Foreign Policy Dilemmas Research Articles

South Africa’s symbolic hegemony in Africa

South Africa’s position on the African continent is widely seen to be one of dominance and leadership. No longer subject to the international opprobrium, post-apartheid South Africa launched a visionary campaign built around the notion of an ‘African Renaissance’ to restructure continental institutions in line with its interests. This state-led effort was complemented by an aggressive commercial expansion by well-financed South African corporations to break into previously inaccessible markets across the continent. This populist depiction of South Africa is largely echoed in the scholarly literature on South African foreign policy towards Africa. But careful analysis of the South African foreign policy experience both in Africa and more broadly, suggests that these images are only partially realised at best and that they ignore a host of structural problems and outcomes. In particular, the case for South African hegemonic dominance over the continent is challenged by its material weakness and uneven record of foreign policy successes. Despite this, Pretoria is continually ‘rewarded’ with leadership positions in international groupings, such as BRICS, G20 and nearly consecutive terms on the UN Security Council. We argue that this constitutes symbolic representivity and poses a continuing set of foreign policy dilemmas for South Africa and an international community as South Africa struggles to fulfil its hegemonic role in Africa.

Liberal democracy and nuclear despotism: two ethical foreign policy dilemmas

This article advances a critical analysis of John Rawls's justification of liberal democratic nuclear deterrence in the post-Cold War era as found in The Law of Peoples. Rawls's justification overlooked how nuclear-armed liberal democracies are ensnared in two intransigent ethical dilemmas: one in which the mandate to secure liberal constitutionalism requires both the preservation and violation of important constitutional provisions in domestic affairs, and the other in which this same mandate requires both the preservation and violation of the liberal commitment to international legal arrangements and to the rule of law generally. On this view, the choice to violate constitutional provisions and international legal arrangements is evidence of nuclear despotism. Moreover, this choice does not imply that the ethical foreign policy dilemmas were resolved. Instead, it implies that the dilemmas force liberal democratic governments into implementing ethically paradoxical policy outcomes.

Urban Foreign Policy and Domestic Dilemmas. Insights from Swiss and EU City‐Regions – By Nico van der Heiden

International Journal of Urban and Regional ResearchVolume 36, Issue 4 p. 873-874 Urban Foreign Policy and Domestic Dilemmas. Insights from Swiss and EU City-Regions – By Nico van der Heiden Swen Hutter, Swen Hutter University of MunichSearch for more papers by this author Swen Hutter, Swen Hutter University of MunichSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 June 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2012.01186_7.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume36, Issue4July 2012Pages 873-874 RelatedInformation

The Cheonan Dilemma, Inter-Korean Relations, and the Six Party Talks: A Korean Perspective

Although the sinking of the Cheonan during US-ROK joint naval exercises on March 26, with the loss of 46 lives, was a tragic incident, South Korea’s Lee Myung-bak (hereafter LMB) government saw a political opportunity in the incident. By declaring North Korea as the culprit and announcing various sanctions on the North Korean regime, the ruling party tried to mobilize conservative voters in the nationwide local elections on June 2. The conservative LMB government also tried to get a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning North Korea as the culprit and intensifying international sanctions against the regime. Neither domestic politics nor international politics have unfolded in the way the LMB government anticipated. Rather than rewarding the government in the local elections, the government’s drive to politicize the Cheonan backfired and the main opposition party did surprisingly well. Serious doubts and scientific questions have been raised from within South Korea about the credibility of the findings of the Civilian-Military Joint Investigation Group. The management of the Cheonan has also created foreign policy dilemmas. In the aftermath of the Cheonan, the Six Party Talks have become hostage to South Korea’s insistence on a North Korean apology which is not likely to be forthcoming. The challenge for the LMB and Obama governments is to devise an exit strategy to get back to productive talks.

A New North Korean Policy under the Obama Administration

IntroductionFor over half a century, the Korean Peninsula has posed a foreign-policy dilemma for every American president. During this time, continuity, rather than change, has been the prevailing characteristic of U.S. foreign policy. Since President Reagan's Modest Initiative in 1988, the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) have attempted to normalize their relations through dialogue and negotiations.1 In 1994, North Korea and the United States signed an agreement by which Pyongyang pledged to freeze and eventually dismantle its weapons program. In return, the United States pledged to provide a package of nuclear, energy, economic, and diplomatic benefits. The U.S. support of the Agreed Framework has been inconsistent. Since then North Korea has launched several rockets and missiles, and has increased its weapon arsenal. In recent years six-party talks have been used as a vehicle for change in regard to the North Korean issue. The major players-China, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States-have worked to collectively implement their national initiative with regard to North Korea. The result has been that these negotiations have yet to result in a concrete solution and direction for forward progression and movement. These sessions of dialogue and negotiations have proceeded without altering the underlying configuration of the United States and North Korea's Cold War postures towards each other, such as armed deterrence. Nonetheless, the persistent duality of diplomacy exercised by U.S. leaders has largely contributed to the inability to resolve their differences. The recent Bush administration, in relation to its policy towards North Korea, has been characterized by its dualism -believing in the same goal, but divided over goal achievement actions. These divisions took place within the administration, which consisted of an influential coalition of Pentagon officials and advisers, among them Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, officials of Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and proliferation experts in the State Department and White House led by Undersecretary of State John Bolton.2Unfortunately, the internal division of policy at home has resulted in the North Korean issue being in a worse shape today than it was eight years ago after the Clinton-Bush regime change. After President Bush refused to follow Clinton's engagement path, North Korea significantly increased its plutonium stockpile, tested bombs and announced itself a nuclear weapons state. With his election as president, Barack Obama inherited not only difficult issues and initiatives on the home front but also internationally. The new Obama administration is inundated with a plethora of policy issues ranging from economics to foreign policy. President Obama has his hands full dealing with the current dismal economic situation at home and with equally important foreign policy issues, especially when it comes to North Korea.Without UN involvement, the North Korean communists held their own elections in September 1948, and under the tutelage of Russia, Kim Il Sung established the so-called Democratic People's Republic of Korea.3 Thus, the 38th parallel became Korea's Berlin Wall. Since then, the country has been a troubled issue for every American president. Since Obama took office, North Korea has attempted to make a statement to the new president through a series of missile tests. In the past few years, many experts in North Korean policy have juxtaposed various strategies that have been used and should be included with relation to North Korea. This paper will underline motives for North Korea's actions, updates of previously communicated policy options with real-time information and offer a unique twist, with truths that are often overlooked, on how they should be implemented in the new Obama era, moving forward.North Korean MotivationSince the early 1990s, North Korea has dealt with a harsh economic and food crisis that has left the country desperate to earn hard currency. …

The United Nations Human Rights Council: A U.S. Foreign Policy Dilemma

Abstract This summary captures the animated dialogue that marked the roundtable that was held in New York City in May 2008. The participants focused on comparing the Human Rights Council with its much criticized predecessor, the Commission on Human Rights. A checkered picture emerged from the discussion.

Beyond the national interest: the future of UN peacekeeping and multilateralism in an era of U.S. primacy

Introduction The Extent and the Limits of Peace Operations in the 1990s The United Nations and Its Shortcomings as an International Bureaucracy The Structure of International Politics and the Dilemmas of Solidarity Clinton's Foreign Policy and the Quandary of National and International Interests The Bush Revolution in U.S. Foreign Policy and the Sidelining of Internationalism Toward the International Rule of Law Afterword.

A New Cold War? The Consequences of China Rising

Rising Star: China's New Security Diplomacy. By Gill Bates. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007. 267 pp., $28.95 (ISBN: 0-8157-3146-9). On September 15, 1999, the United Nations Security Council, with China voting in favor, authorized the establishment of a multinational force, the Australia-led International Force in East Timor (INTERFET), to restore peace and security in East Timor, to protect and support the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), and to facilitate humanitarian assistance operations. The resolution authorized the multinational, non-UN force “to take all necessary measures to fulfil this mandate” (p. 119). The incident, which is alluded to by Bates Gill in Rising Star , exemplifies China's efforts to reassure the international community about its role as an emerging and responsible power with a proactive approach to multilateral security diplomacy. Gill's book is part of a growing body of literature that focuses on China's post-Cold War foreign policy dilemma, namely, how to reconcile its desire for increased influence on international security arrangements given its growing economic, military, and political power and its need to devote more resources to its mounting domestic social, economic, environmental, and political challenges (other works include Deng 2004; Goldstein 2005; and Shambaugh 2005). Indeed, in recent years, Chinese diplomacy has attracted enormous attention on the part of academics, policymakers, and the general public alike, as the world seeks to understand the likely consequences of China's growing international assertiveness. Rising Star looks into the contents and causes of China's new security diplomacy. It also asks whether …

Hungary’s foreign policy dilemmas after regaining sovereignty

Hungary seems to have almost perennial dilemmas about the course to be taken in its foreign policy. Attempts by powerful empires (the German, the Habsburg, the Ottoman and the Russian empires) to dominate the country led to loss of independence from the 16 th to the 20 th century, and full sovereignty has been regained only in 1991 with the seizure of Soviet occupation. The relations with the peoples living next to or intermingled with the Hungarians have also been always difficult because of the conflicting claims to identical territories. Following the collapse of Communism there was the danger of the renewal of hostilities with those neighbours, either by opening the issue of border change, or related to the (mis)treatment of close to three million Hungarians detached from Hungary by the Peace Treaty imposed in 1920. The restraint of the Hungarian government led by J. Antall, the creation of cooperative mechanisms exemplified by the Visegrad Cooperation, and the conduct of the Euro-Atlantic partners, i...

The Costs of Non-Europe? Denmark and the Common Security and Defence Policy

The paper discusses a still more obvious foreign policy dilemma facing Denmark: On the one hand, Denmark has made a proactive foreign policy decision to pursue a strategy of influence with the European Union as the most important international forum. On the other hand, Denmark has chosen to stay outside the increasingly important cooperation on defence policy within the EU. As a small state, Denmark is opting for a multilateral strategy, but it has deliberately chosen to limit its commitment to the same forum. A combination of adaptation theory and theory of small states informs the analysis. It is argued that the Danish opt-out sends an unclear and inconsistent signal to Denmark's partners which again hampers the possibilities for using Danish coalition power within the EU. Nevertheless, contrary to both theoretical expectations and common sense intuition, there is little to suggest that the opt-out has had negative consequences for Denmark's influence on capabilities in the EU.

Azerbaijan and its foreign policy dilemma

Nazrin Mehdiyeva is a PhD research student in International Relations in St Antony's College, Oxford.

Pakistan's foreign policy dilemmas in the new millennium

In the post Cold War world of the 21st century, Pakistan finds itself isolated and at odds with the international community. The United States, the world's sole superpower, and its G-7 allies, after defeating their rival the Soviet Union and ending its strategic threat, have started to confidently determine the fate of global politics. The fall of the Berlin Wall formalized the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of Western liberal democracies over authoritarian Communism. In the words of a commentator, William Lind, the 'civil war of Western Civilization' was over. A new Unipolar World Order, under the United States domination, was established. The world has been made safe for democracy and the dividends of peace and prosperity were to follow through the forces of free market economies and Western advanced technologies. Regional conflicts are controlled either directly by the guardians of the new order, or through the United Nations.

Promoting Human Rights: President Clinton's Foreign Policy—Dilemma in a Changing International Order

Promoting Human Rights: President Clinton's Foreign Policy—Dilemma in a Changing International Order

The GCC states in an unstable world: foreign policy dilemmas of small states

The GCC states in an unstable world: foreign policy dilemmas of small states

Cuba and South Africa: Prospects for partnership

Abstract Cuba's struggle‐era comradeship with the ANC has developed into a very friendly bilateral relationship with the new South African government, marked by the exchange of ambassadors and active promotion of social, cultural and economic ties. This has evoked mixed feelings, particularly in the VS, which maintains a strict embargo of Havana on humanitarian grounds, presenting South Africa with a foreign policy dilemma. However, Cuba's rapid transition to a free‐market, open economy, complete with a growing web of international economic ties, looks forward to a post‐embargo era and, in this climate, South Africa and Cuba can be expected to forge significant trade and investment ties ‐ in line with the sentiments of both governments ‐ but possibly circumscribed by their similar national economic profiles.

Forever Enemies? American Policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran

One of the key foreign policy dilemmas facing the United States concerns its policy toward Iran. This book reviews the long, troubled relationship between the two countries and makes important recommendations for future US policy.

The Dilemmas of Democracy and Foreign Policy

In Democracy and Foreign Policy, Miroslav Nincic takes to task, in a laudable and highly analytic way, the political realist's view of the relationship between a democracy and the conduct of its foreign policy. A consequence of the perspective of realists is that most of their arguments lead to the view that the conduct of foreign affairs should be left solely to the experts with as little interference as possible from citizens and non-experts within government. A battery of plausible and contentious realist arguments is opened up to challenge by Nincic. A critical assessment and appraisal of Nincic's counterarguments is provided, indicating their virtues and some of their weaknesses. Some possible strengthenings of his case are also discussed, particularly from the standpoint of recent work in peace research.

The Democrats and the Dilemma: Morality, Interests, and Foreign Policy, 1988

THE DEMOCRATS AND THE DILEMMA: MORALITY, INTERESTS, AND FOREIGN POLICY, 1988 Christopher A. Padilla .he setting is all too familiar. The Democratic party, laboring under the foreign policy of an incumbent Republican president and eager for an electoral victory, sets up special task forces and study commissions to find a new American approach to the world. Hapless legislators, party leaders, and would-be presidential candidates are given a few weeks to redefine forty-year-old tenets of U.S. foreign policy, complete with position papers on a laundry list of specific foreign-policy issues. Eleven years ago, this list contained countries such as Angola and Cambodia and issues such as the cruise missile, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and human rights. Today, it contains Nicaragua, South Africa, the MX missile, and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Yet while the names on the laundry list have changed, there remains an underlying and unresolved conceptual debate within the party, one that goes deeper than today's cause célèbre to affect the roots of the American worldview. Nearly twelve years after the end of the Vietnam War, the Democratic party still lurches from one "new beginning" to another, struggling to regain a lost consensus on foreign policy and to solve the dilemma that has preoccupied Americans since the early 1970s: is there a foreign policy that will keep the United States a strong, proud, and involved world leader and simultaneously prevent future Vietnams? In 1975 liberal internationalism, the guiding principle of Democratic presidents since World War II, lay mortally wounded in the streets of Saigon. This forced the Democrats to begin a long and painful process of réévaluation, through which they sought to retain their ideals and eschew the discredited notion of militarized global containment. As much as the party might have wanted to fix the blame elsewhere, it recognized Christopher A. Padilla is a 1987 M.A. candidate at SAIS. 77 78 SAIS REVIEW that Vietnam was a war conducted by two separate Democratic administrations , initially supported by Democratic lawmakers, planned by Democratic bureaucrats, and, at least until 1968, justified by liberal Democratic ideology. Following World War II, Democrats operated under the generally accepted view that a world molded into the American image was not an unrealistic dream but a strategic and moral imperative. At the close of U.S. military involvement in Indochina the party faced a new and stronger imperative: no more Vietnams. Since then, the effort to reconcile this new noninterventionist goal with the traditional American desires to "stand tall" and to set an example for the world has been at the center of Democratic party foreign-policy debates. Of course, this post-Vietnam foreign-policy dilemma is not unique to the Democrats; it is a problem for U.S. foreign policy in general. Republican politicians, however, have had much less difficulty coping with the problem. They tend to engage in strong, almost crusading, rhetoric while remaining relatively more prudent in action. This deceptive imagery gives the impression of standing tall while avoiding the more dangerous actions called for by conservative Republican ideology. The Democrats, perhaps to their credit, have not tried to handle the dilemma by simply manipulating public passions. But as the Democrats grapple openly with the difficult problem of making America both strong and prudent, the Republicans' superior rhetorical ability to cope with that dilemma seems to have created a public perception of Republican foreignpolicy consensus and strength. If the Democrats want a foreign policy that is anything more than a criticism of Republican initiatives, the party must be able to reach some general agreement on how to handle the United States' post-Vietnam predicament. Achieving a consensus about the foreign-policy dilemma does not necessarily mean finding a solution. Republican flag-waving has not solved the dilemma—it has only postponed it, albeit effectively. Both parties have sought to avoid the frightening possibility that it is tragically but necessarily insoluble: perhaps a globally engaged great power cannot hope to avoid involvement in peripheral conflicts. Democrats have operated under the assumptions that there are lessons in the history of Vietnam and that consequently there must be some way out of the dilemma. Such assumptions...

India and the Antarctic Treaty System: Realities and Prospects

India feels proud of its scientific as well as diplomatic achievements in regard to the Antarctica — the most forbidding terrain on ourterra firma, a significant ‘natural laboratory’ as well as an object of innovative political experiment in international control and cooperation. With as many as five successful expeditions to this multi-faceted and multi-dimensional continent, a permanently manned scientific stationDakshin Gangotri and a coveted and enviable “consultative status” in the Antarctic Treaty System, India's presence on Antarctica is well established. The Indian entry into the elitist Antarctica Treaty System (hereafter cited as ATS) and its innermost circle has added a new dimension to the geopolitics of Antarctica. It has also highlighted and reiterated, in a significant way, India's resolve to have a meaningful and effective say in the management of Antarctica and its so far untapped resources. Demonstrating its scientific maturity and political farsightedness, India has started investing in Antarctica with an eye to future returns. However, the entire issue of India-Antarctica interaction is not as it is often projected and portrayed by the press and elsewhere. Antarctica no doubt has just dawned in the realm of Indian consciousness and not many in the country possess much politico-geographic awareness about this frozen bottom of the earth where a subtle interaction between geography and politics has lately assumed significant dimensions and far reaching implications. And what we fail to grasp is the complexity of the geopolitical realities of the Antarctica and the political implications of India's presence as a consultative member within the ATS. We tend to isolate Indian interests and objectives from the general backdrop of the Antarctica political scenario and try to study them in isolation. The present essay is born out of the necessity to critically examine the Indian goals in Antarctica, irrespective of whether they are scientific, economic or political in the light of the following assumptions. Firstly, India joined the Antarctic Treaty System at a ‘critical’ juncture and at a particular ‘point’ of the evolution of the Antarctic political field and hence cannot remain insensitive to or unaffected by its problems and complexities. Secondly, while examining the Indian interests and objectives in the Antarctic we should focus our attention on the ‘role’ that India decides to play on the ‘geopolitical chessboard’ within the ATS and moreover as a consultative member with rights and duties. And finally, the annual despatch of the scientific expeditions to Antarctica and the acquisition of the “consultative status” in the ATS should not be viewed as ends in themselves but to the contrary, as indispensable means to realise some crucial objectives or goals in the Antarctica. What lies before India in regard to the Antarctica issue is a difficult and changing path and a foreign policy dilemma. It is in the light of these assumptions and against the backdrop of the Antarctica's geopolitical scenario, that the present essay purports to examine Indian interests, objectives and moves in regard to the Antarctica and the Antarctic Treaty System.

The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline

Part I RUSSIA IN TRANSITION. 1. Stalinism and Anti-Stalinism in Historical Perspective. 2. Sources of Stability. 3. Brezhnev's Legacy. 4. The Harsh Decade. 5. Andropov's Interregnum. 6. The Chernenko Episode. 7. Gorbachev in Power 8. The Politics of Reform II. COMMUNIST ENCIRCLEMENT. 9. The Dream of Revolution and the Reality of Conquest. 10. The Decline of an Empire. 11. The Polish Debacle. 12. The Sino-Soviet Conflict. III. SOVIET FOREIGN POLICY AND RELATIONS WITH AMERICA IN THE 1980s. 13. The Roots of Foreign Policy. 14. Foreign Policy Resources. 15. The Politics of Foreign Policy. 16. Detente and the Legacy of the 1970s. 17. Russia and Reagan. 18. Gorbachev and the Dilemmas of Foreign Policy. 19. Assumptions and Perceptions. 20. From the Past to the Future. Bibliographical Essay. Index.