| Summary/Abstract |
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to a resurgence of policy attention toward reassurance—an attempt to increase an ally’s feeling of security from external threat. In our recent article, “Trivial Tripwires? Military Capabilities and Alliance Reassurance,” we assess how states can most effectively reassure their allies. We introduce a new typology of reassurance measures based on the interaction of capability and resolve, and test it using case studies and data from original expert surveys. We find that in northeastern Europe, high-resolve signals (for example, tripwire forces) are not viewed as any more reassuring than high-capability, low-resolve signals (for example, forces stationed offshore). Put differently, high resolve cannot offset low capability.
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