US Alliance management in the shadow of sino-American competition

ABSTRACT

Authoritarian, revisionist, and revanchist powers are exerting pressure on the liberal international order and challenging the United States’ vital security interests across theaters. The United States will increasingly need to simultaneously tackle challenges in two critical theaters while also addressing global threats. To do so effectively, it will need to lean in and actively capitalize on its chief geostrategic advantage over its competitors and adversaries – its global network of alliances and strategic partnerships. However, alliance management faces both traditional and emerging challenges. These range from ensuring effective burden sharing, to providing alliance assurance and balancing interests and values along with allies’ contributions across theaters and domains. In addition, because the United States is operating in a world where all instruments of power, military and non-military, are increasingly utilized in an interconnected way, it will also need to look at defense and security alliance management through the lens of issues ranging from industrial policy to economic security. This essay sheds light on these “old” and “new” challenges, providing insights into critical issues of alliance management that the United States will face in the emerging security environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Alliances
• alliance management
• US-China relations
• competition
• NATO

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The Joint Chiefs of Staff (2007) defines a force multiplier as “A capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force, significantly increases the combat potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment.”

2. It is outside the scope of this paper to adjudicate where this balance lies. There will be a constant tension in this balance, and future US administrations will have to continue to wrestle with this tension. For an overview of this debate, see, for example: Brands and Edel (2021), Carothers and Press (2021), Grigoryan (2020), Cox et al (2000), Drezner (2005), Green and Twining (2008), Leffler (2005), Nye (2020), van Dyke (1962).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benedetta Berti

Dr. Benedetta Berti is Head of Policy Planning in the Office of the Secretary General at NATO. She is also Associate Researcher at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy at Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. An Eisenhower Global Fellow and a TED Senior Fellow, in the past decade Benedetta has held research and teaching positions at West Point, The Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University, among others. Dr. Berti is the author of four books, including ”Armed Political Organizations. From Conflict to Integration” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). Her work and research have appeared, among others, in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times; as well as in Civil Wars, Democratization, Government & Opposition, Mediterranean Politics, the Middle East Journal, Parameters, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence. She holds a BA in Oriental Studies from the University of Bologna, and a MA and PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School (Tufts University).

Opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily express the views or opinions of her employer.

Katherine Kjellström Elgin

Dr. Katherine Kjellström Elgin is a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). Prior to joining CSBA, she served as a DAAD Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Dr. Elgin has also worked at the Brookings Institution and with the Long Term Strategy Group in Washington, D.C. In 2018, she served as a visiting fellow at the Institute for Security & Development Policy in Stockholm, Sweden. Dr. Elgin earned her Ph.D. in Public Affairs (Security Studies) from Princeton University’s School of Public & International Affairs.

Gorana Grgić

Dr. Gorana Grgić is a jointly appointed Senior Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Sciences (Discipline of Government and International Relations) and the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. She is also an Expert Associate with the ANU National Security College. In recent years, Gorana was a Research Fellow in Grand Strategy at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security, Partners Across the Globe Research Fellow at the NATO Defense College, and a Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for European Studies. Her research interests include US foreign policy, transatlantic relations, conflict resolution and democratisation, and her research projects and teaching activities have been funded by the EU, NATO, and the Australian Department of Defence.

Martayn Vandewall

Martayn Van de Wall is a senior at the United States Military Academy where he studies international relations and serves as the First Captain of the United States Corps of Cadets, leading approximately 4500 future officers. Within international relations, Martayn’s focus is on strategic collaboration and coherence within NATO. He is a graduate of the Army’s Sapper Leader and Air Assault courses, a West Point Writing Fellow, and a Truman Scholar. In the future, Martayn hopes to serve as an infantry officer and work with NATO allies to promote strategic partnerships.