Following the Leader: International Order, Alliance Strategies, and Emulation

Nations have powerful reasons to get their military alliances right. When security pacts go well, they underpin regional and global order; when they fail, they spread wars across continents as states are dragged into conflict. We would, therefore, expect states to carefully tailor their military partnerships to specific conditions. This expectation, Raymond C. Kuo argues, is wrong.

Following the Leader argues that most countries ignore their individual security interests in military pacts, i...