The Role of Defense Treaties on National Power

One of the new indicators of power is defense treaties which both the Realists and Neo-Realists have paid attention to it. In this way, their conclusion is that in order to survive and overcome the chaos in the international arena, reaching self-help ability is necessary for the actors of international system and on the other hand, in order to survive, they need to take part in the regional and international treaties and coalitions. For them, any kind of coalition and defense treaty is among the elements of national power that is of significance in playing an effective regional role. In general, defense treaties and coalitions can be assumed as a signal of "effective power" in national defense, achieving national power and to triumph over threats. Within the framework of balance of power, bi-polar and non-polar systems, defense treaties are of defense-security function. To prove this argument, the paper employs the Neo-Realistic approach and defense treaties are treated as elements of balance of power.