Balance of Power or Balance of Threat: Revisiting Ottoman Alliance Politics before the Great War

Abstract

The Ottoman alliance politics before the Great War has not been explored for theorizing alliance politics though it presents a unique example of alliance formation under external threat. Thus, in this article, a neo-realist balance of threat theory is utilized to examine the Ottoman decision to align with Germany in the Great War. Unlike a historical account as to why the Ottomans sided with the German-Austrian alliance, this article develops a theoretical approach that takes insights from ‘alliance theories’ to explain the Ottomans’ fateful alignment. Such an alliance theory approach underlines the dilemmas of the Ottoman decision makers and demonstrates ‘rational’ elements of their strategy of balancing the main source of the threat. By bringing alliance theories and Ottoman historiography together it is argued that the Ottomans, in their search for an alliance before the Great War, sought a “balance of threat” politics rather than a “balance of power” politics.

NATO in The Very Cold War: Why the US Needs Nato in the Arctic

“…Averting the source of external threat is the key aim of states in an anarchical international order. 18 Once states realize that they cannot materialize its national security on their own, they form alliances in an attempt to add to their capabilities and those of their allies to minimize the threat. 19 An alliance is a 'formal or informal cooperative agreement between two or more states intended to further the national security of the participating states.'…”