Soft Bandwagoning and the Endurance of American Hegemony

The end of the Cold War led to predictions that a new balance of power would soon emerge to counter the dominance of the United States. When that expected balancing behavior did not materialize, explanations of the enduring unipolar situation arose, including the benign nature of American hegemony and the centrality of the public goods that it provides, or the massive gap in capabilities between the United States and any combination of potential challengers that essentially precludes balancing. After the US-led invasion of Iraq, however, some argued that the long-anticipated return of balance of power was at hand in the form of “soft balancing.” Soft balancing is distinct from traditional balancing behavior in that it does not seek to openly balance through alliance formation or an increase in military capabilities aimed against the predominant power. Instead, soft balancing is comprised of a range of activities designed to frustrate the ability of the predominant power to act with impunity, in particular by using international institutions to deny it international legitimacy for its actions. The actions of the United States in the wake of September 11th are said to have accelerated this trend toward soft balancing by weakening confidence in its image as a benign hegemon, thus generating soft balancing by states such as France, Germany, Russia and China.The concept of soft balancing, however, is at best an incomplete explanation of the current dynamics of the international system because a large number of states are in fact strengthening their security cooperation with the United States and increasing their ability to facilitate the global reach of the US military. Even more to the point, those states have generally increased their security ties to the United States during the same time period that US policy and actions are said to be producing a wave of soft balancing. If unipolarity and what the United States has done with its position is causing some states to engage in soft balancing, then it is puzzling that many other states are actively seeking closer security ties with the US in the post-2001 period. Since then, nine eastern European states have sought and obtained membership in NATO, an institution defined by its explicit American security guarantee. Georgia, several Balkan states and Ukraine (until 2010), are seeking NATO membership and all of them are participating in US-led military operations. India has dramatically shifted away from its deeply rooted principle of non-alignment to engage in a range of cooperative military activities with the United States in recent years. Japan and Australia have reaffirmed their alliances with the United States and are participating in US-led military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.Soft balancing may explain some behavior in the international system but if Russia, China and France are soft balancers, why are Ukraine, Japan and India (to name a few) working to build closer security relationships with the United States? The answer is that Ukraine, Japan, India and many others are potentially threatened by rising regional powers, specifically Russia and China. In an effort to reduce their vulnerability, states in close proximity to Russia and China have strengthened their security ties with the United States. They have not done so by building formal alliances to counter the rising regional powers. Instead they have undertaken a range of behaviors designed to demonstrate their value by facilitating US military activities in the region, participating in US-led missions, and tying their militaries to that of the United States through cooperative programs, training exercises and other activities. It is not bandwagoning (forming an alliance with the predominant power) in the traditional sense where smaller states seek the protection of the predominant power through complete acquiescence, but a more subtle form of bandwagoning that seeks to increase the security of the weaker state by entwining its security with the predominant power’s global interests. If soft balancing is a subtler form of balancing, then this sort of relationship could be termed “soft bandwagoning.”American hegemony endures, therefore, because it is still vital to the security interests of a large number of states. Thus, the basis of American hegemony has changed somewhat since the end of the Cold War but the change is relatively subtle. During the Cold War, American hegemony was based on the premise of something worse. That is, American hegemony could be annoying and troublesome but it was better than the alternative: potential domination by the Soviet Union. In the current environment, there is not a single something worse; rather there are multiple “somethings worse” in the form of rising regional powers. They do not necessarily pose immediate threats to the territorial integrity of their neighbors, but their ability to pressure weaker states for concessions and their repeated demonstrations of aggressive intentions drives their neighbors to build closer ties with the United States by engaging in soft bandwagoning.The proponents of soft balancing are correct in that balancing is occurring in the current international environment, but for the most part it is aimed at the rising regional powers of Russia and China that constitute the “something worse” for many of their neighbors rather than the United States.This article sets forth a theory of when and how states engage in soft bandwagoning. First, it demonstrates that soft balancing is an incomplete explanation of state behavior in the international system, which calls for an alternative theory to explain the dynamics of the system. Second, it defines the concept of soft bandwagoning and identifies the elements of behavior that can be considered as evidence of this concept in practice. Third, it examines a range of second tier states that are engaged in soft bandwagoning to demonstrate the relevance and explanatory power of the concept.