Abstract As doubts deepen about American reliability amid growing challenges to the international order from Russia and China, this article examines the responses of four core US allies: Australia, Japan, Poland and the United Kingdom. While many US allies and partners are hedging, these four are doubling down on the US-led order. They are doing so partly through internal and external balancing: bolstering their own defence capabilities and deepening cooperation with the US through initiatives like AUKUS. Beyond this, a new pattern of cooperation among core allies is taking shape, organized without Washington's lead but aligned with the order it has long championed. The article conceptualizes this as stewarding—the practice by which core allies reinforce one another through lateral security agreements, defence-industrial partnerships and minilateral arrangements during periods of hegemonic drift. Unlike hedging, stewarding reflects continued investment in the principles of the US-led order, with core allies assuming greater responsibility for its upkeep. Examples such as the Global Combat Air Programme and the ‘quasi-alliance’ between Australia and Japan illustrate how these states are building cross-regional networks that strengthen collective deterrence—operating alongside, rather than under or against, the United States. Stewarding thus complements balancing as a strategy of order maintenance under conditions of hegemonic uncertainty. The concept illuminates allied agency and a dimension of their behaviour that balancing theory does not fully capture. Beneath the current turbulence, there is striking continuity in core allies' commitment to the US-led order, alongside a limited but meaningful shift in how they organize to sustain it.
William James (Thu,) studied this question.