Foreign Policy Line Research Articles

The Role of Culture on Foreign Policy

Recently, in the research of international relations and political science, increased attention has been paid to issues of culture. This is not because these fields of science "fashionably" focus in this direction, but it largely reflects the fact that many countries increased attention to the role of culture in creating their foreign policy line and in enforcing it. Undoubtedly, it is related to the overall development of the international situation, where the policy of peaceful coexistence is increasingly being promoted against the influence of imperialist countries. If the influence of military and power factors in world politics weakens, the space for the action of other factors, especially culture, undoubtedly expands. The possibility of eliminating wars from international relations offers the perspective of peaceful coexistence, and here the exchange of cultural values ​​comes to the fore.

The Soviet Concept of Peaceful Coexistence and Its Implications for International Law

The concept of peaceful coexistence has always been the general line of Soviet foreign policy. Of course, this concept has been liable to some development and improvement but its very emergence was a result of the Great October Revolution which gave birth to the socialist system. From its very inception the Soviet state proclaimed peaceful coexistence as the basic principle of its foreign policy. The fact that the very first political act of the Soviet Russia was the Decree on Peace, the decree on stopping the bloody war, is not to be considered an accident. The peaceful coexistence policy is not a tactical move on the part of the Soviet Union. Our desire for peace and peaceful coexistence springs from the very nature of our socialist society in which there are no social groups interested in profiting by means of war or by the arms race. Moreover, the principle of peaceful coexistence is the only realistic policy to pursue nowadays when the world consists of nations belonging to different social systems-capitalism and socialism. In view of the present alignment of forces in the world and of the progress of military technique, it is impossible to find any other sound basis for relations between countries except that of peaceful coexistence. We cannot even discuss this principle in terms whether we should accept or reject it. The point is that today peaceful coexistence is an indisputable fact of international life and not someone's request or suggestion. Peaceful coexistence is an objective necessity stemming from the contemporary stage of the development of human society. If we face facts squarely, we should admit that the essence of world politics now is the character of relations between the two main socioeconomic systems-capitalism and socialism. And capitalist and socialist countries exist side by side on our planet. The rise of socialism was an inevitable objective historical development. However, the capitalist world refused to recognize this fact and has repeatedly resorted to war to destroy its unwelcome neighbor. It is common knowledge that all these attempts have turned out to be futile. The attempts to solve differences between the two systems by means of war have always been costly for the common people. They resulted in millions of killed and

Legal and Economic Factors Affecting Soviet Russia's Foreign Policy, I

This study attempts to appraise the dynamic forces at play in the shaping of Soviet foreign policy and to discuss some of the recent problems of international law and diplomacy as viewed by the U.S.S.R. In order to place Russia's recent tortuous foreign policy in its proper perspective, it is essential to begin with a résumé of the changing Soviet concepts of law, followed by a consideration of the economic factors influencing these concepts. The shifting line of recent Soviet foreign policy will be discussed in a later part of the article.Originally, the Soviet concept of law was predicated on transitional socialism; Soviet theorists argued that proletarian revolution has for the first time in history created a socialist state of workmen and peasants. “This is the highest type of state—that of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Having emerged victorious, the working class destroyed the oppressive, bourgeois state machinery and built a new state apparatus of its own. The new form of state, discovered by Lenin, is the Soviet Republic. The task of the workers is further to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat.

A Turning Point in History

British standpoint must first ask whether the line taken by Great Britain in 1938 marks a serious departure from the traditional line of British foreign policy. The policy of Great Britain in the past towards Europe has been, like that of the United States, to confine her intervention in Continental affairs to the minimum compatible with her own na tional interests as she sees them. The practical application of this fundamentally identical policy is, of course, governed by each country's particular geographical situation. The minimum to which the United States can safely reduce her intervention in Europe cannot be even approximated by an island that is sepa rated from the Continent by the mere breadth of the Channel rather than by the Atlantic. This difference has always com pelled British isolationism to stop far short of American isola tionism in practice. If British isolation from the Continent has been relatively incomplete in the past, this difference between Great Britain's and America's respective situations is accentuated at the present time, when the Channel is no longer, while the Atlantic still is, an effective barrier against air attack. In the past, what was the typical Continental situation in which the British Government and people felt themselves con strained to play a part in Continental affairs? The policy of Great Britain towards Louis XIV, Napoleon and William II seems to show that she has generally taken active steps, sooner or later, to join in resisting the domination of Europe by a single Power when there has seemed to be a serious probability that this Power would use its Continental predominance in order to threaten the inde pendence of the British Isles and the security of British interests overseas. This qualification of the main statement is important, because there have been cases in which Great Britain has tolerated

Japan in the Modern World

JAPAN'S ratification of the London Naval Treaty shows not only that the majority of the Japanese people are thinking along the same lines as the peoples of England and America, but also that her vital interests are forcing her to adopt a definite policy in regard to world problems. Why was limitation of arma ment so popular in Japan, and why did her newly emancipated democracy support so strongly the policy of concert with Eng land and America? The reasons are political, economic and intellectual. I propose to take up briefly these three phases of Japanese national life and then to consider how far and how long Japanese democracy will follow this line of foreign policy. These are questions of international interest, for they have a direct bearing upon the future peace of the Western Pacific and even tually of the whole world.