I am grateful to Paul Poast for his careful reading of Allies of Convenience. I will address his three incisive questions in turn. First, Poast inquires whether US leaders might have circumvented domestic opposition to alliances of convenience by striking a hard line in intra-alliance negotiations while putting on a “happy face” regarding those allies to domestic audiences. As I discuss in the book’s conclusion, the only viable strategy to effectively manage an ally of convenience is one in which the foreign policy executive mirrors domestic sentiment by publicly adopting a hardline position toward the ally while engaging in clandestine cooperation with it, as the George W. Bush administration did with Gaddhafi’s Libya after 9/11 (pp. 217–22). The inescapable problem in pursuing the reverse strategy proposed by Poast is that the openness and transparency of the US political system permit the ally to both observe and bolster the conciliatory domestic dimension of the strategy, thereby undercutting the credibility of the tough position adopted by US officials at the bargaining table.

Second, Poast suggests that the United States’ appeasement of post-1945 allies of convenience might be explained by the unavailability of alternative security partners or by the need to attract those allies with side payments. Both explanations are improbable, however, because all of those allies needed the United States far more than the United States needed them. This was especially the case with the three allies of convenience I discuss at length in the book. China, Pakistan, and Iraq were underdeveloped states that were not only exponentially weaker than their US partner, but were also more gravely and immediately endangered by the overarching third-party threats that precipitated the alliances. In addition, the type and magnitude of material assistance that the three states sought from Washington could not be obtained from any other prospective patron. Moreover, the United States lacked an inherent interest in its allies’ fates, as underscored by its refusal to formalize its security relationship with any of them.

Finally, Poast discounts my concern about selection bias, claiming that it does not bear on the question of whether my theory or another explanation best explains anemic US bargaining with allies of convenience. I included a fourth case study in the book, which assessed US bargaining with the United Kingdom during the Korean War, to demonstrate my neoclassical realist theory’s explanatory power and range. In line with the theory’s expectations, the case shows that the United States will bargain aggressively and successfully with smaller and more endangered allies that are friendly democracies (i.e., “special relationship” allies), because in contrast to alliances of convenience, those relationships generate minimal domestic opposition. As a result, US officials will be more inclined to exploit the United States’ favorable international systemic position to squeeze concessions from such allies. Thus, although the book is primarily concerned with the United States’ (mis)management of its most unsavory and dangerous autocratic allies, the generic theory I advance therein can explain the dynamics of US alliances with a wide range of security partners.