Military Alliances: Are they still necessary?

I decided to write abouty this topic because to start with, I really like themes related to Defence and also to War Studies and also because I had to get involved with concepts related to strategy and war during my research of North Korea. Human nature is very complex and,. if there is something that defines our nature is that we have always been warlike beings since the very beginning of times and, this was proved during the Middle Ages until the Peace of Westphalia and later with the First and Second World Wars. Since I am Realist in what respects to my let's say, 'theoretical posture' inside my critiques and also my research of international relations, I do think that today States still pursue their self-interest (I believe the issue of intervention in Syria is of the best examples I can think of in order to reaffirm that today's international arena is full of interactions indeed based on Realism or Neorealism), therefore the existence of military alliances along history proves that States do look to satisfy their interests and also to guarantee their security. Necessities and reasons for these alliances to prevail now varies, however. This is what I seek to explain brifely inside this entry.

Let's start by the very nature of why states have or do not have an army and why they decide to use it or to unite efforts with other armies. In my view, we can regard the existence of armies either from a defensive or from an offensive point of view. The fact of a State deciding to arm itself could either obey to purposes of national security (such as keeping peace and order within the territoriy, or for facing invasions) or for pursuing self interest or any other objectives relevant to national necessities (yes, here we can say that national security could be one or, invading others as well.). We cannot say that States have armies only to invade others or to claim military superiority, because in the end the State has the legitimate (?) use of force within its own borders therefore, armies are also made in order to defend the territory or just for preemptive matters. It is on this last thing that the most relevant difference between offensive and defensive can be seen: it is not the same to plan and make an attack (offensive) than defending from it (defensive).

Thanks to the huge amount of changes seen since the existence of globalisation, now armies face and have to solve other matters that go beyond interstate conflict and, these new matters sometimes can represent complex challenges. In the previous paragraph, I put the question mark after the word 'legitimate' precisely because thanks to the complex interactions and the facilities of transporation and communication, as well as flow of information derived from globalisation, now armies are just one of the many groups around the world who have access to the use of force, of course some of them claim or present it as legitimate, depending on their goals. Here comes the 'terrorist-freedom fighter' dichotomy, because for some it is legitimate (and even legal) to fight for self-determination, or for human rights inside an oppressed land therefore, to these 'liberation armies or groups' the use of force could be considered legitimate.

The new challenges faced by armies today then, most of the times go beyond national security. In the next paragraphs I will explain briefly how armies have evolved and how the appearance of new challenges brought by globalisation can now lead to a question of whether military alliances are necessary or useful in order to address new challenges present on the international arena nowadays or not. It is necessary to highlight that it is obvious that the world is not the same as it was fifty years ago. New states were created and therefore new countries appeared, as well as new rivalries and therefore, new conflicts.

The most obvious conception of an army and of a military alliance is normally related to defensive purposes. This very basic conception of the use for an army could be mostly seen technically until the Cold War. States would come together to fight a common enemy and would change the side depending on the circumstances such as the Holy Alliance, or simply put, when kingdoms during the Middle Ages came together in order to fight Muslims or, when France was considering to help the Fifteen Colonies achieve their independence. 

Then, their sorrounding context changed and the Industrial Revolution brought several new advances, in which weapons were more sophisticated and now countries felt threatened by whatever the neighbour did and since States were living under paranoia, it was a matter of looking for a perfect excuse to start a war and, in this sense, alliances were made by those who thought alike or who had certain sympathy towards the other one. Alliances formed during the First World War were more defensive than offensive, because in the end, they were formed in order to 'help each other when necessary'.

Uncomfortable peace came after Versailles, Trianon and Saint-Germain treaties, until fascist-nationalist movements arose in Italy and Germany, as well as in Japan and carried the world to another conflict, with a different nature and with consequences different to those seen after the First World War. The new military alliances made during trhe Second World War had more of an offensive than a defensive nature, because the Axis was now looking for aggressive expansion and for the creation of a 'Lebensraum' in both Europe and Asia, which lead all those States left out of the Axis to defend themselves. 

Anyway, after the Second World War ended, military alliances now became once again defensive during the Cold War with NATO and Warsaw Pact, which were kept together by this idea of war happening at any time. Alliances sought to have influence (most of the times by force or through intervention in internal affairs) in their or their sorrounding regions however, this was the case of the USSR with its immediate neighbouring countries (this partially explains why some of Russia's neighbours such as Georgia or the Caucassus are unstable once in a while), and the United States with Latin America and its involvements in Korea and Vietnam among others. The idea of military alliance here was defensive and the cohesion element here was ideology. 

NATO is the one that survived and after the Cold War it has been involved in peace keeping and also has contirbuted to peace enforcement operations and, according to common sense (or at least this is how I see it, because I am from a non-NATO country) they are still sticking together for similarity of national and international security interests and priorities, as well as for cooperation in case of intervention (humanitarian or not) in strategies' creation and implementation.

The role NATO has been performing today is the best example to show that armies are now facing challenges that go further from interstate war. The horrible events in Rwanda or in the Balkans are just an example of these new challenges. International organised crime, or terrorism are of the worst (and also the main) problems that armies face today either on the national or international levels, because most of the times they are unpredictable. Military alliances today are now formed in order to face these challenges that affect them on both the inside and the outside. For example: the issue of the Drug War being carried in Mexico was considered as an internal affair by the country's neighbours (Canada and the United States) however, it was not until an Immigration Officer from the US and US Consular personnel from Juárez were brutally killed that the United States got fully involved into cooperation efforts with Mexico (and resulted in agreements such as the Merida Initiative directed towards cooperation through intelligence gathering and also some financial resources to Mexico), and Canada was not considering the issue seriously until a Canadian was killed in Puerto Vallarta because of his participation as a leader of drug trafficiking in Canada related to Mexican cartels.

Trasnational issues, such as organised crime now constitute a new threat to national security of those who are involved. The problem with this is now States have to solve things from the inside out and, if inter state wars are already difficult, internal conflicts constitute a tougher challenge because it is not always easy to track down people inside a country, moreover when even some State personnel are involved with the responsible groups. Military alliances in this aspect, are absolutely useful, particularly in the part of cooperation, information and intelligence gathering, as well as for creating strategies.

The part of cooperation is particularly relevant for armies today in order to accurately face these new challenges. Since the threats are unpredictable and most of the times untraceable (because they are now represented on international networks), armies now have to be in constant communication in order to create strategies, agree on their implementation and then change them or modify them according to the outcomes. Strategies cannot be the same all the time, because even if the strategy is global, rules of engagement have to be changed according to the outcomes generated by the different stages of the general strategy. 

The importance and relevance of military alliances today then, is rooted on common objectives from the parts involved and also on how they are intending to cooperate on both strategic and practical levels. War has a new nature today, it is not about countries or states fighting each other, as Comodore Steven Jermy (2011) explains, 'But times change and the experience of the post-Cold War years suggests that events such as the great wars of national survival of the 20th century are less likely in the early 21st century. Complex armed conlficts, including those where one or more of the belligerents is not a state, appear more likely' (p. 3a) '...such conflicts are motivated less by threats to national survival, more by intricate issues, such as national security' (p.3b), therefore wars today might be more of choice rather than necessity and therefore, the use of force should be put under scrutinity and look for alternative ways to solve disputes other than intervention or war itself.