KEEPING FRIENDS CLOSE: Theorizing Alliance Dynamics, Preferences, and Compromises in NATO Balkan Interventions

Abstract

After 1991, NATO’s raison d’être pivoted from deterrence and collective defense to out-of-area operations. This posed a challenge for the dominant realist paradigm of alliance theory, which lacked explanatory power on NATO’s persistence and intra-alliance dynamics after bipolarity. Moreover, this post-Cold War era saw increased friction between allies, who diverged on what the role and responsibilities of NATO ought to be. Still, states were often able to reach consensus despite controversy, leading to an unprecedented array of operations and functions for NATO. First, I review the alliance theory literature and discuss different paradigms’ explanatory limitations. Then, I provide a coherent theoretical framework for understanding the process of alliance compromise in the post-1991 world. I outline a two-stage model on NATO as a system. First, following liberal theory, I take state preferences as fundamental, considering two dimensions: preferred intensity of intervention and institutional choice. Second, given the configuration of preferences, states negotiate to a compromise outcome. I modify aspects of Snyder’s “alliance security dilemma” theory to explain bargaining dynamics and leverage, in the process of compromise. Using historical analysis, I study interventions across three states – Bosnia and Herzegovina up to Operation Deliberate Force; Kosovo up to Operation Allied Force; and Operation Essential Harvest in Macedonia. I find that states compromise when they have mixed preferences across the two dimensions; I identify institutional choice as especially important. The concept of fear of abandonment, from the alliance security dilemma, shapes the process of compromise; states derive bargaining leverage from this fear. Finally, I discuss further theoretical implications and summarize lessons learned.