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Cosmopolitikos' Notes

Christensen, Thomas J. & Jack Snyder. “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization44, 2 (Spring 1990), pp. 138-168.

The systemic theory of international politics developed by Kenneth Waltz is often used to explain alliance strategies at the “foreign policy” or unit level. Christensen and Snyder show that Waltz’s insight is indeed useful, but must take into consideration other variable such as the offense-defense balance of technology and the perception of it to be able to explain, predict or prescribe alliance patterns (chain-ganging or buck-passing).

Hypothesis:

“Given Europe’s multipolar checkerboard geography, the perception of offensive military advantages gave rise to alliance chain-ganging before 1914, whereas the perception of defensive advantages gave rise to buck-passing before 1939. These perceptions of the international conditions constraining strategic choice were, however, misperceptions, rooted in patterns of civil-military relations and the engrained lessons of formative experiences.” (p. 139)

System Structure and Alliances Patterns

In Waltz’s systemic theory, two structural features influence the alliance pattern of the states: anarchy and polarity. Anarchy being a constant feature, only polarity affects the process of balancing.

In bipolarity, chain-ganging and buck-passing are fairly irrelevant. The overwhelming power of the two poles makes the loss of peripheral partners insignificant and the buck-passing to minor allies almost impossible.

In multipolarity, due to the fairly even distribution of capabilities, chain-ganging and buck-passing are much more significant:

• State might chain-gang when it feels that its “own security is integrally intertwined with the security of its alliance partners.” (p. 140)
• A state might also buck-pass, i.e. when, “in the face of a rising threat, balancing alignments fail to form in a timely fashion because some states try to ride free on other states’ balancing efforts.” (p. 141) Their behavior can be explained either because they don’t want to bear the cost of war or because they think they might be better off—win positioning advantages—after the conflict if they stay on the sideline.

Security Dilemma and Perception

What explains alliances patterns? Since Waltz’s is more concern with bipolarity than multipolarity, Christensen and Snyder think that, to the risk of loosing parsimony, neorealism must be complicated by the addition of Robert Jervis’ security dilemma offense-defense variables and Barry Polsen’s perception of the strategic incentives.

First, offensive advantage increases vulnerability of states, thus leading to chain-ganging and defensive advantage decreases that vulnerability, thus leading to buck-passing.

But, the authors argue that the patterns of alliances preceding World War I and II actually contradict the proposition that in multipolarity chain-ganging and buck-passing are caused by the security dilemma’s offense-defense advantages. Indeed, preceding World War I, defense had the advantage and offense had the advantage on the eve of World War II.

This brings us to the second complication of Waltz’s structural theory. Christensen and Snyder argue that what accounts for the alliance strategy of the states is the perception of the offense-defense advantage. Using Polsen’s perception, they conclude that two possible variables could explain the “error” in the perception:

• Perception by the soldiers and the policy makers is “shaped by their formative experiences, especially the last major war.” (p. 145) Since the last major wars preceding World War I were decisive and short they concluded that the Great war would have an offensive advantage. But, as we know, World War I was long and idle, giving the impression that World War II would be, at least in the first years, of the same kind, leading to the perception of a defensive advantage.
• Perception can also, and complementary, be affected by the military-civilian dichotomy in the decision-making. Uncontrolled militaries favor the “cult of the offensive” in the forging of foreign policies. Conversely, a civilian-based policy tends to lean toward a defensive strategy. So, depending who has the most influence on foreign politics, the perception will change.

		The security dilemma
		Perceived defensive advantage (arising from civilian control or defensive lessons of history)	Perceived offensive advantage (arising from military autonomy or offensive lessons of history)
Polarity	Multipolarity	Buck-passing	Chain-ganging
	Bipolarity	Neither buck-passing nor chain-ganging	Neither buck-passing nor chain-ganging

(Table from p. 147)

Conclusion

The rest of the authors’ article is an analysis of the two World Wars. Christensen and Snyder conclude:

Contemporary balance-of-power theory has become too parsimonious to yield determinate predictions about state alliance strategies in multipolarity. Waltz's theory predicts only that multipolarity predisposes states to either of two opposite errors, which we call chain-ganging and buck-passing. To predict which of these two policies will prevail, it is necessary to complicate Waltz's theory by adding a variable from Jervis's theory of the security dilemma: the variable of whether offense or defense is perceived to have the advantage. At least under the checkerboard geographical conditions in Europe before World Wars I and 11, perceived offensive advantage bred unconditional alliances, whereas perceived defensive advantage bred free riding on the balancing efforts of others. (p. 167)