Diplomatic Crisis Research Articles

Rallying around the flag or railing against the government? Political parties’ reactions to terrorist acts

This article analyses the reaction of mainstream political elites to acts of terrorism and assesses whether opposition parties will rally around the flag, much like they do during military or diplomatic crises. A statistical analysis, conducted on 181 terrorist events in five countries (France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States) over the period 1990 to 2006, indicates that rallies around the flag are the rule. Overall, the results show that the repetition of acts of terror is a strong factor affecting political parties’ responses to terrorist acts, as repeated attacks are more likely to prompt criticism. The magnitude of the act (i.e. the number of fatalities) is also associated with a rallying effect, as larger attacks are more likely to result in a unified front across parties. Other variables, such as the identity of the perpetrators and the existence of a formal anti-terrorist pact between the parties, are significantly related to the likelihood of a rally.

Regularized Intergovernmentalism: France-Germany and Beyond (1963-2009)

Regularized intergovernmentalism refers to a distinct kind of foreign policy practice that connects and intertwines foreign policy processes in particular ways. This paper puts forth a concept to properly capture and expose such distinctive foreign policy realities characterizing certain periods and places. With this concept, the article systematically scrutinizes the intergovernmental fabric of bilateral Franco–German relations from 1963 to 2009. The characteristic features of Franco–German regularized intergovernmentalism represent a crucial foreign policy connection, foundational for European affairs of the past half century and a defining feature of Europe’s post-war order and regional governance. Exploring key aspects of what it is that links France and Germany in particular ways, this paper offers a historically deeply grounded constitutive analysis. Based on its constitutive inquiries, the papers points at new possibilities of causal theorizing and explores some of regularized intergovernmentalism’s hypothesized effects and limitations. Franco–German intergovernmental affairs may be the most developed instance of this practice. But regularized bilateral intergovernmentalism is not a Franco–German idiosyncrasy. Rather, it is an important and apparently growing approach to structuring foreign policy conduct, and seems an increasingly prominent aspect of how the world is organized. Regularized intergovernmentalism refers to a distinct set of foreign policy practices that differ from others such as crisis diplomacy, various unilateral activities, strategic bargaining (bilateral or otherwise), or participation in multilateral international organizations. Regularized intergovernmental processes are patterns of public interaction and communication by individuals in public or official functions who act as representatives of their states or state entities. These practices connect and intertwine the foreign policy conduct between states in particular ways. They have their own distinct reality, implying characteristic effects as well as limitations. Such processes need not necessarily be harmonious or always constructive. They may be cooperative or strained, but they are regularized and recur over time. The pattern of Franco–German relations, instituted and decisively shaped by

Waiting for Dimona: The United States and Israel's development of nuclear capability

The article analyzes the American Government's approach to Israel's development of nuclear capability during the end of Eisenhower's second term. It reviews, in particular, the December 1960 diplomatic crisis between the US and Israel, and points out how during the peak of the crisis the outgoing administration reported to the Israeli Government serious concern regarding the possibility of a pre-emptive attack by the Arab States motivated by intelligence and press leaks on Israel's nuclear programme. According to United States documents, an Arab attack could have occurred if the Israelis had refused to open the Dimona nuclear site for inspection to confirm the peaceful nature of the plant. It is possible to assert that the inspections were more of a political tool for the Arabs than a genuine effort to deny Israel the ability to achieve nuclear weapons.

Canada and the Kosovo Crisis

Assessments of Canada's involvement in the Kosovo War of 1998-99 have generally depicted Canada's role in the crisis within the period's broader discourse of diplomatic and military decline. Much of the Canadian academic and media opinion at the time depicted the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade under Lloyd Axworthy as overmatched players in the major leagues of crisis diplomacy, as historian Michael Bliss epitomizes: Instead, as junior partners, we simply went along. Our politicians were, publicly, ventriloquists' dummies, and from the public record, it's not at all clear that Canada exercised anything like real independence.1 However, this article will demonstrate that Canada did not simply offer troops in a fainthearted or half-hearted gesture to NATO, but effectively employed its resources to play an important part in the diplomacy that led to United Nations security council resolution 1244, in the maintenance of allied unity, and in operation Allied Force. Using public source documents and extensive interviews, it will concentrate on the intensification of diplomatic attention to the Kosovo issue, Ottawa's decision to intervene, the conduct of the campaign, consideration of the ground option, and the diplomatic process that brought the crisis to a resolution.THE CRISIS UNFOLDSNo one should dare to beat you, exclaimed Slobodan Milosevic, chairman of the central committee of the Serbian League of Communists, to a crowd of Kosovar Serbs in April 1987. His rhetoric, inspired by perceived injustices inflicted by the Albanian majority, injected a potent drug into the veins of the Serbian public, contributing to a decade of ethnic violence in Yugoslavia. In March 1989, Milosevic coerced the Kosovo assembly into amending its constitution, repealing the political, educational, and linguistic autonomy of the Kosovar Albanians, who represented about 90 percent of the province's population. Although Kosovo was not a republic within the Yugoslav Federation, the south Serbian province had been granted considerable autonomy under Marshall Tito's regime. After years of passive resistance and opposition to violence, many Albanians began to favour violent responses, such as those employed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Through 1997 and 1998 the KLA conducted periodic campaigns against Yugoslav targets in Kosovo. The Yugoslav forces, ill -trained for counterinsurgency operations and shocked by the audacity of the KLA, often retaliated disproportionately, targeting Albanian civilians. In February 1998, Serbian police and the Yugoslavian army commenced a high-level campaign to eliminate elements of the KLA. Despite occasional international attention, Milosevic was able to sideline any sustained interest in Kosovo by insisting that its fate was an internal matter.Canada had a strong historic commitment to European security and was extremely active through the 19905 in the former Yugoslavia. Canadians were lead participants in the United Nations protection force, committing 1300 troops to the dangerous and frustrating mission to freeze Balkan violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. Despite this contribution, Canada was excluded from the contact group, composed of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States, which coordinated the approach to Bosnian conflict management.2 After the conflict was resolved, Canada committed I200 troops in 1996 as part ofthe NATO-led stabilization force in BosniaHerzegovina. The mission's emphasis on peacebuilding fit within Axworthy's human security agenda, which sought to develop a less statecentric and more person-centred approach to the conduct of foreign relations. To this end, Axworthy also negotiated the Ottawa treaty to ban antipersonnel landmines in 1997 and took a lead role in advancing the Rome statute of 1998, which formed the International Criminal Court.3Canada was among the first countries to engage Milosevic on the issue of human rights in Kosovo. …

NATO's gamble: combining diplomacy and airpower in the Kosovo crisis, 1998-1999

Selected for the 2008 Royal Air Force Reading List In this revealing work, Dag Henriksen discloses the origins and content of NATO's strategic and conceptual thinking on how the use of force was to succeed politically in altering the behavior of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The air campaign, known as Operation Allied Force, was the first war against any sovereign nation in the history of NATO and the first major combat operation conducted for humanitarian purposes against a state committing atrocities within its own borders. This book examines the key political, diplomatic, and military processes that shaped NATO and U.S. management of the Kosovo crisis and shows how air power became the main instrument in their strategy to coerce the FRY to accede to NATO's demands.The book further shows that the military leaders set to execute the campaign had no clear strategic guidance on what the operation was to achieve and that the level of uncertainty was so high that the officers selecting the bombing targets watched NATO's military spokesman on CNN for guidance in choosing their targets. Henriksen argues that structures preceding the Kosovo crisis shaped the management to a much greater degree than events taking place in Kosovo and that the air power community's largely institutionalized focus on high-intensity conflicts, like the 1991 Gulf War, hampered them from developing strategies to fit the political complexities of crises.Because fighting and wars in the lower end of the intensity spectrum are likely to surface again, study of the Kosovo crisis offers lessons for future international conflicts in which the combination of force and diplomacy will play a very significant role.

Introduction: The Political Currency of the Past: History, Memory, and Identity

of 2006 and the submission of the completed volume, a writer/editor was assassinated; a dis tinguished scholar was hounded into exile; a prime minister's resignation was hastened; members of a parliament tried to impeach their president; parliamentarians in several countries accused colleagues of treason; the government of a member-state created a diplomatic crisis at a crucial summit of the European Union; a gov ernment finally dismissed an indictment against one of its most distinguished citizens? a current Nobel laureate?following wide spread international protests; and the same government recalled its ambassador to a major ally, to show displeasure with a committee vote in the latter's parliament. Several of the con tributors to this volume have received specific, credible threats to their safety, related to work on the subjects of their articles; and another was shouted down at an academic forum by presumably highly educated and sophisticated attendees.

The Emergence of International Public Opinion and the Origins of Public Diplomacy in Japan in the Inter-War Period

AbstractThis article argues that what we now call public diplomacy emerged in the mid- to late 1930s in the case of Japan. It questions the notion that public diplomacy is new in contrast to 'traditional' diplomacy. It also questions the conventional understanding of Japan's diplomatic isolationism of the 1930s. The article argues that as a result of greater mass political participation, the idea of 'international public opinion' emerged as a new norm in inter-war international politics. States increasingly regarded news and cultural activities as crucial resources of their soft power for winning this international public opinion. Responding to technological developments in communications, they developed a more systematic approach to propaganda in order to utilize these resources in mainstream foreign policy. Even in the age of the socalled rise of nationalism and diplomatic isolationism, Japan could neither afford not to respond to other states' actions nor to ignore international public opinion. In the diplomatic crises of the 1930s, Japan began to coordinate news and cultural propaganda activities, and integrated them into a broader propaganda scheme. Here we see the origin of what is now called public diplomacy. This modern and internationalist thinking then prepared the institutional base for wartime propaganda.

Turkey and the Middle East: frontiers of the new geographic imagination

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. In February 1997, Ankara had accused Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Reza Baqeri of interfering in Turkey's internal affairs by voicing support for the rule of Islamic law at an Islamists’ rally in the Ankara district of Sincan. The incident caused a diplomatic crisis that lasted for six months until the two parties agreed to exchange ambassadors again. 2. On February 28, 1997, the National Security Council took some decisions to ‘reinforce the secular character of the Turkish state’, which is known as the soft or post-modern coup. The coalition government had to step down in July 1997 after threats of military intervention. 3. See <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1911609.stm>. 4. See <http://rferl.org/featuresarticle/2004/06/2dcae3ab-d364-452a-85f5-428c2f757fa9.html?napage=3>. 5. See <http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8395C7CE-AEAC-4CF9-8319-B7F5C6AD0DCF.htm>. 6. See <http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=191398>. 7. See <http://www.tepav.org.tr/engyeni/admin/dosyabul/upload/Joint_Declaration.pdf>. 8. For more information see <www.tobb.org.tr/haber_arsiv2.php?haberid=1170>. 9. See <http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/07/4875c449-63c9-4724-b9b9-6aad1caf4bef.html>. Additional informationNotes on contributorsBulent ArasBulent Aras is professor of international relations at Isik University. He is author of Greater Middle East and Turkey (2004), New Geopolitics of Eurasia and Turkey (2002). He published extensively on Turkish foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics and Central Asian and CaucasusRabia Karakaya PolatRabia Karakaya Polat works at the department of International Relations at Isik University in Istanbul, Turkey

Efficient Secrecy: Public versus Private Threats in Crisis Diplomacy

This paper explores when and why private communication works in crisis diplomacy. Conventional audience-cost models suggest that state leaders must go public with their threats in international crises because leaders cannot tie their hands if signals are issued privately. I present a crisis bargaining game where both the sender and the receiver of signals have a domestic audience. The equilibrium analysis demonstrates that a private threat, albeit of limited credibility, can be equally compelling as a fully credible public threat. The analysis suggests that secrecy works in crisis diplomacy despite its informational inefficacy. Secrecy insulates leaders from domestic political consequences when they capitulate to a challenge to avoid risking unwarranted war. The logic of efficient secrecy helps shed light on the unaccounted history of private diplomacy in international crises. The Alaska Boundary Dispute illustrates this logic.

European Anti-Americanism and Choices for a European Defense Policy

Since the end of World War II, a strong transatlantic partnership has been a cornerstone of Western geopolitical strategy. This does not mean that transatlantic relations have always been cordial. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was beset by periodic crises and disagreement throughout the Cold War and into the 1990s. Recent disagreements centered on the deployment of intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe during the 1980s, and on NATO involvement in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, NATO enjoyed a brief resurgence as its member nations voted unanimously to activate their mutual defense commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty (see Kaplan 2004). However, this was soon eclipsed by the subsequent dispute over U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq, the rancor rising out of which has struck such seasoned observers as Henry Kissinger and Colin Powell as being an order of magnitude worse than from past NATO crises (cited in Pond 2004, ix). Kaplan (2004, ix) describes it as a “near death” experience that threatened “to dissolve an entity that had survived over half a century.” Others argue that the alliance can and should be “saved” from a crisis that “need not be terminal to the political vitality of Atlanticism” (Hodge 2004, x). We suggest that this diplomatic crisis is doubled by a crisis in European confidence in the U.S. which may also be of unprecedented magnitude, and of some duration.

American Religious NGOs in North Korea: A Paradoxical Relationship

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International Law and the November 2004 “Han Incident”

The Ishigaki Strait is an international strait by the terms of the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, but for national security reasons it is not recognized as such by the Japanese government, which advocates a narrower definition of what constitutes an international strait in which the right of transit passage applies. China, as a traditional land power with tradinationally weak maritime forces, has historically agreed with Japan's limitations on access through such straits. As China's maritime strength grows, it has increasingly greater interest in access to ocean spaces. However, because of tension and poor coordination between its military and foreign policy bureaucracies, China missed an opportunity during the diplomatic crisis in November 2004 to align its position on maritime law with its strategic interests. The views expressed in this article are the author’s, and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Navy or any part of the US government.

The Management of Nationalism during the Jiang Era (1994–2002) and Its Implications On Government and Regime Legitimacy

AbstractThis paper aims to provide a detailed explanation of how the promotion of different nationalist discourses in China entails distinct repercussions on both government and regime legitimacy, looking for the rationale of governmental appeal to both affirmative and assertive nationalism within the context of general legitimacy crisis suffered by communism in the last years.Through the analysis of case studies including the return of Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese sovereignty and the success of Beijing's bid for hosting the 2008 Olympic Games, this paper regards the rise of affirmative nationalism as beneficial for the legitimacy of both the Jiang government and the CCP regime as a whole. However, the increasing relevance of assertive nationalism, discussed with reference to the Diaoyu dispute with Japan, and the diplomatic crisis with the US after the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the unauthorised landing of a US surveillance plane on Hainan, has put a challenge on Jiang's government, since it has been effectively used by the leftist wing of the party for gaining more leverage within the CCP with regard to the reformists. At the same time, assertive nationalism has reinforced regime legitimacy, providing effective ammunition to criticise the liberals.

Mission Italy: On the Front Lines of the Cold War

Chapter 1 The Road to Rome Chapter 2 Shaping a Policy Chapter 3 A Difficult Beginning Chapter 4 Andreotti Goes to Washington Chapter 5 On a Slippery Slope Chapter 6 The Moment of Truth Chapter 7 The Moro Tragedy Chapter 8 The Turning Point Chapter 9 The Missile Debate Chapter 10 Crisis Diplomacy with Mixed Results Chapter 11 The Final Months

Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy (review)

Reviewed by: Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy Peter J. Hugill (bio) Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. By David Paull Nickles. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. 265. $30.95. This short and fascinating book examines the impact of the development of a revolutionary new communications medium, the telegraph, on conservative, hidebound diplomats. Without being unduly kind to the diplomats who were confronted with the telegraph, and with the recognition that, in its infancy, the promise of this exciting new technology was far exceeded by its failings, David Nickles guides us through the development of telegraphic diplomacy. A historian at the U.S. Department of State, Nickles deals only with American issues. In the first part of his book he examines the role of diplomats in the events leading up to the War of 1812. In the second part, he uses the Trent affair to question whether events might have turned out differently had a transatlantic cable been in existence in 1861, and whether diplomatic crises became easier to resolve when speeded up by the telegraph. Nickles's third part, the most impressive portion of the book, reexamines the crisis brought on by German foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann's cabled offer to Mexico to restore its historic possessions in the American Southwest in return for allying with Germany against the United States. By that time, of course, telegraphy was central to diplomacy, and Nickles makes the useful and informative observation that it also provides [End Page 422] an excellent written record for diplomatic history from the 1880s to the 1960s, a record mostly lost in the telephonic era when calls were rarely recorded, but which is now being restored by e-mail logs. From the point of view of the diplomat, the telegraph seemed to reduce their stature. Before, they had served as the effective local substitute for a distant government and thus had substantial power in their reaction to events. Nickles argues, with considerable justification in the case of the War of 1812, that this was not always a good thing. The British ambassador, like most early diplomats an underemployed aristocrat, had few connections to Americans other than the Federalists, which made him easy to dupe into believing that America was not willing to enter a war against Britain, and President Madison wanted to dupe him in order to avoid the preemptive strike by Britain he believed possible. Nickles's judgment of this is interesting: "Madison's experience reveals the costs that can result when governments pursue a policy of secrecy and pique" (p. 29). The slowness of transatlantic communications generated what might be described as a "fog of diplomacy" within which Madison could realize his goals and war was rendered inescapable, but it was not slow communications per se that were to blame. In the Trent affair the slowness of pretelegraphic transatlantic communications allowed both sides to cool down so that possible entry by Britain into the American Civil War was avoided. As Nickles notes, speed is not always a good thing in diplomacy, in particular the presumption of speed created by the telegraph. Decoding secret cables was a slow process and critical cables could arrive late, the most famous instance being the Japanese breaking-off of negotiations with the United States on 7 December 1941. The message was delayed in decoding and arrived after the attack on Pearl Harbor had begun, which had clearly not been the Japanese intent. By the time of the Zimmermann telegram the second main use of the telegraph, for intelligence gathering, had matured. Using German and American documents, Nickles gives a rounded view of the events leading up to Zimmermann's offer, with an appropriate focus on his support for unrestricted submarine warfare as a way to break the stalemate on the western front. Nickles's evocation of the maneuvering of the militaristic right to supplant the aristocratic von Jagow with the brash Zimmerman and undercut the liberal ambassador to the United States, Count von Bernstorff, though brief, is nothing short of masterful. I believe war that between Germany and the United States was inevitable by 1917, but Nickles's arguments here have made me reconsider...

Highly Emotional States: French-US Relations and the Iraq War

Understanding the true nature of the relations between France and the United States is central to an understanding of the diplomatic crisis that broke out between them in 2003 over the War in Iraq. An analysis of the political cultures of France and the US offers considerable explanatory power to this dramatic diplomatic dispute. The inordinately emotional aspects of the Franco-US arguments of 2003 mask the fact that the two countries understand each other little. In the French case, its self-view and related diplomatic comportment in the twentieth century was informed by its relationship to Germany; and from it a range of cultural characteristics emerged, among them: vulnerability, self-regard, a romanticized view of itself, and the personalization of national identity. At the moment France’s response to its cultural heritage was beginning to shift to a different (post-Gaullist) paradigm, the dispute with the US erupted.

Deceptive Hope for Peace? The Horn of Africa Between Crisis Diplomacy and Obstacles to Development

Deceptive Hope for Peace? The Horn of Africa Between Crisis Diplomacy and Obstacles to Development

The future of the UN Security Council

At the height of the diplomatic crisis over Iraq, US officials warned that the UN Security Council was placing itself 'in danger of irrelevance' if it allowed Iraq to 'continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately'. The sentiment that a failure to arrive at a consensus over Iraq would amount to a make-or-break moment for the Council was taken at face value by much of the Western media, senior UN officials and the majority of UN members. Yet, as subsequent events have shown, these concerns were always misplaced.

CFSP Reform and Transatlantic Relations

The diplomatic crisis over intervention in Iraq exposed once again the structural deficiencies of the European Union’s foreign policy. In the 1990s the Union’s member states had already proven themselves unable to cope effectively with major international crises. But their inability to take unified positions and actions during the Iraq crisis was also compounded by unprecedented tensions between a few of them, notably France and Germany, and the United States, something which cast a dark shadow over the future of the transatlantic security partnership. The Union’s disarray over the Iraq crisis took place at the very moment when it was engaged in a major effort to streamline and enhance its institutions and instruments for external action. This was indeed one of the main objectives of the European Convention which, after seventeen months of work, in July approved a new draft constitutional treaty for the EU. There was a widespread fear that the deep contrasts that emerged between various EU member states over the Iraqi crisis and the related transatlantic rift could have a damaging effect on the Convention or even derail it. For this reason the President of the Convention, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, wisely postponed the discussion on the articles of the draft constitutional treaty concerning the Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) until after the conclusion of the military campaign in Iraq. In fact, the Convention eventually approved a set of reform measures which, if endorsed by the EU’s intergovernmental conference, which is due to start next October, would substantially change the Union’s modus operandi in the CFSP realm. Indeed, in the last few years, and especially after September 11, the number of European citizens who support the strengthening and expansion of the EU’s foreign and security policy has constantly grown. According to the most recent opinion polls, an overwhelming majority of Europeans are today in favor of a stronger CFSP. The leaders of the member states, including those that are less integrationist, have also shown a growing awareness of the need to equip the Union with more effective instruments for external projection. The Convention’s proposals to reform the CFSP reflect this change in attitude. However, whether they are strong enough to ensure the increased effectiveness and consistency of the Union as an international actor in general and in its relations with the U.S. in particular is a matter for discussion. This paper provides a brief analysis of the new provisions regarding the CFSP contained in the draft constitutional treaty approved by the

Language as Criticism: Assessing the Merits of Speech Acts and Discursive Formations in International Relations

Much has been written of late about language as a critical tool of research in international relations. Among critical international relations scholars, constructivists and poststructuralists have been the main proponents of using of language as a challenge to structural realist assumptions about world politics. Yet, it is not always clear why these critical scholars decide to turn to linguistic methodologies. This article reveals that there are compelling reasons for choosing language as a critical tool of analysis. But, contrary to current beliefs, it is important to note that constructivist and poststructuralist strategies of language are not always equivalent and compatible. This essay sorts out the divergent epistemological and political stakes involved in one's choice of a linguistic strategy. Different uses of language offer different critiques of mainstream international political practice. To illustrate this argument, the April 2001 US-China diplomatic crisis over the collision between a surveillance plane and a fighter jet is showcased. It is shown that constructivist and poststructuralist linguistic analyses provide challenging but not always complementary interpretations of the policies, diplomatic procedures, and verbal exchanges that took place during this confrontation.