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International Relations & Diplomacy vocabulary · Conflict & Security

Alliance

Meaning in international relations & diplomacy, with examples

/əˈlaɪəns/nounCore term

In international relations & diplomacy, alliance means: A formal agreement between two or more states to support each other, especially militarily, and the group of states that make such an agreement.

In Turkish: ittifak

How it is used

States form, join, enter into and leave alliances, and members are 'allies'. Typical phrases: military alliance, defensive alliance, alliance partners. NATO documents often call NATO simply 'the Alliance'.

Example sentences

  1. The two states formed a defensive alliance after the war.

  2. Joining the alliance requires the agreement of all existing members.

  3. Alliance members meet every year to review their defence spending.

Common collocations

  • form an alliance
  • military alliance
  • join an alliance
  • alliance partners
  • strategic alliance
  • NATOThe North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance of North American and European states founded in 1949, whose members commit to defending each other.
  • collective securityAn arrangement in which states agree that an attack or threat against one of them concerns all of them and will be answered jointly.
  • balance of powerA situation in which power is spread among states so that no single state or group can dominate the others; also the idea that states act to create such a balance.
  • deterrenceThe strategy of preventing an attack by making a possible attacker believe that the costs, such as a strong response, would be greater than any gain.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Conflict & Security

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