This book looks at U.S.-Korea relations and argues that military alliances depend upon a combination of power distribution, material assets, and identities. The author asserts that beyond being mere tools of power balancing, alliances are also impacted by material and institutional practices that constitute the identity of allies and adversaries.

Alliance politics is a regular headline grabber. When a possible military crisis involving Russia, North Korea, or China rears its head, leaders and citizens alike raise concerns over the willingness of US allies to stand together. As rival powers have tightened their security cooperation, the United States has stepped up demands that its allies increase their defense spending and contribute more to military operations in the Middle East and elsewhere. The prospect of former President Donald Trump unilaterally ending alliances alarmed longstanding partners, even as NATO was welcoming new members into its ranks. Military Alliances in the Twenty-First Century is the first book to explore fully the politics that shape these security arrangements – from their initial formation through the various challenges that test them and, sometimes, lead to their demise. Across six thematic chapters, Alexander Lanoszka challenges conventional wisdom that has dominated our understanding of how military alliances have operated historically and into the present. Although military alliances today may seem uniquely hobbled by their internal difficulties, Lanoszka argues that they are in fact, by their very nature, prone to dysfunction.

This book looks at U.S.-Korea relations and argues that military alliances depend upon a combination of power distribution, material assets, and identities. The author asserts that beyond being mere tools of power balancing, alliances are also impacted by material and institutional practices that constitute the identity of allies and adversaries.

This book investigates whether a power shift has taken place in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the Cold War. By systematically examining the development of power dynamics in Asia-Pacific, it challenges the notion that a wealthier and militarily more powerful China is automatically turning the regional tides in its favour. With a special emphasis on Sino-US competition, the book explores the alleged linkage between the regional distribution of relevant material and immaterial capabilities, national power and the much-cited regional power shift. The book presents a novel concept for measuring power in international relations by outlining a composite index on aggregated power (CIAP) that includes 55 variables for 44 regional countries and covers a period of twenty years. Moreover, it develops a middle power theory that outlines the significance of middle powers in times of major power shifts. By addressing political, military and economic cooperation via a structured-focused comparison and by applying a comparative-historical analysis, the book analyses in depth the bilateral relations of six regional middle powers to Washington and Beijing.

Using newly collected data from American and Korean newspapers, this book examines relations between the United States and South Korea from 1992 to 2003, a particularly contentious period in the history of the two allies.

Why do Britain, France, and Italy provide or refuse military support for U.S.-led uses of force? This book provides a unique, multiple-case study analysis of transatlantic burden-sharing. Sixty original interviews with top policymakers and analysts provide insight into allies' decisions regarding the Kosovo War, Afghanistan, and the Iraq War.

The Supply Side of Security conceptualizes military alliances as contracts for exchanging goods and services. At the international level, the market for these contracts is shaped by how many countries can supply security. Tongfi Kim identifies the supply of policy concessions and military commitments as the main factors that explain the bargaining power of a state in a potential or existing alliance. Additionally, three variables of a state's domestic politics significantly affect its negotiating power: whether there is strong domestic opposition to the alliance, whether the state's leader is pro-alliance, and whether that leader is vulnerable. Kim then looks beyond existing alliance literature, which focuses on threats, to produce a deductive theory based on analysis of how the global power structure and domestic politics affect alliances. As China becomes stronger and the U.S. military budget shrinks, The Supply Side of Security shows that these countries should be understood not just as competing threats, but as competing security suppliers.