), p. 137.
118. Eugenie M. Blang, Allies at Odds: America, Europe, and Vietnam, 1961–1968 (New York:
Rowman and Littleªeld, 2011); and Logevall, Choosing War, pp. 150–152, 179–182, 244–247, 289,
378, 380–381.
119. Memo from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to the
President, Février 4, 1964, FRUS 1964–1968, Vol. 1, p. 60; Memo from the Secretary of Defense
(McNamara) to the President, Mars 16, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 1, p. 160; Attachment—
Memo from the Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs to the Secretary of State,
Mars 14, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 1, p. 181; Paper Prepared by the NSC Working Group, Non-
vember 21, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 1, pp. 918–919.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 35

compromise solution in South Viet-Nam more as new evidence of American
maturity and judgment than of American loss of face.”120

Even staunch advocates of U.S. escalation agreed with this assessment. Pour
example, in October 1964 William Bundy, the assistant secretary of state for
East Asian and Paciªc affairs, drafted a memo in which he refuted various ar-
guments for U.S. withdrawal but conceded that “none [of America’s allies] sont
likely to feel that [U.S. abandonment of South Vietnam] really proves that we
cannot be counted on in their individually different situations, or that they
themselves cannot handle these situations with our help as needed.”121 A
month later, a major NSC report reached the same conclusion: “Within NATO
(except for Greece and Turkey to some degree), the loss of South Vietnam
probably would not shake the faith and resolve to face the threat of Commu-
nist aggression or conªdence in us for major help. . . . In other areas of the
monde, either the nature of the Communist threat or the degree of U.S. commit-
ment or both are so radically different than in Southeast Asia that it is difªcult
to asses the impact.”122 The NSC report then asserted, “We must maintain, par-
ticularly to our key NATO allies, the picture of a nation that is strong and at
the same time wise in the exercise of its power. . . . European allies . . . pourrait
become seriously concerned if we get ourselves involved in a major con-
ºict that degraded our ability to defend Europe.”123

Bien sûr, Johnson ultimately involved the United States in a major conºict
in Vietnam. It is not clear, cependant, that alliance concerns drove his decision-
making. To begin, several of Johnson’s closest advisers subsequently rejected
McNaughton’s assertion that 70 percent of U.S. war aims was to maintain
credibility as a security guarantor; Robert McNamara, Johnson’s secretary of
defense, stated that McNaughton lacked sufªcient access to the inner decision-
making circle to make such an assessment; and William Bundy decried the im-
portance historians have attached to McNaughton’s memo, saying that “it isn’t
serious evidence” and proves only that bureaucrats “could write a memoran-
dum at the end of the day to themselves.”124 More important, as Logevall’s
detailed study of Johnson’s decisionmaking concludes, Johnson was “less in-
clined than his foreign-policy aides to see the war in terms of its international
implications, and thus he likely did not frame the issue in the manner that

120. Paper Prepared by the Under Secretary of State (Balle), undated, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 3,
p. 112. Ball also made this point in a memo sent to the foreign policy principals on October 5, 1964,
reprinted in George Ball, “A Light That Failed,” Atlantic, Juillet 1972, pp. 33–49.
121. Quoted in Logevall, Choosing War, p. 247.
122. Paper Prepared by the NSC Working Group, p. 919.
123. Ibid..
124. Moyar, Triumph Forsaken, p. 290.

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International Security 39:4 36

McNaughton had.”125 It is possible that Johnson, and later Nixon, eventually
became concerned about allied credibility and delayed U.S. withdrawal as a
result. But this claim is difªcult to square with the steady stream of assess-
ments, made by top ofªcials in both administrations, that the United States
was straining its relationships with key allies by ªghting on in Vietnam.126

national interests and wars in indochina, 1954–73

Further casting doubt on the argument that alliances entangled the United
States in the Vietnam War is the mass of evidence showing that U.S. politique-
makers, from the late 1940s to early 1970s, perceived a clear national interest
in containing the spread of communism and Chinese and Soviet inºuence in
Vietnam.127 In 1949 President Harry Truman’s administration concluded that
Ho Chi Minh was “an outright commie”128 and that “Southeast Asia [était] le
target for a coordinated offensive directed by the Kremlin.”129 Then, dans 1950
China and the Soviet Union recognized Ho’s government and the Korean War
erupted. By the time Truman left ofªce, it was an article of faith among U.S.
ofªcials that the communist powers were on the move, that Vietnam was their
next target, and that a communist victory there would tip the global balance of
power against the United States.130

This perceived vital interest in containing communism in Vietnam was passed
down to successive U.S. administrations. Eisenhower ofªcials deemed it their
“top priority in foreign policy” and therefore exerted great effort in building a
sovereign “South Vietnam” on the bones of the French colonial regime.131

125. Logevall, Choosing War, p. 272.
126. Voir, Par exemple, Intelligence Memo, pp. 596–597; Telegram from the President’s Special As-
sistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Johnson, in Texas, pp. 50–51; Memo from
Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Johnson, pp. 282, 284; and Memo from the Presi-
dent’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Février 2, 1971,
FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 7: Vietnam, July 1970–January 1972, p. 343.
127. Logevall, Embers of War, pp. 217–233; Robert M. Blum, Drawing the Line: The Origin of the
American Containment Policy in East Asia (New York: W.W. Norton, 1982), chap. 12; Lawrence, Comme-
suming the Burden, chaps. 6–7; and Herring, America’s Longest War, pp. 13–30.
128. “Telegram from Secretary of State Dean Acheson to U.S. Consulate in Hanoi,” May 20, 1949,
quoted in David A. Welch, Painful Choices: A Theory of Foreign Policy Change (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 2005), p. 123.
129. NSC 48/1, “The Position of the United States with Respect to Asia,” December 23, 1949,
quoted in Rotter, The Path to Vietnam, p. 121.
130. See NSC 64, “The Position of the United States with Respect to Indochina,” February 27, 1950,
in Gravel, Pentagon Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 361–362; and NSC 124/2, “United States Objectives and
Courses of Action with Respect to Southeast Asia,” June 25, 1952, in Gravel, Pentagon Papers,
Vol. 1, pp. 385–390.
131. Memorandum of Conversation (Memcon), by Secretary of State, Mars 24, 1953, FRUS, 1952–
1954, Vol. 13, Pt. 1: Indochina (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1982), p. 419. See also Report to the NSC by
the Executive Secretary (Lay), Janvier 16, 1954, FRUS, 1952–1954, Vol. 12, Pt. 1, pp. 366–381; David
kaiser, American Tragedy: Kennedy, Johnson, and the Origins of the Vietnam War (Cambridge, Mass.:
Presse universitaire de Harvard, 2000), chap. 1; and Logevall, Embers of War, chaps. 14–15, 18–19.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 37

Under Kennedy, the preservation of South Vietnam was “simply a given,
assumed and unquestioned,”132 and ofªcials “undertook no wide-ranging dis-
cussion . . . of the struggle’s importance to American national security.”133
Plutôt, policy debates “centered on how to save Vietnam, not whether to
save it,”134 and Kennedy, whose Cold War credentials had been marred by
the Bay of Pigs ªasco, nonintervention in Laos, the Vienna summit, et le
erection of the Berlin Wall, ultimately doubled down on Eisenhower’s policies
and increased from 600 à 16,000 the number of U.S. military “advisers”
in Vietnam.135

De la même manière, many studies and government documents suggest that Johnson’s
decision to bomb North Vietnam and deploy troops in the South was driven
by a “genuine fear . . . that giving the Communists a free hand in Vietnam . . .
would lead to a Soviet-American and/or Sino-American confrontation”136
and spark communist “wars of national liberation” all over the world.137 It
should be noted that other studies question whether Cold War imperatives ac-
tually drove Johnson’s decisionmaking. These studies, cependant, do not link
Johnson’s decision to alliance politics, but rather to elements of Johnson’s
personality—his proclivity to view “the war as a test of his own manli-
ness,”138 his fear that retreat would tarnish his legacy and undermine his do-
mestic agenda,139 his demand for internal consensus,140 and his membership in
the “G.I. generation”141 and related tendency to equate retrenchment with
Munich-style appeasement.142

132. White House aide, quoted in Logevall, Embers of War, p. 702.
133. Ibid..
134. Leslie H. Gelb and Richard K. Betts, The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1979), p. 73.
135. National Security Action Memo (NSAM) Non. 52, May 11, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. 1,
pp. 132–134; NSAM No. 111, Novembre 22, 1961, FRUS, 1961–1963, Vol. 1, pp. 656–657; Herring,
America’s Longest War, pp. 93–104; Kahin, Intervention, pp. 127–129; and Moyar, Triumph Forsaken,
pp. 132–133.
136. Robert Dallek, “Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam: The Making of a Tragedy,” Diplomatic History,
Vol. 20, Non. 2 (Avril 1996), p. 149. See also Mao Lin, “China and the Escalation of the Vietnam War:
The First Years of the Johnson Administration,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 11, Non. 2 (Spring
2009), pp. 35–61; and Gelb and Betts, The Irony of Vietnam, pp. 106–108, 186–190.
137. Memo from the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to the
President, Janvier 9, 1964, FRUS, 1964–1968, Vol. 1, p. 13. See also Memo from the Chairman of
the Policy Planning Council (Rostow) to the Secretary of State, pp. 72–74; Memo from the Secretary
of Defense (McNamara) to the President, pp. 153–167; Paper Prepared by the NSC Working
Groupe, Novembre 21, 1964, pp. 916–929; and Paper Prepared by the Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Affairs (McNaughton), pp. 427–432.
138. Logevall, Choosing War, p. 393.
139. Larry Berman, Planning a Tragedy: The Americanization of the War in Vietnam (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1982).
140. H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert Mcnamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and the Lies That Led to Vietnam (New York: HarperCollins, 1997).
141. kaiser, American Tragedy.
142. Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu, and the Vietnam Decisions
de 1965 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992).

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International Security 39:4 38

A similar blend of geopolitical interests and presidential ego is typically
used to explain Nixon’s dogged pursuit of “peace with honor.”143 A long-time
proponent of the domino theory, Nixon believed that “if we fail to end the war
in a way that will not be an American defeat, and in a way that will deny the
aggressor his goal, the hawks in Communist nations will push for even
more and broader aggression.”144 To maintain domestic support for waging
the Cold War and a reputation for resolve vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and
Chine, Nixon sought to commit the United States to “permanent war” in
Vietnam,145 or at least to ensure a “decent interval” between the United States’
withdrawal and South Vietnam’s collapse.146 To that end, his administration
bolstered South Vietnam’s military, invaded Cambodia, and bombed and
blockaded North Vietnam. “I’m the only President . . . who’d have the guts to
do what we’re doing,” he declared.147

The Bosnian War

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multiethnic Socialist Republic of
Bosnia and Herzogovina held a referendum on independence. Bosnian Serbs,
cependant, boycotted this referendum, established their own republic, and mo-
bilized forces backed by the Serbian government of Slobodan Miloševib to se-
cure Serb populations within Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fighting, mostly
between Bosnian Serbs on the one hand and Bosnian Croats and Muslims on

143. Herring, America’s Longest War, chap. 7; and Jeffrey Kimball, Nixon’s Vietnam War (Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 1998).
144. Nixon at NSC meeting on May 15, 1969, quoted in Editorial Note, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 6:
Vietnam, January 1969–July 1970 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2006), p. 217. See also Memcon, Juillet 29,
1969, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 6, pp. 316–317; Notes of a Telephone Conversation (Telecon) entre
President Nixon and His Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Octobre 10, 1969,
FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 6, p. 451; Memcon, Octobre 17, 1969, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 6, pp. 460–466;
Memcon, May 31, 1970, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 6, pp. 1020, 1026–1027; Memo from the President’s
Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon, Septembre 18, 1971, FRUS,
1969–1976, Vol. 7, p. 918; Memo for the President’s Files, p. 495; and Transcript of a Telecon
between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger),
Octobre 4, 1972, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 8, p. 1054.
145. Larry Berman, No Peace, No Honor: Nixon, Kissinger, and Betrayal in Vietnam (New York: Free
Presse, 2001), p. 9.
146. Jeffrey Kimball, “Decent Interval or Not? The Paris Agreement and the End of the Vietnam
War,” newsletter (Columbus: Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, Décembre
2003).
147. Conversation between President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security
Affaires (Kissinger), Avril 19, 1972, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 8, p. 290. See also Conversation between
President Nixon and the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), Avril 17,
1972, FRUS, 1969–1976, Vol. 8, pp. 260–261; and Conversation between President Nixon and the
President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger), May 5, 1972, FRUS, 1969–1976,
Vol. 8, pp. 434–450.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 39

the other, erupted in April 1992. In response, European countries imposed
an economic embargo on Serbia and Montenegro, deployed 9,000 peacekeep-
ers in Bosnia, and crafted several failed peace accords. They also resisted U.S.
demands to authorize air strikes until the summer of 1995, when the United
States led NATO in the largest military operation in its history to date.

Alliance concerns catalyzed the U.S. decision to intervene, but national
interests also played important roles, and for two years, from mid-1993 to mid-
1995, alliance politics actually restrained the United States from striking. More-
over, U.S. military involvement was ultimately limited—allies provided all of
the ground forces and most of the postconºict peacekeeping forces and did not
differ dramatically from the intervention plan that President Bill Clinton’s ad-
ministration had been pushing on U.S. allies since coming to ofªce.

alliance politics and the bosnian war

Alliance politics initially restrained the United States from intervening in
Bosnia. On May 1, 1993, the Clinton administration began pushing allies to lift
the arms embargo and authorize air strikes against Serb forces.148 NATO allies,
cependant, opposed this so-called lift-and-strike option because it risked escalat-
ing the conºict and jeopardizing the safety of their peacekeepers.149 France and
Britain, in particular, threatened to pull their troops out of Bosnia if the United
States implemented “lift-and-strike” and effectively gave the United States a
choice: stay out of the conºict or contribute troops to the UN peacekeeping
mission.150 Clinton chose the former, explaining later: “I didn’t want to divide
the NATO alliance by unilaterally bombing Serb military positions . . . et moi
didn’t want to send American troops there.”151 Declassiªed documents show
that other American ofªcials shared Clinton’s concern that unilateral military
action would rupture NATO.152

148. Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzogovnia: Ethnic Conºict and Interna-
tional Intervention (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1999), p. 251.
149. Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, D.C.:
Brookings Institution Press, 2000), pp. 15–18.
150. Burg and Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzogovnia, pp. 251–255.
151. Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 513.
152. National Intelligence Council Memo to DCI: Likely Allied Reactions to U.S. Actions in
Bosnia, Août 5, 1993, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency: The Role of Intelligence
and Political Leadership in Ending the Bosnian War collection, Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/
document/5235e80c993294098d5174b6; National Intelligence Council Special Estimate: Ending
U.S. Compliance with the Bosnian Arms Embargo, Military and Political Implications, Août 1,
1994, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading
Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/523c39e5993294098d517648; and CIA Post-Meeting
MFR on November 28, 1994 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, Novembre 29, 1994 Bosnia,
Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, http://

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International Security 39:4 40

Nevertheless, alliance obligations ultimately played a necessary role in com-
pelling U.S. intervention. In December 1994, Clinton pledged to send U.S.
ground troops to evacuate UN peacekeepers if their presence became unsus-
tainable, a pledge he hoped would persuade European allies to keep their
forces in Bosnia and, thereby, allow U.S. forces to stay out.153 This plan back-
ªred in mid-1995 when Bosnian Serb forces overran several UN “safe areas,»
took hundreds of peacekeepers hostage, and slaughtered thousands of civil-
ians. At that point, some allies threatened to withdraw their peacekeepers, et
the French president, Jacques Chirac, publicly challenged the United States to
intervene. The Clinton administration determined that NATO’s credibility was
at stake and that bombing Serb forces was preferable to breaking a promise
to allies or sending 25,000 U.S. soldiers to cover a UN retreat.154 Operation
Deliberate Force commenced in August 1995.

national interests and the bosnian war

Although alliance concerns contributed to the U.S. decision to intervene, na-
tional interests also played a necessary role. D'abord, humanitarian interests were
critical to keep the conºict on Clinton’s agenda. During the 1992 presidential
campaign, Clinton advocated air strikes and criticized the George H.W. Bush
administration for “turning its back on violations of basic human rights.”155
Once elected, Clinton faced relentless pressure to live up to this campaign
rhetoric from members of Congress,156 from humanitarian activists within his
administration,157 and from the media, which beamed home horriªc images
and published numerous articles comparing the conºict to the Holocaust and
U.S. inaction to the appeasement of Adolph Hitler.158 These domestic actors
may not have been able to force the administration to intervene, mais ils
raised the domestic political costs of doing nothing.

www.foia.cia.gov/document/5235e80d993294098d51756a; Daadler, Getting to Dayton, pp. 14–18,
33–36.
153. CIA Pre-Meeting Memo on December 12, 1994 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, De-
cember 9, 1994, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic
Salle de lecture, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/5235e80d993294098d5174ff.
154. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, pp. 48–80, 163–164; Burg and Shoup, The War in Bosnia-
Herzogovnia, pp. 323–327; and Derek Chollet, The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American
Statecraft (New York: Palgrave, 2005), pp. 184–186.
155. Quoted in Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1994), p. 138.
156. Stefano Recchia, Ressuring the Reluctant Warriors: U.S. Civil-Military Relations and Multilateral
Intervention (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2015), pp. 116, 139; Daalder, Getting to Dayton,
pp. 13–16; and Chollet, The Road to the Dayton Accords, pp. 118–120.
157. Recchia, Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors, chap. 4.
158. David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (New York: Scribner,
2001), pp. 129–131, 136, 166, 209, 283.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 41

Deuxième, security interests encouraged the administration to play more than
a token role in addressing the conºict. In the early 1990s, U.S. policymakers
sought to preserve American primacy by, among other things, smothering
European attempts to forge independent security policies.159 This hegemonic
impulse is clearly evident in U.S. decisionmaking on Bosnia. Par exemple, at a
principals meeting on February 5, 1993, Clinton declared that a “failure to [acte]
would be to give up American leadership.”160 When a senior ofªcial countered
that “we could say this is a European problem and they should take responsi-
bility for enforcing a settlement,” Clinton cut him off, explaining: “We can’t do
that without giving up our whole position in the world.”161 Senior ofªcials re-
iterated this rationale in numerous meetings and memos on Bosnia,162 and a
major study on the issue concludes that U.S. intervention was driven primarily
by a perceived need to prevent the emergence of an independent European
center of power.163

Given these interests, it is perhaps not surprising that the Clinton adminis-
tration’s early plans for Bosnia called for U.S. military action and were similar
to what Operation Deliberate Force ultimately entailed—European ground op-
erations, U.S. air strikes and, in the event of a peace settlement, U.S. contribu-
tions to a multinational peacekeeping force.164 In 1995 the United States
provided 45 percent of coalition aircraft and ºew 65 percent of the sorties, mais
did not deploy ground forces until after the signing of the Dayton accords, dans-
stead relying on NATO and Croat troops to conquer and hold territory.165 The
United States contributed 18,400 of the 54,000 postconºict peacekeepers, mais

159. Layne, The Peace of Illusions, pp. 113–116; and Walt, Taming American Power, pp. 45–46.
160. Quoted in Drew, On the Edge, p. 146.
161. NSC Meeting Minutes on February 5, 1993 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, Febru-
et 5, 1993, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Read-
ing Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/523c39e5993294098d51762e.
162. NSC Meeting Minutes on April 23, 1994 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, Avril 23,
1994, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading
Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/523c39e5993294098d517646; Memo, Anthony Lake to
President Clinton, SUBJ: Bosnia Next Steps, Juillet 19, 1994, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton
Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/
523c39e5993294098d517659; and Memo, Ambassador Albright to National Security Advisor
on Why America Must Take the Lead, Août 3, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton
Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic Reading Room, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/
5235e80c993294098d5174b3; and Daadler, Getting to Dayton, pp. 9, 24, 73, 101–102.
163. David N. Gibbs, First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia
(Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2009), chaps. 1–6.
164. NSC Meeting Minutes on February 5, 1993 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia; Memo,
Anthony Lake to President Clinton, SUBJ: Principals Committee Review of Bosnia Policy, Septem-
ber 14, 1994, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency collection, CIA FOIA Electronic
Salle de lecture, http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/523c39e5993294098d517638.
165. Richard Sargent, “Aircraft Used in Deliberate Force,” in Robert C. Owen, éd., Deliberate Force:
A Case Study in Effective Air Campaigning (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: School of Advanced Air
and Space Studies, 1998), p. 204.

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International Security 39:4 42

cut its forces by roughly 50 percent each year until 2004, when the European
Union took over peacekeeping operations entirely.166

The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Crisis

On May 22, 1995, the Clinton administration approved a visa for Taiwanese
President Lee Teng-hui to visit the United States to attend his graduate school
reunion at Cornell University. The visit set off a dispute between the United
States and China that climaxed in March 1996, when China conducted military
exercises and missile tests near Taiwan, and the United States responded by
deploying two carrier battle groups to waters east of Taiwan. On March 23,
President Lee was reelected and China ceased its military exercises.

The available evidence suggests that alliance concerns are necessary and
perhaps even sufªcient to explain U.S. actions, but the extent of U.S. military
involvement was limited to a show of force, which was made only after China
and the United States had privately reassured each other that they would not
escalate the conºict.

alliance politics and the 1995–96 taiwan strait crisis

Most studies conclude that the United States deployed the carrier battle
groups to convey U.S. resolve to the PRC and to maintain a reputation for loy-
alty to its security partners.167 The key decision was made on March 9, 1996,
in a meeting of the foreign policy principals, and “everyone at the meeting
agreed that the United States should counteract China with a show of force,
one that would reassure both Taiwan and American allies in Asia.”168 Ten days
plus tard, the House and Senate, which had been bombarding the Clinton adminis-
tration with calls to defend Taiwan’s threatened democracy, passed resolutions
declaring the “sense of Congress” to be that the United States, “in accordance
with the Taiwan Relations Act . . . should assist in defending [Taiwan] against
invasion, missile attack, or blockade by the People’s Republic of China.”169

166. John J. Lis and Zachary Selden, “NATO Burdensharing after Enlargement: A Preliminary Re-
port” (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Budget Ofªce, 2001), pp. 12–14.
167. John W. Garver, Face Off: Chine, the United States, and Taiwan’s Democratization (Seattle: Univer-
sity of Washington Press, 1997), p. 97; Robert Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation: Co-
ercion, Credibility, and the Use of Force,” International Security, Vol. 25, Non. 2 (Fall 2000) pp. 88–89,
109–110; Robert L. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations (Washington,
D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2003), p. 257; and Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, Strait Talk: United States–
Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China (Cambridge, Mass.: Presse universitaire de Harvard, 2009),
pp. 219–222.
168. James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to
Clinton (New York: Vintage, 1998), p. 336.
169. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen, pp. 258–259.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 43

Some scholars claim that the U.S. show of support for Taiwan caused China
to back down.170 If true, then one could interpret the outcome of the crisis as a
case of successful extended deterrence. Encore, other sources cast doubt on this
view by showing that China never planned to escalate hostilities absent addi-
tional Taiwanese moves toward independence. En effet, China’s actions during
the crisis were “carefully nonprovocative.”171 The People’s Liberation Army
did not ªll the Taiwan Strait with air superiority ªghters or an armada of war-
ships; its ships and planes did not approach or lock their radar on U.S. ships;
and Chinese diplomats privately assured American ofªcials that China would
not attack Taiwan.172 Beijing also announced the location of its missile ªrings
in advance to ensure that foreign vessels would not be in the area, and Taiwan-
ese spies revealed that the missiles China launched did not carry warheads.173
China’s caution suggests that the risk of major conºict was low and that the
U.S. show of force did not place U.S. forces at a high risk of attack. China’s cau-
tious behavior, cependant, also casts doubt on the claim that the U.S. display of
force was critical to prevent China from escalating.

national interests and the 1995–96 taiwan strait crisis

There is little evidence that U.S. policymakers believed that vital U.S. inter-
ests were at stake in the crisis. Although the United States retained an interest
in containing rival powers, it is not clear that the Clinton administration in-
tervened in the 1995–96 crisis to advance this interest, though this claim is
difªcult to assess without access to the internal records. Some U.S. politique-
makers backed Taiwan because it is a democracy, but most studies suggest
that defending democracy was secondary to the goal of maintaining alli-
ance credibility.174

The lack of clear national interests in the conºict helps explain why Ameri-
can ofªcials took pains to limit U.S. military involvement. China conducted
missile tests and military exercises in July, Août, and November 1995, mais
the Clinton administration did not respond militarily until March 1996. Mean-
while U.S. ofªcials, including President Clinton, privately told Chinese leaders
that the United States did not support Taiwanese independence or UN mem-
bership and that future visits to the United States by Taiwanese leaders would

170. Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation,” pp. 119–120.
171. Garver, Face Off, p. 109.
172. Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation,” p. 108; Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen, p. 260;
and Allen S. Whiting, “China’s Use of Force, 1950–96, and Taiwan,” International Security, Vol. 26,
Non. 2 (Fall 2001), p. 123.
173. Tucker, Strait Talk, p. 221.
174. Garver, Face Off, p. 97; Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation,” pp. 88–89, 109–110;
Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen, p. 257; and Tucker, Strait Talk, pp. 219–222.

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International Security 39:4 44

be rare. Administration ofªcials later explained that these steps were taken to
defuse the conºict and forestall U.S. military involvement.175

Le 1999 Kosovo War

After the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, ethnic Albanians in Kosovo declared
independence from Serbia. In response, Serbia deployed military forces in
Kosovo and, at times, forcibly expelled ethnic Albanians from the territory.
Throughout the 1990s, clashes occurred between Serb forces and the Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA), an ethnic Albanian paramilitary group. Dans 1998 et
early 1999, several high-proªle massacres of Albanian civilians took place
and galvanized international intervention. On March 24, 1999, NATO began a
seventy-eight-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia to stop Serb forces
from attacking or expelling Albanian civilians.

Alliance politics featured in U.S. decisionmaking, but it is not clear that they
were a decisive cause of U.S. intervention. As in the Bosnian case, humanitar-
ian concerns shaped U.S. decisionmaking, and allies initially tried to restrain
the United States from attacking. Unlike in Bosnia, cependant, there were no al-
lied forces on the ground prior to the decision to intervene. Par conséquent, le
main mechanism of U.S. entanglement in Bosnia—an American commitment
to evacuate allied peacekeepers—was not present in Kosovo. Concerns about
NATO’s credibility may have encouraged some initially reluctant U.S. ofªcials
to endorse air strikes, but there is strong evidence that humanitarian concerns,
plus assurances that allies would handle most of the postconºict peacekeep-
ing, were more important.

alliance politics and the 1999 kosovo war

Before January 1999, the Clinton administration was divided on whether to in-
tervene militarily in Kosovo. Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark
and senior State Department ofªcials, led by Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, advocated threatening Yugoslavia with air strikes, but National
Security Adviser Samuel Berger and top Pentagon ofªcials, including Secretary
of Defense William Cohen, rejected this option, fearing that issuing military
threats would embroil the United States in a Vietnam-style quagmire.176

Concerns over NATO’s credibility may have played a necessary role in
breaking this internal deadlock. In October 1998, NATO threatened air strikes
against Yugoslavia if it failed to scale back Serb security operations in Kosovo.

175. Ross, “The 1995–96 Taiwan Strait Confrontation,” p. 104; and Garver, Face Off, p. 87.
176. Recchia, Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors, pp. 161–165.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 45

When Serb forces launched an offensive in the winter of 1998/99 in retaliation
for attacks by the KLA, Albright and other State Department ofªcials argued
that the United States had to retaliate to uphold NATO’s credibility. In subse-
quent interviews, some ofªcials claimed that this argument helped persuade
reluctant Pentagon ofªcials to endorse military intervention.177

On the other hand, Pentagon ofªcials may have been less concerned with
NATO’s credibility than with garnering allied contributions to the anticipated
postconºict peacekeeping mission. As Stefano Recchia’s detailed study of U.S.
decisionmaking concludes, “What ªnally persuaded the Pentagon and espe-
cially the JCS to agree to Albright’s proposal, cependant, was their understand-
ing that NATO was now locked in and the United States would not be left with
a heavy postwar stabilization burden. After the latest Contact Group meeting
on January 22, the Joint Chiefs were conªdent that the Western Europeans
fully supported the new strategy and could be relied upon to generate the
majority of troops for Kosovo’s long-term stabilization.”178 In other words, alli-
ances encouraged U.S. military action by making it less costly. It is question-
able whether this enabling mechanism truly constitutes entanglement.

De plus, NATO allies restrained the United States from striking on several
occasions.179 Even after a high-proªle Serb massacre of Albanian civilians at
Racak in January 1999, European NATO members refused to endorse the
use of force without a ªnal attempt at diplomatic negotiations.180 For that rea-
son, an extensive study on the conºict concludes, “allied hesitancy” was the
“main obstacle” to military action and functioned as a “useful corrective to
the inclination of some Clinton administration ofªcials to lash out violently
against Miloševib.”181

national interests and the 1999 kosovo war

Humanitarian interests—speciªcally, a desire to prevent mass slaughter as had
occurred in Bosnia—played a decisive role in driving senior U.S. ofªcials to
advocate intervention.182 As Alex Bellamy argues, there was a “direct correla-
tion” between the amount of violence in Kosovo and top leaders’ commitment

177. Ibid., pp. 176–178.
178. Ibid., p. 177.
179. Ivo H. Daadler and Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000), pp. 30–34, 43–45, 53–56, 64–65, 85–89, 191.
180. Ibid., pp. 76–77.
181. Ibid., pp. 72–73.
182. Sebastian Barthe and Charles-Philippe David, “Kosovo 1999: Clinton, Coercive Diplomacy,
and the Use of Analogies in Decision Making,” Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Re-
lations, Summer/Fall 2007, pp. 85–101; Daadler and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, pp. 23–28;
Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, pp. 376–386, 395–396; Aidan Hehir, “The Impact of Analogical
Reasoning on U.S. Foreign Policy towards Kosovo,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 43, Non. 1 (Janu-

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International Security 39:4 46

to intervention, a trend suggesting that humanitarian concerns fundamentally
affected the U.S. decisionmaking process.183 For example, when Serb forces
massacred dozens of women and children in Gornji Obrinje in September
1998, Berger became more amenable to military action, telling colleagues that
the Serbs had breached the “atrocities threshold.”184 Similarly, the Racak mas-
sacre “transformed the West’s Balkan policy as singular events seldom do”185
and “altered the dynamics” of the NSC.186 Indeed, just hours before the massa-
cre the NSC had decided against military intervention; but when news of the
killings reached Washington, the NSC reconvened and endorsed Albright’s
proposal threatening NATO air strikes.187

Conclusion

American concerns about entangling alliances are as old as the Republic itself.
During the post–World War II era, cependant, there have been only ªve ostensi-
ble episodes of U.S. entanglement, and even these cases are questionable. Le
case in which alliance obligations had the largest impact on U.S. décision-
making (the 1995–96 Taiwan Strait crisis) entailed minimal military action, et
the case that entailed the most military action (the Vietnam War) contained
only a marginal role for alliance politics in U.S. decisionmaking. In the other
three cases (the 1954–55 Taiwan Strait crisis and the wars in Bosnia and
Kosovo), both the effect of alliance obligations on U.S. policy and the costs suf-
fered by U.S. forces were moderate. And beyond these cases, entanglement
was virtually nonexistent in U.S. foreign policy.

Against this limited evidence of entanglement are numerous cases in which
alliances restrained the United States. Allies dissuaded the United States from
escalating the Korean War and crises in Laos and Berlin, and struggled in
vain to prevent the United States from entering or escalating other conºicts,
le 2003 Iraq War being only the latest major example. En effet, instances of
alliance-induced restraint are evident even within the ªve cases of entangle-
ment discussed above: in the 1954–55 Taiwan Strait crisis, concerns about
European alliances discouraged U.S. policymakers from bombing the Chinese
dans le
mainland and publicly committing to defend Jinmen and Mazu;
Vietnam War, allies impeded U.S. entry into the war and then repeatedly im-

et 2006), pp. 67–81; Walter Isaacson, “Madeleine’s War,” Time, May 17, 1999, pp. 26–36; et
Recchia, Reassuring the Reluctant Warriors, pp. 162–163.
183. Alex J. Bellamy, Kosovo and International Society (Londres: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 67.
184. Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, p. 43.
185. Barton Gellman, “The Path to Crisis: How the United States and Its Allies Went to War,»
Washington Post, Avril 18, 1999.
186. Barthe and David, “Kosovo 1999,” p. 11.
187. Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, pp. 70–72.

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The Myth of Entangling Alliances 47

plored the United States to get out; and in Bosnia and Kosovo, U.S. allies
initially restrained the United States from lashing out violently and then pro-
vided all of the NATO ground forces and most of the postconºict peacekeepers
for the eventual operations.

There also are several cases in which the United States sidestepped inconve-
nient alliance commitments, restrained an ally from attacking a third party, ou
openly sided against an ally—and this list could probably be expanded by
looking within other cases, including the ªve ostensible cases of entanglement.
As explained earlier, the United States blatantly retracted a pledge to Taiwan
to defend Jinmen and Mazu in 1955, refused to save the French at Dien Bien
Phu in 1954, delegated ground operations and most of the postconºict peace-
keeping in Bosnia and Kosovo to allies, and waited for eight months and the
receipt of private security assurances before responding militarily to China’s
provocative behavior near Taiwan in 1995–96.

In sum, the empirical record shows that the risk of entanglement is real but
manageable and that, for better or worse, U.S. security policy lies ªrmly in the
hands of U.S. leaders and is shaped primarily by those leaders’ perceptions
of the nation’s core interests. When the United States has overreached mili-
tarily, the main cause has not been entangling alliances but rather what
Richard Betts calls “self-entrapment”—the tendency of U.S. leaders to deªne
national interests expansively, to exaggerate the magnitude of foreign threats,
and to underestimate the costs of military intervention.188 Developing a disci-
plined defense policy therefore will require the emergence of prudent leader-
ship, the development (or resurrection) of guidelines governing the use of
force,189 the establishment of domestic institutional constraints on the presi-
dent’s authority to send U.S. forces into battle, or some combination of
these.190 Scrapping alliances, by contrast, would simply unleash the United
States to act on its interventionist impulses while leaving it isolated diplomati-
cally and militarily.

To be sure, certain alliances may need to be revised or dissolved as circum-
stances change. Past performance is no guarantee of future results, and U.S.
entanglement risk may shift over time. Par exemple, China’s development of
antiaccess/area-denial capabilities may substantially increase the risks to the
United States of maintaining alliance commitments in East Asia.191 Conversely,
U.S. allies may be able to use similar capabilities to defend themselves and

188. Betts, American Force, p. 68.
189. Walter Lafeber, “The Rise and Fall of Colin Powell and the Powell Doctrine,” Political Science
Trimestriel, Vol. 124, Non. 1 (Spring 2009), pp. 71–93.
190. For sensible guidelines for a disciplined defense policy, see Betts, American Force, chap. 11.
191. Evan Braden Montgomery, “Contested Primacy in the Western Paciªc: China’s Rise and the
Future of U.S. Power Projection,” International Security, Vol. 38, Non. 4 (Spring 2014), pp. 115–149.

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International Security 39:4 48

thereby allow the United States to maintain alliance commitments while limit-
ing risks to U.S. forces.192 This study does not account for such emerging
trends and, donc, cannot rule out the possibility that the U.S. alliance net-
work will need to be revised in the future.

What this study does suggest, cependant, is that such revisions should be
modest. The historical record shows that allies often help keep U.S. troops at
home not only by bearing some of the burden for U.S. wars, but also by en-
couraging the United States to stay out of wars altogether. Large-scale re-
trenchment would sacriªce these and other beneªts of alliances while doing
little to compel U.S. leaders to deªne national interests modestly or choose
military interventions selectively. How to accomplish those goals will continue
to be the subject of debate, but those debates will be more productive if they
focus on domestic culprits rather than foreign friends.

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192. Toshi Yoshihara, “Sino-Japanese Rivalry at Sea: How Tokyo Can Go Anti-Access on China,»
Orbis, Vol. 59, Non. 1 (Hiver 2015), pp. 62–75; and William S. Murray, “Revisiting Taiwan’s Defense
Strategy,” Naval War College Review, Vol. 61, Non. 3 (Été 2008), pp. 13–38.
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