Coalition, Warfare

Coalitions represent the wartime alliance between multiple partners designed to meet specific, and often short-term objectives. Coalitions can traditionally be differentiated from alliances in terms of membership, with coalitions often consisting of multiple partners, and their short life span, often being disbanded after meeting the coalition’s specific wartime goals. Coalitions in the 20th century tended to blend the line between alliance and coalition more so than in the 19th century when coalitions only tended to be formed in times of conflict. Increasingly, the peacetime alliances of the 20th century became the wartime coalitions that dominated warfare in that century. Nations that participate in coalitions are often motivated primarily through self-interest, generally this being a sense of self-protection. This entry examines the characteristics of coalitions and ...