Economic Burden-Sharing in Military Alliances

Download or read book Economic Burden-Sharing in Military Alliances written by Larry Eugene Delp and published by . This book was released on 1973 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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).