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Abstract
This article sets forth a framework for analysis designed to enhance our understanding of the political management of coalition warfare. The framework, based upon literature appertaining to ‘intra-alliance politics’ and International Relations (IR) theories, is applied to the case study of the Normandy Campaign of 1944. Utilising this framework we are able to consider many of the thorny issues of coalition politics and determine how these can be managed successfully to maintain Allied cohesion. Throughout the analysis the merits of the ‘realist’ and ‘pluralist’ views on maintaining Allied cohesion are appraised. The article concludes that, while both afford convincing explanations for overcoming tensions within the coalition, the pluralist approach proves superior in accounting for Allied unity. Overall, the article demonstrates that the intra-alliance politics framework is a useful device for understanding the political dynamics of the Normandy Campaign in 1944 and that it is also potentially applicable to other instances of coalition warfare; past, present, and future.
Notes
1Though the terms are often employed interchangeably, ‘coalitions’ are not the same thing as ‘alliances’, despite similarities. Essentially alliances tend to be more formal long-term alignments based upon deep-rooted or broad mutual interests and ideology. Coalitions, on the other hand, are often more temporary ad hoc arrangements, united superficially by a mutual enemy. For more on definitional issues see Andrew J. Pierre, Coalitions: Building and Maintenance (Washington DC: Georgetown Univ. 2002).
2See The National Military Strategy of the United States (2004), <www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2005/d20050318nms.pdf> and the UK's Strategic Defence Review: Modern Forces for the Modern World (1998), <www.mod.uk/policy/sdr/index.htm>.
3Anthony J. Rice, ‘Command and Control: The Essence of Coalition Warfare’, Parameters 27/1 (Spring 1997), 153. [Italics added to quote.]
5Pierre, Coalitions: Building and Maintenance, 2. [Italics original.]
7James P. Thomas, The Military Challenges of Transatlantic Coalitions, Adelphi Paper 333 (London/New York: OUP for IISS 2000), 33. [Italics added].
4Wayne A. Silkett, ‘Alliance and Coalition Warfare’, Parameters 23/2 (Summer 1993), 81.
6Thomas J. Marshall et al. (ed.), Problems and Solutions in Future Coalition Operations (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute Dec. 1997), <http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps12278/00304.pdf>, 18.
8‘Pluralism’ is taken here to refer generally to ‘non-realist’, especially liberal, institutionalist, English School and constructivist approaches to IR.
9The study of alliances and coalitions is sometimes known as Foederology. The concept of ‘levels’ is frequently employed in IR, see Barry Buzan, ‘The Level of Analysis Problem in International Relations Reconsidered’ in Ken Booth and Steve Smith (eds.), International Relations Theory Today, (Cambridge, MA: Polity Press, 1997), 198–216.
10For the ‘Balance of Power/Threat’ perspective see Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1979) and Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1987).
11For the ‘Multinational forces’ perspective see Roger H. Palin, Multinational Military Forces: Problems and Prospects: A European Perspective, Adelphi Paper 294 (Oxford: IISS 1995) and Robert W. Riscassi, ‘Principles for Coalition Warfare’, Joint Force Quarterly, No. 1 (Summer 1993), 58–71.
12See, for example: Ivo Daalder, The Nature and Practice of Flexible Response: NATO Strategy and Theatre Nuclear Forces Since 1967 (New York: Cambridge UP 1991); Gregory F. Treverton, Making the Alliance Work (London: Macmillan 1985); Gerard Holden, The Warsaw Pact: Soviet Security And Bloc Politics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1989); and Daniel N. Nelson, Alliance Behaviour In The Warsaw Pact (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1986).
13George Liska, Nations in Alliance: The Limits of Independence (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press 1962); Thomas Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies (Princeton UP 1995); Charles W. Kegley and Gregory Raymond, When Trust Breaks Down: Alliance Norms and World Politics (Columbus: Univ. of South Carolina Press 1990).
14John S. Duffield, Power Rules: The Evolution of Nato's Conventional Force Posture (Stanford, CA: Stanford UP 1995); Terry Terriff, ‘U.S. Ideas and Military Change in NATO, 1989–1994’ in Theo Farrell and Terry Terriff (eds.), The Sources of Military Change: Military Organisations and Their Environments (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner 2002), 91–118.
It should also be noted that writers differ both as to the composition of ‘intra-alliance politics’ and its presentation. The structure of the exposition given here reflects both the author's preference and an attempt to create some unity among academics when they speak of intra-alliance politics.
15Duffield, Power Rules, p.5.
16Glenn Snyder, Alliance Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP 1997), p.20. [Italics added].
17Treverton, Making the Alliance Work, 173. [Italics added].
18Harvey Starr, War Coalitions (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books 1972).
19The author does not suggest a conflation of Liberal and Constructivist paradigms of IR but rather indicates how ideas and concepts drawn from these two schools together infuse the ‘ideas/community’ approach to studying allied behaviour. Given that this article is concerned with developing tools useful for understanding coalitions, this is not the place to enter the arena of theoretical debate between schools of IR in terms of epistemological and ontological compatibilities.
20Snyder, Alliance Politics, 165.
21Hans J. Morgenthau, ‘Alliances in Theory and Practice’ in Arnold Wolfers (ed.), Alliance Policy in the Cold War (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 1976), 197.
22Martin Wight, Power Politics (London: Leicester UP 1978), 95.
23Jane E. Stromseth, The Origins of Flexible Response: NATO's Debate over Strategy in the 1960s (New York: St. Martin's, 1988), 5.
24Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 6th ed. (New York: Knopf 1985), 5.
25Duffield, Power Rules, 20.
26Robert G. Gilpin, ‘The Richness of the Tradition of Political Realism’ in Robert O. Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia UP 1986), 304.
27Morgenthau, ‘Alliances in Theory and Practice’, 189.
28The ‘security dilemma’ refers to a situation whereby two or more states are drawn into a state of conflict even though neither was desirous of this outcome. See Charles W. Kegley and Eugene R. Wittkopf, World Politics: Trend and Transformation, 5th ed. (New York: St. Martin's Press 1995).
29Space precludes an investigation of this associated dynamic. More information can be found in Snyder, Alliance Politics.
30Liska, Nations in Alliance, 147.
31Kegley and Raymond, When Trust Breaks Down, 221.
32Starr, War Coalitions, 21.
33Theodore Wilson, et al., ‘Coalition: Structure, Strategy, and Statecraft’ in David Reynolds, Warren Kimball and Alexander Chubarian (eds.), Allies at War (New York: St. Martin's Press 1994), 103.
34For an introduction to ‘constructivism’ see Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge UP 1999).
35Walt, Origins of Alliances, 33.
36For more detail see Jürg M.Gabriel, Worldviews and Theories of International Relations (London: Macmillan 1994).
37For further explanation see Kegley and Wittkopf, World Politics.
38Walt, Origins of Alliances, 37.
39Liska, Nations in Alliance, 63.
40Richard Neustadt, Alliance Politics (New York: Columbia UP 1970), ix.
41Snyder, Alliance Politics, 131.
42Andrew Bennett et al. (eds.), Friends in Need (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 18.
43Kegley and Wittkopf, World Politics, 68.
44Kegley and Raymond, When Trust Breaks Down, 246.
45Risse Kappen is the foremost proponent of alliance norms but, though they may not explicitly recognise their debts to pluralist schools of IR, Snyder, Kegley and Wittkopf, and Liska are the key theorists in applying pluralist concepts to alliance study.
46Kegley and Raymond, When Trust Breaks Down, 247.
47Snyder, Alliance Politics, 350.
48Ibid., 358.
49Kegley and Raymond, When Trust Breaks Down, 1.
50Robert O. Keohane, International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, CO: Westview 1989), 136.
51Liska, Nations in Alliance, 114.
52Snyder, Alliance Politics, 361.
53Liska, Nations in Alliance, p.69.
54Maurice Matloff, ‘Wilmot Revisited: Myth and Reality in the Anglo-American Strategy for the Second Front’ in Theodore A. Wilson (ed.), D-Day 1944 (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 1994), 3.
55Thomas A. Keaney, ‘The United States and its Allies: A Historical Perspective’ in Thomas Keaney and Barry Rubin (eds.), US Allies in a Changing World (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass 2001), 9.
56In addition to works cited in this article, Max Hastings, Overlord (London: Pan Books, 1999 orig. 1984); Robin Renwick, Fighting with Allies: America and Britain in Peace and War (New York: Random House, 1996); John Keegan, Six Armies in Normandy (London: Pimlico 2004 orig. 1982); and Robin Neillands, The Battle of Normandy 1944 (London: Cassell 2002), are all worthy of mention.
57College Park, MD, US National Archives and Record Administration, RG 218 Records of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff: Central Decimal Files 1942–45, CCS 334 JCS. ‘Recommendations regarding the Records for Combined Operations’, Correspondence 18 Aug.–17 Sept. 1944.
58It is recognised that British Commonwealth (especially Canadian), diaspora or Free French, Poles and other European allies participated in this campaign but these were either subordinate or peripheral to the Anglo-American core. Space forbids a campaign narrative, for more information refer to the works cited in note 57.
59College Park, MD, US National Archives and Record Administration. RG 165, Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs Plans and Operations Division, Exec. 8. Col. J. McNarney and Rear Adm. R.K. Turner, ‘Joint Instructions for Army and Navy Representatives’. Office of the Chief of Staff, Washington DC, 21 Jan. 1941.
60FDR Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY, US National Archives and Records Administration, Harry L. Hopkins Papers (Sherwood Collection), Book 9, ‘Grants for Great Britain: Commercial Policy’, Memo for President, 17 July 1944.
61For in-depth discussion of the Italian Campaign and its strategic possibilities see Douglas Porch, Hitler's Mediterranean Gamble (London: Weidenfeld 2004).
62For more explanation see Basil Liddell Hart, Strategy: The Indirect Approach (London: Faber 1967).
63Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UP 1997 orig. 1948), 225.
64Mark Stoler, Allies and Adversaries (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), p.172.
65See especially George Bruce, Second Front Now! The Road to D-Day (London: Macdonald & Jane's 1979) and Walter S. Dunn, Second Front Now, 1943 (Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press 1980).
66Martin Gilbert, Road to Victory: Winston S. Churchill 1941–45 (London: Heinemann, 1986), 814.
67College Park, MD, US National Archives and Records Administration, RG 165 Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs Plans and Operations Division, ABC 384, Section 1B. ‘Outline of the British Arguments Against ANVIL/DRAGOON’, (no date). Churchill himself led vehement opposition to the attack, though this did not prevent him from proffering an equally ‘diversionary’ alternative; an attack upon the Atlantic coast of France codenamed ‘Caliph’. Though supported in this by the COS, he decided not to press this with the Americans. See Gilbert, Road to Victory, 747.
68‘Outline of the British Arguments Against ANVIL/DRAGOON’, Ibid.
69The US National Archives and Records Administration and Public Record Office (UK) contain voluminous documentation appertaining to this dispute which allows one to trace the evolving debate and resolution of the ‘Anvil-Dragoon’ dispute in detail.
70Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘D-Day: Analysis of the Costs and Benefits’ in Theodore Wilson (ed.), D-Day 1944 (Lawrence: UP of Kansas 1994), 333.
71Simon Berthon, Allies at War (New York: Carroll & Graf 2001), 303.
72Gilbert, Road to Victory, 828.
73FDR Presidential Library, Hyde Park, NY, US National Archives and Records Administration, FDR-Churchill Messages, April–Aug. 1944 ‘President to Former Naval Person’, 29 June 1944.
74Alfred D. Chandler (ed.), The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower: The War Years: III (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press 1970), 206.
75Churchill was no beginner in matters of allied politics. He had written a biography of his ancestor the first Duke of Marlborough in which he examined his handling of the ‘Grand Alliance’ in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). See Winston S. Churchill, Marlborough: His Life and Times, 4 vols. (London: Harrap 1933–38).
76Arthur Bryant, Triumph in the West 1943–46 (London: Collins 1959), 181.
77Gilbert, Road to Victory, 738–9.
78Berthon, Allies at War, 303.
79Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abeline, KS, US National Archives and Records Administration, Dwight D. Eisenhower: Papers, Pre-Presidential 1916–52, Principal File, Churchill, Winston (5), [June 1944–Dec. 1944], ‘Eisenhower to Churchill’, Correspondence, 11 Aug. 1944.
80Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief (New York: Simon & Schuster 1988), 440.
81Berthon, Allies at War, 146.
82William B. Breuer, Feuding Allies (New York: John Wiley 1995), 124.
83John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation (London: Macmillan 1988), 39.
84Steve Weiss, Allies in Conflict: Anglo-American Strategic Negotiations 1938–44 (London: Macmillan 1996), 168.
85Narinsky et al., ‘Mutual Perceptions: Images, Ideals, and Illusions’ in Reynolds et al., Allies at War, 325.
86Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, 4 Vols. (London: Cassell, 2002).
87William Clark, Less Than Kin (London: Hamish Hamilton 1957), 1.
90Ibid., 167.
88See for example, Bernard L. Montgomery, Normandy to the Baltic (London: Hutchinson 1946) and Alex Danchev and Dan Todman (eds.), War Diaries 1939–45: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld 2001).
89Weiss, Allies in Conflict, 18.
91Williamson Murray, ‘British Military Effectiveness in the Second World War’ in Alan R. Millett and Williamson Murray (eds.), Military Effectiveness, Volume III: The Second World War (Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman 1990), 103.
92An examination of the Bernard Law Montgomery Papers (BLM) correspondence at the Imperial War Museum, London is useful here, as is Norman Gelb, Ike and Monty: Generals at War (London: Constable 1994).
93Weiss, Allies in Conflict, 162.
94Chester Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe (London: Collins 1952), 130.
95Breuer, Feuding Allies, 191. Churchill had never suggested inserting a major force into the Balkans per se, but rather a breakthrough to the Po valley and into Austria toward Vienna.
96College Park, MD, US National Archives and Records Administration, RG 165 Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs Plans and Operations Division, ABC 381, Section 2. ‘Joint Chiefs of Staff – Quadrant and European Strategy’, JCS 443, Memo by the Joint Strategic Survey Committee, 5 Aug. 1943.
97Millett and Murray, Military Effectiveness, 56. [Italics added].
98Wilmot, The Struggle for Europe, 130.
99Carlo D'Este, Decision in Normandy (London: Penguin 2001), 300.
100Bryant, Triumph in the West, 241.
101Paul Kennedy, The Realities Behind Diplomacy (London: Fontana Press 1985), 345–6.
102Weiss, Allies in Conflict, 17–18.
103Ibid., 82.
104RG 165 Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs Plans and Operations Division, ABC 384, Section 1B ‘Outline of the British arguments Against ANVIL/DRAGOON’.
105College Park, MD, US National Archives and Records Administration, RG 165 Records of the War Dept. General and Special Staffs Plans and Operations Division, ABC 381. CCS 603/9. ‘Operations to Assist “Overlord”’, Memo by the Representatives of the British chiefs of Staff, 12 July 1944.
106See David Stone, War Summits (Washington DC: Potomac Books 2005).
107Kew, United kingdom, Public Record Office, War Office 32/12178. ‘Report on Work of British Joint Staff Mission to North America, 1940–45’, Jan. 1946.
108Eliot A. Cohen, ‘Churchill and Coalition Strategy in World War II’ in Paul Kennedy (ed.), Grand Strategies in War and Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale UP 1991), 52.
109Risse-Kappen, Cooperation Among Democracies, 34.
110Snyder, Alliance Politics, 363. [Italics added].
111Ibid.
112Ibid. [Italics added].
113Keith Neilson and Roy A. Prete (eds.), Coalition Warfare: An Uneasy Accord (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier Press 1983), xii. [Italics added].
