Description
Undeniably the structures, institutions, alignments and social relations between state and non-state actors are changing. Commentators (such as Robin Niblett) have framed these changes as ‘a new cold war’ or have used the language of the cold war (bipolarity, spheres of influence, technology competition, separation of markets) as a tools to explain the changes that are underway. At least one element of these discussions concerns how states align. Western powers (including the UK, US, and Australia) have used the term ‘like-minded’ to describe the selection of partners. However, often these relationships are less formal or institutionalised than the formation of NATO or bi-lateral security treatise during the cold war nonetheless they are intended to augment or support existing formal relationships. These relationships have been considered as mini-lateral relations (such as AUKUS, or the QUAD) or more informal relations such as the trilateral grouping between ‘Japan-South Korea that Victor Cha described as a ‘quasi-alliance’.
These minilateral and informal groupings raise questions about how they fit into existing alliances structures and whether they are the response to existing concerns about the credibility or commitment to those structures in a changing world, or whether they create or exacerbate existing concerns about those structures. Understanding these new tessellations in geopolitics and how they affect and effect the emotions and management practices of formal alliances is an essential aspect of understanding anxiety and alliance management.
In unpicking these complexities this chapter starts from early alliance literature and debates of the security dilemma. In particular highlighting that for much of the scholarship in this area the demarcation lines between rational assumptions and the role of emotions were at least blurred if not non-existent.
