J Andrés Gannon

Assistant Professor, Political Science

Faculty Affiliate, Data Science Institute

Vanderbilt University

Puzzle

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Albania

• Coastline: ~240 mi

Puzzle: Specialized militaries are supposed to be efficient

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Albanian Stan Patrol 4207

• Coastline: ~240 mi
• Range: ~ 2,800 mi

Question: why do small states develop niche militaries?

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Answer: niche militaries allow small states in asymmetric alliances to be security producers

Niche contributions have outsized value when they are asset specific:

• Geography
• Non-traditional threats

Overcome traditional alliance dilemmas through:

• Efficient resource allocation
• Intra-alliance bargaining leverage

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Roadmap

1. Burden-sharing configurations matter
2. Theory of niche security
3. Evidence from post-Cold War NATO expansion

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Allies contribute different amounts…but of what?

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Existing state of the art

• Capability aggregation model (Olson and Zeckhauser 1966) oft criticized (Weitsman 2004, Bensahel 2007, Alley 2021)
• Asymmetric alliances differentiate goals for dominant and subordinate states (Morrow 1991, Palmer and Souchet 1994)
• Conclusion: small states provide non-security benefits to dominant alliance partners (Oneal and Elrod 1989, Lake 1999)

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New theory of niche defense portfolios

Concerns with small state defense capacity:

• To dominant state: adventurism and loss of reliance
• To subordinate state: resource allocation and abandonment

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New theory of niche defense portfolios

Niche portfolios overcome those concerns:

1. Dominant state: reduces adventurism
2. Subordinate state: mutual hostage-taking
3. Both: frees up resources

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New computational text analysis approach

Doctrine: National Security Strategies www.militarydoctrines.com

Force structure: Distribution of Military Capabilities (rDMC) www.militarycapabilities.com

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New computational text analysis approach

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New NATO states spend similarly

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New NATO states spend similarly…but specialize differently

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Within alliances, arms configurations vary (NATO 2010)

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Conclusion

Small states are often security producers in alliances

Efficiency of niche contributions is not evidence of free riding, but a solution to it

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