The Myth of the Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics: Offense-Defense Indistinguishability in Alliance Formation

The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine reignited core debates regarding U.S. grand strategy in Europe, particularly the longstanding disagreement over the principal cause of Russo-Ukrainian escalation. On one hand, numerous policymakers and scholars make the case that the blame for escalation lies squarely in the Kremlin, whose domestically-driven, hegemonic intentions compelled Putin to invade Ukraine. Conversely, others argue that the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needlessly led Russian leadership to perceive the West as an aggressive and expansionist force, heightening Russia’s sense of threat and ultimately provoking its invasion of Ukraine as a defensive response. Among the comprehensive proponents of the latter view are international relations scholars known as structural realists. Not only do they attribute the cause of Russia’s revisionist intention to NATO expansion, but they also use descriptive attribution to oppose any additional support for Ukraine.

At the core of this debate is the question of whether NATO’s actions are defensively oriented against Russia or whether Russia is defensively responding to an offensively driven NATO. The offense-defense distinction is an inadequate framework for understanding the deterrence-escalation dynamics in Europe. The inherent indistinguishability between offensive and defensive alliances reveals that both NATO and Russia are security-seeking revisionist powers, eliminating the possibility of credible reassurance and making NATO expansion a necessary, preemptive containment strategy to deter inevitable Russian aggression.

Realists and NATO Expansion 

Throughout the war in Ukraine, defensive realist Stephen Walt has persistently maintained that it is natural for Russia to perceive NATO expansion as threatening to its core security interests, blaming the invasion on the West’s escalatory actions.¹ Similarly, realist scholar Christopher Layne highlighted how NATO’s steady encroachment and the United States’ role in arming and training Ukraine has transformed the region into the site of an intense and sustained proxy war between the United States and Russia, attributing the fault of escalation exclusively to the West.² Michael Desch, a realist scholar at the University of Notre Dame, argued that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s failure to confront internal nationalist forces, combined with U.S. support for escalating the conflict, has only exacerbated tensions and reduced the likelihood of a negotiated settlement.³ Furthermore, three days prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Stephen Van Evera, a major contributor to the offense-defense theory, proposed turning Ukraine into a neutral state as a means to provide credible assurances to Moscow, arguing that “Russia will not accept a settlement that leaves open the possibility of Ukraine in NATO or NATO in Ukraine.”⁴

John Mearsheimer, the pioneer of the offensive realist theory, has emerged as the leading intellectual proponent of this perspective, most notably since his controversial 2014 Foreign Affairs article which characterized the Russian invasion of Crimea as the West’s “fault” rather than a “dilemma.”⁵ In a sharp divergence from his offensive realist theory, Mearsheimer attributed the cause of NATO expansion exclusively to the West’s domestic pathologies, as opposed to an expansion driven by threat perception.

Mearsheimer’s explanation for the escalation in Ukraine is twofold. First, the United States and Europe, driven by domestic liberal values, pursued NATO expansion, supported EU integration, and encouraged pro-democracy movements in Ukraine near Russia’s borders. Second, the Russian leadership, guided by realpolitik and perceived security threats, was compelled to act defensively, resulting in the annexation of Crimea and, ultimately, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Contrary to offensive realist theory’s rejection of the security dilemma where states maximize power independent of its perceived intention, Mearsheimer introduces a distinction between defensive alliances, formed for genuine security, and offensive alliances, which are driven by greedy motives. The latter, in his view, triggers unnecessary escalation spirals by ignoring the security concerns of rival powers, in this case, Russia.

Offense-Defense Distinction and Its Critics

The structural realist critique of NATO expansion as one that escalates, not deters, builds on one of the most fundamental questions in international relations: how do states avoid war and establish security for themselves? In an anarchic international system characterized by pervasive uncertainty about intentions, states are locked in a continuous pursuit of security, striving to deter perceived revisionist adversaries while simultaneously attempting to reassure others of their own benign intentions. Specifically, scholars argue that states could deter war with adversaries by building up their own military capabilities, a strategy that Kenneth Waltz, the founder of neorealism, referred to as “internal balancing.”⁶ Through internal balancing, states can deter aggression by threatening to incur punishment on the adversary as a response to aggression or by denying the adversary the ability to conduct offensive operations.

On the contrary, scholars contend that attempts to deter the adversary through overly aggressive internal balancing can be perceived as provocative, opposed to a state solely defending its own territory.⁷ This misperception leads the adversary to counter-balance by building up their own military capabilities in response, causing what deterrence theorists often refer to as an escalation spiral. On the one hand (assuming that there is uncertainty among states regarding whether they are motivated by security or greed), leaving the adversary to expand and not engaging in internal balancing risks being conquered and failing to deter. On the other hand, internal balancing can be misperceived as provocation, leading to the escalation spiral.

This phenomenon is commonly known as the security dilemma, a situation described by the term’s founder John Herz where a security-seeking state’s pursuit of power decreases the security of another state, leading the latter to respond by accumulating military power and triggering an escalation spiral.⁸ If there exists an inherent tradeoff between internal balancing to deter and under-balancing to manage escalation, the next question emerges: how do we solve this dilemma?

Defensive realists offer a solution to the security dilemma known as the offense-defense theory. First proposed by military historian Liddell Hart and subsequently expanded by political scientist George Quester, offense-defense theory suggests that states can engage in internal balancing without being misperceived as the aggressor by prioritizing military technologies that are designed for defensive operations.⁹ By building such defensive capabilities, states are able to build a “defense-dominant offense-defense balance,” rendering conquest difficult, facilitating cooperation, credibly signaling non-revisionist intentions, and ultimately enabling states to avoid war by managing escalation and deterring the adversary simultaneously.¹⁰ 

However, there are two major problems with the offense-defense theory. First, other prevailing variables that account for battlefield success, namely force employment, render the offense-defense balance less relevant.¹¹ If other prominent causal variables for military victories exist apart from offensive and defensive technologies, it is difficult to induce peace and manage escalation through force development even with a military force that consists of maximally defensive technologies. Furthermore, revisionist powers have the incentive to conceal offensive capabilities as means of prevailing in warfare while openly developing defensive ones. With such uncertainty, states are incentivized to interpret even the most defensively-oriented technologies to be used in offensive operations if they perceive that their adversaries harbor revisionist intentions. 

Second, offensive and defensive capabilities are indistinguishable when used in conjunction. Any new technology has the potential to be used in an offensive operation. As British grand strategy scholar Colin Gray convincingly argued, “Even the most apparently inoffensive of weapons and military architectural forms may be employed for offensive purposes.”¹² Such inherent indistinguishability between offensive and defensive weapons leads security-seeking states to both misperceive and disregard the balance.¹³ Because states cannot meaningfully draw a distinction between offensive and defensive weapons, states have the incentive to draw their own conclusions regarding their adversaries’ strategic intentions. Perceiving an adversary as intending to use their military capabilities offensively could lead the state to perceive the balance incorrectly or disregard it altogether.

Several proponents of the offense-defense balance have attempted to address the issue by arguing that the offense-defense theory is less about the distinguishability between offensive and defensive weapons and more about the “cost ratio of attacker forces to defender forces” in contested territory, as defined by defensive realists Charles Glaser and Chaim Kaufmann.¹⁴ While individual offense-defense distinction for weapons systems matter, they only matter insofar as certain weapons systems make offensive (or defensive) actions more or less costly than others.¹⁵ Taken simply, when there is an attacker’s advantage, it is less expensive for states to acquire security by using offensive operations.

There are two problems with this argument. First, even if the offense-defense theory is about the cost of taking territory, states are incentivized to misrepresent the offense-defense balance.¹⁶ Security-seeking revisionist states aiming to tactically deter their adversaries might be incentivized to misrepresent the offense-defense balance as defense-dominant, strategically concealing their offensive capabilities to secure a first-mover advantage. This is especially true for rising great powers that are seeking to deter preventive wars during a major power transition.¹⁷ 

Furthermore, security-seeking revisionist states attempting to maximize power in relation to the adversary may also be incentivized to misrepresent the offense-defense balance as offense-dominant, both in the dyadic and systemic level, in an attempt to bait the adversary into a costly war of attrition as a part of a broader bait-and-bleed strategy.¹⁸ In other words, for security-seeking states that are seeking to maximize relative power, deliberately causing misperception of the offense-defense balance plays a major role in great power revisionist strategy. 

The cases above demonstrate that it is not the objective measurement of offense-defense balance that influences states’ strategic choices, but rather, states’ perception of the balance that drives them. States are capable and willing to manipulate the perception of capability, resolve, and motive by misrepresenting their capabilities.¹⁹ This enables states to make their threats more credible, further enabling them to enhance both deterrence and compellence. Additionally, the acquisition of some purely defensive military technologies renders the cost of offensive operations much cheaper, creating an offense-favorable balance.²⁰ This adds to the existing uncertainty that is already pervasive in states’ futile attempts to assess the existing offense-defense balance as an attempt to deter without escalation. Such incentives exacerbate uncertainty in the international environment, specifically with respect to the means by which ostensibly defensive capabilities could be used offensively, creating conditions that are more conducive to misperception of strategic intention.²¹ In that line, states view perception management and war avoidance as instrumental to their broader goal of relative power maximization, a necessary condition for security.²² 

Secondly, Glaser and Kaufmann’s definition of the offense-defense balance does not account for the threat of retaliation in the cost-benefit analysis. Even if maintaining a defense-dominant balance would allow states to avoid escalation without deterrence, maintaining such balance incurs additional costs to the defender that could have been used on offensive capabilities which could more cheaply deter through the threat of punishment. While defenders can deter adversaries through both deterrence by punishment and deterrence by denial, the offense-defense balance exclusively relies on the latter.²³ Proponents of offense-defense theory argue that focusing on denial capabilities can reduce the risk of escalation by signaling defensive intentions. However, this perspective overlooks a critical variable: the cost of force development.

For security-seeking states, escalation management, war avoidance, and cost-effectiveness are all instrumental to the broader objective of maximizing security. In this context, deterrence by punishment offers a more cost-effective alternative to deterrence by denial. Drawing insights from neoclassical economic approaches to crime, it becomes evident that punishment-based deterrence can achieve comparable deterrent value at a fraction of the cost associated with denial capabilities.²⁴ 

Considering this cost-benefit dynamic, it is impractical for security-seeking states to prioritize managing escalation through deterrence by denial alone, as this approach requires significant investments in defensive capabilities at the expense of economic efficiency. Such a strategy diminishes their relative economic advantage over adversaries—a critical asset for maintaining long-term security.²⁵ States, therefore, have strong incentives to invest in deterrence by punishment, as it provides high deterrence value at a lower cost during peacetime and reduces the need for costly escalation management.

This explains why even purely security-seeking states often pursue offensive military technologies against other security-seeking states. Security maximization, rather than escalation management, remains the ultimate goal. Consequently, states prioritize strategies that enhance their overall security posture, even if it means adopting technologies or capabilities that could be perceived as offensive.

Offense-Defense Theory in Alliance Formation

In the context of alliance theories, the offense-defense theory and, thereby, the distinction between a status quo alliance and a revisionist alliance is often under-studied. If states cannot avoid escalation in selective internal balancing through defense-dominant offense-defense balance, how can one reliably argue that states can do the same with external balancing? The case of indistinguishability between offensive and defensive alliances is even more pervasive, as very few alliances have been established in history with the expressed goal of offensive revisionism. Yet numerous self-proclaimed defensive alliances in history have been used to partition smaller states and conduct revisionist wars. 

Not all scholars agree. For instance, in Alliance Politics, alliance theorist Glenn Snyder claims, “There is the obvious distinction between offensive and defensive alliances,” but conceded that the distinction is obscured by incentives to misrepresent offensive aims as defensive and by the tactical necessity of offensive operations to achieve strategic defensive aims.²⁶ Stephen Walt made a similar observation, identifying two possible motivations for bandwagoning alliances: “First, bandwagoning is chosen for defensive reasons, as a means of maintaining independence in the face of a potential threat. In the second, a bandwagoning state chooses the leading side for offensive reasons in order to acquire territory.”²⁷

In The Origins of Alliances, Walt, operating under the assumption that all states are security-seekers, identified “offensive power” and “aggressive intentions” as two of the five key variables influencing whether states choose to balance or bandwagon.²⁸ He contended that most states will balance against those with offensive capabilities and aggressive intentions. Implicitly, Walt suggested a distinction between offense and defense, as well as between status quo and revisionist intentions, arguing that states with lower offensive power and revisionist intention are less likely to provoke balancing behavior. Nevertheless, Walt asserted that most alliances are defensive in nature, emphasizing that states bandwagoning with a threat typically do so out of a need for protection from that threat.

The nexus between offensive capabilities and their tendency to cause more aggressive offensive alliances is not new. As defensive realists Jack Snyder and Thomas Christensen argued, “The greater the vulnerability of states (that is, the more propitious the technology or geography for the attacker), the greater is the propensity to align unconditionally and to fight all-out in defense of an ally from the first moment it is attacked.”²⁹ Other alliance scholars have argued that defensive alliances can make war initiations more likely, as it would incentivize allies to resist an attack.³⁰

Neoclassical realist scholar Randall Schweller took the offensive alliance view a step further, suggesting that states engage in bandwagoning more frequently than Walt observed by identifying profit-driven, revisionist alliances. By expanding the concept of bandwagoning to include alliances formed by both security-seeking and profit-driven states, Schweller conceded that alliances are not exclusively driven by security concerns and can be driven by greedy motives (distinct from “aggressive” intentions).³¹ According to Schweller, states can be motivated by either profit or security and can adopt either a status quo or revisionist stance. In his framework, profit-motivated bandwagoning represents offensive alliances, distinct from the behavior of states balancing against threats.³² 

The issue with these interpretations is that they assume a clear distinction between offense and defense and, by extension, between revisionist and status quo states. However, this distinction breaks down because revisionist states may have an incentive to preserve the existing power distribution if they perceive themselves as rising powers. In doing so, they avoid provoking conflict in the short term while pursuing the long-term goal of regional hegemony.³³ This blurring of offense and defense is further complicated by states’ incentives to conduct ostensibly offensive actions for defensive strategic objectives and vice versa.

In this conception, the offense-defense distinction in alliance politics collapses as states often undertake offensive actions to achieve broader defensive strategic objectives or conduct defensive operations to advance offensive strategic aims, all in pursuit of the overarching grand strategic objective of regional hegemony and security.³⁴ As Snyder admitted, NATO’s dynamics demonstrate that “an insecurity spiral may develop independently in the adversary game, and NATO’s policy cohesion may increase in response to common perceptions of a rising external threat.” He further noted, “Alliance commitments are always somewhat in doubt; hence—especially during periods of rising tension—there are tendencies to strengthen and expand commitments in order to guard against abandonment.”³⁵ 

What is next for U.S. alliances and partnerships in Europe?

The lack of distinction between offensive and defensive alliances brings us back to the central normative question: What does offense-defense indistinguishability in alliance theory mean for the grand strategy of the United States in Europe? 

The indistinguishability between offense and defense in alliance politics reveals that states cannot simultaneously deter and reassure Russia with credibility. This ties back to the core premise of offense-defense theory, which attempts to mitigate the security dilemma by enhancing internal balancing without provoking adversaries. However, achieving both internal and external balancing without provoking conflict is inherently unfeasible for the reasons outlined earlier. Consequently, any effort to expand or consolidate NATO or to offer additional security guarantees to its allies will inevitably be perceived by Russia as an escalation.

The next question, then, is whether the United States should focus on deterring Russia by deepening its engagement in Europe or on reassuring Russia by halting NATO expansion or even retreating from Europe altogether. The answer lies firmly in deterrence, as Russia’s strategic intentions have developed independently of the West’s credible guarantees, assurances, or goodwill, not to mention the flawed logic of the offense-defense balance. The debate over the sources of Russian conduct—whether driven by domestic political ideology, structural factors, or historical chauvinism—has persisted for decades. Yet, history repeatedly demonstrates that even a complete Western withdrawal from NATO would be unlikely to alter Russia’s strategic objectives. Instead, such a withdrawal would embolden a rational, security-seeking Russian leader to seize the opportunity to expand further, driven by a dual offensive-defensive desire to eliminate any remaining perceived threat and to aggressively pursue hegemony and power as a means of ensuring security—a dynamic convincingly predicted by Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism.

When applied to NATO expansion, the United States has no feasible way to credibly assure Russia that NATO is not a revisionist alliance, as this would require costly and binding commitments to permanently bar future memberships. Such measures are unlikely to alter Russia’s perception of NATO’s intentions, as Russia would likely interpret them as tactical concessions aimed at short-term accommodation as opposed to a long-term strategic change. Even if it altered Russia’s perception of the West as more benign, a rational security-seeking leader would likely take the opportunity to expand further as intentions can change and relative power maximization provides a far more reliable means for ensuring security than the uncertain and potentially fleeting assurances of Western diplomatic promises. Given this perspective, Russia is likely to persist in its revisionist policies and territorial expansion, irrespective of NATO’s actions. From the Russian viewpoint, NATO represents both an offensive threat and a significant obstacle to achieving the Kremlin’s offensive, hegemonic objectives. Therefore, the West should seek to deter escalation without fearing it, recognizing that perception management is cheap. 

Recognizing that deterrence through alliance building should be the primary objective, the strategy becomes clearer. First, one of the core objectives in Europe should be the eventual integration of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova into NATO as part of a containment strategy against Russia. This does not imply immediate inclusion in the European security framework but rather acknowledges that any concessions made to the Kremlin during the war in Ukraine are tactical in nature. It would also naturally require the administration to take steps toward achieving these goals by addressing tangible obstacles, such as the presence of Russian forces in Transnistria in Moldova, South Ossetia Abkhazia in Georgia, and the occupied territories in Ukraine by deepening security cooperation and enhancing democratic resilience against Russian pressures. However, incorporating these states into the broader security architecture is essential for exerting additional pressure on the Kremlin, forcing it to expend resources on multiple fronts and straining its capacity to sustain aggressive foreign policies.

Second, the United States should adopt operationally offensive approaches and deterrence by punishment measures to counter hybrid warfare by the Russian state. This would involve bolstering support for pro-democracy movements both within Russia and along its periphery. The overarching objective would be to gradually undermine the Russian state’s capacity to disrupt United States’ interests in Europe and beyond while simultaneously strengthening democratic resilience in the region. Given Russia’s ongoing hybrid warfare tactics—such as its engagement in political warfare and influence campaigns in Europe to support anti-western populist candidates, meddling in U.S. elections, and conducting disinformation campaigns and cyberattacks—it is imperative for the United States to adopt a more offensive, deterrence-by-punishment strategy. By placing Russia on the defensive, the United States can more effectively deter its adversary, erode its ability to project power and weaken the Kremlin’s governance and overall capability in a cost-efficient manner.

Third, the administration should adopt an end state on Russia, one where the Russian state no longer has the capability nor intention to challenge the rules-based international order. Both capability and intention components are critical for U.S. strategy in respect to Russia, as either component is subject to change given varying external and internal political and military environments.

In essence, the debate over NATO expansion and Russo-Western escalation underscores a deeper truth: the offense-defense distinction is an insufficient lens for understanding alliance politics and winning great power competition. U.S. grand strategy should move beyond attempts to reassure an inherently revisionist Russia and instead focus on shaping the balance of power in Europe to favor democratic resilience and collective security. By adopting a strategy that prioritizes deterrence, counters hybrid warfare, and commits to a long-term vision of a secure and integrated European security framework, the United States can demonstrate that managing escalation is not merely about avoiding conflict but about reshaping the international system to ensure stability and uphold liberal democratic values in the face of autocratic aggression. The task ahead is challenging, but the stakes demand a decisive approach.

Will Kielm is a graduate student at the University of Chicago studying international relations. He was formerly a political-military analyst at the Department of Defense and graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Public Policy. Will is an alumnus of SSS Russia.

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Image: Plastic soldiers (18), April 17, 2008, from Chmee2. Retrieved from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Plastic_soldiers_(18).jpg, used under Wikimedia Commons.

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