Economic Burden-Sharing in Military Alliances.
Abstract
It has been claimed that the United States is bearing a disproportionate share of the burden of the alliance system in which it is involved. In this thesis, two prominent concepts used for explaining military alliances, balance of power and the theory of collective goods, were studied to determine if they provide precise answers on the subject of burden-sharing. It was concluded that the balance of power philosophy is far too subjective to provide any precise answer. On the other hand, the theory of collective goods, as authored by Olsen and Zeckhauser, yields the conclusion that a positive correlation exists between the size of a country's income and the size of its contribution to the alliance. However, their conclusion holds only when the alliance is in equilibrium and when their other assumptions are met. It is, therefore, of limited applicability. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1973
- Accession Number
- AD0769826
Entities
People
- Larry Eugene Delp
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School