Description
While small and medium sized powers can have “strategic agency” including in alliance and coalition politics, this agency is circumscribed by their relative size and dependence upon larger framework countries. In this paper, we examine the resulting paradoxical character of strategy-making for allies and partners “subcontracting” into pre-existing (typically US led) strategic approaches and operational frameworks.
At first sight, strategy-making may seem in vain for these actors since they have little leeway to affect the overall course of action such as in the Afghan campaign (2001-2020). Strategic choices, for subcontracting states, will mostly be expressed in the quantity and character – such as timing and risk-sharing profile – of their contributions, not over direction. Even so, allies and partners are still real countries with real interests requiring them to retain coherence between their security landscapes and priorities, between strategic ends and means. Drawing on testimonies of seven senior military and civilian leaders involved in the strategy-making of subcontracting states in the last two decades, this paper examines three tensions expressing this paradoxical nature:
First, subcontracting allies and partners experience a tension between teleologically and deontologically driven strategy-making. Surprisingly, who these subcontracting allies and partners believe they are in the global context can be as important a driver of strategic action as what they would like to achieve. Second, some subcontracting allies and partners express strategic choices indirectly by not making explicit strategic choices - such as in the case of Germany. Third, clearly articulated limited means can enable rather than constrain strategy-making for subcontracting allies and partners. The paper concludes by reflecting on how these findings may open pathways to rethink and develop new strategy-making and formulation models from the perspective of small and medium sized powers when acting as subcontracting allies and partners.
