AIM Framework glossary
Mutual-Support Commitment
Canonical definition
A Mutual-Support Commitment is a commitment among states under which an attack on any member triggers Cascading Support and Cascading Consequences as the architecture derives them, in place of entry into the war: the Appetitive and Intrinsic floors of every population the war reaches are held, the attacking population's included, in forms an armed party cannot capture; the levers, materials and channels of the war are closed to every party still fighting it, and those who decided on the war cannot place themselves or their holdings outside the field of consequence their decision created; every consequence lifts automatically when the conduct stops; and the response is conducted without theatre. A Mutual-Support Commitment excludes entry into combat, the supply of the means of fighting, any penalty that continues after the fighting stops, and the deprivation of the attacking population. A Mutual-Support Commitment reverses the polarity of a mutual-defence commitment, which answers an attack with entry: a mutual-defence commitment is triggered by a claim every party to a war holds (the Self-Defence Orthogonality Principle), and committed entry moves the network that carries a war toward its Critical Coupling Strength and, where the chain of commitments reaches a power holding nuclear command, couples the war to a gating domain. Under a Mutual-Support Commitment the claim of self-defence switches on nothing that can be used to fight, and the response is the same whichever party's Belief is accurate. A Mutual-Support Commitment does not prevent the taking of territory; it makes the holding of territory untenable and keeps a war local. Whether a Mutual-Support Commitment deters the initiation of disputes as well as a pledge to fight is an empirical question.
Explanation
Today's defence alliances promise that an attack on one member is an attack on all, and each member then decides how to help, up to and including going to war. The promise stops some attacks from ever happening, but when one does happen it can pull every member into the war at once, which is how a local war becomes a world war. A Mutual-Support Commitment keeps the promise to respond and changes the response. If any member is attacked, every member helps keep the people on all sides fed, housed and safe, and every member cuts off weapons and war materials to anyone still fighting, until the fighting stops. Nobody joins the fighting and nobody sends weapons. Because the response does not depend on who started the war, a false claim of self-defence gains nothing, and because nobody joins, the war stays where it is instead of spreading.
Epistemic status
Proposed Intervention, derived in Chapter 17 (Violence as Architectural Output) §17.20.5. Its deterrent effect is open (Chapter 17, Section 17.24, Criterion 19).