Tashvi Chawla
The world has never seen so many alliances yet so little global peace. The international system is crowded with security alliances, NATO, AUKUS, QUAD, BRICS+, I2U2, yet wars rage across Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan and beyond. Trust among states is collapsing. Insecurity is spreading faster than security umbrellas can be stitched together. However, the paradox is hard to overlook. The more the world unites itself in security alliances, the more divided it becomes to establish peace. Alliances promise deterrence but actually deliver escalation. These alliances fan out faster than trust can and, in the process, fail to build the architecture that peace requires.
A Glimpse at the Past:
Alliances were designed on the traditional logic of posing as barriers against war. NATO in 1949 embodied collective defence under the UN Charter. Even during the period of the Cold War, the logic of bloc politics created a tense but predictable balance. From the 2000s onwards, instead of two poles, the world saw a proliferation of flexible and issue-based partnerships. Alliances began to fragment into ‘mini-laterals’ and ad-hoc coalitions. Rather than working on universal security, states ended up increasingly preferring selective partnerships. Alliances became flexible and inevitably fragile. The concept of security became about club membership rather than universal protection.
Current Scenario:
When we take a look at the expansion of NATO, it is significant, however it has failed to stop Russia. AUKUS and QUAD frame themselves as guardians of the Indo-Pacific region but clearly aim at containing China. While I2U2 mixes security with trade and technology, leaving the security aspect completely ambiguous. BRICS+ has evolved into a broad political club with its security aspirations still rhetorical. The Middle East has transformed into a web of shifting alignments where Israel’s security reliance on the U.S. has faltered, Saudi-Israel normalisation has lost momentum and Iran seeks alternative patrons by leveraging ties with Russia and Qatar. Alliances multiply but fail functionally, leaving plenty room for proxy wars.
The Alliance and Counter-Alliance Spiral:
Security alliances are born out of one simple logic: Deterrence. In theory, if states stick together, potential adversaries would think twice before striking, in consideration of triggering the collective. But when it comes to practice, deterrence rarely stops at that. Each partnership fuels a counter one. Each bloc invites another bloc. At the end, what was designed to contain a conflict often results in multiplying the fissures. NATO’s eastward expansion stands as a classic textbook case. What Europe structured as a shield, Russia read as a threat.
The response has not been to recoil but recalibration. A closer Moscow-Beijing coordination, deepening of energy diplomacy and a more militarised frontier. Likewise, QUAD was conceived as a stabilising force in the Indo-Pacific region, yet its posture has driven China towards dense security understandings with Pakistan, Russia and Iran. The Middle East has transformed into a hotspot for triggers and compelling rivals. A domino effect of alliances is observed. Each pact multiplies grudges rather than neutralising them. What was meant to freeze conflicts from escalating now guarantees it.
The Age of Deterrence Inflation:
The amalgamation of the outcomes can only be described as the inflation of deterrence. With the formation of each new alliance, the creation of another is assured. The cycle is recurring. This goes one till the system is bloated with competing promises that no one can fully honour. The result being the inflation of the global security order which is set on utopian grounds. The more binding the guarantees become, the weaker they get.
NATO has failed to simultaneously deter Russia, manage China’s rise and maintain credibility in theatres stretching from the Arctic to the South China Sea without eroding its own commitments. The Middle East is the region highly concentrated with this inflation. The change in alliances reveals that security guarantees are not ironclad but transactional in nature. In such a climate, the alliance itself becomes a liability and adds to the deepening of the mistrust. At the end, what persists are conflicts and the illusion of stability.
Peace Lost in Translation:
Here lies the paradox of our age. The louder states proclaim their commitment to peace, the further it slips away. Rendering them fragile since inception. Security is hailed as a collective good, yet it functions as a private insurance scheme with rival blocs left to escalate in kind. In this new world order, the rules of deterrence no longer hitch, they spiral. This reveals an uncomfortable truth that, contrary to their objective, alliances set the stage for conflicts to wage into full-fledged wars. If security is constantly redefined as preparing for the next war, then the very foundations of peace become permanently deferred.
What they deliver is not assurance but a carefully managed disorder. Until global politics reimagines the stakes of global security beyond the equation of ‘your bloc versus mine’, peace will remain a word repeated in speeches but absent in action. We live in a world of collective insecurity. A world which is suffering from the excess of security alliances in which peace has quietly drowned.
About the contributor: Tashvi Chawla is a Master’s Student, International Relations, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. She is a fellow of DFPGYF Diplomacy, Foreign Policy & Geopolitics Youth Fellowship- Cohort 2.0.
Disclaimer: All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organisation.
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Acknowledgement: This article was posted by Shivashish Narayan, a visiting researcher at IMPRI.
