This analysis contains a number of implications for contemporary alliance
commitments. On the positive side, the Cold War alliance of democratic powers
has proven to be more resilient than many pessimists predicted. In the short term,
this event is not that difficult to explain: these alliances clearly remained intact
because the member-states believed that abandoning such arrangements would
leave them worse off. For the United States, the network of Cold War alliances
was both a stabilising force during an era of rapid change and a useful
mechanism for shaping the post-Cold War order. For Europeans, NATO
provided a forum for negotiating new security arrangements and kept the United
States committed to the continent, thereby inhibiting the 'renationalisation' of
European security policy. NATO was also reinforced by a set of shared political
values, and its highly institutionalised character made it easier to resolve the
mild conflicts that did arise and facilitated joint efforts to adapt to new
geopolitical conditions. In Asia, where historical enmities still linger and multilateral
institutions are weaker, the three bilateral alliances between Washington
and Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei offered both an impediment to regional
competition and a hedge against a rising and increasingly assertive China. Thus,
the US and its allies had little reason to abandon their existing security
commitments after the Soviet Union collapsed, and ample reason to preserve
them.