Military assistance is a perennial feature of international relations. Such programmes typically aim to improve the effectiveness of local partners, exporting the donor's way of war through the provision of training and equipment. By remaking indigenous armies in their own image, donors likewise hope to mitigate the profound agency costs associated with the transfer of military capability. But, while technical and organisational transformations can provide notable battlefield advantages, the philosophies underlying such innovations are not so easily propagated. Instead, new tactics, structures, and technologies typically intersect with pre-existing local schemata of war, producing novel if sometimes dysfunctional hybrid praxes. According to principal-agent theory, the application of greater conditionality in the provision of military assistance should improve the fidelity of military diffusion, aligning agents’ divergent interests with their principals’ goals. In practice, however, principal-agent exchanges rarely exist in isolation. Examining the modernisation of nineteenth-century Japan as a case study in military diffusion, this article argues that competition between rival patrons allows recipient states to play would-be principals off against each other, bypassing conditionality by replicating a marketplace for military assistance. In so doing, however, agents trade functionality for sovereignty in their military diffusion.

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敌手和精明的代理人：军事援助和战争扩散

军事援助是国际关系的一个长期特征。此类计划通常旨在提高当地合作伙伴的效率，通过提供培训和设备来输出捐助者的战争方式。通过按照自己的形象改造本土军队，捐助者同样希望减轻与军事能力转移相关的巨大代理成本。但是，虽然技术和组织转型可以提供显着的战场优势，但这些创新背后的理念却并不那么容易传播。相反，新的战术、结构和技术通常与预先存在的当地战争模式相交，产生新颖的，有时甚至是功能失调的混合实践。根据委托代理理论，在提供军事援助时适用更大的条件应提高军事扩散的忠诚度，使代理人的不同利益与其委托人的目标保持一致。然而，在实践中，委托代理交换很少孤立存在。本文将 19 世纪日本的现代化作为军事扩散的案例研究，认为敌对资助国之间的竞争允许受援国通过复制军事援助市场来绕过条件限制，从而使潜在的委托人相互竞争。然而，在这样做的过程中，代理人在军事传播中以功能换取主权。委托代理交换很少孤立存在。本文将 19 世纪日本的现代化作为军事扩散的案例研究，认为敌对资助国之间的竞争允许受援国通过复制军事援助市场来绕过条件限制，从而使潜在的委托人相互竞争。然而，在这样做的过程中，代理人在军事传播中以功能换取主权。委托代理交换很少孤立存在。本文将 19 世纪日本的现代化作为军事扩散的案例研究，认为敌对资助国之间的竞争允许受援国通过复制军事援助市场来绕过条件限制，从而使潜在的委托人相互竞争。然而，在这样做的过程中，代理人在军事传播中以功能换取主权。