ALLIANCE POLITICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY: EXPLAINING FOREIGN POLICY ALIGNMENT AMONG DEVELOPING STATES

Abstract

Why do developing states facing insecurity adopt different patterns of foreign policy alignment? We bring together balance-of-power and balance-of-threat approaches, neoclassical realism, foreign policy analysis, and scholarship on hedging and strategic autonomy. It develops a conditional alignment framework in which perceived threats create demand for security partners, but domestic political priorities, economic exposure, and the availability of diplomatic alternatives shape the eventual portfolio of external relationships. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Kenya provide illustrative comparisons across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa. The analysis distinguishes formal alliances from informal defense cooperation, issue-specific diplomatic convergence, and economic partnership. It finds that an exclusive alignment continuum obscures the ability of governments to cooperate with different powers in different domains. Pakistan shows the importance of acute regional rivalry and security dependence; Bangladesh illustrates diversified diplomacy amid economic and geographic constraints; Vietnam shows selective security engagement alongside a strong commitment to autonomy; and Kenya shows the interaction of regional stabilization, donor relations, and commercial diversification. These interpretations are grounded in published scholarship and public policy documents rather than original interviews or a coded event dataset. We thus advances a conceptual explanation, not a causal estimate. Its central proposition is that alignment is best understood as a revisable, multidimensional portfolio in which national security objectives are filtered through domestic and economic constraints.