The art of uncommitment: the costs of peacetime withdrawals from alliance commitments
| Author | Dov H. Levin,Tetsuro Kobayashi |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221098221 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661221098221
European Journal of
International Relations
2022, Vol. 28(3) 589 –615
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/13540661221098221
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The art of uncommitment: the
costs of peacetime withdrawals
from alliance commitments
Dov H. Levin
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Tetsuro Kobayashi
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Abstract
Are there significant domestic political costs for leaders who disengage from long-
standing alliances, costs that discourage such disengagement? Leaders of major powers
occasionally look for ways to disengage in non-crisis situations from some long-term
commitments to other countries following the legal procedures laid out in the alliance
treaty or commitment. However, leaders interested in disengagement from alliances
sometimes fear that they will pay domestic disengagement costs, for example, a decline
in domestic public support, if they try to withdraw from alliances in that manner in
practice. To examine if such fears are justified, we conducted two survey experiments
among representative samples of the US public investigating the effects of a presidential
decision to end an alliance commitment through the legally prescribed means. We find
that disengagement costs exist in general and that some characteristics of the country
in question can increase their size and make them more long-lasting. For example,
withdrawal from alliances with countries perceived as similar on some key criteria
to the United States and as loyal allies, or widespread opposition by experts to this
withdrawal, will all increase the size of the disengagement costs and make them more
long-lasting. Leaving an existing alliance in peacetime will frequently be a politically losing
proposition for American leaders in many plausible situations—one possible reason for
the endurance of some US alliances.
Corresponding author:
Dov H. Levin, The University of Hong Kong, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, Pokfulam Road,
Hong Kong.
Email: dovlvn@hku.hk
1098221EJT0010.1177/13540661221098221European Journal of International RelationsLevin and Kobayashi
research-article2022
Article
590 European Journal of International Relations 28(3)
Keywords
Alliances, alliance disengagement, foreign policy, public diplomacy, intervention,
domestic politics, experiments
Introduction
How can countries successfully disengage from an existing long-standing alliance dur-
ing peacetime? Are there significant domestic political costs to withdrawing from some
alliances that hinder disengagement?
Many powerful states develop long-term alliance commitments, formal or informal,
to other countries. Those commitments sometimes require them to pay significant ongo-
ing costs or to accept the possibility of serious potential costs under various plausible
scenarios. As a result, leaders sometimes look for ways to disengage from some of these
commitments when their costs are perceived to be outweighing their overall benefits or
to reduce the overall number of such commitments incurred. Peacetime alliance with-
drawal through its pre-agreed termination procedures is accordingly one common way in
which alliances end.1
The United States is no exception. Recent American presidents, on multiple occa-
sions, have expressed a desire to disengage from certain long-standing US allies. Obama,
for example, spent much of his presidency trying to disengage the United States from
Iraq after a heavy, multi-year commitment to its government and temporarily succeeded
to do so.2 Some senior elected officials and prominent members of the US foreign policy
community have recently proposed scrapping or significantly reducing US commitments
toward another ally—Saudi Arabia (Cohen, 2018; Sanders, 2018; Wagner and Sonmez,
2018). Some have even called for an outright US disengagement from its commitments
to most of its Middle Eastern allies (Indyk, 2020). American decision-makers’ efforts to
shift its geopolitical focus (such as Obama’s “pivot to Asia” policy), or attempts to reduce
costly commitments in the face of possible future relative decline, are likely to generate
more such American desires or actual attempts at disengagement in the future.3 This is
not merely a post-Cold War tendency. Historical research has uncovered multiple Cold
War cases where US presidents, behind closed doors, seriously considered, or threat-
ened, to terminate a long-standing alliance commitment in this manner (Gavin, 2015).
However, leaders in the modern era frequently perceive domestic factors as being an
important obstacle in disengaging from alliances. In other words, they believe that such
disengagement, even if done in the manner laid out by the alliance treaty in question or
by the norms of disengagement from informal commitments, would anger significant
parts of their public and lead them to lose political support. For example, after a decade
of close ties between the two regimes, in January 1950 President Truman openly declared
that the US government would refuse to send American soldiers to defend the Chinese
nationalist regime under Chiang Kai Shek from an attempt by the victorious communists
to attack it in its final redoubt in Taiwan in order to complete its takeover of China. One
key reason that seems to have delayed and slowed the disengagement process were fears
within the Truman administration of a highly negative reaction within the general
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