Book Talk with Brian D. Blankenship: "The Burden-Sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics"
Monday, September 16, 2024 6:30pm
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265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134
https://humanities.as.miami.edu/public-programs/booktalks/index.htmlJoin us to learn about the book The Burden-Sharing Dilemma: Coercive Diplomacy in US Alliance Politics by Brian D. Blankenship.
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.
Brian Blankenship is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Miami. He joined the department in the fall of 2019. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of international relations, international security, and international cooperation, with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the politics of military alliances. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in May 2018 and his B.A. in Political Science from Indiana University, Bloomington, in May 2012.
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