Buck-passing, Chain-ganging and Alliances in the Multipolar Indo-Asia-Pacific

ABSTRACT

Christensen’s and Snyder’s neorealist-based theory of buck-passing and chain-ganging uses offence-defence balance to predict state security policy choices under multipolarity. This approach is applicable to the US-led alliance system in the multipolar Indo-Asia-Pacific. Given regional Sino-US rivalry, hedging opportunities for US ‘hub-and-spoke’ allies will dissipate, increasing the likelihood of allies choosing to buck-pass or chain-gang in the face of conflict. With defence superior in the region, it is more likely that US allies will buck-pass rather than chain-gang. Beyond Indo-Asia-Pacific states, this has implications for global actors – such as the EU – seeking to raise their security profile in the region, as buck-passing behaviour gives greater time to adjust to potential conflict scenarios than chain-ganging.

KEYWORDS:

• alliances
• multipolarity
• Indo-Asia-Pacific
• balance of power
• Sino-US rivalry

Notes

¹ For the last point, see Ford (2018).

² Space constraints preclude examining institutionalist and constructivist perspectives. The decision to elide these theoretical frameworks is also informed by this article’s concentration on offence-defence balance, which, owing to hard-power focus and security dilemma implications, dovetails more with (neo)realism than institutionalism and constructivism.

³ What is interesting about (a) is the possibility that nuclear weapons might provide stability counter-balancing the theoretically assumed rise in instability stemming from greater multipolarity.

⁴ Both the European Union (EU) and individual member states (e.g., France), as well as the UK, active in Indo-Asia-Pacific security provision.

⁵ Besides buck-passing and chain-ganging, bandwagoning would be another choice available to regional states. I do not focus on this option for several reasons, beyond the evidence that bandwagoning is comparatively rare (Walt 1990). First, as behaviour better suited to small, weak states with numerous neighbouring enemies, bandwagoning is disincentivised given the geopolitics of the Indo-Asia-Pacific. Moreover, as Mearsheimer (2001) argues, buck-passing and/or chain-ganging make more sense in multipolar orders (e.g., the Indo-Asia-Pacific) than bandwagoning, which is better suited to bipolar systems. This is even truer in a defence-dominant system, in which aggressors would be perceived as reckless. Finally, given the US-led alliance system in the region, many states would not be bandwagoning from a non-aligned position, but would have to abandon the US as alliance partner to bandwagon with China. This represents an additional hurdle to an already fraught possibility.

⁶ Although Russia is a Northeast Asian power (although not an Asia-Pacific power more broadly) due to its nuclear arsenal, diplomatic reach and energy supplier role, this article minimises it. This is due to space constraints, but also because, as a Russian official stated in private conversation, Moscow has substantially ceded to Beijing strategic initiative in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. For more on why Russia has recently not been a significant player in the Asia-Pacific, and why this will continue, see Lo (2019).

⁷ Spheres of influence are “zones of exclusion and control” encompassing both military aspects and core-periphery “partnerships” that leverage the core’s “economic centrality to [the periphery] by deliberately linking trade, investment and aid with political and security cooperation”. This is widely seen as China’s strategy in its neighbourhood (Jackson 2019, 4).

⁸ Despite improvements in low-observable surface ships and silent attack and strategic submarines, which support a more offensive view of the sea domain, the value of low-observable surface ships remains battle-untested, while ASW technology has improved.

⁹ Very expensive, sophisticated, scarce platforms that are high performance yet fragile, difficult to replace and obvious targets of low survivability relative to the cost of cheap, numerous systems deployed to destroy or disable them.

¹⁰ For more on the moribund US-Thailand alliance, and why it is unlikely that Thailand would provide the US with significant military assistance (especially vis-à-vis China), see Harding (2018). For the Philippines, see Cook (2019).

¹¹ As well as Russia, addressed in footnote 6.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mason Richey

Mason Richey is Associate Professor of International Politics at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea.