Friendship treaties have been used for agreements about use and development of resources, territorial integrity, access to harbours, trading lanes and fisheries, and promises of cooperation.
While promising protection in return for these benefits, the treaties are more subtle ways of accessing resources for commercial exploitation of smaller nations.
In 2007, Felix Berenskoetter called for the inclusion of friendship analysis into international relations and since then a modest body of literature around the concept has been formed.
[3][4] In the Soviet Union, Agreement of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance or Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (Russian: Договор о дружбе, сотрудничестве и взаимопомощи) was a standard Russian language reference to various treaties both internally, between the Soviet Republics, and externally, with countries considered friendly.
They define the treatment each country owes the nationals of the other; their rights to engage in business and other activities within the boundaries of the former; and the respect due them, their property and their enterprises.