Exploitative Friendships: Manipulating Asymmetric Alliances By Mayumi Fukushima B.A., Keio University (1999) M.A., Sciences-Po Paris (2004) M.P.A., Harvard Kennedy School (2013) SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE AT THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY SEPTEMBER 2020 Ó2020 Mayumi Fukushima. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created. Signature of Author: Department of Political Science August 17, 2020 Certified by: Richard J. Samuels Ford International Professor of Political Science Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: Fotini Christia Professor of Political Science Chair, Graduate Program committee Exploitative Friendships: Manipulating Asymmetric Alliances by Mayumi Fukushima ABSTRACT This dissertation is the first systematic analysis of variation in alliance behavior in the context of asymmetric international security alliances. When Weak states ally With stronger states – i.e. states With significantly greater military capabilities – What explains differences in the junior party’s approach to the alliance relationship? Why do some junior allies show their strong Willingness to coordinate their military policy With their senior partner, Whereas others distance themselves from their senior partner? Why do some grow more dependent on their senior partner for security, While others pursue their own deterrent to reduce their dependence? Their military dependence is not necessarily determined by structural factors, as states generally have some room for maneuver to decide on the level of resources they extract for national security from their overall economic and technological capacity. This variation in alliance behavior deserves scholarly attention, because these differences affect their senior partner’s alliance management costs, including the chance of alliance entrapment – i.e. getting dragged into an unwanted War due to a junior ally’s problematic behavior. When a senior partner has vested interests in the asymmetric alliances that advance its own interests, its junior partners, as parties to the alliance contracts, also have the power to “manipulate” their senior partner With a variety of strategies to maximize What are often noninstitutionalized benefits from their security relationships. To explain the variation in the junior partner’s approach, the dissertation proposes a Theory of Asymmetric Alliance Strategy, a neW paradigm for understanding four types of junior partner alliance behavior and strategy. In essence, their differences are based upon differences relating to the tWo most contentious and yet core issues of alliance management – the junior ally’s degree of dependence for security and its level of coordination With the senior partner. As junior allies choose one of the tWo opposing approaches to each of these two core issues, there are four different, mutually exclusive strategies: [More Dependent, Reluctant Coordination], [More Dependent, Proactive Coordination], [Less Dependent, Proactive Coordination], and [Less Dependent, Reluctant Coordination], Which I call Cheap-riding, Rescue-compelling, Favor-currying, and Autonomy-seeking, respectively. The Theory posits that the following three factors determine a junior partner’s choice of alliance strategy: (1) perceived senior partner commitments to fighting the adversary by force; (2) the junior partner’s “revisionist” goal – i.e. a goal of changing the local distribution of power and goods by force; and (3) the local balance of power. Particularly problematic from a senior partner’s perspective is the Rescue-compelling strategy, Which is driven by Weak or Weakened security commitments a junior ally perceives When it faces a local balance of power shifting in favor of its adversary. A junior ally utilizing this strategy can make a crisis escalation more likely and cause serious consequences including a costly war. By explaining the sources of the variation in alliance strategy and identifying risks associated With security partnerships With some types of junior allies, the dissertation helps better anticipate the costs of offering neW security commitments to other states as well as those of WithdraWing, or threatening to withdraW, existing commitments. Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 LIST OF TABLES 12 LIST OF FIGURES 13 CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION 14 1. THE QUESTION 14 2. THE ARGUMENT IN BRIEF – THEORY OF ASYMMETRIC ALLIANCE STRATEGY – 17 3. CONTRIBUTIONS 28 4. PLAN OF THE DISSERTATION 29 CHAPTER II. THEORY OF ASYMMETRIC ALLIANCE STRATEGY 33 1. THE EXISTING LITERATURE 34 2. DEFINITION OF “ASYMMETRIC ALLIANCE” AND THE UNIVERSE OF CASES 42 3. TYPOLOGY OF JUNIOR PARTNER ALLIANCE STRATEGIES 44 4. ASSUMPTIONS 59 5. DETERMINANTS OF JUNIOR PARTNER ALLIANCE STRATEGIES 62 6. CAUSAL PATHWAYS 69 7. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND RESEARCH DESIGN 80 CHAPTER III: THE FRANCE-POLAND ALLIANCE (1921-1939) 94 1. INTRODUCTION 94 2. BACKGROUND 99 3. POLAND’S CHEAP-RIDING STRATEGY 109 4. POLAND’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 117 5. POLAND’S RESCUE-COMPELLING STRATEGY 120 6. POLAND BACK TO ITS AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 124 7. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 133 CHAPTER IV: THE U.S.S.R.-IRAN ALLIANCE (1921-1941) 138 5 1. INTRODUCTION 138 2. BACKGROUND 141 3. IRAN’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 150 4. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 163 CHAPTER V: THE U.S.S.R.-PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ALLIANCE (1950-1960) 167 1. INTRODUCTION 167 2. BACKGROUND 171 3. CHINA’S FAVOR-CURRYING STRATEGY 184 4. CHINA’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 192 5. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 207 CHAPTER VI: THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE (1951-1990) 214 1. INTRODUCTION 214 2. BACKGROUND 218 3. JAPAN’S CHEAP-RIDING STRATEGY 223 4. JAPAN’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY (FROM THE LATE 1960S THROUGH THE LATE 1980S) 238 5. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 247 CHAPTER VII: THE FRANCE-ISRAEL ALLIANCE (1956-67) 250 1. INTRODUCTION 250 2. BACKGROUND 255 3. ISRAEL’S FAVOR-CURRYING STRATEGY 269 4. ISRAEL’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 276 5. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 286 CHAPTER VIII: THE U.S.-REPUBLIC OF CHINA ALLIANCE (1953-1979) 290 1. INTRODUCTION 290 2. BACKGROUND 294 3. THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA’S RESCUE-COMPELLING STRATEGY 309 4. THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA’S FAVOR-CURRYING STRATEGY 317 5. THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA’S AUTONOMY-SEEKING STRATEGY 326 6. ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS AND CONCLUSION 337 CHAPTER IX: CONCLUSION 342 1. SUMMARY OF THE EMPIRICAL CASES 342 2. THE RESULTS – COMPARISON WITH THE TWO ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATIONS 349 3. EXTERNAL VALIDITY 354 4. POLICY IMPLICATIONS 355 5. CONCLUSION 358 6 APPENDIX 361 BIBLIOGRAPHY 364 7 Acknowledgements This dissertation Would not have been started, let alone finished, Without advice and support from my advisors, mentors, family members, friends and colleagues. First and foremost, I owe my deepest gratitude to my committee: Prof. Richard J. Samuels (chair), Prof. M. Taylor Fravel, Prof. Vipin Narang, and Prof. Stephen Van Evera. Dick Samuels, my advisor and thesis supervisor, has provided unwavering support, encouragement, and intellectual guidance to keep me on track every step of the Way throughout the processes of fulfilling PhD requirements. The quality of his scholarship as Well as his incredible depth of knowledge set a high bar for my dissertation. His Willingness to engage With every nut and bolt of my argument and his detailed feedback on each of my draft chapters immensely helped me improve as a scholar. He also sets a standard as educator I Will alWays aspire to meet. Taylor Fravel has given me invaluable advice on both substantive and strategic matters relating to the dissertation and the academic career. His extensive, thoughtful comments and constructive criticism on multiple iterations of my draft chapters, oftentimes even on their footnotes, have helped me grow intellectually and have substantially improved the clarity of my arguments. Vipin Narang’s book on nuclear strategy offers a useful research design template for this project, and I have borrowed his sharp mind nearly every time I stumbled over conceptual or methodological issues in my theory building. At times When I felt that completing this ambitious project Was a remote possibility, Vipin’s firm conviction about the importance of its theoretical contributions has been a tremendous boost for my morale. Stephen Van Evera has kept encouraging me to ask big questions, from the very moment I picked the topic of this dissertation. Every single question he has asked me ever since Was right and spot-on and has greatly helped streamline What Was originally an unnecessarily complex and baroque theory. Beyond my committee, I Was extremely fortunate to be able to closely Work With Prof. Suzanne Berger and Prof. Ken Oye, Who both have trained me in international political economy and inspired me to conduct research on trade and defense industry- related alliance negotiations as an extension of this dissertation. Prof. Frank Gavin left MIT 8 While I Was still in the early stages of the dissertation project, but his intellectual influence is felt throughout this dissertation as well as in my separate, Work-in-progress project on nuclear Weapons and nuclear latency. The late Yukio Okamoto, then Senior Fellow at MIT’s Center for International Studies, Who had previously served as Assistant to Prime Ministers Ryūtarō Hashimoto