POLI 12 Chapter Notes - Chapter ~190-230: Nato, European Alliance, World Politics
Document Summary
Alliances: institutions that help their members cooperate militarily in the event of a war. Specify standards of behavior or expectations about how states are to behave under certain conditions. May include provisions for monitoring and verifying each member"s compliance and procedures for joint decision making. Codify bargain between members to settle distributional issues. Can be offensive (used to attack another country) or defensie (to come to each other"s defense in time of attack) Alliances can be symmetrical (countries have similar responsibilities) or asymmetric. Alliances form when states have compatible interests that provide the basis for cooperation. Alliances might also have complementary interests that serve as the basis for a deal. Allies generally have aligned interests in the context of bargaining with third party states. Balance of power: a situation in which the military capabilities of two states of groups of states are roughly equal. Alliances help create or preserve the balance of power.
