Peter Mansoor and Williamson Murray, ed., Grand Strategy and Military Alliances (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Author(s): Peter Mansoor, Williamson Murray edit the volume and it includes chapters from David L. Berkey, Mark Grimsley, Victor Davis Hanson, Paul Harris, Marcus Jones, Clifford J. Rogers, Dennis Showalter, Richard Hard Sinnreich, Mark A. Stoler, Richard Swain, and Ingo Trauschweizer.
Central Argument: Alliances are critical to grand strategy and have been for centuries and are held together by political cohesion for common aims.
Synopsis: The book is broken into two parts:
- Part I looks at maritime powers and their ability or inability to secure a continental commitment. This includes chapters on the Anglo-American way of war, the Anglo-Prussian alliance in the Seven Years War, the Sixth Coalition against Revolutionary France, the Franco-British alliance of World War I, the Grand Alliance in World War II, and NATO during the Cold War.
- Part II looks more broadly at political and military challenges of coalition warfare. This part includes chapters on the Peloponnesian War and Sparta’s alliances, the Anglo-Burgundian alliance in the Hundred Years War, the Franco-American alliance during the American Revolution, German and Austria-Hungary in World War I, The Axis, and the Gulf War. The book concludes with Mansoor’s prognostications on the importance of alliances now and in the future, especially for grand strategy.
The authors define alliances as interstate groupings, formalized by a treaty. Coalitions are informal and include a shared common interest. They argue that alliance management occurs on 3 levels—political, military, and technical. Political aspects are the most important. Political goals underpinning an alliance trump all other goals and as such, politics should always drive decision-making in alliances. Alliances are incredibly complex and largely the result of exigencies at the time of their formation. Cohesiveness of alliances rests on shared objectives and risk. (378).
Whenever great powers fight other great powers without an alliance, they lose—particularly when sea powers don’t have ground forces to assist. Continental powers are inevitably forced to fight ground wars. Maritime powers have more strategic choices, but as history has proven time and again, they cannot win wars on land with naval or air power alone. Maritime forces need boots on the ground as Williamson Murray points out in his essay. Alliances are stronger when each member needs each other. For example, Lord Nelson’s devastating victory at Trafalgar over French and Spanish navies represented a long-term advantage and guaranteed Britain’s security from amphibious assault. But it had no impact on the continental balance of power. If maritime powers refuse to commit their troops to fighting with allies on land, they place themselves at risk of finding themselves without allies. And while allies may not appear to be essential to those willing to ignore history, in the end they do matter. Nevertheless, alliances are inevitably difficult, annoying, and confronted with uncertainty, chance, and friction. This volume lays out the nature of the relationship between grand strategy and the conduct of alliances.