Offshoring or Overbalancing: A Preliminary Empirical Analysis of the Effect of U.S. Troop Presence on the Political Behavior of Regional Partners

Abstract

Policy discussions on the future of land power often address the utility of U.S. troop deployments as a tool of influence. Analysis in the field of international relations offers analytical and prescriptive discussion of the utility of land forces, but empirical analysis of the effect of the stationing of U.S. troops on the foreign policy orientation of the states in which they are stationed is lacking. The notions of “over-the-horizon” capabilities and “offshore balancing” on one hand, and of “overbalancing” or “onshore balancing” on the other, offer rival conceptions of the relationship between troop positioning and political behavior among states in which the troops are positioned. This essay attempts to deal systematically and empirically with the generally opposing but occasionally complementary claims made by authors articulating these two approaches. Using panel data covering the years 1950-2011 for both Europe and East Asia, I develop and test a theory that a policy-relevant variable, the number of U.S. troops stationed in a particular country, provides a useful (if only partial) explanation for the extent to which states align with the United States politically and strategically. I find that the more troops are stationed in a state, the more likely that state is to display a foreign policy orientation that is aligned with that of the United States. This phenomenon appears to be related to the influence that the U.S. acquires in stationing troops, rather than being a result of collective action problems, economic interdependence, or domestic political institutions, as much of the political economy literature on alliance and alignment suggests; or as a result of responses to threats, as the international security literature suggests. The association does, however, differ significantly between East Asia and Europe, and over time. I find evidence for this argument by assessing the correlation between the number of troops stationed in a particular state, and the proximity of the foreign policy orientation of that state to that of the United States, as expressed by alignment in the United Nations General Assembly.

Keywords: land power, alliance, alignment, Asia, Europe, burden sharing, strategic culture, strategy, NATO, operations

JEL Classification: D74