The Political Rhetoric of Alliance Maintenance

Military alliances, like the ones between the United States and South Korea or China and North Korea, are often formed in moments of intense international conflict and insecurity, like the Cold War. In the early years of these alliances, governments can easily justify to their constituents why forming such partnerships is worth the financial and human costs. But these alliances, enshrined by formal treaties, often outlast the initial conditions that created them. As time goes on, citizens might begin to question the merits of aiding a military ally to honor an age-old obligation. We observe this phenomenon today, as Europeans and Americans call into question the usefulness of NATO, and as Chinese deride North Korea’s leader as “fatty Kim the third.”

This project, in collaboration with Jiyoung Ko and Adam Liu, assesses the rhetorical strategies leaders might take to maintain — or to debilitate — existing military alliances. Through public opinion surveys administered to American and Chinese citizens, it studies how appeals to national interests and shared values shape people’s enthusiasm for deploying military forces to help an ally. The surveys were embedded in hypothetical scenarios about the bilateral relationships between the U.S. and South Korea and between China and North Korea, a political context that is of great relevance to contemporary Asia-Pacific politics.

The initial results of the ongoing study are striking. Both American and Chinese publics are more heavily swayed by appeals to common values than by appeals to purported national interests. However, overall levels of support for defending an ally are higher among Americans than Chinese, which echoes existing studies that show that alliances among democracies are the most durable.

With these results in hand, we presented at the International Studies Association’s meeting in Hong Kong, and received great feedback for continuing the study. We hope to better understand the specific reasons why value appeals are more persuasive, and perhaps to expand the study to other alliance contexts. We thank the Freeman Spogli Institute for making possible this first foray into understanding the rhetoric of alliance maintenance.

Written by Jonathan Chu, Ph.D. candidate, Stanford Department of Political Science.