Alliance Commitments Versus National Independence

Abstract

Associated with each of the areas we have so far considered there is a further common problem for defence planners: how to balance alliance membership with national independence of action. Participation in bilateral or multilateral alliances is usually undertaken to supplement a nation’s national security interests. Throughout the centuries those states facing common threats have found it advantageous to pool their resources and reinforce their individual power through membership of a wider grouping of states.¹ Alliances, however, can also create obligations and commitments which at times may restrict a nation’s freedom of manoeuvre. On occasions there can be, and often are, conflicts of interest between the responsibilities of an alliance and the pursuit of purely national objectives.