Determining Military Coalition Participation

This paper argues that states participate in military coalitions due to depen-dence on a coalition leader. Unlike alliances, military coalitions are immediate and there is no issue with reliability. These characteristics make the analysis of military coalitions distinct. Dependence between states come in several forms that can be broadly categorized into economical dependence and security dependence. A logit analysis using the six cases of the Korean, Vietnam, Gulf, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars finds support for the argument that both forms of dependence are positively related with a state’s decision to participate in a military coalition led by the US.