Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War (review)

Why do enemies ally? Why are allies often unreliable? Patricia Weitsman seeks to answer these provocative questions by developing a theory to explain alliance formation and cohesion during times of peace and war from a unified theoretical vantage point. By considering internal and external dimensions of alliances, Weitsman argues that alliances are often not about aggregating capabilities, but rather ways for rival powers to ally to reduce conflicts and manage the peace between them. Her central thesis posits that the relationship between threat and the propensity for states to come together in alliance is curvilinear. At low levels of threat, states have incentives to hedge their bets by forging loose agreements with potential friends and enemies. As the level of threat grows, states come together in an alliance with their adversaries as a tool to manage or constrain their alliance partners. Effectively, the states are attempting to tether the rival threat. If the threat continues to grow, then states will jettison the tether and forge a balancing alliance against the rival power. Finally, if the threat becomes so grave that a given state fears its own destruction, that state will again opt to ally with its enemy. The author's main theoretical innovation lies in her concepts of hedging and tethering. Hedging occurs when more than one potential rival exists, and the state does not want to choose sides. Tethering takes place between enemies that are trying to hold their animosities in check, and the greatest threat to such alliances lies within rather than outside them.

For case studies Weitsman analyzes European alliances in the 1873- 1918 period, including the Three Emperors' League, the Dual Alliance, the Triple Alliance, the Franco-Russian Alliance, and the Triple Entente. The most overt historical example of hedging she invokes is Bismarckian Germany hedging between Austria-Hungary and Russia in the Three Emperors' League. Simultaneously, Austria-Hungary and Russia engaged in tethering each other within that same alliance. Other examples of tethering alliances include the Anglo-French Entente and the Anglo-Russian Convention. The pivotal and first exclusively balancing alliance was the Franco-Russian pact, which Weitsman argues ushered in the era of seeking military solutions to diplomatic problems.

The empirical evidence rests on a solid archival foundation and the author is to be commended for consulting British, French, and Italian diplomatic archives extensively. However, a number of factual errors mar an otherwise intriguing discussion. For example, she states that Tsar Alexander II no longer considered the Three Emperors' League viable by 1887 (p. 54), although he had been assassinated in 1881. Also, details about Bulgarian autonomy after the Treaty of Berlin are confused with independence (p. 60) and the Bosnian Annexation Crisis of 1908-9 is misdated (p. 131). These errors and others highlight a lack of familiarity with Russian foreign policy and events in the Balkans. Nevertheless, the conceptual value of Weitsman's approach transcends these mistakes, providing a useful book for International Relations specialists and diplomatic historians.