RESEARCH

My research explores a range of international security topics including alliance politics and military strategy, emerging technology, and the interaction of domestic and international security institutions.

​I leverage mixed methods in research design and draw empirical evidence from historical and contemporary contexts.

Dissertation book project

My dissertation, How Friends Fight: Alliance Institutions, Military Strategy and Technology, and Intra-Alliance Bargaining in the Shadow of Conflict, examines what makes it possible for states to succeed in adapting coalition military strategies to dynamic security environments. I argue that the material features of modern warfare—chief among them, the need for states and coalitions to effectively organize complex, combined-arms operations to ensure battlefield victory—give a substantial military edge to wartime coalitions who adopt deep, rather than shallow, alliance institutions. Such institutions substantively alter the structure of intra-alliance bargaining tables where states negotiate the stakes relevant to allied military strategy: from grand strategy and policy, to operational logistics, tactics, and doctrine. By doing so, institutional depth, rather than only shared threat perceptions or alliance members'  relative military effectiveness, helps explain variation in strategic cooperation in alliances. The project's chief contribution to the academic literature is in identifying previously unexplored mechanisms by which institutions, like integrated command and control systems, not only affect operational outcomes, but also mitigate or exacerbate the political dilemmas at the heart of coalition negotiations over strategy. Empirical evidence to test the argument is drawn from four case studies of Allied campaigns during World War II based on original archival research; an analysis of an original data set of coalition command structures in wars since 1900; and additional shadow case studies.

Alliance politics and institutions

Casey Mahoney, “Battlefield Coalitions as International Institutions: A Conceptual Framework,” in Understanding Battlefield Coalitions, Rosella Cappella-Zielinski and Ryan Grauer, eds. London and New York: Routledge, 2024. [Online]

Casey Mahoney, “Institutions in Military Coalitions: Allied Strategy and Sino-Anglo-American Cooperation in World War II” (working paper).

Casey Mahoney, “The Multiple Logics of Offstage Alliance Signaling: How Publicity Changes the Support Allies Receive From Democratic Major Powers, 1950-2005”​ (working paper).

International security and technology

Michael Horowitz, Shira Pindyck, and Casey Mahoney, “The International Balance of Power, National Security Strategy, and Artificial Intelligence,” in The Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, Justin B. Bullock, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. [Online]

Michael Horowitz and Casey Mahoney, “War, Diplomacy, and Innovations in Information and Communications Technology: The Case of the Interstate Telegraph Network, 1846-1914,” (working paper).

Casey Mahoney, "Public Opinion on Military AI Ethics Within and Across U.S. Alliances: An Observational Review" (working paper).