The pursuit of security and cooperation between states towards such an end continually shape world orders and international partnerships. K.J. Holsti qualified international relations as “organized relations between established entities.” In the current Westphalian model, defense departments are similarly structured and organized operations that inform inter-state relations not just between national militaries but their governments and administrations as well. With this in mind, security operations are a distinct subset of international relations as outlined by Holsti. State security, especially within the purview of interstate alliances, serve to bridge states as partners and provide wrote expectations of behavior. In a period of global turmoil, increasingly hostile rhetoric, nationalist zeal at historic highs, and otherwise global norms turning into a raging garbage fire it is incumbent on policymakers and scholars alike to find best practices for theory. It is more critical now than ever that we find new facets of state behavior for applied international relations theory for more informed decisions and ensuring continuity for defense alliances.
This essay holds that security alliances are an unappreciated and unexplored facet for contemporary international relations theory. In this capacity, it will show how these treaties and alliances increasingly shape international norms more so than any rising or current superpower. A brief review of constructivist, liberal, and realist schools of international relations thought and what each respective school prescribes for inter-state activity. We will conclude by framing that each of these schools of thought should be employed by policy-makers and strategists to mitigate redundancy, create a diversity of thought, and better assure stability in inter-state alliances. International relations theory is more relevant than every towards our understanding of global stability, and the entirety of the IR toolkit lenses should be employed to yield better results in behavior between nation-states.
The first and foremost school of international relations that ties to security is Realism and its associated digressions. Since first entering the IR discourse in the 1940s under the tutelage of Hans Morgenthau, John Mearsheimer, and Kenneth Waltz. The Realist school has been the dominant influence over American foreign policy since World War II, most especially concerning nuclear proliferation and deterrence. Realists, broadly speaking, see nation-states as the principal actors within a frame of world politics which is perpetually anarchical. John Hall and T.V. Paul frame this anarchical status as being “one which lacks [a] central governing authority familiar to us in the domestic [capacity].” While this anarchy does not correlate to a state of chaos, it does in the Westphalian model that there is no higher authority for a sovereign state than itself and therein, nobody in place to create order on the state system. This absence of a “super authority” over sovereign states creates the bedrock from which Realist theorists ascribe states to act only to the ends which maximize their own benefit and pursue their own agendas globally. Realist theory is such that cooperation amongst states is an aberration from the norm, anarchy, and that any such cooperation is just as likely to evaporate “given the inevitability of changes in the national interest.” Alexander Wendt describes this as states working to “bandwagon” towards a common interest or otherwise compete amongst one another until a new balance relative to nation states is found. Whether by bandwagon or competitive balance, the path a state takes is shaped by its perceived own benefit and hedged against any probability of failure. This, according to Hedley Bull et al., is the procedure for a state as no higher system exists to contain its behavior.
This perception, whether academic or strategic, of a Hobbesian zero-sum game yields a binary approach, best personified as “carrot and stick” foreign policy. Such approaches with only incentives towards collaboration or penalization when interacting with other states are how realists theorize that actors establish themselves. A single state gathers power and influence through shrewd bargaining, and other parties seek to bandwagon to that state or otherwise counter-balance the ascension of power. Regardless, proponents of realism provide myriad case studies towards retroactively affirming their validity through geopolitical history, strategic military posturing, or otherwise. To this end, realist scholars seek to advise and encourage black and white policy decisions towards maximizing any political gain in the “zero sum game.”
While theorists of Constructivism also concede that anarchic conditions are prevalent in the international arena similar to realists, for the most part, they do not subscribe to any notion that there is a total lack of order in the international system. Pioneer of Constructivism Alexander Wendt explicated that the power politics endemic to neorealist though cannot arise from a state of anarchy. This “self-help” being another term for power politics is due to “process, not structure.”
Intuitively, processes are more amenable to change than an institutionalized structure, most especially, as is the case on the international stage, no single state has complete control. As an abstract this may be difficult to formalize, more concretely, a blackjack player can improve one’s odds of success by playing with skill though that player cannot do so much as to alter the structure of the game entirely barring the player owning the casino outright. This is what constructivists are contrasting when speaking to “brute facts” independent to human behavior, and “social facts” which are contingent on established conventions. As such international norms are social constructs, which by their very nature can be altered, changed, or modified.
While constructivists are divided on the consequences of anarchy on inter-state actions and the ability to transform anarchic conditions socially, this premise of “social facts” are of prime interest to security strategists. In that constructivists can see a world amenable to social “adjustments” to norms, the binary of realist prescriptions is nullified, and a broader field of potential policy routes are available. This altered international environment allows nation-states to self-define and self-determine their role and their values through behavior and actions amongst peer states. For a security analyst, this value-based behavior theory is also of supreme value. A country with a norm of profilable behavior allows for a prediction for policy avenues, further still well-established norms would render some state behavior as either improbable if not outright unlikely. Some prescriptions of constructivist theory hold that a collective of norms currently regulates inter-state actions and that the maintenance of such a collective must be the focus of foreign affairs and defense departments.
Norms like the above can also be codified as law. This is the bedrock for the liberal school which is the philosophical predecessor for both realism and constructivism. The liberal school is one of the only schools which predates a model of individual secular states. Grotius held that all activity between states were bound by laws, whether the laws of nature or nations. In contrast to realist outlooks, liberals such as Immanuel Kant subscribe to a belief of “Perpetual Peace” wherein states cooperate towards peaceful means while maintaining their own authority. Kant’s theory has been rendered into a core tenet of democracy creating peace through shared security regimes. While liberal theory defines power broadly and subjective to a nation-state’s identity globalization has flattened the world and altered the identities of every nation and their associated partnerships alike. In Nye and Keohane’s Power and Independence, the two concede that states in this globalist structure have cause for cooperation as they continue seeking their utmost benefit and as a result cooperation is commonplace not outlier. Nye, Keohane and other liberal institutionalists subscribe to game theory disciplines of international relations which argue that cooperation amongst nation-states is in their own interest. It is this application of game theory that bears useful fruit for defense commanders, as game theory can be modeled and provide a matrix of predictable behavior.
To best explicate how these three schools of international relations theory can forge best practices across institutions; first, we must isolate those responsible for policy making in government. For purposes of ease to the writer and frame of reference, herein the titles and offices for the United States Government will be used in the analysis. Due to the separation of powers, prescribed mission statements, and responsibilities three specific offices serve as sufficient bedrock to forecast and amend security operations at a national level. The Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and the National Security Advisor are the three most important offices for overseeing strategic decision making and security operations.
The office of paramount importance for security policy is, intuitively, the Secretary of Defense and their associated office. The US Constitution charges the secretary of defense with the conduction of security operations on its own, as it serves as the office serves as the intergovernmental lead for the US military and US government security operations. The Secretary of Defense authority stems from Title 10 of the US code specifying the scope of the Department of Defense (herein DOD) programs and missions. Additionally Title 10 affixes the Secretary of Defense as authority figure second only to the US President. Per the Title 10 the Secretary of Defense can delegate authority for national defense programs to other offices.
Research into the DOD National Defense Strategy revealed that while codified laws, military instructions, and institutional directives are in place for international military alliances, neither every program has a specific instruction nor every program a specific office charged with overseeing it. Within DOD these inter-state military conferences, exercises, and exchanges are performed on the back of informal memoranda at various echelons of leadership and funded by discretionary budget allotments. A related RAND think tank report found that while there is no holistic analysis of the efficacy of said activities, that ultimately the Secretary of Defense remains the standard bearer for security alliances amongst foreign nations.
It is this unique position as having the institutional authority and delegatory power that the Secretary of Defense can best apply approaches from a liberal institutional lean. Not dissimilar to Kant or Grotius consensus of law and order the Secretary of Defense can better define inter-state alliances with a legal authority associated to such an office. As military alliances serve to assure security and partnership between states better, these alliances require negotiated and ratified treaties. Similarly, these sort of codified legal agreements and regimes for enforcement are the facilitating power behind weapons sales and similar technological exchanges amongst foreign states. The multinational agreement and joint development of something like the Lockheed Martin F-35 would be impossible without institutional rules agreed upon by all parties in all participating states. This sort of peaceful transaction serves to underscore a win-win situation for all parties involved that is preeminent to liberal institutionalism.
The second preeminent actor involved in policy-making towards national defense is the Secretary of State. Not dissimilar to the Secretary of Defense and DOD, the Secretary of State is charged by law to oversee all foreign affairs beyond defense issues though, per Title 22 of the US Code, a number of foreign relations that relate to foreign aid, arms trade, and some security issues fall under the purview of the State Department as well. The corps of ambassadors and diplomats serving under the Secretary of State are the personal representatives both for the President of the United States as well as the Secretary of State. This corps for the Secretary of State interface on behalf of the US government when dealing with foreign governments. In matters of security alliances typically the point of contact for a host country and the United States government is an ambassador or in some circumstance a diplomat or attache from the Department of Defense. Regardless of the rank or grade, in the capacity of representing the US government abroad, a diplomat must be literate in model behavior for the United States as well as their associated host country. These expectations to exemplify, build, and galvanize relations between two countries invoke the very disciplines of the constructivist school of international relations.
Constructivist theories focus on political discourse in an attempt to quantify the behavior of states and how discourse can be better deployed to influence said behavior. Beyond official correspondence with regimented language and structured aims, diplomats et al. interface with host nations in more quotidian means. No other cadre of individuals could better be deployed to employ constructivist aims most directly towards international ends as both parties would be direct observers to how discourse shapes and informs relations between the two.
On the occasion that interpersonal relationships of diplomats prove insufficient for broader policy creation a more extended and detailed profile may yield more positive results. The Director of National Intelligence keeps a repository of pan-disciplinary intelligence reports for any facet of another nation. An intelligence report may estimate the likelihood of a nation’s future behavior in times of turmoil based on prior and contemporary assessments. As the DNI is responsible for the product of a number of agencies, some of which fall within both the Departments State and Defense, there is no single US code of law that specifies intelligence activities. Broadly speaking, intelligence operations and alliances are at the whim of the executive office and directives solely from the President. The nature of intelligence operations, a sort of life-or-death priority on ensuring the ongoing safety of the country safely falls within the realm of realist theory. Realist models provide the most difficult metrics by which to predict efficacy because the success of a realist prescription can only be found in retrospect. The strict criteria of realism, pursuit of state-interest for instance, are the structure and indicators necessary for intelligence analysts.
Each of these three cabinet parties participates in, and shape security operations and alliances. Integrating a diversity of international relations lenses throughout the triad of offices would serve to optimize decision-making processes and encourage positive cooperation between foreign partners. Each agency should represent an approach with a suitable theory to best inform their behavior and approaches. Tasking entire agencies and departments to embody a school of international relations is neither an easy task nor one for the faint of heart, an institutional doctrine could bring a whole host of hazards for those in power and risks of hierarchical biases such as groupthink. However, the gain to be rendered from this is a shorthand for institutional relationships and associated obligations.
Most importantly, all three offices should continue to cooperate in lest a single doctrine preoccupy foreign policy or the situation rooms for the President. As no one office can monopolize a program as international cooperation falls, to some extent, amongst all of the above no mistakes can be made moving forward due to myopic views. As the world continues to grow more complicated and formerly stable regimes are coming into question, pan-spectrum analysis of policy will become not just valuable but necessary. A more balanced approach to security operations is necessary for the offices of government, rather than personality driven changes a re-approach from a philosophical lean is the better guarantee for ongoing stability at present and into the future.
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