Alliances, Institutional Design, and the Determinants of Military Strategy

This paper argues that the institutional design of alliances is a crucial but often neglected factor in the study of military strategy. Highly institutionalized alliances are found to be a strong determinant of a state's choice of strategy, while other forms of alliances turn out to have little impact. I posit that the level of institutionalization exhibits this effect because of the greater number of channels through which leading states can influence the strategies of their smaller allies and coordinate overall alliance strategy. By incorporating this externally driven process, the results also begin to call into question several previously cited factors affecting the choice of military strategy.