Military alliance

European military alliances prior to World War I
  Triple Entente
  Triple Alliance
Two military alliances (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Warsaw Pact) in Europe during the Cold War

A military alliance is a formal agreement between nations that specifies mutual obligations regarding national security. In the event a nation is attacked, members of the alliance are often obligated to come to their defense regardless if attacked directly. Military alliances can be classified into defense pacts, non-aggression pacts, and ententes. Alliances may be covert (as was common from 1870 to 1916) or public.[1]

According to a 2002 dataset of military alliances, there have been 538 alliance treaties from 1815 to 2003.[2] The vast majority of the alliances involve commitments to come to the military support of one ally involved in war.[2] The vast majority are defensive in nature.[2] Since the end of the Second World War, military alliances have usually behaved less aggressively and act more as a deterrent.[3]

  1. ^ Kuo, Raymond (2019). "Secrecy among Friends: Covert Military Alliances and Portfolio Consistency". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 64: 63–89. doi:10.1177/0022002719849676. ISSN 0022-0027. S2CID 182507234.
  2. ^ a b c Frieden, Jeffry A. (2018). World Politics: Interests, Interactions, Institutions (4 ed.). W W NORTON. p. 190. ISBN 978-0-393-67510-8. OCLC 1197968459.
  3. ^ Leeds, Brett Ashley (2003). "Do Alliances Deter Aggression? The Influence of Military Alliances on the Initiation of Militarized Interstate Disputes". American Journal of Political Science. 47 (3): 427–439. doi:10.2307/3186107. ISSN 0092-5853. JSTOR 3186107. Archived from the original on 2022-09-23. Retrieved 2021-06-22.