Show them the flag: status ambitions and recognition in small state coalition warfare

Abstract

Why do small states actively contribute to US-and NATO-led military operations? The small state literature has recently developed a novel explanation, referring to their dependency upon the alliance hegemon. The logic is that the small states aim to improve their status and reputation in order to remain relevant and to receive protection. This article contributes to this literature by moving away from this fear of abandonment motivation towards more positive status incitements. It shows how such status motives actually guide and shape small states' military contributions in USor NATO-led operations. It does so by using recent innovations in process-tracing methodology to create a status-seeking mechanism. Using the case of Belgium's participation in the military coalition against ISIL, this article goes beyond the usual Scandinavian suspects in the small state literature and demonstrates that status motivations have relevance for a wider group of small states. ARTICLE HISTORY

Incentives and constraints: a configurational account of European involvement in the anti-Daesh coalition

“…Concerning the former, all countries that contributed militarily to the airstrikes did so either under the presence of an external threat, as when some of their own citizens joined Daesh as foreign fighters, or because of alliance considerations. This broadly resonates with expectations formulated in realist-inspired empirical work on state behavior with regard to military coalitions (Davidson, 2014;Pedersen and Reykers, 2020). Yet, it is also clear that domestic factors cannot be disregarded, especially institutional constraints like parliamentary war powers (Peters and Wagner, 2011;Ruys et al, 2019).…”

“…Accordingly, states may value a security alliance and their relationship with an alliance leader for different reasons. These may be related to their security needs, but the reasons can also derive from status seeking (Pedersen and Reykers, 2020), concerns about reputation (Oma and Petersson, 2019), or economic incentives (Newnham, 2008;Henke, 2019). For example, Eastern European countriesparticularly the Baltic states and Polandvalue NATO membership and their close relations with the USA because this serves as a credible security guarantee against the threat posed by neighboring Russia (Doeser and Eidenfalk, 2019).…”

“…How to explain this variation among EU member states' contributions to the anti-Daesh coalition? Several studies have documented the early phases of the US-led coalition and explored potential explanations for the observed variance in deployment policies across countries (McInnis, 2016;Saideman, 2016;Haesebrouck, 2018), whereas others have focused on individual countries' contributions (Doeser and Eidenfalk, 2019;Massie, 2019;Pedersen and Reykers, 2020), but there has not been a systematic comparison of EU member state involvement in the fight against Daesh. 3 Since the 2015 incident was the first invocation of the Lisbon Treaty's mutual defense clause, it is of particular policy relevance to conduct such a comparison across EU members and their foreign and security policies.…”

From transformation to adaptation: analysing the Spanish military change (2004–2020)

“…However, the DPD -whose content is confidential -might focus on the Mediterranean, North Africa, and the Sahel (Fernández 2020, 12). Nonetheless, Spain might maintain its "flag approach" (Pedersen & Reykers, 2020) to NATO and EU operations to demonstrate its commitment but without any other rationale than showing the flag. 35.…”

Looking beyond Great Power Prestige: How Small States Pursue National Ends in Theater-Specific Military Deployments

“…Since 1989, most European small states have made large military deployments to United Nations and NATO operations and played a role in interventions as part of a coalition. Contemporary studies generally perceive this active use of military power as a prestige-seeking strategy conducted to strengthen ties to Washington (Pedersen & Reykers, 2019;Jakobsen, Ringsmose & Saxi, 2018;Wivel & Crandall, 2019). Since small states lack influence and resources, their sovereignty and security depend upon great power relations (Rickli, 2008;Smed & Wivel, 2017, p. 81;Jakobsen, Ringsmose & Saxi, 2018, p. 263).…”