ABSTRACT
In peacetime, battlefield coalitions turn to multinational military exercises (MMEs) to build more effective cooperative defence relations. But do these exercises deter or provoke military crises and wars? This chapter offers a novel framework for classifying MMEs along two key dimensions – the degree of combined military integration and the recognised status of the exercise. Whereas high-status/high-military integration exercises raise the dangers of crisis instability and high-status/low-level integration exercises contribute to peacetime instability, low-status exercises generally have positive or neutral effects on strategic stability. This theory is tested in a case study of US/NATO-Ukraine exercises conducted between 1994 and 2021.
