Research On The Causes Of U.S. East Asia Alliance System Adjustments In The Post-Cold War Era

Alliance politics plays an important role in the maintenance of national security and the struggle for power. It is widely believed that alliance refers to military cooperation against a common adversary among sovereign states. Alliances are regulated by legal agreements and moral obligations and considered as instruments of national security policy. To keep its security and primacy, the United States has allocated considerable assets in the maintenance and adjustments of its current global alliance system that was established in the Cold War. During the Cold War, since the main battlefield of the confrontation against the communist power was in Europe, the multilateral U.S. alliance in Western Europe, namely NATO, had played a more essential role among the anti-communist alliances led by the United States than the U.S. Asia-pacific bilateral or trilateral alliances had done. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the adversary of the U.S. alliances in East Asia has shifted from the Eastern communist alliance to the rising China, which has been widely considered as a potential regional hegemon in East Asia. Hence, Studies on the U.S. alliances on China’s periphery are increasingly prevalent among scholars and policy makers.In the early 1990s, the U.S. alliance system in East Asia had gone through a transient transition period, owing to the collapse of the common adversary between the United States and its allies. However, since 1995, the United States has adjusted and strengthened its alliances in East Asia. Reviewing and integrating previous theories of alliance formation and management, as well as analyzing and assessing a range of practical evidence, several factors can be justified that illustrate the necessity and possibility for the United States to strengthen its alliances in East Asia. Firstly, China has been considered as a common threat for the United States and its allies around East Asia. Further, the United States, as the only superpower, and its allies, as regional powers in East Asia, tend to seek allies and to balance against the threat rather than to contain China alone or to bandwagon with it. Besides, practical motives including ideology, foreign aid and penetration contribute to the argument of strengthening the U.S. alliances in East Asia as well.On the other hand, the theory of alliance management reveals significant restraining factors for the strengthening of the U.S. alliance system in East Asia. The United States, to some extent, has been chained in its alliances and passed the buck by its allies in terms of their obligation in containing China, which restricts the United States’flexibility in conciliating with a rising China. Nevertheless, a successful coercive diplomacy toward China requires both deterrence and assurance, which calls for the United States’careful balance between cooperation and defection in its alliances. To judge from the supporting factors and restraining factors of the strengthening of the U.S. alliances in East Asia, it can be predicted that the U.S. alliances in East Asia will maintain the bilateral-structure as before and multilateral alliances will play a complementary role, while the function of the alliances will be further improved and strengthened. Besides, the United States will accurately define its responsibility in the East Asia alliances and encourage its allies to be more responsible for the alliance that they engage in.