Role Of Great Powers Research Articles

Analyzing the Role of Great Powers in Creating the Durand Line and Its impact on Afghanistan-Pakistan Relations

The existence of countries based on borders is the product of the second half of the nineteenth century, and Afghanistan is the first country to be established on this basis. Afghanistan's current political borders are imposed, largely influenced by the political struggles and rivalries of the British and Tsarist Russia in the 19th century and during the Great Game to prevent a direct confrontation between the two powers in Central Asia. They set up a barrier between themselves and established the country's political borders through several treaties. Meanwhile, the Durand Line and the issue of Pashtunistan are very important, because the developments in Afghanistan after the signing of the Durand Line entered a new phase, and with the passage of time and some major changes such as Britain's withdrawal from the subcontinent and India's independence, not only failed, but the advent of Pakistan and the conflict of interests between the two neighboring countries has led to the complexity of events which has been on the rise and continues to this day. The present study, using descriptive-analytical methods and citing reliable library sources, seeks to examine the role of major powers such as Britain and Russia in shaping Afghanistan's political borders, especially the Durand Line, and its negative consequences for Afghanistan and its role in creating differences between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The results show that regional and supra-regional powers, especially Britain, played a role in shaping Afghanistan's borders, and Durand's mystery is one of the leftovers of British-Indian colonialism, which has now become a source of discord between Afghanistan and Pakistan and its negative consequences to Afghanistan includes land closures and lack of access to open waters, support and rise of political instability in Afghanistan

Russia of PeterI: Gaining Great Power Status

The article focuses on the issue of the international status of Russia during the reign of Peter the Great, which progressed from regional power in Eurasia to great power. It seeks to establish when and how Russia officially became a great power. The Poltava victory over the Swedish army (1709) showed that Russia had created the military-industrial poten- tial necessary for great power. The tsar gradually prepared the conditions for the proclama- tion of Russia as an empire and himself as an emperor. Arguably, the recognition of the title by the European states cannot be the main criterion for determining the time of Russia's transformation into a great power because recognizing the imperial title dragged on for sev- eral decades. The great power position of Russia and its new role in international relations began to find its reflection in the treaties between the leading European powers before the official recognition as an empire. International treaties of Russia with France, Austria, Prussia, Rzeczpospolita, Sweden, China, the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate show that for the first time, the new role of Russia as a great power, as the guarantor of the common Eu- ropean contractual system after the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 / 1702-1714) was enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty (1717), which was concluded between Russia, France, and Prussia. The subsequent treaty, which had a similar significance for the assertion of the great power role of Russia in Europe, was signed in Vienna on July 26 (August 6), 1726, with another great power - Austria. The system of treaties that Russia was part of in the last years of the reign of Peter the Great was strikingly different from the one that was at the beginning of the reign. According to the Treaty of Nystad, Russia was registered as the guarantor of the new internal state structure of Sweden (which ceased to be an absolutist state) and even the guarantor of the rights to the throne of King Fredrik I (Article 7). Under the allied defense treaty with Sweden (February 22, 1724), both countries agreed to be the guarantors of the internal political structure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The analysis of docu- ments allows us to make a general conclusion that the treaties of Russia with other countries at the end of the reign of Peter the Great were one of the pillars of the system of international relations in Europe, which signified that Russia acquired new great power status.

The Arctic and Africa in China’s Foreign Policy: How Different Are They and What Does This Tell Us?

The article discusses China’s policies in and towards the Arctic and Africa within a comparative perspective. To what extent is China’s policy adaptable to different conditions? What does this adaptability tell us about China’s ascendant great-power role in the world in general? What is the message to the Arctic and Africa respectively? The article concludes that China’s regional strategies aptly reflect the overall grand strategy of a country that is slowly but surely aiming at taking on the role of leading global superpower. In doing so, Chinese foreign policy has demonstrated flexibility and adaptive tactics, through a careful tailoring of its so-called core interests and foreign policy principles, and even identity politics, to regional conditions. This implies that regions seeking autonomy in the context of great power activism and contestation should develop their own strategies not only for benefiting from Chinese investment but also in terms of managing dependency on China and in relation to China and great power competition.

The Role of Great Powers within the Court

This paper examines the role of major powers within the ICC system, focusing on an assessment of how such powers interact with and respond to ICC activity that clashes with their interests and how the Court has responded thereto, and relates these questions to the theme of this conference, namely whether we should perceive of the ICC as being in crisis. The paper focuses on two case studies: The UK and the US, with respect to ICC activity targeting the conduct of their armed and security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, respectively.

Great Expectations: The EU's Social Role as a Great Power Manager

Through the case of EU foreign and security policy we reconsider the concept of great power. According to common wisdom, the EU cannot be a great power, whatever the pronouncements of its top officials may be. We argue that ‘great power’ has been miscast in IR theory as a status rather than as a social role, and, consequently, that the EU can indeed be viewed as playing the great power role. Such a conceptual shift moves analytical attention away from questions of what the EU is – ‘big’, ‘small’, ‘great’, and so on – to what it is expected to do in international politics. We focus on the expectation that great powers engage in the management of the international system, assessing the EU as a great power manager in two senses: first, in the classical sense of ‘great power management’ of Hedley Bull – which centers on great powers’ creation of regional spheres of influence and the maintenance of the general balance of power – and second, in light of recent corrections to Bull's approach by Alexander Astrov and others, who suggest great power management has changed toward a logic of governmentality, i.e. ‘conducting the conduct’ of lesser states.

중국의 강대국역할: 형성, 특징과 영향요인

중국의 강대국역할: 형성, 특징과 영향요인

Great Powers, Counter Secession, and Non-Recognition: Britain and the 1983 Unilateral Declaration of Independence of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus”

ABSTRACTThe role of Great Powers in processes of secession and recognition has attracted increasing attention from scholars in recent years. This analysis examines how Britain rallied international opposition to the November 1983 unilateral declaration of independence [UDI] of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” [TRNC]. The British Government tried hard to prevent the UDI. Once it occurred, Britain led efforts to condemn the move. It resulted in United Nations Security Council Resolution 541, which declared the TRNC illegal and called on states not to recognise it. As well as exploring the diplomacy behind the counter-secession efforts, this examination also answers a long-standing question as to whether any countries aside from Turkey ever recognised the TRNC. It also challenges the widely held view amongst Greek Cypriots that Britain invariably supports the Turkish Cypriots on the Cyprus Problem.

What the West Can Learn from Rationalizing Russia's Action in Ukraine

Russia's foreign policy decisions towards Ukraine in the context of the “Ukraine crisis” have been portrayed largely in a negative light which crudely paints Russia's actions as being imperialistic, evil and largely irrational. This article argues that by looking at the interplay of identity and perceptions at the foreign policymaking level, Russia's actions in Ukraine can be, to some degree, rationalized. First, Russia's Eurasian--oriented great power role identity and its perceptions of Ukraine as represent a vital national interest. Second, the European Union and the United States are perceived as embodying a Western team of anti-Russian imperialists, which led Moscow to pursue hazardous foreign policies.

Winning the Peace: Australia's Campaign to Change the Asia-Pacific

Winning the Peace: Australia's Campaign to Change the Asia-Pacific. By Andrew Carr. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2015. Softcover: 336pp. This is a curiously titled book that the subtitle suggests will be an analysis of Australia's efforts to promote region-wide organizations such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia in the 1990s and the Asia-Pacific Community of the 2000s. Indeed the subtitle implies that the aim of the book is to assess how effective Australian governments have been in their attempts to influence and shape the region. However, rather than examine the record of Australian Labor governments in promoting region-wide multilateral organizations, the focus of the book is actually on the success (and failure) of both Labor and Coalition governments to promote specific norms in three areas of Australian foreign policy: irregular migration; weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); and trade liberalization. What is even more curious is the title Winning the Peace, as this creates an image of a post-conflict era that does not fit well with the contemporary status of Asia-Pacific relations. Luckily, what the book is about is much more interesting, and its real strength is its contribution to the debate over the role of Middle Powers. It is disappointing that this was not more clearly expressed in the title as this will limit its impact on the debate. Nevertheless, it is essential reading to anyone interested not only in Australia's relations with its regional partners, but also for those analysing the role of Middle Powers not only in regional politics but also in being able to sufficiently influence the development of norms to shape the construction and maintenance of the regional and global order. In setting out the context of the study, Andrew Carr identifies a key gap in the literature on Middle Powers and in norm promotion. Most of the literature on the former examines their preference to promote coalitions and multilateral mechanisms, whereas most literature examining the latter looks at the role of Great Powers, activists, bureaucrats and non-governmental organizations. What is missing is the role that Middle Powers play in promoting norms. It is this that Carr tests through a close examination of the past three decades of Australian diplomacy. In this he examines three factors that influence Middle Power promotion of norms. The first is the form of such norm development. That is, can Middle Powers achieve this alone, through multilateral organizations or in alliance with Great Powers? The book's conclusion is that the support of the United States allows Australia to play the role of norm diffuser especially at the global level. Carr also concludes that Australia has had greater success in norm promotion when acting independently than through large multilateral organizations which may prove to be too cumbersome rather than beneficial. The second factor that Carr examines is whether this influence has any geographic limitations. The study concludes that Australian influence is greatest in the near regions of the South Pacific and Southeast Asia and to a lesser extent Northeast Asia, while at the global level Australia has only limited influence on norm development. …

Reading Turkey's Foreign Policy on Syria: The AKP's Construction of a Great Power Identity and the Politics of Grandeur

This study examines the ways in which Turkey's regional role, power and self-image are constructed by the Turkish official discourse on Syria. Focusing on the speeches of the AKP government on the conflict, as reported in a major mainstream Turkish daily, Milliyet, between March 2011 and November 2012, the article explores the major building blocks of the AKP government's representation of Turkey's capability, responsibility and threat perceptions with regard to the ongoing crisis. The analysis shows that the AKP government's demonization of the Assad regime and depiction of Turkey's moral responsibility toward the Syrian people served to constitute Turkey's great power role and assert Turkey's moral superiority vis-à-vis the other actors in the conflict. Turkey's policy of grandeur has been an integral element of the country's moralist, as well as national security discourse on Syria.

Conceptualising the Role and Responsibility of Great Power: China's Participation in Negotiations toward a Post-Second World War Order

The early- to mid-1940s leading to the establishment of the United Nations have often been cited by historians and international relations scholars as a critical historical juncture where the concept of Great Power responsibility became institutionalised into the fabric of international society. How such a concept came about, however, and how ideas about their roles and responsibilities were debated and projected by the Great Powers themselves, have been given less prominence in the literature. In particular, China's role in negotiating a post-Second World War order has been largely neglected. This analysis thus explores projections of China's Great Power role as well as examines how China conceptualised, negotiated, and used notions of Great Power responsibility and how this interplayed with wider notions in international society. Despite the operational constraints China faced, there was more Chinese agency and deliberation than is traditionally portrayed, with China bringing some important ideas to the negotiating table.

The Cold War Game in South Asia’s Security Complex: The Role of Great Powers

The Cold War Game in South Asia’s Security Complex: The Role of Great Powers

The past in the present: Historical memory and German national security policy

In recent years a number of scholars and commentators have suggested that freed of the constraints placed upon it by the Cold War, Germany is likely to aspire to a more active, great power role. This article argues that such predictions overlook the extent to which German national security policy continues to be burdened by the lessons that its population drew from the Second World War and that make it profoundly difficult for any German leader to implement a more active defence and national security policy.