Deter together or deter separately?: time horizons and peacetime alliance cohesion of the US-Japan and US-ROK alliances

What explains the degree of peacetime alliance cohesion? Why do some alliances maintain cohesion regarding common external threats while others do not? I argue that the interaction of allies' threat-specific time horizons determines whether allies are cohesive or incohesive in deterring common...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPacific review Vol. 37; no. 4; pp. 747 - 776
Main Author Lee, Do Young
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Routledge 03.07.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Alliance cohesion
Alliances
deterrence
rise of China
Threats
Time
time horizon
US-Japan alliance
US-ROK alliance
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Summary:What explains the degree of peacetime alliance cohesion? Why do some alliances maintain cohesion regarding common external threats while others do not? I argue that the interaction of allies' threat-specific time horizons determines whether allies are cohesive or incohesive in deterring common threats. I demonstrate that allies' behavior towards common threats differs depending on the length of their threat-specific time horizons, which can be categorized as either 'short' or 'long.' Based on this demonstration, I predict that high alliance cohesion occurs when the lengths of allies' time horizons are mutually congruent, whereas low alliance cohesion occurs when they are incongruent. To systematically measure allies' time horizons, I propose a novel typology. To test my argument, I conduct cross-case analyses of peacetime alliance cohesion in the US-Japan and US-ROK alliances over the past two decades in response to the rise of China.
ISSN:0951-2748
1470-1332
DOI:10.1080/09512748.2023.2238133