I thank Jean-Marc Blanchard, Tom Christensen, Joanne Gowa, Ed Mansfield, Norrin Ripsman, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on various drafts of this article. A University of Pennsylvania Research Foundation grant supported my research and travel. I also thank the following host institutions in China for their hospitality in facilitating twenty-six hours of discussions with Chinese military officers, researchers, and academics during April and May 1991: the National Defense University, the Academy of Military Sciences, the Beijing Institute for International Strategic Studies, the Foundation for International and Strategic Studies, the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the China Institute of International Studies, the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, the China World Watch Institute (formerly Institute of International Strategy in the Future), and the China National Association of Peaceful Utilization for Military Technology.

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3. Olson and Zeckhauser, “An Economic Theory of Alliances,” pp. 272–73. The theory of collective action itself, on which Olson and Zeckhauser's collective goods theory of alliances is based, acknowledges that few goods meet the strictest definition of a public good. Referring to Paul Samuelson's classic work and Richard Musgrave's and John G. Head's discussions of it, Olson noted that the twin defining characteristics of a public good, nonexcludability and jointness of supply (nonrival consumption), are rarely exhibited in the real world. He emphasizes infeasibility of exclusion as the key defining feature of collective goods, though many also exhibit “a large measure of jointness.” Indeed, with regard to the cases under examination in this essay, in which the collective good of alliance security is supplied by nuclear deterrent forces, the requirement of jointness of supply or nonrival consumption poses few problems, as noted below. On the real-world appearance of public goods, see Olson, Mancur, The Logic of Collective Action, rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), pp. 14Google Scholar, n. 21; 28, n. 44; and 40, n. 61. Also see Buchanan, James M., “An Economic Theory of Clubs,” in Russett, Bruce M., ed., Economic Theories of International Politics (Chicago: Markham Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 51–63.Google Scholar On the infeasibility of exclusion, see Olson, , The Logic of Collective Action, pp. 14–15 n. 21.Google Scholar

4. See van Ypserle de Strihou, “Sharing the Defense Burden Among Western Allies,” p. 530; Oneal and Elrod, “NATO Burden Sharing and the Forces of Change,” pp. 445–47; Murdoch and Sandler, “A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of NATO”; and Oneal, “The Theory of Collective Action and Burden Sharing in NATO.”

5. Cf. van Ypserle de Strihou, “Sharing the Defense Burden Among Western Allies,” pp. 535–36.

6. See van Ypserle de Strihou, “Comment”; Sandler and Cauley, “On the Economic Theory of Alliances,” p. 334; and Sandler, “Impurity of Defense,” pp. 447–48. This expectation of greater free riding in the 1950s seems to hold even for Mark Boyer, who includes allies' nonmilitary contributions. See Boyer, , International Cooperation and Public Goods, pp. 84–85.Google Scholar

7. A few participants in this scholarly debate briefly noted the problematic assumption of nonexclusiveness even with regard to deterrence-based alliance strategies, but the implications of this observation for the usefulness of the public goods theory of alliances were not fully explored. See especially van Ypserle de Strihou, “Comment,” pp. 60–62; but also Sandler and Cauley, “On the Economic Theory of Alliances,” p. 335, n. 6; Russett, , What Price Vigilance, p. 95Google Scholar; Sandler and Forbes, “Burden Sharing, Strategy, and the Design of NATO,” p. 427; Oneal and Elrod, “NATO Burden Sharing and the Forces of Change,” p. 440; and Oneal, “The Theory of Collective Action and Burden Sharing in NATO,” p. 384. For an argument linking the purity of the public good to the substitutability of allies' forces rather than the distinction between deterrent and defensive strategies, see Thies, “Alliances and Collective Goods,” pp. 328–29.

8. Murdoch and Sandler and to some extent Oneal and Elrod emphasize the changing military strategy. See Murdoch and Sandler, “A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of NATO”; and Oneal and Elrod, “NATO Burden Sharing and the Forces of Change.” Oneal and Elrod, however, defended the central assertions of Olson and Zeckhauser's theory by noting that disproportionality in burden sharing persisted after the mid-1960s even if the extent of free riding did lessen somewhat. Gates and Terasawa, focusing not on weapons systems or strategy per se but on the extent to which levels of commitment affect the public good character of security benefits supplied by allies, explored doubts about U.S. commitment to NATO that developed only after 1970. See Gates and Terasawa, “Commitment, Threat Perceptions, and Expenditures in a Defense Alliance.”

9. Oneal, “The Theory of Collective Action and Burden Sharing in NATO,” pp. 381–82 and 387–88.

10. For an extreme example of the difficulties in estimating expenditures by China, see Goldstein, Avery, “Robust and Affordable Security: Some Lessons from the Second-ranking Powers During the Cold War,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 15 (12 1992), pp. 475–527CrossRefGoogle Scholar and p. 507 n. 8 in particular.

11. Moreover, a definition of burden sharing that restricts itself to military spending ignores the nonmilitary contributions allies may make to comprehensive security. See Boyer, International Cooperation and Public Goods.

12. Olson and Zeckhauser, “An Economic Theory of Alliances,” p. 266. For exceptions to the almost exclusive focus on NATO in the debate about the collective goods theory of alliances, see Thies, “Alliances and Collective Goods”; and Morrow, James D., “Alliances and Asymmetry: An Alternative to the Capability Aggregation Model of Alliances,” American Journal of Political Science 35 (11 1991), pp. 904–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Some argue that significantly outgunned nuclear powers cannot credibly deter their adversary. For consideration of these arguments, as well as the British, Chinese, and French belief that relatively small nuclear deterrents did enable them to dissuade a superpower adversary, see Goldstein, “Robust and Affordable Security.”

14. On the nonsecurity motives for developing nuclear weapons, see Ibid., p. 506 n. 1; and Goldstein, Avery, “Understanding Nuclear Proliferation: Theoretical Explanation and China's National Experience,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 218–19Google Scholar and 233–34.

15. Two traditional great powers, Britain and France, continued their interwar relative decline. The one anointed great power, China, failed to fulfill its promise. At first, China was represented in the UN by the Kuomintang regime, which was then presiding over a civil war torn country. Later, it was represented by the Kuomintang government in exile on Taiwan. After 1971, the effective rulers of the mainland, the Communists, assumed their international role as representatives of China, but the country's weak economic foundation limited its international clout, despite ample territory and a large population. Ironically, the two defeated great powers, Germany and Japan, would reemerge phoenix-like from the ashes of their wartime destruction. See Organski, A. F. K. and Kugler, Jacek, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980)Google Scholar, chap. 3. But through the late 1980s, at least, international and domestic political constraints prevented them from translating their economic capabilities into international political influence.

16. I use the term “bipolarity” to signify the distribution of capabilities in the international system, not the extent of ideological polarization associated with the cold war or the tightness of security alignments in which less powerful actors associated themselves with one of the superpowers. Bipolarity is used here simply to indicate that despite variations in the ability to manage their respective alliance partners and impose solutions on regional actors, in the postwar world the Soviet Union and the United States were set apart by their capacity to influence, though not control, events around the globe.

17. Snyder, Glenn H., “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics 36 (07 1984), pp. 461–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also see Christensen, Thomas J. and Snyder, Jack, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization 44 (Spring 1990), pp. 137–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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43. Ibid., chap. 5.

44. Christensen, “Domestic Mobilization and International Conflict,” chap. 6.

45. Discussions with analysts in Beijing in 1991 at the institutions listed in the acknowledgments suggest there is room for debate over exactly what the Chinese expected the Soviets to do during the crisis. See also Chang, , Friends and Enemies, pp. 190–94Google Scholar; and Nelsen, , Power and Insecurity, pp. 41–45.Google Scholar

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47. In the now famous line from foreign affairs minister Chen Yi, China would shoulder any burden necessary to bring the strategic weapons program to fruition, “even if the Chinese had to pawn their trousers for this purpose.” See Lewis and Xue, China Builds the Bomb, p. 130.

48. For an unusually explicit Chinese view of the nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union beginning in 1969, see ”People's Daily Article: ‘Get Rid of Blind Belief in Nuclear Weapons,’” Xinhua, 14 May 1977, NEXIS.

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82. See Mendl, , Deterrence and Persuasion, pp. 15 and 103Google Scholar; Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, pp. 35–36Google Scholar; and Wynfred Joshua “New Perspectives in U.S. French Nuclear Relations,” Research Memorandum SSC-RM-8974–2, Stanford Research Institute, August 1972, p. 10, cited in Norris, , Burrows, , and Fieldhouse, , British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, p. 184 n. 17.Google Scholar However much the French may have doubted American dependability, Eisenhower did warn the Soviets against nuclear attacks on the U.S. allies during the Suez Crisis.

83. Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, pp. 234 and 274.Google Scholar

84. De Gaulle, cited in Ibid., p. 234.

85. Ibid., pp. 5–6 and 356–57.

86. When Eisenhower pushed for revisions in the McMahon Act in 1954 and 1958 that facilitated sharing nuclear information with allies, the regulations approved by a wary U.S. Congress Joint Committee on Atomic Energy effectively restricted such sharing to Britain by stipulating that recipients must have already “made substantial progress in the development of atomic weapons.” See Ibid., p. 6. See also Mendl, , Deterrence and Persuasion, pp. 55–58Google Scholar; Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, pp. 64–66 and 80–81Google Scholar; and Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” pp. 5 and 6–7.

87. On De Gaulle's anger at the lack of American cooperation, see the report of his September 1958 confrontation with General Lauris Norstad, the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, in Norris, , Burrows, , and Fieldhouse, , British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, p. 188, n. 21.Google Scholar During 1959 and 1960 France announced that their Mediterranean fleet would be withdrawn from NATO command in time of war, that they would not allow U.S. intermediate range ballistic missiles under American control to be stationed on French soil, and that no tactical nuclear weapons could be stockpiled in France. See Mendl, , Deterrence and Persuasion, p. 61.Google Scholar

88. See Yost, “France's Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, Part 1,” pp. 13–14; and Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, pp. 356 and 357.Google Scholar

89. See Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” p. 7; and Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, pp. 217–29.Google Scholar

90. Doubts about genuine acceptance are raised, however, by a recently declassified report that indicates “the French continued their nuclear program” during the 1960s “[i]n spite of U.S. efforts” to “constantly thwart … France's nuclear ambitions” as part of a nonproliferation policy aimed at persuading Paris to abandon the independent deterrent. See Joshua, , New Perspectives in U.S.–French Relations, pp. 65–66Google Scholar, cited in Norris, , Burrows, , and Fieldhouse, , British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, p. 190Google Scholar, n. 49, emphasis added.

91. See Pierre, , Nuclear Politics, pp. 238–39Google Scholar; and Kohl, , French Nuclear Diplomacy, p. 233.Google Scholar A recently released U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) document reports German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's comment that De Gaulle rejected the U.S. Polaris as a trick to humiliate France because it offered only missiles for which France did not yet have submarines or warheads. See U.S. CIA, Adenauer's Attitude Towards de Gaulle, Memorandum OCI 0749/63, 4 February 1963, pp. 1–2, cited in Norris, , Burrows, , and Fieldhouse, , British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, p. 188, n. 24.Google Scholar

92. See Heisbourg, Francois, “The British and French Nuclear Forces,” Survival 31 (07/08 1989), pp. 301–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93. Yost, “France's Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, Part 1,” p. 5. For a classic account of Franco-American conflict over flexible response versus threats of massive retaliation, see Yost, David S., “French Nuclear Targeting,” in Ball, Desmond and Richelson, Jeffrey, eds., Strategic Nuclear Targeting (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 127–56 at pp. 147–48.Google Scholar

94. Yost, “France's Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, part 1,” p. 5.

95. Ibid., p. 33.

96. Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” p. 18.

97. Note, however, the 1980 statement by the director of the planning department of France's Foreign Ministry that its nuclear deterrent “guarantees the security of our territory, and the safekeeping of our political sovereignty …[and] assures her diplomatic independence in security matters, with respect to the United States as much as the Soviet Union, which is something fundamental.” See Yost, “France's Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, Part 1,” p. 14. And a more moderate degree of independence was maintained in the French refusal, similar to the Chinese, to participate in those arms control regimes seen as superpower infringements on the sovereign choice of other states. See Yost, David S., “France's Deterrent Posture and Security in Europe, Part 2: Capabilities and Doctrine,” Adelphi Paper 195 (Winter 1984/1985), chap. 3.Google Scholar

98. See Malone, , The British Nuclear Deterrent, pp. 173Google Scholar, 179, and 180; Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” p. 8.

99. See Ullman, “The Covert French Connection,” pp. 10, 11, and 13. Compare Davidson, “France Rejoins Its Allies,” p. 22; Ian Davidson, “French Play Down U.S. ‘Secret Nuclear Help,’” Financial Times, 30 May 1989, p. 3, NEXIS; and “Nuclear Secrets,” The Economist, p. 29.

100. The logic and viability of nuclear deterrence of the strong by the weak as practiced by Britain, China, and France is discussed further in Goldstein, “Robust and Affordable Security.” For more general arguments about the significance of relative numbers of nuclear weapons, see Jervis, Robert, The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; and Jervis, Robert, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989).Google Scholar

101. Goldstein, Avery, “Understanding Nuclear Proliferation: Theoretical Explanation and China's National Experience,” Security Studies 2 (Spring/Summer 1993), pp. 213–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar