To Remain or to Terminate? The Quest for Strategic Autonomy: An Autonomy Cost Model of Alliance Duration

Abstract Alliances are agreements among independent states to cooperate militarily in the face of potential or realized military conflict. However, not all alliances endure for decades. Existing empirical evidence suggests that there is a variance lifespan alliances. I argue more likely be dissolved when their treaty obligations undermine autonomy state’s core security strategy. In this vein, also insist ‘strategic autonomy’ key factor termination alliance and duration. with strong constraints’ would last longer than others. use ATOP data principal components analysis ( PCA ) technique test argument identify strategic variable. The extracted PC s) used as explanatory variables regression. This paper finds constraints do constrained, results consistent hypotheses.