From attractiveness to hard hedging: US allies’ response to Washington’s lack of security assurance under the Obama and Trump presidencies

ABSTRACT

America’s allies have reacted differently to the uncertainty surrounding US global leadership and the return to hard power politics in the 2010s. Some allies have remained steadfast in their commitment to Washington, while others distanced themselves from the United States. Why is it so? This article develops an integrated argument that brings together different strands of the literature on alignment, to better make sense of cross-national and within-case variations in allies’ strategic behavior. By examining three case studies from distinct regional contexts – Japan, Poland and Turkey – the paper shows that although these allies all shared concerns about the Obama and Trump administrations’ security commitment, it was their differing perceptions of the threats posed by China and Russia’s power that influenced their pursuit of either stronger alignment with the US security patron – through internal balancing for ‘attractiveness’ and internal hedging –, or increased strategic autonomy from Washington by pursuing hard hedging.

KEYWORDS:

• Alignment
• balancing
• hedging
• Japan
• Poland
• Turkey

Acknowledgments

We wish to express our gratitude to the following individuals for their invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of this paper: John Ciorciari, Jacob Fortier, Steve Jackson, Dominika Kunertova, Christopher Layne, Darren Lim, Justin Massie, Takuya Matsuda, and the anonymous reviewers. This paper also benefited from feedback at the 2021 and 2022 ISA Meetings. Final responsibility for the article remains with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number: 435-2018-1279].

Notes on contributors

Jonathan Paquin

Jonathan Paquin is Full Professor of Political Science at Laval University, Canada. He has written numerous articles on foreign policy and international relations, including in International Studies Quarterly, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Cooperation and Conflict. He recently co-edited America’s Allies and the Decline of US Hegemony, Routledge, 2020; and coauthored Foreign Policy Analysis: A Toolbox, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Jonathan Paquin received a Ph.D. in Political Science from McGill University and was a Fulbright visiting scholar and Resident Fellow at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS, Johns Hopkins) in Washington DC. Paquin was also Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Humanities and Social Sciences at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He is currently codirector of the Network for Strategic Analysis, which is funded by the Canadian Department of National Defence.

Pierre Colautti-Féré

Pierre Colautti is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Laval University, Canada. He recently co-published an article ‘Loyalty or autonomy? Canadian and French divergent strategic behaviours in time of power transition', Canadian Studies, Vol. 91, p. 165-187.