Secrecy among Friends: Covert Military Alliances and Portfolio Consistency

• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Author: Raymond Kuo
• Date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0022002719849676
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Secrecy among Friends:

Covert Military

Alliances and Portfolio

Consistency

Raymond Kuo

1

Abstract

Scholars think that friendly nations adopt secrecy to avoid domestic costs and

facilitate cooperation. But this article uncovers a historical puzzle. Between 1870 and

1916, over 80 percent of alliance ties were partially or completely covert. Other-

wise, hidden pacts are rare. Why was secrecy prevalent in this particular period and

not others? This article presents a theory of “portfolio consistency.” Public agree-

ments undermine the rank of hidden alliances. A partner willing to openly commit to

another country but not to you signals the increased importance of this other

relationship. States pressure their covert partners to avoid subsequent public pacts.

This creates a network effect: the more secret partners a state has, the greater the

incentives to maintain secrecy in later military agreements. Covert alliances have a

cumulative effect. In seeking the flexibility of hidden partnerships, states can lock

themselves into a rigid adherence to secrecy.

Keywords

alliance, international alliance, international security, military alliance, secrecy

Why do states participate in covert, as opposed to public, military alliances? The

burgeoning literature on private diplomacy suggests that secrecy can be both infor-

mative and credible (Carson 2016; Carson and Yarhi-Milo 2017; Ramsay 2011;

1

Independent Researcher, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Corresponding Author:

Raymond Kuo.

Email: prof.raymond.kuo@gmail.com

Journal of Conflict Resolution

2020, Vol. 64(1) 63-89

ªThe Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0022002719849676

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Kurizaki 2007; Trager 2010). Mutual hostility is an essential prerequisite, as adver-

saries can leverage that condition to credibly signal intentions, particularly if con-

ciliatory. Scholars argue that secrecy was essential to Communist China and the US

opening diplomatic relations, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization

(PLO) negotiating key parts of the Oslo Accords, and the Soviet Union (USSR)

demonstrating its willingness to escalate conflict in Angola. This literature assumes

that states’ decisions to “go secret” are independent of one another. Washington and

Beijing’s hidden negotiations, for example, would not influence the publicity or

secrecy of their discussions with Japan or North Korea, respectively.

But this article assesses a different phenomenon—secrecy among friends—where

mutual hostility is absent. Moreover, the article highlights the cumulative, interdepen-

dent nature of covert military pacts. Once an ally goes secret (public), it maintains

secrecy (publicity) in subsequent alliances. Indeed, hidden partnerships were once a

dominantfeature of the security system. From 1870to 1916 (or broadly,the Bismarck-

ian era), over 80 percent of interstate alliance ties were either partially or completely

private. Outside that period, covert military treaties were nearly nonexistent.

An older literature points to regime type to potentially explain this cumulativity.

Leaders use secrecy to avoid domestic policy constraints and blowback. For this

reason, Small (1995), Baum (2004), McManus and Yarhi-Milo (2017), Gibbs

(1995), and Schuessler (2010) hold that democracies are more likely to engage in

hidden security partnerships. Yet, conservative autocracies dominated the forty-six-

year Bismarckian period.

To explain the empirical puzzle, this article contends that “secrecy among

friends” is a matter of consistency in international practice. Individual allies face

a problem of rank: What priority does my alliance have within my partner’s wider

portfolio of security partnerships? Publicity mitigates this problem. All states can

observe public pacts, their obligations, conditions, and constraints. Countries can

mold subsequent partnerships around these boundaries, ensuring that obligations do

not conflict across alliances. But states cannot do this with secret pacts. Even if they

suspect their partners have hidden agreements with third parties, allies usually do not

know these alliances’ limits, whether they will divert necessary resources from their

defense or whether they have conflicting commitments. Most importantly, if a state

with secret partners were to suddenly create a public treaty, hidden allies will

naturally question whether that state intends to honor its commitments, or under

what conditions, it will betray them in favor of this new partnership. Consequently,

allies push for what I call “portfolio consistency,” circumventing these questions of

rank by offering all partners the same, hidden status.

I use a multimethod approach to test the theory. Statistical analysis evaluates the

underlying mechanism, that secret alliances have a cumulativedynamic: participation

in secret pacts makes states more likely to adopt secrecy in subsequent alliances.

I subject the tests to robustness checksfor the use of “unbalanced,” observational data;

unit interdependence; and estimation bias introduced by using dyads to model multi-

lateral phenomena. The findings consistently support the theory. This effect increases

64 Journal of Conflict Resolution 64(1)