Who contributes to alliances and why? Is a state's aggregate relative capabilities the major factor in determining participation? How do perceived threats, dependence on other alliance members, domestic politics, and learned experience from analogous situations matter? Alliances will be looser and more ad hoc in the post-Cold War international system than they were between 1947 and 1991.

Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold, and Danny Unger recognize this situation and the key policy issues it raises with regard to multilateral conflict management. In Friends in Need, the assembled authors study alliances in a more general sense, using the coalition that was established to deal with the Gulf War as their example. Looking individually at all of the countries that took part in the coalition, the authors provide a richly detailed study of alliances and the way they work now.