Omnibalancing for all: A modernized look at omnibalancing in the post-Cold War era

Abstract

The two dominant explanations of the systemic environment in International Relations, realism and liberalism, were developed when the world was unambiguously bipolar and attempt to explain why military defense alliances are formed. However, they are both primarily focused on the alignment behavior and influences of only the great powers, whereas the current environment is far more uncertain and ambiguous. This dissertation will investigate why states other than the great powers, specifically lesser developed states, align in potentially surprising ways. It focuses on alignment behavior through military alliances and strategic partnerships that are driven by economics and views the leader of the state as the unit of analysis. I hypothesize that leaders that face three prerequisites: an internal threat to their ability to remain in power, an external threat to their state, and limited resources, will appease the secondary threats while focusing on the primary, internal threat since they do not have sufficient resources to combat both. It will use existing real-world data to inform a case study approach to explore the relationship between a leader’s perceived threat from China, the leader’s available resources, and the presence, or not, of an internal threat to their ability to remain in power.