The Burden-Sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

**__The Burden-Sharing Dilemma__** **examines the conditions under which the United States is willing and able to pressure its allies to assume more responsibility for their own defense.** The United States has a mixed track record of encouraging allied burden-sharing—while it has succeeded or failed in some cases, it has declined to do so at all in others. This variation, Brian D. Blankenship argues, is because the United States tailors its burden-sharing pressure in accordance with two competing priorities: conserving its own resources and preserving influence in its alliances. Although burden-sharing enables great power patrons like the United States to lower alliance costs, it also empowers allies to resist patron influence. Blankenship identifies three factors that determine the severity of this burden-sharing dilemma and how it is managed: the latent military power of allies, the shared external threat environment, and the level of a patron's resource constraints. Through case studies of US alliances formed during the Cold War, he shows that a patron can mitigate the dilemma by combining assurances of protection with threats of abandonment and by exercising discretion in its burden-sharing pressure. Blankenship's findings dismantle assumptions that burden-sharing is always desirable but difficult to obtain. Patrons, as the book reveals, can in fact be reluctant to seek burden-sharing, and attempts to pass defense costs to allies can often be successful. At a time when skepticism of alliance benefits remains high and global power shifts threaten longstanding pacts, __The Burden-Sharing Dilemma__ recalls and reconceives the value of burden-sharing and alliances. Contents 5 Acknowledgments 7 Abbreviations 9 Introduction: Why Is Burden-Sharing a Contentious Issue in US Alliances? 13 Chapter 1 The Strategic Logic of Coercive Burden-Sharing 24 Chapter 2 “A Legitimate Role in the Defense of the Alliance, but on a Leash” West German Burden-Sharing, 1961–1974 47 Chapter 3 “Between Scylla and Charybdis” Japanese Burden-Sharing, 1964–1976 78 Chapter 4 “They Live at Our Sufferance” South Korean Burden-Sharing, 1964–1980 99 Chapter 5 “Is Iceland Blackmailing Us?” Icelandic Burden-Sharing, 1949–1960 123 Conclusion: The Enduring Challenges of Burden-Sharing in US Alliances 132 Appendix Selected US Economic Statistics, 1950–1980 153 Notes 155 References 185 Index 201 "Presenting a theoretical explanation for why great power patrons pursue burden-sharing and why such efforts succeed or fail, this book challenges recent domestic frustration against a seeming lack of allied burden-sharing and offers insights into contemporary US alliance politics forefronted by conflicts and tensions in Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and elsewhere"-- Provided by publisher