US Commitment Research Articles

“Dirty War: Claudia Jones and Opposition to the Indochina War”

Claudia Jones was an advocate of “positive peace.” Positive peace, as it was explained by Johan Goltung, is “the absence of structural violence” which involves the “egalitarian distribution of power and resources.” Positive peace is not just the absence of war and violence (defined as negative peace), but it also includes justice for all people and “the elimination of the root causes of war, violence, and injustice” and a concerted and unified effort to create and uphold a just society. For Jones, this could only be achieved under socialism. She argued that capitalism fomented war, colonialism, and imperialism and it used state violence to secure control over resources and cheap labor. The advent of the Cold War increased the anxiety of individuals like Jones who feared that it made hot war a likely eventuality. Jones argued that the US commitment to containment meant policing the poor and the “darker side of the color line.” She theorized a notion of peace that proposed the destruction of capitalism and the structures it relied on to maintain power; this included racism, sexism, and the prevention of labor organization. Jones was also an anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist and she recognized that US containment policy was merely a re-branding of both. Though Jones died before the US escalated conflict in Vietnam, she watched events in Indochina with trepidation and she argued that the US was heading toward war there.

CHALLENGES TO THE US ASIA PIVOT STRATEGY

The US introduced the Asia Pivot Strategy / Rebalance Asia policy in 2011 which was also known as Asia Pivot Strategy which focuses on the maintaining equilibrium in Asia particularly in Asia Pacific region. The main architect of the policy were the Hillary Clinton and Curt Campbell. The policy is designed to contain the China in the region, and in this policy they have designed to forge close links with the US allies in the region, and the role of India has been highlighted to be the key player in its policy. The Asia Pivot Strategy is accompanied by the US Strategic Guidance Programme of 2012 which focuses on the allies concerns regarding the US commitment in the region. The policy since its implementation has faced various challenges such as the difference among the US allies on the historical issues of Japan-South Korea relations as well as the concerns over the US commitments and their reservations on the Chinese military build-up and the assertive role it has posed in the South China Sea, as well as the growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean Region under the Strings of Pearl, and the impact of the OBOR over the US Asia Pivot Strategy.

Commitment, Cold War, and the battles of the self: Thomas Schelling on behavior control.

Economist Nobelist Thomas C. Schelling (1921-2016) is known for his contribution to the analysis of international conflict and many see him as the Cold Warrior par excellence. At a time of great uncertainties and dangers, Schelling combined a deep understanding of strategic analysis, a detailed knowledge of US commitments around the world and an inimitable talent for dissecting everyday behavior, which made him a think tank all on his own. When he turned to the analysis of bargaining in the mid-1950s, one question dominated policy discussions: "How to demonstrate the US commitment to the 'free world'"? Schelling answered unequivocally: By restricting one's choices so as to shift others' expectations and thereby influence their behavior in the desired direction. By the mid-1970s, after he had broken with the US administration and joined the Committee on Substance Abuse and Habitual Behavior, Schelling transposed the tactics deployed in international conflict to the analysis of individuals trying to achieve self-control. In the process, he reproduced the logic of military conflict at the level of the self. The view of a conflicted self itself comprised of two selves made restricted choice the daily routine of individuals who wish to avoid the negative consequences of their present behavior in the future while it promised those who enjoy unbounded freedom of choice an unsettling future.

Civil‐Military Bargaining in Early NATO Institution Building: The Long Shadow of Institutional Beginnings

NATO's unified command structure affords the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff influence in transatlantic foreign and security policy unparalleled with any other region. This, as Stephen Saideman has argued, is a function of the central role the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) plays in Alliance decision‐making. This paper explores the early development of this decision‐making structure. It is argued that the structures, norms, and rules that advantage US military advice in transatlantic security and foreign policy were a function of domestic US civil‐military and international bargaining in the early development of NATO institutions. In exchange for supporting new US commitments in Europe, uniformed Pentagon leadership insisted on German rearmament and a key set of provisions in the development of NATO military structures and institutions that ensured US military leadership, especially regards the duties and responsibilities of SACEUR.

Quasi alliance explanation for the fluctuating ROK-Japan relationship: analysing friction in 2019 and cohesion in 2023

ABSTRACT The ROK-Japan relationship, characterized as a quasi alliance, has oscillated between moments of friction and cohesion. This study endeavours to pinpoint the explanatory variables responsible for these fluctuations and to articulate a coherent causal mechanism. Drawing upon alliance theories and the quasi alliance model, two hypotheses centred on external factors – common threats and common allies – are posite. In 2019, divergent threat perceptions between the ROK and Japan, coupled with doubts about the US's reliability, strained their quasi alliance. Yet, as the prospects for North Korea's denuclearization grew murky, both the ROK and Japan began to share heightened threat perceptions. Concurrently, the US's commitment and credibility were reestablished, bolstering the cohesion of the quasi-alliance. This study strengthens the quasi-alliance model both theoretically and empirically. Furthermore, the study's findings suggest the necessity for more direct and binding bilateral ties between the ROK and Japan to ensure greater stability in future relations.

Ironclad US commitment to NATO? From NATO expansion to the Ukraine crisis

Ironclad US commitment to NATO? From NATO expansion to the Ukraine crisis

Post-9/11 US thinking and approaches to nuclear deterrence: the Bush Doctrine and the role of nuclear weapons in US deterrence strategy

Charting a course through US administrations from the late 1990s to the present day, this article considers the George W. Bush administration’s thinking on nuclear deterrence in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11: What was distinctive about the Bush administration’s thinking and approach to nuclear deterrence? To what extent, and to what effect have the Bush administration’s approaches proved enduring? The article considers the prima facie contradictory nature of the administration’s deterrence objectives against the backdrop of a shifting security environment, characterised by the proliferation of WMDs to ‘rogue states’ and non-state actors, nuclear multipolarity, disruptive emerging technologies, and long-held US commitments to its global allies and partners—ensuring the centrality of nuclear weapons in US national security policy, despite sustained efforts to reduce this reliance.

Trans-atlantic (mis)trust in perspective: asymmetry, abandonment and alliance cohesion

This article clarifies the role of trust in alliances with a focus on NATO. We bridge IR scholarship on trust and alliance theory by dealing with trust as a central factor in maintaining alliance cohesion and longevity. NATO has, throughout its history, been characterised by an asymmetric trusting relationship, with Europe being more vulnerable to defection than its American counterpart. This means that a fear of abandonment, intrinsic to the structure of reciprocal commitment in all alliances, has been felt differently on the opposite sides of the Atlantic, with implications for how specific crises have led to a fluctuation in (mis)trust. Whereas the Europeans have harboured mistrust regarding the longevity of the US commitment and extended deterrence, the Americans have doubted the Europeans’ faithfulness to US leadership and willingness to share the alliance’s burdens. Simultaneously, general trust – cultivated by shared interests, institutions, interdependence and converging identities – has bound the allies together. The article then uses these insights to analyse the Trump presidency, which marked an historic spike in mistrust between the US and the Europeans. Despite the unforeseen tumult, the presidency did not result in the definitive collapse of trust in the trans-Atlantic relationship, let alone NATO.

The United States and stability in the Taiwan Strait

ABSTRACT The changing dynamics of the Taiwan Strait necessitate a review of the United States’ “One China” policy. For more than four decades, this policy—anchored in the Taiwan Relations Act, the Six Assurances, and the three Joint Communiqués—has allowed Washington to maintain unofficial ties with Taipei. But China’s growing economic power, increasing military capabilities, and mounting pressure on Taiwan pose major challenges to US security commitments regarding Taiwan. In recent years, Washington has countered by attempting to pursue a multi-pronged approach while remaining under the umbrella of the One China policy framework—introducing such changes as new legislation conveying US support and commitment, engagement in high-level official exchanges, support for Taiwan’s pursuit of greater international space, and more arms sales. How these major policy changes are interpreted and implemented under the new environment imposed by China could affect Taiwan’s security, and whether a war with China can be avoided.

US FDA Postmarketing Requirements and Commitments: A Systematic Assessment of Clinical Pharmacology Studies and Their Impact on US FDA Prescribing Information.

Many of the conditions for the safe and effective use of new molecular entities (NMEs) are understood at the time of initial drug approval. However, some remaining knowledge gaps can be addressed after drug approval through postmarketing requirements (PMRs) or commitments (PMCs) established by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Our objective was to conduct an assessment of clinical pharmacology-related PMRs and PMCs established at the time of approval and evaluate the impact of fulfilled PMRs and PMCs on prescription information (PI). This analysis included clinical pharmacology-related PMRs and PMCs established for NMEs approved between 2009 and 2020. Of the 1171 PMRs and PMCs, over one-third were clinical pharmacology-related. Of these, 46% were to evaluate drug interactions, 16% were to evaluate drug dosing in patients with hepatic impairment, and 10% were related to dose. The majority (57%) of PMRs and PMCs were fulfilled at the time of analysis, with a median time to fulfillment of approximately 2.3years. The majority (94%) of the fulfilled PMRs and PMCs, either with or without a PI revision, resulted in new or modified instructions for use or supported existing instructions for use. This is the first time that clinical pharmacology-related PMRs and PMCs have been catalogued and analyzed to understand their impact on PI. An understanding of the knowledge gaps that exist at the time of drug approval could inform the most effective and efficient methods for evidence generation prior to and after new drug approval.

India–Iran relations and the US exit from Afghanistan: finding common ground?

The withdrawal of US troops and the subsequent return of the Taliban to power have resulted in India and Iran aligning over Afghanistan’s future once again. India risks facing isolation and sees its relationship with Iran as essential to preventing Pakistani hegemony in their shared neighbourhood. Their renewed regional convergence overlaps with an otherwise widening strategic dissonance as the two countries drift further apart within the international order: India as a defence partner of the US embedded in the Indo-Pacific framework and Iran working with China and Russia to counter the US-led order. This often raises questions of reliability within the India–Iran partnership. The article engages with this perception and examines India’s strategic calculus vis-a-vis Iran in a changing global order characterised by declining US commitment. It argues that, notwithstanding the numerous structural and bilateral constraints between them, India will continue to engage an otherwise challenging partner like Iran, as its strategies are, on balance, benefitting from a world that is in flux.

Multilateralism and minilateralism as global governance mechanisms

Multilateralism and minilateralism are the main mechanisms of global governance. Multilateralism is characterized by membership inclusiveness, a low entry threshold for new members, and a focus on universality, while minilateralism is characterized by membership exclusivity, a high entry threshold for new members, and no focus on universality. Contemporary multilateral institutions emerged after World War II under the influence of American hegemony. The US commitment to multilateralism in global governance has been inconsistent, setting the stage for the current crisis of multilateral global governance. The aforementioned crisis can be explained by the problems of American leadership, the emergence of a polycentric power configuration of the world, as well as specific actions of both the hegemon and other great powers. The issue was fueled by the increasingly evident problems of ineffectiveness of the core global institutions in dealing with pressing problems, deadlocks in multilateral negotiations and the lack of representation of developing countries in global governance. The failure of the main actors to respond to these challenges has led to the proliferation of the minilateralist mechanism of global governance. Two types of minilateralism in global governance are distinguished - clubs of the most significant states (the first type) and communities of like-minded states (the second type). The main advantage of the first type of minilateralism is the ability to solve global problems with minimal effort. Minilateralism of the second type is positively distinguished by its homogeneous structure and cohesion of the ranks. The main advantages of minilateralism in general include flexibility, adaptability, plasticity, quick decision-making, free, open and effective negotiations and resource saving. The main disadvantages of minilateralism are low legitimacy, limited technical and financial capabilities, lack of transparency and accountability, vagueness of goals and lack of focus. The first type of minilateralism is able to somewhat increase the effectiveness of interaction within the global institutions by reducing the number of parties involved, but it is unlikely to be able to overcome the core source of ineffectiveness of global governance, which is the mistrust between the main actors. The main disadvantage of the second type of minilateralism is the fragmentation of international regimes. The emergence of the minilateral competitors can both motivate the established institutions to reform and demotivate states to participate in multilateral global governance. Minilateralism will continue to play a large role in global governance. The disadvantages of minilateralism can be mitigated by combining it with the multilateralist mechanism, using a more rigorous approach to the selection of participants, goal setting and the implementation of agreements, and introducing a system of indirect representation.

Japan and Australia: Strengthening Partnership in the Indo-Pacific Era

After many decades of a relationship defined primarily by commercial ties, Japan and Australia now have a robust security and defence partnership. While making their bilateral relations more all-rounded in the Indo-Pacific era, they also aim to promote a regional order where the United States remains engaged and like-minded nations come together to manage the ever-volatile strategic environment in the wake of China’s rise and US–China strategic rivalry. These tasks are not easy due to strategic complexities; how the two key Indo-Pacific nations respond to each other and to their partners in managing the China challenge while ensuring US commitment to the region will be of deep interest to policymakers and analysts alike.

Antinomies of Alignment: Kuwait and the United States

AbstractKuwait has forged a strong bilateral security alignment with the United States over the past three decades. But it has also pursued foreign policies that run counter to expressed American objectives and priorities in the Gulf and the broader Middle East. Why this happens can best be explained in terms of a combination of shifts in the overt US commitment to the partnership and changes in the level of threat in the region.

Is US grand strategy dead? The political foundations of deep engagement after Donald Trump

Abstract International Relations scholars frequently warn that the American political system has become too fractured to sustain a coherent grand strategy. This perception generally rests on two premises: that President Donald Trump led an unprecedented assault on established principles of US foreign policy, and that Democrats and Republicans have become so polarized that they can no longer agree on a common vision for global leadership. By contrast, this article argues that the grand strategy of deep engagement retains robust bipartisan support. Even though President Trump rejected more expansive conceptions of liberal internationalism, his behaviour was largely consistent with deep engagement's principles. Moreover, when Trump departed from deep engagement—as with questioning the US commitment to NATO—his actions did not reflect voters' policy preferences. In fact, polling data indicate that public support for deep engagement is at least as strong today as it has been at any other point since the end of the Cold War. Altogether, the article thus demonstrates that the grand strategy of deep engagement is less embattled, and more politically viable, than the conventional wisdom suggests.

Military Veterans of the War on Terror

The number of US military veterans of the War on Terror (WoT) who were elected to Congress increased to its highest level ever in 2021. This trend reflects broader changes in the makeup of Congress, which now includes more gender, racial, ethnic, and religious diversity than ever before. This article bridges the literatures on socialization and civil-military relations with foreign-policy analyses of advocacy and entrepreneurship to study WoT veterans in Congress. This cohort of veterans represents a new generation with distinctive experiences that generally include more exposure to combat, more redeployments, and more post-traumatic stress diagnoses than previous generations of soldiers. Specifically, this study examines links between WoT veterans’ experiences and their adoption of creative strategies to achieve defense and foreign-policy objectives such as maintaining US commitments to operations in Syria and Afghanistan. Looking beyond roll-call voting with a multidimensional and diversified model of veteran legislative advocacy can enrich our understanding of today’s complex foreign-policy decision-making processes.

Position of Joe Biden's Administration towards the World Trade Organization

The election of Democratic Party candidate J. Biden to the post of the President of the United States did not lead to noticeable progress in relation to changing the vector of the generally negative attitude of official Washington in assessing the activities of the World Trade Organization. The historically established consensus of the Republican and Democratic parties, expressed in the general similarity of the approach of both the legislative and executive branches of government in the United States to the WTO as an instrument primarily for the realization of the national interests of the United States in the foreign economic sphere, hinders the achievement of generally acceptable agreements within this Organization in key areas of its activities. Like the previous administration of D. Trump, the administration of J. Biden has been blocking, in particular, for a number of years the activities of the WTO Appellate Body. Despite the Democratic President's statements about the US commitment to the principles of liberal trade, the White House, as before, proceeds from the desire to maintain the leading role of the United States in the WTO, even at the cost of curtailing certain areas of its work. The dominant drive is to transform the WTO into an international economic mechanism to strategically contain China, openly oppose Russia by politicizing the Organization and taking steps that pave the way for the complete dismantling of the rules-based multilateral trading system. The WTO is actually in a state of permanent institutional crisis in a number of central areas of its activity. The only way to deal with the current crisis is the prerogative of economics, not politics, the need to prevent the violation of agreed multilateral trade rules by unilateral actions, which otherwise will continue to have a negative impact on world markets and the economies of many WTO members.

A Reputation versus Prioritization Trade-Off: Unpacking Allied Perceptions of US Extended Deterrence in Distant Regions

Under what circumstances is a protégé likely to perceive its patron’s extended deterrence commitments in another region as positive or negative for its own security? Protégés from distant regions see complementary reputational links between the credibility of a patron’s extended deterrence commitments in each other’s region. However, they are in a competitive relationship when it comes to the allocation of the patron’s resources. We call this the reputation versus prioritization trade-off. We argue that whether protégés assign more importance to their patron’s reputation or to being prioritized by said patron is a function of their dynamic perceptions of their regional security environment. These are, in turn, determined by their perception of their patron’s resource constraints and the threat posed by an adversary. To test our argument, we examine how Japan has perceived America’s evolving security commitment in Europe and how Poland has perceived the evolving US commitment in Asia.

Climate clubs: politically feasible and desirable?

ABSTRACT The idea of a stringent climate club, once the reserve of academic debates, is quickly gaining ground in international policy circles. This reflects dissatisfaction with the multilateral UNFCCC process, but also hope that a minilateral club could increase climate policy ambition, reinvigorate the Paris Agreement process, and make future emissions pledges stick. With the Biden Presidency renewing the US commitment toward climate action and the European Green Deal proposal for carbon border tariffs, some are advocating the creation of a transatlantic climate club. What could a club approach hope to achieve, and what do we know about its political feasibility and desirability? In this article, we seek conceptual clarification by establishing a typology of different club models; we inject a greater sense of political realism into current debates on the feasibility of these models; and we consider their legitimacy in the context of international climate cooperation. Key policy insights Knowledge gaps and confusion regarding the nature of climate clubs hold back debates about what intergovernmental clubs can contribute to international climate policy. Club design matters: existing club models vary in terms of the proposed size, purpose, operational principles, legal strength, and relationship to the UNFCCC. Clubs focused on normative commitments face low barriers to establishment. They lack legal strength but can help raise policy ambition. Clubs aimed at negotiating targets and measures can increase bargaining efficiency, but struggle to deal with equity and distributional conflicts. Clubs seeking to change incentives via club benefits and sanctions face the highest hurdles to implementation. Their promise to tackle free-riding remains untested and difficult to achieve. Climate clubs face an international legitimacy deficit. Any club proposal needs to consider how to add to, and not distract from, the multilateral climate regime.

Quasi-Alliance at Play: The Curious Case of South Korea’s Aborted Withdrawal from GSOMIA in 2019

This study aims to explain why countries maintain security cooperation with a partner even though they are in the middle of severe tensions. This is experienced by the Republic of Korea (ROK), which preferred to maintain its security cooperation with Japan under the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA). This research utilizes the concept of abandonment fears to explain South Korea's behavior in reversing its self-declared withdrawal from GSOMIA in 2019. By conducting a deductive-qualitative research approach, this research shows that South Korea was in a position of abandonment fears—fears of being ignored by Japan—magnified by the uncertainty of US commitment. For now, South Korea considers Japan as the most likely partner choice in the region. Thus, Seoul decided to maintain the partnership with Japan within the GSOMIA framework and compromise its grievances with the latter.