International alliance is a formal agreement between states that commits them to work together in some capacity. These alliances may be military, political, economic, environmental or cultural. They are primarily organised around a common interest and often overlap. In recent years there has been a shift in the world system with new actors and increased strategic complexity that has changed the meaning of alliances and their utility in geopolitics.
Alliances can be beneficial or harmful to a state’s security and power position. They can also provide an opportunity to increase leverage and influence in the world. However, there is a significant downside to alliances which has the potential to outweigh any benefits they might bring. This is the danger of reliance on alliance-derived gains, which can lead to dangerous habits and even miscalculations. This is why alliance politics requires constant re-evaluation and re-calibration.
It is rare, if not impossible – certainly in the modern world – for a single state to seek global, let alone regional, primacy on its own. Most attempts at such a goal are enabled by an intricate system of alliances.
This can include military, political and economic alliances such as the G7, NATO and BRICS. In addition to these, there are a number of smaller alliances that focus on specific issues such as the fight against climate change, food insecurity and global digital governance. This ‘pragmatic’ group of states has some of the world’s largest pools of capital, demographic advantage and strategically important territory as well as a significant amount of clout in the world’s most powerful negotiating tables.
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