Crippling Leviathan: How Foreign Subversion Weakens the State. By Melissa M. Lee. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020. 248p. $39.95 cloth.

eral or multilateral gatherings and asking for their views on a particular deployment, requesting information from foreign policy alums of military training academies, leveraging joint training and operations, approaching international organization officials for recruitment information, and asking friendly states for information and advice. There is much to like about this book, which has the potential to enrich both scholars from various disciplines and practitioners. Although there is a vast existing literature on collective warfighting, it is dominated by research on alliances, formalized agreements between states to militarily assist one another in times of need. Constructing Allied Cooperation joins the great work by Patricia Weitsman, Sarah Kreps, and others exploring ad hoc coalition formation. Moreover, although we can be sure formal alliances will continue to play a critical role in the contemporary world, established, institutionalized coalitions may not always be appropriate for confronting emergent challenges, as threats arise in new geographic areas and conflict domains. If new arrangements must be made, thinking carefully about what partners to bring into the coalition will be essential. This book does have some limitations, although just a few, which provide opportunities for future scholars. Henke convincingly demonstrates the deliberate use of diplomatic embeddedness by pivotal states in her cases. Yet theoretically, the process by which pivotal states use it is not clear. First, it is unclear how pivotal states use the various aspects of diplomatic embeddedness sequentially, both for recruiting any one state to join the coalition or for recruiting multiple states. Understanding the sequence by which the various aspects of diplomatic embeddedness are exploited would illuminate unintended consequences of the process of coalition creation. Relatedly, how does the pivotal state use various aspects of the diplomatic network? Henke notes that inducements are more likely to work than coercion, but surely in the negotiation process the pivotal state sequences the types of inducements offered. Second, Henke’s emphasis, and rightly so for her first book on the subject, is on states. But coalitions increasingly involve nonstate actors, by default outside of Henke’s diplomatic embeddedness framework. Nonstate actors have been an enduring feature in interstate warfare and are an increasingly present coalition member. Third, what are the reputational, political, economic, or even strategic costs to the pivotal state for capitalizing on its diplomatic embeddedness? Finally, how does the construct of diplomatic embeddedness fare in an increasingly economically interdependent world? Does it provide more costly, or perhaps fewer, opportunities for pivotal states to create their desired wartime coalition? Overall, Constructing Allied Cooperation: Diplomacy, Payments, and Power in Multilateral Military Coalitions is an important, informative, and interesting read. It debunks the notion that one can just buy allies; process and, more importantly, depth of diplomatic ties matter. To construct a military coalition is a difficult process that requires extensive diplomatic effort via multiple diplomatic channels, both military and civilian. Thus, only states with such diplomatic depth will be successful at creating a multinational military coalition. It is therefore a necessary book for those interested in diplomatic networks, collective action, alliances, and military coalitions.