The Dominant Strategy and Alliance Failure

Abstract

Copying the dominant strategy reduces the risk of alliance failure by one-third. This chapter leverages statistical methods to link emulation to security behavior. Military partnerships are more reliable and cohesive when they converge on a single, socially accepted standard of credible and legitimate cooperation. Scholars often assume that institutionalization enhances reliability. This chapter demonstrates that such assumption is only true when the core alliance is itself institutionalized. If not, formal coordination can increase the risk of alliance failure by 26.46 percent.