Ahead of the curve: what Ian Taylor’s 'China’s foreign policy towards Africa in the 1990s' tells us about China's grand strategy today

This chapter outlines different Indian conceptions of foreign policy, broadly defined to include grand strategy. This clarification is made because grand strategy is usually broader and encompasses the means-ends chain (while foreign policy can be seen as only one of the means). The chapter is divided into four sections. The first section, examines which opinions matter in the making of Indian foreign and security policy. This is important in the Indian context because there appears to be a considerable distance between the public debate and policy making in India. The second section outlines the new debate about India's foreign policy. The third section outlines six major perspectives on Indian foreign policy. The final section links these perspectives to particular foreign policy issues facing India and draws out what each perspective offers as policy prescriptions.

Purpose Economic statecraft is a critical aspect of China’s foreign policy and has played a vital role in China’s relations with its Asian neighbors. The Chinese economic ties with Asia are significant not only because China is the second largest economy in today’s world but also because it has an important impact on regional economic co‐operation and international supply chains. Relentless growth in military buildup and more assertive foreign policy led many pundits to focus almost exclusively on political and military aspects of the Chinese grand strategy in Asia. The purpose of this study is to re‐examine this picture by studying China’s economic statecraft in the region. Design/methodology/approach This paper will address following research questions: How does the Chinese foreign economic policy serve its political aspirations in East Asia? Why has China increasingly relied on a combination of economic pressures and incentives to achieve its foreign policy objectives? How effective is China’s economic diplomacy as a strategic weapon? What are the limitations of such policy? What challenges does Beijing face in exercising its economic power in East Asia? Findings Beijing has a comprehensive, long-term grand strategy in Asia, and economic statecraft is a major component of it. Economic statecraft is a double-edged sword. It has given the People’s Republic of China more political influence but frictions and disputes between China and its trading partners are growing as well. Even with the slower growth of the Chinese economy, China will continue to be a game changer for the region. The economic diplomacy has long been part of the foreign policy toolkit used by the People’s Republic of China and will play more important role in the years to come. Research limitations/implications Thus far, China’s expanding economic ties with many countries in the world have not generated significant spillover effects. Although China is the dominant economic partner for every country in East Asia, its “soft power” remains to be weak. With the slower growth of the Chinese economy, another looming issue is whether China is going to be able to make a shift away from a trade- and export-led growth model that brought its dramatic economic success. All these could lead China’s economic statecraft less potent. Meanwhile, it should be noted that Asian economies that once relied on the USA are reaching a turning point as China comes to the fore, a trend that may challenge the existing international order. Should this momentum continue, it could alter the balance of power between Washington and Beijing in the region. Practical implications For Beijing, economic statecraft concerns both the economic dimension of foreign policy and the strategic dimension of economic policy. Although there is a growing literature on China’s soft power and military capabilities, the study of the economic dimensions of China’s foreign policy remains underdeveloped. With rising confidence and sophistication, Beijing has deployed economic resources to achieve geopolitical aims. Originality/value Needless to say, China’s economic statecraft has already triggered heated debate in the United States, Asia and elsewhere in the international community. However, the study of the Chinese economic diplomacy has received relatively little scholarly attention in the English-speaking world. This paper will fill a gap in the analysis and literature.

Consideration of the relationship between political theory and foreign policy must confront stark realities a quarter century after the 1991 liberal-democratic victory in the Cold War, which established the first global order in history. The foreign policies of the liberal democracies, and the liberal global order, now are beset by confusion, division, and retreat in the face of illiberal powers. A wave of nationalism and suspicion of globalized elites compounds the failure by America, the leading liberal democracy, to forge a consensus grand strategy to replace the Cold War strategy of American internationalism and containment of Communism. While important scholarship in comparative political theory addresses foreign policy, and while there are other important foci for the theory-policy nexus, such as China or the Islamic world, this failure to develop a new strategy to undergird global order and manage globalization is the most pressing issue for political theory in relation to foreign policy. Scholars should inquire whether the policy failures of the past quarter century stem not only from policymakers but also from the divisions among schools of international relations and foreign policy—and especially from the abstract, dogmatic quality of these theories. A more productive theory-policy nexus is evident in the rediscovery of the transdisciplinary tradition of grand strategy, which offers a more balanced approach to theory and its role in guiding policy. A new grand strategy for our globalized era would manage and sustain the powerful processes and forces set in motion by liberal states that now are eluding guidance from any widely recognized and effective rules. Four important critiques since 1991 discern a disservice to foreign policy by the high theory of the international relations schools. These schools—including realism, liberal internationalism, and constructivism—and their policy guidance are discussed elsewhere. The first two critiques arise from contemporary international relations and foreign policy approaches: scholars addressing the gap between high theory and practitioners, and Chris Brown and David A. Lake assessing the extremes of high theory that prove unhelpful for guiding sound foreign policies and practical judgement. The final two critiques transcend recent social science to rediscover fundamentals presupposed by the first two, by quarrying the philosophical tradition on international affairs from the ancient Greeks to modernity. This line of analysis points to recent work by the leading embodiment of the theory-policy nexus in the past half-century, Henry Kissinger—because his book World Order (2014) turns from realism to a more balanced view of interests and ideals in the policies of liberal democracies. Kissinger confronts the vexing reality of the need for reasonable states, across civilizational traditions, to forge a basic global order to replace the crumbling liberal order. His approach is grand strategy, now made comparative and global, as both more profound and effective for theorists and practitioners. Further, the tradition of American grand strategy is an important resource for all the liberal democracies now committed to this policy effort. Since the Washington administration, a balanced approach of discerning America’s enlightened self-interest has been the core of its successful grand strategies. This is not pragmatism, given the philosophical roots of this liberal disposition in the moderate Enlightenment jurists Grotius and Montesquieu. An era of confusion and failure should provoke reconsideration of fundamentals. Rediscovery of enlightened self-interest and its call for statesmanlike judgement offers a fruitful theory-policy nexus for the liberal democracies and for restoration of a basic global order.

It is often argued that foreign and security policy is dominated by the executive, with parliaments wielding marginal influence. However, as legislative‐executive relations in the realm of foreign and security policy have attracted remarkably little scholarly attention, there is a demand for subjecting the alleged executive drift in foreign affairs to careful empirical scrutiny. There is also a need to examine whether and how parliamentary politics in foreign affairs differs from domestic or European matters, both regarding control mechanisms and party competition. The notions of ‘executive dominance’ and ‘politics stopping at the water's edge’ certainly point in the direction of less active control and casting aside public partisan differences in favour of providing domestic support for the government. A case study of the FinnishEduskuntaforces us to reconsider such arguments. This article examines the multiple instruments members of parliament (MPs) have for becoming involved in foreign affairs, from participating in the formulation of the national ‘grand strategy’ document to ministerial hearings in the committees. It also provides strong evidence of the Europeanization of national foreign policies, with matters relating to the foreign policy and external relations of the European Union (EU) in a central role in the Foreign Affairs Committee. Parliamentary culture is consensual, especially in security policy, but there is nonetheless greater room and willingness for party‐political contestation in foreign affairs.

This chapter starts with a historical exposé of the development of Sweden’s foreign policy from the early 1800s up until the end of the Second World War. The chapter then analyses grand strategy in Swedish foreign and security policy from the Second World War to 2007. Four foreign and security policy roles are identified during this period: the autonomous security seeker, based on the policy of neutrality together with a strong national defence; the autonomous activist, expressed through Sweden’s engagement for peace and development; and the subordinate role of the hesitant European, which then transformed into a dominant role of integrationist European after the end of the Cold War, when Sweden’s membership of the European Union (EU) became a top priority. The analysis reveals how the autonomous security-seeker role held the position as master role during the period studied, with the autonomous activist and the hesitant European as complementary roles during favourable conditions.

Reviewed by: Japan's Peace-building Diplomacy in Asia: Seeking a More Active Political Role Paul Midford (bio) Japan's Peace-building Diplomacy in Asia: Seeking a More Active Political Role. By Lam Peng Er. Routledge, New York, 2009. xi, 171 pages. 75.00. This is a must-read book for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of Japan's foreign and security policies. It contains surprises even for experts well versed in Japanese foreign policy. I suspect many other specialists will at best be only dimly aware of Japan's activism in peace and human security promotion in Mindanao, Sri Lanka, and Aceh, or of Japan's continuing support for East Timor and Cambodia, before picking up Lam's book. This work could have at least two additional subtitles. One would be "The Fukuda Doctrine and Japan's Relationship with Southeast Asia." The other would be "The Role of Domestic Politics." In short, Lam brings a bird's-eye view from his perch in Singapore to understanding Japan's relationship with Southeast Asia while using his expertise in Japanese domestic politics to show how this influences foreign policy. Although shedding light on a significant but hitherto obscure aspect of Japanese foreign policy, Lam's book nevertheless engages the main academic debate in the field today, namely, whether Japan is "normalizing" into a great power that uses military force as an instrument to promote national objectives abroad. Looking at this issue from his unique angle, Lam is fully convincing when he argues that Japan has found its niche in international security: non-combat-related peace building. Lam is similarly persuasive in arguing that those promoting the idea of Japan "normalizing" into a military great power have overlooked this development: "In their accounts of the trajectory of Japan's role, purpose and identity in the world, Pyle, Samuels and Green have missed out an important direction in the nation's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War—the quest to end civil wars and begin post-conflict reconstruction" (p. 4). One might add to Lam's list of leading "normalizing" literature Christopher W. Hughes's Japan's Remilitarisation.1 On the other hand, Lam's volume joins a growing literature challenging the normal-nation thesis.2 [End Page 498] Lam is also convincing when he asserts that his study of five cases of Japanese peace building reveals that "claims that Tokyo's peace-building is reactive, ad hoc and essentially driven by Washington" are "off the mark" (p. 6). Indeed, there is little indication that the United States has ever pushed participation by the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in UN peacekeeping missions, any more than it has seriously promoted UN peacekeeping itself. Finally, Lam insightfully observes that "Tokyo's dispatch of the SDF to East Timor . . . did not attract any disquiet or misgivings from its Asian neighbors as had earlier been the case with Cambodia, when there was the perception that deploying the SDF abroad was merely a prelude to Japan seeking to become a great military power again" (p. 41). The demonstration effect of Tokyo's peaceful and beneficial dispatch of the SDF to Cambodia thus reassured Asian nations, suggesting that peace building can empower Japan to "forge an identity as an active and positive 'peace-loving' country acceptable to its citizens and Asian neighbors" (p. 5). Less convincing is Lam's contention that the Fukuda Doctrine is not an extension of the Yoshida Doctrine as many observers claim but a radical departure from it, because the former calls for Japan to play a political role while the latter, in Lam's eyes, calls for avoiding any external political role. One may question Lam's understanding of the Yoshida Doctrine, but he at least notes the disagreement. More dubious is his insinuation that the two are equivalent if not competing doctrines (p. 19), when in fact the Yoshida Doctrine is a grand strategy, however implicit, while the Fukuda Doctrine, despite its explicit articulation, is a regional diplomatic strategy. The Fukuda Doctrine is silent on most important aspects of Japan's security, such as the U.S.-Japan alliance and potential threats. Most doubtful is Lam's claim that the...

ABSTRACTAfter passage of the 1988 Constitution of Brazil, successive democratic governments worked to build bridges between the nation’s foreign policy and its defence strategy, thus fostering a dialogue among administrations and constituencies under the aegis of the rule of law. It was under the Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff administrations that Brazil laid out a grand strategy, implementation of which was interrupted by the controversial impeachment proceedings of 2016. The argument unfolds from a consideration of Brazil’s development model and domestic politics as key structural variables in analysing the challenges faced in the conception and implementation of its grand strategy. The article is organised into two sections: (1) The sketch of a grand strategy: when Brazil’s foreign and defence policies converged; (2) An ambition frustrated? Or, the impact of Brazil’s development model and domestic politics on the conception and implementation of its grand strategy.

Nordic governments frequently broadcast their ambition to do more together on the international stage. The five Nordic states (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway) also share many basic goals as foreign policy actors, including a steadfast and vocal commitment to safeguarding the ‘rules-based international order.’ Why then, do we not see more organized Nordic foreign policy collaboration, for example in the form of a joint ‘grand strategy’ on core foreign policy issues, or in relation to great powers and international organizations? In this article, we draw on Charles Tilly’s concept of ‘repertoires’ to address the discrepancy between ambitions and developments in Nordic foreign policy cooperation, highlighting how the bundles of policy instruments—repertoires—that each Nordic state has developed over time take on an identity-defining quality. We argue that the Nordic states have invested in and become attached to their foreign policy differences, niches, and ‘brands.’ On the international scene, and especially when interacting with significant other states, they tend not only to stick to what they know how to do and are accustomed to doing but also to promote their national rather than their Nordic profile. While Nordic cooperation forms part of all the five states’ foreign policy repertoire in specific policy areas, these are marginal compared to the distinctive repertoires on which each Nordic state rely in relation to more powerful states. It is therefore unlikely that we will see a ‘common order’ among the Nordic states in the foreign policy domain in the near future.

Recent commentary on the apparent inability of the United States to formulate a clear, consistent grand strategy evokes the question whether such an undertaking is possible for a democracy like the United States. This article examines the National Security Council (NSC) mechanism of the Eisenhower administration. contrast to the general belief that the Eisenhower NSC was a bureaucratic paper mill, presided over by an affable but phlegmatic president, the reality is that the organization was dynamic and industrious. Astoundingly, the Eisenhower Presidency was unique in its approach to formulating national security policy and the only administration to publish a comprehensive basic national security policy. the September 2011 issue of ARMY Magazine, James M. Dubik, Lieutenant General (USA Retired) in his article, A National Strategic Learning Disability? expressed deep concern regarding a rather incoherent US national security (1) a similar vein, Professor Rosa Brooks in the 23 January 2012 edition of Foreign Policy, Obama Needs a Grand declared the ... 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) is many things--press release, public relations statement, laundry list of laudable aspirations--grand strategy it ain't. (2) Though their criticisms are valid, they miss the more important issue. Prior to assuming office, very few presidents are educated or experienced in the art and science of formulating grand strategy, and more soberly, the National Security Council mechanism is not optimized towards helping them think strategically. short, a fundamental inability to cultivate strategic thinking has plagued the National Security Council for decades, so this is not a new phenomenon. Strategic theorist Harry R. Yarger laments in his book Strategy and the National Security Professional that the United States owns the twenty-first century but is strategically clueless as to what to do with it. Paradoxically, at the time it is most needed, our leaders appear increasingly inept at thinking strategically, and the 'sound bite' has replaced the national debate on policy and strategy. (3) Modern Strategy, Colin Gray devotes an entire chapter to the topic, Poverty of Modern Strategic Thought, observing In modern times it has become ever easier for policymakers and military commanders to be so diverted by the proliferation of different forms of war that they have neglected 'the basics' of strategy. (4) To be clear, simply publishing a strategic document does not mean the policy was fully staffed, studied, and debated, with differences reconciled, and with opportunities and risks prudently weighed. Similarly, poignant presidential speeches, while stirring and inspiring, are no substitute for a national security policy formulation process. Americans may admire great communicators, but confusing lofty rhetoric for substance heightens the risk of becoming embroiled in actions that neither promote nor protect US interests. These sobering assessments raise the question: How is it possible, sixty-five years after the establishment of the NSC, for US presidencies to continue stumbling about in the realm of foreign policy and national security strategy? It is particularly vexing when one recalls the motivation behind the establishment of the NSC was to inject greater consideration and rationality into formulating foreign policy and national security strategy, coordinate policy initiatives, and develop consistency in policy and strategy formulation--idealistic goals following the years of chaotic and often wasteful management practices during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Congress regarded the council as a coordinating body for the president, with the National Security Act of 1947 stating, The function of the Council shall be to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security so as to enable the military services and the other departments and agencies of the Government to cooperate more effectively in matters involving the national security. …

Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Lenczowski, offers a solution to one of the greatest weaknesses in U.S. foreign policy that has exacerbated the unprecedented anti-Americanism of recent years—the U.S. Government's inability to conduct the "full spectrum" of diplomatic arts and to integrate them with the other arts of statecraft at the level of grand strategy. The analysis presents a critique of how the Department of State's focus on traditional, government-to-government diplomacy comes at the expense of public diplomacy. "Public Diplomacy" is defined in the broadest sense as including all those arts that involve relations with, and influence over, foreign publics and opinion leaders, including: cultural diplomacy, exchanges, information policy, strategic communications, psychological strategy, political action, political warfare, and wars of ideas. Author John Lenczowski, one of the first modern advocates for the strategic integration of all the instruments of national power, calls for the development of an "influence culture" in U.S. foreign policy, and provides a roadmap for the reform of the structure and culture of American diplomacy. While addressing contemporary U.S. foreign policy, this study presents lessons in statecraft and grand strategy that are applicable for all times and places. Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy thus raises issues that are relevant not only to diplomats, but to practitioners of intelligence, counterintelligence, military strategy, and economic statecraft.

Permanent War, Elusive Peace:The Evolution of America's Compellence Policy Towards Iran Nader Entessar (bio) "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran."1 I'm thinking of hitting [Lt. General Qassem] Soleimani."2 Introduction In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the subsequent U.S. invasion of Iraq, a new fluid strategy has been emerging to guide American foreign policy well into the twenty-first century. This strategy has been largely the product of a group of influential neoconservative hawks, or, in the words of James Mann, the "Vulcans" inside and outside of the U.S. government.3 With their emphasis on regime change, the neoconservatives have continuously drafted grandiose plans to redraw the geostrategic map of the Middle East to Washington's liking. For example, [End Page 95] the "Vulcans" in George W. Bush's administration replaced Europe and East Asia with the Middle East as the "fulcrum of geopolitics, the zone wherein the shape of world order will be forged. Remaking the Middle East, above all by bringing democracy to the Arab and Islamic nations of the region, therefore, must be America's overriding mission, since it is only by remaking these societies that the United States can be secure."4 Although such neoconservatives as Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld were known for their advocacy of muscular foreign policy and valued unilateralism, the developments on the ground in the post-invasion Iraq and elsewhere in the region compelled the Bush administration to ultimately abandon its pretensions as an international social engineer in the Middle East in favor of a more traditional "realist" approach to foreign policy decision-making. Realpolitik soon gave way to a new "grand strategy" whose foundations, as John Lewis Gaddis noted, lie in the nineteenth-century American tradition of hegemony and unilateralism.5 But unlike its nineteenth-century variation, the twenty-first century American "grand strategy" of robust interventionism is meant to be global in scope. The term neoconservatism was first coined by Michael Harrington to refer to a philosophy espoused by such anti-Soviet liberal democrats as Humbert Humphrey, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Henry "Scoop" Jackson. Many of these early American neoconservatives referred to themselves as "paleoliberals" to distinguish themselves from economic conservatives. As Michael Lind, himself a prominent former neocon has aptly noted, today's neocons are a "shrunken remnant of the original broad neocon coalition."6 In terms of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, the neocons charted a new course for America's regional policy in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War and the failed Shi'a uprising against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In 1992, Paul Wolfowitz, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and later the Deputy Secretary of Defense and a leading proponent of the Iraq war took the lead in drafting a set of military guidelines called the "Defense Planning Guidance," which are normally prepared every few years by the Pentagon. Wolfowitz's draft argued for a revolutionary military and political strategy in the Post-Cold War era by rejecting the utility of containment as a relic of the Cold War. Most importantly, the report called for the [End Page 96] adoption of a new strategy of preemption to replace containment and to be prepared to act alone when military action becomes necessary. Thus, Wolfowitz challenged the primacy of both containment and multilateralism in favor of compellence in advancing U.S. foreign policy objectives in the broader Middle East. By the same token, the neocon promoters of the compellence strategy denigrated the rule of law and international norms if they conflicted with the broader goals of compellence. In this vein, John Bolton, an influential neocon official who held numerous high-level positions in the U.S. government, including a stint as the national security advisor in the Trump administration, stated: "It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want...

Obama's Foreign Policy Legacy and the Myth of Retrenchment

Neoclassical realism is an important new approach to international relations. Focusing on the interaction of the international system and the internal dynamics of states, neoclassical realism seeks to explain the grand strategies of individual states as opposed to recurrent patterns of international outcomes. This book offers the first systematic survey of the neoclassical realist approach. The editors lead a group of senior and emerging scholars in presenting a variety of neoclassical realist approaches to states' grand strategies. They examine the central role of the 'state' and seek to explain why, how, and under what conditions the internal characteristics of states intervene between their leaders' assessments of international threats and opportunities, and the actual diplomatic, military, and foreign economic policies those leaders are likely to pursue.

The EU brought out a Global Strategy for foreign and security policy in June 2016, which indicates European efforts to reflect on and reshape its grand strategy. Meanwhile, China is also conducting an in-depth assessment of the international order under transition, and strives to rebalance its own national development and foreign policies. Beijing is pursuing a connectivity-oriented grand strategy. The peaceful rise of China depends on whether China and other economies can fully leverage each other’s development opportunities, and become stronger by taking advantage of increasing interconnectedness in the world. The One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative is a key element of such a grand strategy and will have far-reaching implications for China-Europe relations.

It is both an honor and a daunting task to comment on Richard Samuels’ excellent volume on Japan's foreign and security policies. Samuels is the Director of the MIT Japan Program and the Center for International Studies, and in 2001, he became the Chairman of the Japan–US Friendship Commission. With his decades of experience, rich knowledge and profound perspective and approach, his analysis offers significant contributions to the field of international relations and world politics, as well as insightful implications for a variety of issues related to the future of Japan, the security and regionalism of East Asia, the US's role in this region and indeed, global strategy. Japan's grand strategy is evolving, Samuels argues, and Japan is taking a more strategic and active approach in defining its foreign policy in confronting major threats, especially the rise of China. He traces Japan's history back 150 years to assess the degree and nature of changes of Japan's national strategies and to suggest where Japan might be heading in the post-Cold War era.