Whither Future U.S. lliance Strategy? The ABCA Cue

Abstract

This article describes and analyzes the little-known, but extensive, defense cooperative relationship that exists among the armed forces of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. While perhaps arguably a relatively esoteric subject prior to 1989, given the recent changes that have taken place in the Soviet Union, U.S. alliance strategy is now on the threshold of a new era—an era in which the Soviet threat is seen by many allies as diminishing. As U.S. officials ponder the implications of a decreased Soviet threat on its many alliances, of which almost all have been threat-based, it will be important to recall the one series of collective security arrangements with allies that has been founded on similarities, vice solely threats. This intimate Anglo-Saxon connection appears to have the needed bases for enduring well into the post-cold-war era.