United We Stand, Divided We Fall: The Necessity of Alliances Under a Biden Administration
By Raphael Piliero, SDG Research Assistant & Advocacy Fellow
On January 20th, President Joseph R. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were sworn into office after a divisive and contentious election. President Biden has aimed to hit the ground running, creating a series of plans for his first 100 days in office. Harkening back to the “First 100 Days” plan of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Biden hopes to have a similarly ambitious and impactful start to his tenure: on the docket are mass vaccination plans for the coronavirus pandemic, reversing the immigration policies of President Trump, criminal justice reform, and more.
President Biden will likely face foreign policy issues across a range of areas during his tenure: climate change, fair trade agreements, mutual defense pacts, non-proliferation, and countless others. Indeed, within each of these issue-areas, a number of sub-issues exist. Take non-proliferation: to commit to addressing these challenges could include arms control with Russia, addressing Iran’s continued nuclear development program, arms control with North Korea, among other issues.
However, the scale of the challenge should not deter President Biden from an ambitious agenda. Fortunately, a through-line exists across all of these areas: they are better addressed together, as opposed to alone. Across areas, President Biden would be best served by leaning on the greatest strength of the United States — a strong network of alliances, carefully cultivated over many decades and maintained across administrations.
This article argues that, in Biden’s first 100 days, few issues should be as central as restoring trust and credibility with our foreign counterparts. No matter the challenge, a bilateral or multilateral solution will be more durable and effective than electing to go alone. The article proceeds by situating American military alliances within the current political debate, followed by a historical discussion of the value of alliances for collective security following World War II. The article then concludes by outlining the steps President Biden needs to take to fully tap into the power of alliances.
The History of Contemporary Alliances
Following the US victory in World War II, the nation was the undisputed most powerful nation in the world. This was due to a number of factors. The US, having suffered comparatively fewer losses than counterparts on both sides of the war, was better situated to assume a leadership position than counterparts in Asia or Europe, who suffered far greater casualties. This allowed the US economy to rebound faster and more dramatically than other nations, producing unparalleled economic might. Capitalizing on this period of strength, the US worked with allies to establish what we now know to be the liberal international order, developing institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, World Bank, and more to regulate international markets, ensure global trade, and keep the peace. A central component of this liberal international mission was the promotion of democracy abroad. Supported by Democratic Peace Theory, liberal internationalists viewed fellow democracies as open, reliable partners that were uniquely unsuited to war — no two democracies have ever fought a war against one another. Current alliances formed to advance the twin goals of economic liberalization and democracy promotion, providing a means of achieving security, creating interdependency, and resolving collective action problems.
From a historical perspective, this makes the liberal international order — and its web of alliances — unique. Following most destructive wars, the victorious nation that emerges traditionally would consolidate power, locking in its military might. However, the post-World War II US took a different approach, distributing power through a set of institutions and alliances that were theoretically open to any nation, provided it accepted the precepts of liberalized markets and democratic governance. Scholars such as Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry specifically argue that this is what distinguishes the US-led liberal international order from past historical examples of hegemony such as Pax Romana or Pax Britannica: the order “exhibits far more reciprocity and legitimacy,” with a “distinctive feature…its decentralized structure.”
Such alliances are ostensibly a win-win, as weaker states achieve military security through guarantees such as the “nuclear umbrella,” while the US prevents such countries from seeking military autonomy (or nuclear proliferation) which would engender regional insecurity. The results speak for themselves: between 1945 and 1955, the US had security guarantees towards 23 countries; by 2000, 37 countries were extended such guarantees. Such security guarantees meant that the United States committed to providing some form of defense to countries in the face of attacks by adversaries.
Alliances on the Political Spectrum
With most issues in American politics, it is fairly easy to place them neatly on the political spectrum — there is little mystery about how Republicans or Democrats feel on climate change, tax policy, gun rights, or many social issues. However, alliances are different; over the past several decades many liberals and conservatives have reached a consensus about the value of the liberal international order. In 2020, majorities of both parties believe that NATO is a positive force — while Democrats are more enthusiastic than their Republican counterparts (85 percent to 65 percent), NATO remains relatively bipartisan.
Such consensus does not seem to be true of foreign policy broadly — while Democrats have remained more focused on foreign electoral interference, climate change, and humans, Republicans are more concerned with terrorism, Iranian nuclear ambitions, and the rise of China. Foreign policy is not insulated from partisan divides, yet the value of our alliances seems to have retained a bipartisan dimension across time.
Indeed, critics of alliances are not uniformly on one side of the political aisle. Some have claimed that the liberal international order and its alliances create an incentive for “endless wars” — additional alliances require defending and require the US to back up its commitments with military might. However, such a criticism is not just leveled by those on the Left or Right — such rhetoric has been used both by conservatives such as former President Donald Trump and liberals such as Senator Bernie Sanders. Institutes such as the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, founded by both George Soros (a liberal) and Charles Koch (a conservative) exemplify that criticisms of liberal internationalism exist on both sides of the aisle.
The Value of Alliances
However, as alluded to in the previous section, alliances have come under attack across the aisle. Tarred with the brush of “endless war,” many have criticized alliances as exemplifying American over-extension, creating commitments that we cannot possibly hope to honor. One prominent critic at the CATO Institute, Doug Bandow, exhorted the US to “stop collecting military allies like Facebook Friends.” For Bandow, nations such as Japan and South Korea have vibrant economies and should be able to fund their own defense initiatives — his preference would be for nations to cease being reassured and instead start “doing more to defend themselves.”
In international relations, a dominant school of thought is the realist tradition, which holds that states are security-seeking, looking to achieve not collective security but instead power within a competitive and anarchic security environment. For realists such as Mr. Bandow, a serious concern is over-extension — the more alliances the US acquires, the more risk the US takes on, risking involvement in a greater number of conflicts.
However, such realists fail to realize that insecurity for the collective extends to insecurity for individual states. The primary benefit of strong alliances come from assurance and deterrence — assurance involves getting allies to believe they are secure, and deterrence involves dissuading adversaries from taking revisionist actions. Deterrence and assurance are not just beneficial for the state protected by the US — in fact, they affirmatively enhance US security.
Suppose the US tells Japan or South Korea to take on their own security, and they decide that this necessitates a nuclear weapon. Suddenly, the only full-fledged nuclear power in Asia (China), has two new rivals, with new nuclear states profoundly altering the security calculations in the region.
Similarly, suppose the US pulls back from security commitments to NATO, an alliance primarily meant to deter Russia, a country that has invaded two other sovereign nations in the 21st century. Russia, a power that seeks a greater sphere of influence, would take note of this, and be more daring in future territorial incursions.
Indeed, much of this has been confirmed by extensive theoretical and empirical research. No US treaty ally has ever been the victim of an armed attack by another nation or sought to acquire a nuclear weapon after the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, confirming the potency of assurance and deterrence. In a study spanning over two centuries, Stephen G. Brooks and William C. Wohlforth found that countries with strong alliances were far less conflict-prone and less likely to be attacked, finding a strong relationship between alliances and deterrence. Similarly, they find a strong positive correlation between the number of alliances and a decline in nuclear proliferation — states that achieve collective security feel less of a need to strike out on their own and acquire a nuclear weapon.
Tasks for the Biden Administration
President Biden takes office at a time of precarity internationally — US military documents have acknowledged that we now are in an era of “great power competition,” with China and Russia vying for influence and power against the US. China and Russia are formidable opponents. China has, in some respects, surpassed the US economically, with its purchasing power exceeding that of the US. Meanwhile, Russia has many military edges, possessing a larger nuclear force than the US. However, the US has something both countries lack — a tight network of alliances, achieved due to decades of relationship-building, trust, and ties forged out of the destructiveness of World War II.
Thus far, President Biden has displayed a keen awareness of the importance of alliances. His pick for Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has spoken openly about not combatting the challenges of great power competition alone, but leaning on alliances to present a unified front. Labeled by the New York Times as a “defender of global alliances,” Mr. Blinken understands the collective nature of international politics, and the role that alliances play in maintaining peace and security.
To succeed in maintaining alliances requires more than just a large military and treaties, however. In many regards, assurance is harder than deterrence — while adversaries may believe that we will defend against encroachments, allies may be harder to convince, skeptical that they can fully rely on the US for security. Personal diplomacy and meetings in various state capitals should be a priority — trust is psychological, and not engendered by leaving previous allies on the backburner.
Conclusion
Upon claiming victory in the presidential election, then-President-Elect Biden claimed to be a president not just for those that voted for him, but a president for all Americans. President Biden has the opportunity to rise above the political fray, giving those in both parties something to support. Republicans can appreciate that alliances offer a unified front against potential adversaries, enhancing collective security. For Democrats, alliances offer the potential to combat human rights-related issues and allow the promotion of democracy. Alliances are not “good liberal policy” or “good conservative policy,” but good American policy, policy that transcends the traditional political divide.
