¹ Mearsheimer, John J., ‘Correspondence: Back to the Future, Part III’, International Security, 15, 3 (Winter 1990/1991), p. 220Google Scholar.

² The term was popularized by Gaddis, John Lewis. See his ‘The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Postwar International System’, International Security, 10, 4 (Spring 1986), pp. 99–142CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Long Peace: Inquiries Into the History of the Cold War (New York, 1987)Google Scholar. See also Kegley, Charles W. Jr. (ed.), The Long Post-War Peace: Contending Explanations and Projections (New York, 1991)Google Scholar.

³ The term bipolarity is sometimes used to describe the organization of most states into two hostile coalitions. This analysis, however, employ s the predominant definition, which is a condition in which military capability is distributed in such a way that two states are much more powerful than all the others. For further discussion of the different meanings tha t have been attached to the term, see Wagner, R. Harrison, ‘What Was Bipolarity?’ International Organization, 47 (1993), pp. 77–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ In addition to Gaddis, The Long Peace, see Mearsheimer, John J., ‘Back to the Future: Instability in Europe After the Cold War’, International Security, 14, 4 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waltz, Kenneth N., Theory of International Politics (Readin g MA, 1979)Google Scholar, and ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better’, Adelphi Papers, no. 171 (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Saperstein, Alvin M., ‘The “Long Peace”—Result of a Bipolar Competitive World?’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 35 (1991), pp. 68–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jervis, Robert, ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons: A Comment’, International Security, 13, 2 (Fall 1988), pp. 80–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution: Statecraft and the Prospect of Armageddon (Ithaca NY, 1989), pp. 23–29Google Scholar; and Mueller, John, ‘The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons: Stability in the Postwar World’, International Security, 13, 2 (Fall 1988), pp. 55–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ The North Atlantic Treaty Organization often figures in popular accounts of why war was avoided in Europe. No studies, however, have explicitly examined the alliance's institutional characteristics and how these may have contributed to peace.

⁶ Several scholars have analyzed the international institutions that have purportedly contributed to the stability of the postwar era by regulating relations between the two superpowers. See Gaddis, , The Long Peace, pp. 238–43Google Scholar; George, Alexander L., ‘US–Soviet Global Rivalry: Norms of Competition’, Journal of Peace Research, 23 (1986), pp. 247–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; George, , Farley, Philip J., and Dallin, Alexander (eds.), U.S.–Soviet Security Cooperation: Achievements, Failures, Lessons (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Hoffmann, Stanley, ‘Superpower Ethics’, Ethics and International Affairs, 1 (1987), pp. 37–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kanet, Roger E. and Kolodziej, Edward A. (eds.), The Cold War as Cooperation (Baltimore, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rittberger, Volker (ed.), International Regimes in East-West Politics (London, 1990)Google Scholar; and even Mearsheimer, , ‘Back to the Future’, pp. 26–27Google Scholar.

From the perspective of the present study, however, these analyses suffer from three significant limitations. First, many of the institutional rules they identify are extremely general and thus d o not bear directly on the problem of keeping the peace in Europe. Secondly, many of the rules cited, e.g., respect spheres of influence, avoid direct military confrontation, use nuclear weapons only as an ultimate resort, etc., amount to little more than what calculations of self-interest based on consideration of the structure of the international system alone would dictate. Thus compliance would not involve any sacrifice of self-interest, while breaking the rules would result in no greater sanctions than if they had not existed in the first place. Thirdly, in emphasizing institutional arrangements between the two superpowers, these studies overlook the many exclusively Western security institutions that helped to maintain stability in Europe.

⁷ See, for example, Mearsheimer, , ‘Back to the Future’, pp. 12 and 19Google Scholar. For an especially concise formulation of the deterrence paradigm, see Rhodes, Edward, Power and MADness: The Logic of Nuclear Coercion (New York, 1989), pp. 47–8Google Scholar.

⁸ Mueller, ‘The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons’.

⁹ In addition to Gaddis, , The Long Peace, pp. 229–31Google Scholar; Waltz, ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons’; Mearsheimer, , ‘Back to the Future’, pp. 27–8Google Scholar; and Jervis, ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons’; see Bundy, McGeorge, Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York, 1988)Google Scholar; Betts, Richard K., Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, 1987)Google Scholar; and Kennedy, Paul, ‘Why We Can't Give Up the Bomb’, Atlantic Monthly, 262 (1988), pp. 77–9Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Lebow, Richard Ned and Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Beyond Deterrence’, Journal of Social Issues, 43 (1987), pp. 9–15Google Scholar, and Jervis, , The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 33–4Google Scholar.

¹¹ McGeehan, Robert, The German Rearmament Question: American Diplomacy and European Defense After World War II (New York, 1971), pp. 67–74Google Scholar.

¹² Jervis, , ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons’, p. 81Google Scholar, and Kaysen, Carl, ‘Is War Obsolete? A Review Essay’, International Security, 14, 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 42–64 at 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³ Jervis, , ‘The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons’, p. 83Google Scholar.

¹⁴ For recent versions of this argument, see Gaddis, , The Long Peace, pp. 226–9Google Scholar and 233–7; Mueller, , ‘The Essential Irrelevance of Nuclear Weapons’, pp. 57 and 66Google Scholar; and Vasquez, John A., ‘The Deterrence Myth: Nuclear Weapons and the Prevention of Nuclear War’, in Kegley, (ed.), The Long Post-War Peace, pp. 205–23Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Jervis, , The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 26–7Google Scholar. World War I has been cited as an example of this phenomenon. See Levy, Jack S., ‘Preferences, Constraints, and Choices in July 1914’, International Security, 15, 3 (Winter 1990/1991), pp. 151–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ See, for example, Folly, Martin H., ‘Breaking the Vicious Circle: Britain, the United States, and the Genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty’, Diplomatic History, 12 (1988), pp. 59–77, at 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrison, Michael M., The Reluctant Ally: France and Atlantic Security (Baltimore, 1981), p. 9Google Scholar; Wall, Irwin M., The United States and the Making of Postwar France, 1945–1954 (New York, 1991), p. 133CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Young, John W., France, the Cold War, and the Western Alliance, 1944–49: French Foreign Policy and Post-war Europe (New York, 1990), p. 181Google Scholar; and Jervis, , The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, p. 208Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Folly, , ‘Breaking the Vicious Circle’, pp. 66 and 69Google Scholar; Harrison, , The Reluctant Ally, p. 10Google Scholar; and Reynolds, David, ‘The Origins of the Cold War’, The Historical Journal, 28 (1985), p. 508CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Jervis, , The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution, pp. 206–10Google Scholar. and Lundestad, Geir, ‘Empire by Invitation? The Unite d States and Western Europe, 1945–1952’, Journal of Peace Research, 32 (1986), pp. 263–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

The dual requirement of simultaneously deterring Soviet aggression and reassuring Western Europe has been expressed most eloquently in Howard, Michael, ‘Reassurance and Deterrence: Western Defense in the 1980s’, Foreign Affairs, 61 (Winter 1982/1983), pp. 309–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ Ireland, Timothy P., Creating the Entangling Alliance: The Origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Westport CT, 1981)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Such concerns are noted in Osgood, Robert E., NATO: The Entangling Alliance (Chicago, 1962), ch. 2Google Scholar.

²¹ Indeed, a number of American leaders questioned the importance of Western Europe to US security. See, for example, the arguments used by the opponents of the deployment of additional US ground forces to Europe during the Great Debate of 1951 in Williams, Phil, The Senate and U.S. Troops in Europe (New York, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance; and US Congress, Senate Committees on Foreign Relations and Armed Services, Hearings, Assignment of Ground Forces of the United Slates to Duty in the European Area, 82nd Cong., 1st sess, (Washington, 1951)Google Scholar.

²² The expression is contained in a 1950 letter from US Secretary of State Dean Acheson to his French counterpart, in which he described US interests and objectives in Europe. Cited in Ireland, , Creating the Entangling Alliance, p. 206Google Scholar.

²³ This definition is based on Young, Oran R., International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment (Ithaca NY, 1989), pp. 12–23Google Scholar, and Keohane, Robert O., International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder CO, 1989), pp. 2–7Google Scholar. It seeks to encompass both modified realist and Groatian conceptions of regimes, as described in Krasner, Stephen F., ‘Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables’, in Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes (Ithaca NY, 1983), pp. 7–10Google Scholar. It is also compatible with the English school's view of institutions as ‘a cluster of social rules, conventions, usages and practices …’, although the English school pays less attention to formal or more specialized regimes. See Evans, Tony and Wilson, Peter, ‘Regime Theory and the English School of International Relations: A Comparison’, Millenium: Journal of International Studies, 21 (1992), p. 341CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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²⁵ The relationship between international institutions and international organizations is analyzed in Young, , International Cooperation, ch. 2Google Scholar.

²⁶ Krasner, , ‘Structural Causes and Regime Consequences’, pp. 6–7Google Scholar, and Strange, Susan, ‘Cave! hie dragones: A Critique of Regime Analysis’, in Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes, pp. 337–54Google Scholar.

²⁷ Most recently, see Haas, Peter M., ‘Do Regimes Matter? Epistemic Communities and Mediterranean Pollution Control’, International Organization, 43 (1989), pp. 377–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hartigan, Kevin, ‘Matching Humanitarian Norms With Cold, Hard Interests: The Making of Refugee Policies in Mexico and Honduras, 1980–89’, International Organization, 46 (1992), pp. 709–30CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, and Duffield, John S., ‘International Regimes and Alliance Behavior: Explaining NATO Conventional Force Levels’, International Organization, 46 (1992), pp. 819–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁸ Krasner, Stephen D., ‘Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables’, in Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes, p. 357Google Scholar.

²⁹ The most comprehensive treatments of this question are to be found in Young, , International Cooperation, pp. 70–80Google Scholar, and Keohane, Robert O., After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton NJ, 1984), pp. 98–106 and 237–40Google Scholar.

³⁰ Keohane, , After Hegemony, pp. 111–16Google Scholar, and Young, , International Cooperation, pp. 78–9Google Scholar.

³¹ This view is expressed most forcefully in Puchala, Donald J. and Hopkins, Raymond, ‘International Regimes: Lessons from Deductive Analysis’, in Krasner, (ed.), International Regimes, pp. 61–92Google Scholar. It is also consistent with the English school's conception of state behaviour, as summarized in Evans and Wilson, ‘Regime Theory and the English School’.

³² Krasner, , ‘Regimes and the Limits of Realism’, pp. 357–61Google Scholar, and Young, , International Cooperation, pp. 62–70Google Scholar.

³³ Krasner, , ‘Regimes and the Limits of Realism’, pp. 361–7Google Scholar, and Nye, Joseph S. Jr., ‘Nuclear Learning and U.S.–Soviet Security Regimes’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 398–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the role of institutions in shaping state interests, see also Wendt, Alexander, ‘Anarchy is What States Make of it’, International Organization, 46 (1992), pp. 391–425CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁴ Useful studies include Nye, ‘Nuclear Learning’; Robert Jervis, ‘Security Regimes’, in Krasner (ed.), International Regimes, pp. 173–194; Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Detection and Defection: Security “Regimes” and the Management of International Conflict’, International Journal, 40 (1985), pp. 599–627Google Scholar; Smith, Roger K., ‘Explaining the Non-proliferation Regime: Anomalies for contemporary International Relations Theory’, International Organization, 41 (1987), pp. 253–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and George, Farley, and Dallin (eds.), U.S.–Soviet Security Cooperation.

³⁵ See also Wolfers, Arnold, ‘Collective Defense versus Collective Security’, in Wolfers, (ed.), Alliance Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore, 1959), pp. 49–75Google Scholar.

³⁶ This second category has been largely overlooked in previous theoretical analyses of security regimes.

³⁷ The regimes are summarized in table 1. Not all of the following institutional arrangements have been previously termed regimes. Because they conform to the above definition of regimes, however, they are described here as such.

As will become apparent, the boundaries between the various institutional functions are often indistinct. In addition, some security regimes, notably those associated with NATO, served more than one purpose and had both external and internal dimensions. For analytic purposes, however, t i is useful to maintain the distinctions between the two fundamental orientations and among the four functions.

³⁸ These regimes are similar to, but distinct from, the global ‘norms of competition’ and ‘rules of the game’ that other scholars have described and analyzed. In addition to the sources cited in note 6, see George, Alexander L. (ed.), Managing U.S.—Soviet Rivalry: Problems of Crisis Prevention (Boulder CO, 1983)Google Scholar; Stein, Janice Gross, ‘Reassurance in International Conflict Management’, Political Science Quarterly, 106 (1991), pp. 431–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cohen, Raymond, International Politics: The Rules of the Game (New York, 1981)Google Scholar; and Keal, Paul, Unspoken Rules and Superpower Dominance (New York, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ Kegley, Charles W. Jr., and Raymond, Gregory A., ‘Alliances and the Preservation of the Postwar Peace: Weighing the Contribution’, in Kegley, (ed.), The Long Postwar Peace, p. 282Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ The relevant agreements, including the Potsdam Protocol, are reprinted in US. Department of State, Documents on Germany, 1944–1985 (Washington, 1985)Google Scholar.

⁴¹ This is not to minimize the leading role of France in impeding four-power control and the implementation of the Potsdam agreement. It is important, however, to distinguish the causes from the consequences.

⁴² For further details, see Steiner, Kurt, ‘Negotiations for an Austrian State Treaty’, in George, , Farley, , and Dallin, (eds.), U.S.–Soviet Security Cooperation, pp. 46–82Google Scholar, and Cronin, Audrey Kurth, Great Power Politics and the Struggle Over Austria, 1945–1955 (Ithaca NY., 1986)Google Scholar.

⁴³ George, , ‘US–Soviet Global Rivalry’, p. 248Google Scholar, and Gaddis, , The Long Peace, p. 239Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ The use of alliances to delineate areas of perceived vital interest is noted by Kegley, and Raymond, (’Alliances and the Preservation of the Postwar Peace’, pp. 278–82Google Scholar), who nevertheless argue that alliances did not make a direct and independent contribution to the prevention of a third world war.

⁴⁵ Perhaps the most notable example is the speech delivered by Secretary of State Byrnes, James F. in Stuttgart in September 1946, which is reprinted in Documents on Germany, pp. 91–9Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ On the role and motives of the West Europeans in the development of the treaty, see Folly, ‘Breaking the Vicious Circle’; Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance; and Kaplan, Lawrence S., The United States and NATO: The Formative Years (Lexington KY, 1984)Google Scholar.

⁴⁷ Ireland, , Creating the Entangling Alliance, pp. 137–41Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Arms and Influence (New Haven, 1966), pp. 49–52Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ On the inherent difficulty of establishing the credibility of threats to fight on behalf of others, see Schelling, , Arms and Influence, p. 36Google Scholar, and Russett, Bruce M., ‘The Calculus of Deterrence’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 1 (1963), pp. 97–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁰ The clearest exposition is provided in Rhodes, , Power and MADness, ch. 4Google Scholar. Rhodes terms these three strategies commitment-through-rationality, commitment-through-denial-of-choice, and commitment-through-irrationality, respectively.

⁵¹ Similarly, Schelling writes of deliberately acquiring the intention to fight on behalf of one's allies. (Arms and Influence, p. 36.)

⁵² Bracken, Paul, The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (New Haven, 1983), ch. 5Google Scholar.

⁵³ For further discussion of the ‘Great Debate’ over the US deployment, see Williams, , The Senate and U.S. Troops, ch. 3Google Scholar.

⁵⁴ For a detailed discussion of the regime governing NATO conventional force levels, see Duffield, ‘International Regimes and Alliance Behaviour’.

⁵⁵ Joffe, Josef, ‘Europe's American Pacifier’, Foreign Policy, no. 54 (1984), esp. pp. 69–73Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ The Paris agreements are reprinted in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1952—1954, 5 (Washington, 1983), pp. 1,426–57Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ In 1948, the Soviet Union claimed that the Western powers, by introducing a new currency without Soviet approval, had undermined the legal basis of their presence and, in retaliation, cut off access on the ground to Berlin from the Western occupation zones. In 1958, it declared Western rights in the city null and void and threatened (then and again in 1961) to turn over its responsibility for ensuring Western access to the city to East Germany, an act that could very well have precipitated a military confrontation.

⁵⁸ During the first Berlin crisis, the Soviet Union never pressed its geographical advantage, making n o direct attempt to drive the Western presence out of Berlin. During the later crises, Soviet and East German authorities took no significant action whatsoever in the city beyond the construction of the Berlin Wall within the Soviet sector.

⁵⁹ Documents on Germany, pp. 1–6.

⁶⁰ See, for example, Foreign Relations of the United Stales, 1952–1954, 5, p. 1,354Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Documents on Germany, pp. 42–3, 69–77 and 99–109.

⁶² For details, see Duffield, ‘International Regimes and Alliance Behaviour’.

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