# Just 2 nations; still a "Coalition?" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 3, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696 "2018-09-03T16:11:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2018, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/1 "2018-09-03T16:11:37Z")
I see that “coalition” can be defined as “two or more” but it seems like something that only really applies if it’s a decent crowd of nations or partners. If only the US and UK are going to war in some theater in the world, is it truly a “coalition” or is it a case of “two’s only a pair; three’s a crowd?” ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/2 "2018-09-03T16:28:04Z")
Certainly, in the UK 2010 general elections we ended up with a coalition government comprised of just two parties. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/3 "2018-09-03T16:34:37Z")
OK thanks. Too late to edit OP: If only the US and UK are going to war _together as a team_ in some place of the world… ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/4 "2018-09-04T00:38:20Z")
In Australia, “the Coalition” refers to the more-or-less permanent partnership between two political parties, the Liberals and the Nationals. Ireland has had coalition governments involving two parties, and also others involving more than two parties. I suspect the “coalition of political parties” sense doesn’t arise very often in the US context, so the context in which most US people encounter the term in in a coalition of states, usually for military purposes - e.g. “the coalition of the willing” that supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The military power of the US is such that a coalition with just one other state is unlikely to be strategically significant, so US coalitions would always tend to involve a larger number of states. But there’s nothing intrinsic in the term to require or suggest more than two. Two bodies can coalesce. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/5 "2018-09-04T17:11:07Z")
As large and complex as most governments are and the different departments within each that have to cooperate on most joint ventures - yeah; two is a coalition. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/6 "2018-09-04T18:00:50Z")
Same in Canada - we had a coalition government in WWI, composed of Conservatives and those Liberals which supported conscription. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2018, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/7 "2018-09-04T18:05:59Z")
‘Co’ generally means two. Actually without looking it up the word seems to be meaning from the work itself ‘two in alignment’. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2018, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-2-nations-still-a-coalition/820696/8 "2018-09-05T01:07:49Z")
“Co-” just means “together; jointly; in common”, and in fact it’s etymologically related to the “con-” and “com-” prefixes which mean the same thing. Thus people who hold property jointly are co-tenants regardless of how many of them there are, any number of people can coooperate in a project or conspire in a plan, and a community can be any number of people (but usually more than two).