Binding strategies in alliance politics: The soviet-Japanese-US diplomatic tug of war in the mid-1950s

Abstract

In the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union used a wedge strategy aimed at weaning Japan away from the United States. While the effort failed, this was far from an inevitable outcome. At the time, the Japanese government publicly expressed its intention to improve relations with the communist bloc. Moreover, Moscow offered Tokyo attractive carrots, mainly in the form of a favorable resolution of outstanding territorial disputes. I argue that the failure stemmed from how the United States deployed binding strategies-policies aimed at maintaining or enhancing an ally's loyalty-to counter Moscow's overtures. In doing so, I seek to expand our understanding of binding strategies and the dynamic interplay between binding and wedge strategies. To this end, I present a typology of binding strategies and develop a theory that encompasses dynamic interactions between binding and wedge strategies. I then test the theory with the case of the Soviet-Japanese-US triangular diplomacy and emonstrate that the two strategies are deeply intertwined and should be analyzed as such. I conclude by discussing broader theoretical implications, such as the possibility of developing a dynamic theory of alliance politics.